I love Project Runway. I am not a fan of reality TV but… There is something about it that I find exciting and inspiring. Making wearable art is a dream of mine and fashion is wearable art. Last night’s episode left me reeling at how predictable the judges are. Rami has been making the same dress all season and this dress, which was beautiful, was no different. Both Nina and Michael have been saying “we want to see something different” but in reality they don’t because they chose Rami over Chris. Rami gave them the same tried and true dress, one he knew was wearable and that he could do flawlessly, he put a jacket over it that the judges weren’t all that interested in and all of a sudden it is something new?
Chris brought to the table outfits that were over the top, exquisitely executed and yes goth. Why is that a problem? Chris’s dress that Micheal responded to “It looks like she is wearing a condom.” was amazing and if it were made of white fabric would have been a completely different dress. All of Chris’s outfits were complete as they were and offered great spring boards to other things. Rami’s work was all end all be all he is left just making more draped dresses. Don’t get me wrong I think there is a place for what Rami does and I think he will always do well. (He is the only one of the final four who had a separate studio from his home.) -Christian lives and works in a closet.- No one wears high fashion in day to day life they wear the items derived from ideas high fashion walks down the runway.
It is because I believe high fashion should lead to greater things than just one line or one outfit that I believe Chris should have won last nights episode.
Meagan Seagal was one the last students I worked with intensely while teaching at Pratt. She is quiet and tiny in stature. Her paintings are small with surfaces reminesant of old master paintings. She uses layer after layer of thin washes and then pushes big blobs of paint around in order to create paintings that not only look like your stomach out on the dinner table for you but feels like it too. Meagan’s obsession is clear but the cause of the obsession is unclear leaving the viewer with a sense of nausea flavored with elation. She does not ask us to understand her subtle love and hate of the things that lay beneath the skin. She does ask us to participate in the act of looking at the things that which we cannot do with out. At the same time she tells us that these innards can be quite troubling either in reality or in our minds. She won’t let us forget that we are all very much alike beneath the clothes and faces we put on day in and day out. For this I thank her and praise her beautiful play on the grotesque.
I have a myriad of former students who have gone out and started living as artists. It isn’t an easy thing to do. Some how we fine artists think that rejection is only our Sisyphean journey. In reality we are not alone in any way. Dancers, writers, actors, designers…all of us are up the same creek. All we can do is keep making things, keep dancing, keep writing, keep knowing that our vision wants to be seen and heard. Traci, Lexi, Erica, Matthew, Casey, Brett, Meagan, Katrina, Darian, Jonah, Robyn, Mariah, Jeremy, Richard and all the rest of you, keep making, keep doing whatever it is that you do to make sure your voice is heard.
Some of these students I had very intense relationships. Digging deep into the images they were making and the statements they wanted to make. Some of them I had short but exciting exchanges with. In the end I have a mental picture (and in some cases real pictures) of the work they made and how they changed me as a teacher and an artist. Thank you all for that opportunity and remember the thing that was most important to me for you was to always be making something: never forget to weave that basket.
I made this box years ago but the idea of making objects with the intention of putting them in a “specimen” box is still of great interest. This piece was also the first object I made that required viewers to interact with a piece. It is designed and built in a sturdy fashion to encourage viewers to touch it. Precious art has lines painted in front of it or red rope surrounding its perimeter. This object, along with most of the art I make, should be touched and if it breaks I can fix it. The breaking and fixing only adds to its history and character.
We as artists must drive the aesthetics of art not the galleries or critics. We create and put ourselves on the line when we show. Don’t feel as though you must follow the established way rather push the boundries and force the world to come into line with you.
In June my ballet teacher and I will be doing a greatly simplified version of the Blue Bird section from Sleeping Beauty. No I cannot jump like this guy can, but I will be doing a series of small jumps and one lift with my partner.
Drawing with a piece of metal hot enough to burn wood is pretty exciting. I am not really sure what triggered my interest in using this tool but I am glad it happened. It is almost like inking over a pencil drawing, only hot enough to burn you in less than second. There is also something very permanent about engraving with a “branding iron.”
Zanne subscribes to Selvedge and flipping through a past issue – I found this:
Louise Bourgeois is one of my favorite artists. She has consistantly made work which defies who she is as an artist as well as who an artist should be. Making art for her has always been about her passion and she does not allow galleries, reviews or clients sway her from what she will produce. These prints are proof. They are so unlike her in that they are not visceral in their form. She has chosen to dissect woven materials rather than the human form. These pieces are poetic and beautiful and do not have Bourgeois written all over them, which makes them even more appealing.
