Impotent Animals

dream animals

2010-12-14T06:09:00.000-08:00

I went to Evanston Public Library yesterday, that is one of my favorite places. I found this book , and skimmed through it. I read certain chapters that referenced animals I'd dreamt of lately, but otherwise it seemed a little separate from my own thoughts: however, I've been thinking a lot about dreams lately. Because of my obsession with dreams, I did some cursory research about Jung, and James Hillman studied at the Jung Institute. So, it would appear he has taken some thoughts from Jung and created a thought process called Archetypal Psychology, living with the images of your dreams alive around you in order to understand yourself better.
"In our eagerness for conceptual meanings, we ignore the actual beast." reminded me of the opening of animal saints and being interrogated by an attendee as to the meaning of the work. But you can't find the meaning if you refuse to touch and smell and look for a while. Probably because my nature is like that, so in order to communicate with someone else who has a different nature- i guess it just wasn't the point. The point was the work, and if you want deeper meaning- you will have to make that for yourself. I have meaning attached to these items, but it is better if you live with them and let them tell you over time what the meaning is.

"We keep the Gods alive with flesh, our animal flesh, the animal of our meaty imagination, infested and buzzing with stinging winged things...They eat their way into our reluctant recognition, force us to remember them. What else is incarnation but the God driving himself, herself, into and under our skin. God, a bedbug, crab, chigger, tick. The Incarnation- the mystery of a louse. The Gods become diseases; ourselves infested by Gods, forced to religion by bodily sensations; the religious instinct, the religious insect."

from may

2009-09-24T15:18:00.000-07:00

from now

2009-09-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

then i dreamt i held a small chick in my hand, bright yellow, so soft. when it was gone my palm was scratched up from its feet.

2008-12-27T21:18:00.000-08:00

one day, it was waltz night, i left my camera in the gallery. later i returned to retrieve it and some of the following were found upon it:

Animal Saints Opening: December 5th 2008

2008-12-27T21:09:00.000-08:00

zebra

2008-12-11T09:11:00.000-08:00

i made a zebra... it started mainly with the lace and the giraffe print fabric, strips and just sewing them together. which became the neck and then thinking about how much is needed and how much i can exclude, how much is provided by the wearer, how much should be hidden. because masks are in this case a combination of the wearer and the fabric, empty masks mean little...
please note, this picture makes me feel really silly.

Playground 2

2008-12-10T18:58:00.000-08:00

I uploaded this video

It is from september, when i had that show in my studio.

pics from show at harsha's apt.

2008-12-07T18:30:00.000-08:00

this is where the little horse was burnt
here is a picture of its ashes
to the right is the door leading to the outside world, to the left is a door leading to a bathroom. in the middle is a suitcase of animals!
here is a wall of photos of people and animals in various levels of interaction/ identity bending
through this door you can get to the kitchen, with some refreshments- pumpkin pie, peanut brittle, tea, cocoa
here is a detail of a drawing
another detail
full thing... in lower left hand corner is a t.v. where the video 'congloactiv' played
another detail of drawing...
these are photocopies from books about artists i like and am inspired by: just chose three, annette messager, rebecca horn, rirkrit tiravanija

the show was open for one night only, more like an event, we watched the video many times, and burned the horse... more to come on that...

save the date! lol...

2008-12-01T22:29:00.000-08:00

though this is not exactly a 'save the date' announcement, since i think it comes too close to the actual event...

this friday!

J.R.C. Smith Gallery!

4:15 pm Opening Reception of Animal Saints

featuring all of our dear friends...

plus a sweet giveaway- specially hand-developed photos, 10 of 10 kinds... well i mean, everybody please take 1

though if you don't manage to get one, and ask, i'll make an effort to print more, though i cant make any promises.

digital

2008-11-18T13:04:00.000-08:00

i've also been working on video stuff. i think of it as another form of painting. here are some stills:

physical

2008-11-18T12:50:00.000-08:00

it's been a month since i updated last...

i drew this:
and sarah came over and we spray painted noodles:

which innovation led to more possibilities for the drawing:
i'm working on a zebra mask. here is where it's at now:
i'm thinking rachel glass will wear it. her hair will work well, i think... i'm super excited...

and on

2008-10-17T22:28:00.000-07:00

this has been a busy week.
white people music called me up and asked to use the masks...

I've also been working on video- here is an unaltered still- i'm really enjoying sort of collaging video together...
I put out an ad, via grinnellplans, for playdates... the idea is, if anyone is interested they can stop by and... do whatever. i suggested, "play with animals make animals tell stories talk"

I finished a cocoon. It freaks me out.
i fit inside of it, took some video of that. creeepy looking, though when i am inside, it is warm and safe.

2008-10-10T07:58:00.000-07:00

so that's what i have been working on most recently. thanks to everyone who came to the show, i really appreciate your response.
this is what i swept up yesterday. lots of dead flies. gross. give me the shivers. at first i thought it was like a representation of all the people who just die in the world, for little reason. and that made me shiver more. and somebody just sweeps them up

slugupine

2008-09-29T19:40:00.001-07:00

I was trying to make a porcupine. it seems to have turned into a slug! and glove-ish.

see those spikes? dangerous. they can't shoot though.

wait til it crawls away. it is a slow mover!
i saw a slug a week or two ago. It was a misty morning, Ivy and I went for a run, and there it was! in the middle of the sidewalk. Daniel said they can bite you. or nibble?
this one maybe could, too.

in other news, i am having a show- you've seen the photos, come in a see the things in real life this thursday at 4:15 pm in my studio! 2nd floor of bucksbaum, studio wing, first room on the left (coming out of the first set of stairs...) wow. bucksbaum requires some complicated directions.

...and Bears

2008-09-21T00:32:00.001-07:00

I went to the prairie on Saturday, snapped this photo.

i thought this was a sort of peter sellers as Chief Inspector Clousaeu with a fake nose because he is dressed as Quasimodo to escape detection and assassination attempts, kind of look.

what will happen to all those polar bears? will their bodies float ashore somewhere, to be eaten by the locals?

ha. one time i dreamt a bear was going to bite my head off. i was out of that bed so quick.

Lions and Tigers and Bears

2008-09-20T23:32:00.000-07:00

I could explain by a dream, but sometimes dreams are overtold. This one is not even that interesting, i guess. So you can skip this paragraph if you don't like hearing about other people's dreams. Lions were on their way to eat us. They wouldn't eat all of us, but they were going to eat some of us, and it was best to be out of the way. So my sister and her son, and my mom, we all took off running. We couldn't go very fast, since my sister's son is still small, but we found some trees and started climbing. It wouldn't get us perfectly away from the lions, but my mom said that the lions might eat the other people since they were easier to get to, being on the ground and all.

So who is the lion?

2008-09-15T20:05:00.000-07:00

I saw a possum last week, at night of course. I walked out of bucksbaum and there it was crossing the sidewalk from one patch of prairie to another. I told it to get out of the way. Politely.
But it got me thinking about possum.

I drew a sketch of one, and then started making one. It was very difficult. I think about it this way- I’m collaborating with fabric, thread, plastic, fiber-fil. Sometimes they are hard to work with. Rather feisty, or rather, they are just all very certain of who they are, and as a result sometimes resist becoming something else. I don’t think I am being controlling, but maybe to a certain extent I am. I try to let them have their way, like, letting the thread knot up, letting the fiber-fil get stuck places, letting the fabric flop. But really though, why do they need to be so difficult? So I have to keep pinning things and cutting things and re-sewing.
Oh well.

In other news, I think I’m going to start having animal parties. You are invited! As soon as I get it together. Or we get it together. Uh…

2008-09-05T14:15:00.000-07:00

I moved back to Grinnell last week. I started working in the AV center in ARH, where I could put headphones on and listen to Mew without bothering anyone. But I also work in my apartment, and now I have space in Bucksbaum!

I read about Annette Messager on Lee's suggestion, and discovered a comparison between her work and that of Lewis Carroll's. So I started reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. She played croquet with a flamingo!

I brought this guy to lunch one day.

Mostly I think it bewildered my lunch mates. But I guess you could ask them how they felt, if you happen to see them around.