new work:
layered insecurities, seeking a form

ideas i had while reading eva hesse, october files (nixon, editor):

- art = desire for chaos, opens up unknown

- artist tries to give order to the unknown but first must find the chaos, make people aware of it and feel alive
- makes reference to something viewer is not aware

- exaggeration in repetition

- layers in material (ie. layering fiber glass or rubber) corresponding to dressing layers or more conceptual idea of layers. lately i've been interested in sheer layered over something else so you can see whats inside.

- idea for panti hose piece: panti hose stuffed with different materials knotted in a mathematical knot, or knitted (?) dipped in epoxy, then plaster.

- materials to try: wire mesh, wire (sewing with wire?), rubber, wax, cheesecloth dipped in rubber (painted with rubber cement?), glue followed by plaster . wire to make flat things 3d, like in corset boning (womens' sex suit, handmade, feminism?)

{eva hesse, contingent (1969)}

-matter, material -- dense coagulations, snarls, unmediated self (feelings)

-architecture -- scaffolding, lattices, grids

-fiber glass skeins!

-repetition as absurditiy -- recast from arithmetic

{jasper johns, memory of my feelings (1961)}

-Deleuze / Guattari, Anti-Oedipus:
'All this happens and is all recorded on the surface of the body without organs: even the copulations of the agents, even the divisions of God, even the genealogies making it off into squares like a grid, and their permutations. The surface of this uncreated body swarms with them, as a lion's mane swarms with fleas.'

- machines make products in the world of mechanical production

- no distinction between production and product with the body 'part objects'

1. repetition

2. process
3. desire or labor that drives producing / product.

{eva hesse, right after (1969)}

{eva hesse, expanded expansion (1969)}

{jasper johns, no (1961)}

While reading i was also listening to NPR thing about someone talking about twitter and this new eyeball-covering virtual contact lens thing that techies are developing.
- twitter / facebook = microcosm of culture
- eye = door to the body
{(unrelated): sandy denny's no end is a really good song.}

im already having a GREAT TIME in san Francisco. I am looking for an apartment and studio this week so I can get back into making. I want to keep up the same momentum I had this winter and in Portland—I have a feeling this is going to be great. i am goign to ahve a studio here in san francisco, I have a job and I will just spend all my time working and making. Last night I went to a video show at the ATA (artists’ television access) – there was a series of videos shown by different artists, all combining video with sound (some live and some recorded.) Anyways, highlights of the show: this one girl lana (I lost my program and can’t remember her full name) made this piece where she layered video tapes with an old vcr mixer and played electronic music over it. Such cool images/sounds resulted. There was some other really beautiful footage of space from semiconductor films (here is the video).

These videos got me really inspired about adding sound to my films, and combining footage in a more ‘material’ way like I do in my sculpture. like how in my plaster pieces, each piece goes through a laundry list of processes before it is done—cut, sewn, inked, epoxied, plastered, wet down, painted, dirtied. I was thinking about how I could combine different existing footage with my knit videos and how sound could be a part of it. also-- video could be a good outlet for me while I don’t have a studio or place to live, as it is all contained in my computer.

This weekend I am going to go back to santa cruz and work on more seam drawings because I have some potential buyers! I’m excited to go through them and really address what are the best ones. I also really want to do some more traditional drawings (in charcoal) of some of them, like the polka dot one. Ive been feeling the need to make some drawings after having dinner with Christine Bourdette in Portland. I was inspired by her sculpture but also by the fact that she also makes very beautiful drawings and seems to be quite fluid between mediums. I'd say right now she is one of my biggest inspirations at the moment. That’s all for now.

{photos: 1 & 2 are my own works in process cocoons and seams (2011), 3 is christine bourdette's mistaken identity (2006}

these two (above) are working better than the others – the overt pattern of the polka dot one and the white on white on both are satisfying and also they seem to be another step removed from clothing. After my first crit with the appendix folks last night, I am realizing that most successful work is not so obviously clothing in its form. The materials I use already suggest clothing (they are clothes), and it seems more conceptually satisfying the more abstract I get. For example, my thesis videos suggest clothing in their knittedness, but don’t take on a clothing shape or literal form and thus can be read as more than just ‘sweater,’ there is more of an architectural leap that can be made. Or the parts where the commercial pattern sculpture diverged from the directions into abstraction are the parts that highlight the directions themselves. Still hoping to remove these seam drawings from the flat plane of a wall, but now im thinking more about this as an installation. In the crit we walked out into the alley way and entered the gallery as if we were visitors coming for the opening, and the space is like a bright diorama and there are a lot of possibilities about making the long view of my show a dramatic one. The first thing that came to mind, naturally, was a video projection on the back wall and protruding wall sculptures on both side walls, but, um, I’ve already done that!
Today I was looking at a lot of rodarte knits online and was so inspired by the webs of knitted mohair they use in their sweaters, dresses and stockings. Almost spider webby and gothic. I was imagining creating the string system from the ceiling and have some of it be knitted—zach suggested during my crit that I could make my videos literal and I could actually knit the walls—overwhelming, but possible. Tomorrow I want to try hanging some of the pieces I’ve made at clothing height from some sort of web string system (its so comfortable to work on sculptures at body height, like working on a dress form for fashion.)
I don’t know how I feel bout this wooly piece I made today. It is made out of sweater seams, felted and covered in plaster and elmer’s glue, and just for kicks I threw that vintage bra seam drawing on it after looking at all the rodarte collections.


Before critiquing my work last night, we went over to Maggie casey’s studio to look at work she is preparing for show in Oklahoma. I was inspired by the ‘generational’ process she has been using on her biological works; she makes a large amount of ‘items’ and then chooses which ones are ready to be added to, making 2^nd, 3^rd, and for some, 14^th generation pieces that slowly inhere detail and become precious and important. I was thinking about this overlapping with the way clothes accumulate sentimental value as they pass down through generations, or become stained or torn and those Japanese tea bowls mended in gold again. So much to think about!

{photos: 1 & 2 & 3 my own work in process, 4 my unmakings, 5 rodarte fw08 (style.com), 6 my own work in process, 7 maggie casey/josh pavlaky silt; from peak to protein (2009)}

i am always collecting jpgs (i separate them by month) on my computer sort of like a perpetual virtual mood board like fashion designers have. this month's collection so far has a very distinct Color palette, army greens and muddy wine red, mostly. i am thinking of dying some of my mutant clothes and seam drawings so that my portland show reflects this 'color way.' dye seems like a way to change and bite into the materials and revamp them, take them farther from bargain barn loot and clothing cast offs. but is it important that they retain their old color personalities?

I spent today coating my mutant clothes, sari piece and camo piece in epoxy to stiffen them. they look really good and creepy empty. yesterday my family and i went to the city to look at art and some of the things i was really responding to were work that had a very tangible feeling of the artist's handling the work, like i could very visually imagine their process and it was clear they just loved the hand to material experience. (ei. robert brady, manuel neri)


i know that sort of thing just sort of comes out of art when the artist engages in that hands-on experience with it, but i was thinking of ways that my work could feel more like that to people. i already let threads hang and leave seams raw, but what are other ways to show that trace of making and show my revelatory process to people? through my recent experiences with epoxy, i am realizing that i really feel like i am 'making art' when i am engaging in materials that are messy. i had the idea of further stiffening the mutant clothes with something visibily messy like plaster. What if I covered some of the mutant clothes (after epoxy) in plaster?

i also just came across this french artist named emilie faif, who i do find a little too cutesie to be fully inspired by but she uses clothing and fabric in her work and i found this one installation she did involving the pattern pieces to a pair of jeans all laid flat out on the wall.I've been reading one of andrea zittel's diaries, and am very inspired by the way she creates systems and rules that govern her life, and in the diary her life seems so fluidly her art, and all her musings are included, shared with others. i almost feel like blogging is a way to do this, to let people in to what i am thinking (almost) every day even if no one is actually reading. I feel like I am effectively achieving blurring the distinction between my own clothes and clothing i use in my work, but i wonder how i could further embed my systems into my life. or do i even want to?

i have been getting a lot of compliments on the film i did with kira, especially regarding the interaction with my animations and the music i composed. since i have been wanting to do more composing, and have been tinkering a little, i was thinking about making a big goal out of it. i was thinking about the san francisco show at ben's space, and maybe for that show i would do a whole 'album' like series of animations, each with its own customized score. and then it could be a real venue for some sort of performance, music... maybe even some movement... i was really getting excited while i was swimming today thinking about it. i do feel like those films are unique and a good way for me to bridge my music and my art together, and it really feels like 'me' behind it all, i really get that sense of self expression when i show them to people. i think i really need to consider continuing with them.

{photos: from top to bottom, left to right, comme des garcons fw09, jean yves lemoigne, don't know (from tumblr), lisa kehoe a public loo in norway, manuel neri standing figure (1982), robert brady new work (2010), my own dopplegangers and mutants (in progress), emilie faif patron/ vetement isabel marant (2010)}