Update November 2003
I think these things are starting to look pretty good together.
Some of the canvasses in this photo are not yet finished.
Process, page 7
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Update November 2003 I think these things are starting to look pretty good together. Some of the canvasses in this photo are not yet finished. |
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I found all these beads packaged together in the same mass-produced pouch. Can you believe the color combination? It looks like really fancy upchuck to me.
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I was working on these in the last few days. They aren't finished but I liked them so much I posted them them as is. I have no clue what I'm getting at here but I sure am having fun. And I don't know where they're going from here.
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The non-pink eyes here are glow-in-the-dark. One difficulty when you're working with google-eyes is static cling. Sometimes they won't get off your fingers and go where you want them to go. |
I get a lot of inspiration from the things they sell in craft stores. I think that's interesting because most craft stores you go to have really low-quality merchandise.
You pretty much can't buy good quality yarn in a craft store - they only have acrylic (which is fine - cheap, easy to care for, it does keep you warm but aesthetically it has limited appeal) You can only get acrylic felt, not wool, and cheap, plastic rhinestones. Well, and what the hell are google-eyes supposed to be anyway? They don't really resemble eyes at all yet we recognize that they're supposed to symbolize them. Even when they're out of context.
Practically everything in the craft store is made of plastic. It can get you down if you think about it. These stores think that the average crafter wouldn't spend a little extra once in a while to be able to make something really nice.
So what am I doing here with my cheap-o plastic materials? Am I trying to elevate the prosaic into the realm of art? Am I finding oddness deep in the heart of the banal? (ooh, I hate the term "banal" - so condescending) Showing that the ordinary can be truly extraordinary if you look at it a different way? Am I using cheap materials to blunt the deeper meaning in the work, like you do when you laugh after you say something painful or true?
Am I trying to pass off a joke as true or the truth as a joke? Or am I just sad that magic isn't real, that there's no pixie dust, that rainbows are only pretty optical effects?
Maybe it's my contemporary bourgeois woman's way of making work of found objects only I'm "finding" them in the cruddy old craft store and paying for them instead of picking them up out of the gutter in New Yok City. The materials sure are clean. I try to keep them clean.
Why do I love the goofy so much? The art I relate to and enjoy being around tends to have a goofy element to it. There's plenty of high-falutin' art out there that I respect and admire but it isn't the stuff I love. For example DeKooning is fine but I really like Phillip Guston's late work. I really like Tony Oursler and Carsten Höller, Fischli and Weiss' cold-cut photos. I guess humor makes art approachable to me. I like art my mind can cuddle with.
Goofy c'est moi and why should I deny it?
"Process" page 1, 2 ,3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7, 8, 9, 10
Gallery b Process Introduction b Lounge
