Notes to Myself, part 1.

I think I might know where to go from here.  Need, crisper, clearer images, from a better camera- more epic proportions.  Need to play with scale and camera angles, orientation. Have all the parts, just need to re-organize.

Look at more art. Be more sensitive to what artists are doing.  Try to grow as an artist and scholar.  Quit being at once both self-doubting and complacent.

I’m afraid for the future, but I also know that in a day to day sense, my vision is short-sighted.  I think about what the next months will be like instead of what I CAN do in years to come.  I’ve always had a job in some capacity, an apartment, horrible and crappy as they were, and in retrospect, none of that matters.  Who cares that in 2003 I lived with a leaky bathtub, or that I only made $11/hour?  I care that I “suffer”, but the suffering is only temporary.  Those previous situations didn’t ruin my life.  The two issues that do stick out were: Letting myself be taken advantage of in the corporate world and not making art, and those things were constants under different living conditions.  In years to come, the art is the only thing that matters.  Do I really give a fuck that Henry Darger was a janitor in comparison to the treasure trove he left behind?  Would I discredit the man for not being a professional?  So what’s the difference if that happens to me?

Art must endure, no matter what. 

Heck yeah!

I passed my oral defense today, which means I got myself an MFA degree.
Yep.
: )

Yay For Creativity.

While I was working on my show for the past couple of months, I couldn't see anything past it and actually felt like I had artists' block.  I starting wondering if my best artistic days were behind and if there was any truth to that rumor that you get less creative as you age.  (That was the whole impetus behind John Lennon wanting to trepan a hole in his brain...thank god he didn't.)
I also figured that I would be so worn out after my show went up, that I'd have to take weeks off to recuperate, but jeez,  I am chomping at the bit to get started again!  I feel like I have a new lease on life.  These dreams and visions I've been having regarding new directions are so vivid, I can barely wait to get out of bed in the morning to get started on them.  Hooked on grad school worked for me!
Barring time, money and unexpected total failure, expect to see awesome things soon.

: )

Making a List

I'm re-prioritizing my materials list.  I think I want to start working on a more intimate scale and I'm only going to use materials that have a strong appeal to me.
That said, anything I make from now on going to be girlier than shit:

clear and amber colored plastic
rhinestones        string
beads          hair
fur           glass
wax         satin
foam         nylon
tulle          flocking
netting          LED lights
yarn             stuffing
wool           ribbon
I think I'll stop short of glitter - might be too kitchy.

I think that I'm just going to make piles, literal piles of texture from this stuff as a way of clearing out the mental funk of the last three years.  I plan on being childlike and going back to square one,  and it will be nice to not have outside feedback or deadlines. I want to be able to think clearly.
At the root of it all, I still do not know what material to work with.  I want it all and until I know how to handle all of it in a satisfactory way, I'm not going to consign myself to making "anything" in particular.
Pretty little blobs. That's all most art amounts to anyway, dammit.

DONE!

Donedonedonedonedonedonedone.

Well, at least for a while.

I Can See The Finish Line

I hope I still want it once I'm there.  All I could think about for the past two and a half years is graduating, and now that it's almost here, I'ma little sad.  It's really easy to bitch about how hard life is when you're shut away from the real world.
Hmm.  Think I might like to stay shut away than engage it in all of its terribleness.
Life goes on!

My show is printed- nine pieces, each 40x58 inches.   I know how I'm going to display the damn things without mounting them, because in the end, everything regarding this show has been a compromise. The prints are twice as large as I originally planned.  Sounds awesome, until you realize how that extra 50% is really busting the digital negative's balls.  Personally, I think that from 10 feet away or further, the prints look terrific, but up close, there is no fooling anybody with a 35mm dSLR image.   I did not want to make them bigger, but I was reminded how dwarfed they'd look in the provided gallery. So, I tried to find another gallery.  I did, too, and the even liked my work! They even had an opening!  They complemented me on my content and then proceeded to explain their desire to show only 3D work for said available slot.
 Seriously.  The upside is that now I don't have to use their $10/plate catering service.
That would've been muy malo.
Regarding the large-format prints, something on that scale cannot be framed realistically so options become limited, even more so if you are on a budget. I can't take someone else's carefree attitude regarding my show and the "screw it, spend the money anyway" perspective  Sometimes you just cannot be flexible. You go and take out a credit card in your name for me, OK?  No? No shit really? Uh huh.
So, I could've spray mounted the prints to foam core, and without going to great lengths, neither of those options are archival and I wasn't about to waste $___ on prints that could only be used once. Let's face it, no other gallery in the near future is going to want to display all nine prints at once, and I want to be able to take my work after the fact, roll it up and stash it in a tube so that it won't get destroyed.  So, I'm using ACIENT PRINTMAKER SECRET to hang my work.  And please, let's have none of that bleeding-heart optimism, "No, but Carrie!  Your work is beautiful!  SOMEONE will want your foamcore-mounted crap, I'm sure of it!"  Excuse me, are we not living on the same plane of existence? While you're off in the outskirts of Lalaland, I'm living in the middle Pragmatic Reality.
No self-respecting gallery is going to scoop of the entirety of someone's MFA show in a matter of months.  Just doesn't work like that, son.
Unless....

Any gallery/curator/patron/schoolmarm/drunk want to prove me wrong? You know you need a gigantamous color print of a humongoid pink worm bursting out of a television set in your exhibition space/dining room/garage/outhouse!
Who the hell wouldn't?

C'mon.  Collect me already!  You know you want to.

: )

Aauugghh!

Once again, sorry to be such a negative Nelly, but reality sucks!  Paying for and attending the College Art Association's annual convention buoyed my spirits on the hope that I'd get "some interview", but after arriving and attending, then searching a list of online participants,  I come to find out that all the colleges that I applied to that said they would be there, were not.
I know that one school had to back out due to infinite delays caused by inclement weather. The other ones- who knows- budget cuts maybe. It's hard to see the silver lining on this black cloud.
I had one glimmer of hope.  I found a faculty member from my school.  As we sat down to lunch for a minute, she said, "Gimme what you got.  Pretend I'm an interviewer."  I ran through my spiel, complete with portfolio images. She said, "Well, I'd hire you!  You sound like you know what you're talking about, and you didn't fidget.  That's a big plus!"

Shit man, sometimes you just gotta laugh.

Anybody need a maid?  Gardener?  Cook?  Dog walker? Wall paper hanger?
I've got qualifications out the wazoo!