Possibilities for my project, in which I can't think of anything other than zines

Alright, since I have to present this in class today, here's what I'm working with.

1) Host a (series of?) dinner(s?) or brunch(es?) over which a variety of contemporary feminist issues and/or experiences could be discussed and documented in some way (blog? videos? compilation zine/cookbook?) I don't know how to make this into a "residency," though, because I'd want to probably do this at my house, and not at PSU. I also have no clue how I'd be able to afford cooking for many people, as I have no money. I guess it could be a potluck.

2) Host a writing/drawing workshop of some kind, probably at the WRC, where we could write/draw about personal experiences under a certain theme, which I could collect in a zine and distribute. Again with the compilation zine.

3) Continue being extremely confused about what to do, continue profiling artists and generally waxing philosophically (artosophically?) via this blog, and end up with a pretty rad blog which I can continue to keep or maybe even distill and compile into -- YOU GUESSED IT -- a motha f*ckin' ZINE.

My problem so far is that I keep coming up with "social practice-y" projects that aren't really residencies, or residency projects that aren't really social practice-y or relevant to the general direction in which I want to go. I'm having trouble connecting the two. I wonder if there is wiggle room.

On that note, here is what I found when I google image-searched the word "confusion."




-h

Nicole Georges is my sort of my hero

"Sort of" because it's embarrassing to admit that someone you might run in to is your hero. I'm not really sure why? Nicole Georges lives and works in Portland, which obviously happens to be where I dwell, and I've seen her around (at Mrs. and at the comic symposium). It's a strange and unique phenomenon with me that whenever I harbor an immense amount of respect for someone, it makes me cripplingly shy towards them. So instead of saying "Nicole Georges is totally my fucking hero" I'm going to play it casual and say "sort of," to make it less creepy.

Wait, what?

Anyway, Georges is most well-known as the author/illustrator of Invincible Summer, an autobiographical comic zine she's been making since 2000 (I think). In the comic, Georges illustrates her daily life, exploring such things as shitty break ups, chicken tragedies, and chronic over-caffeination through the traditionally hyper-masculine, super-hero-only medium of the comic book (not to say she's the first or only non-male/queer/non-super-hero comic artist, but the first I was exposed to). This sort of changed my entire take on comic books, because I'd always thought them to be sort of formulaic and irrelevant. Once I realized that ANYTHING could be written about in comic-form, I realized what I wanted to start doing with myself.


Additionally, Georges teaches zine/comic workshops and occasionally does residencies (such as at Benson high school) where she'll teach said workshops. This seemed relevant since I'm trying to figure out how to do a residency on campus while possibly working in some sort of illustration element. I don't really want to do any teaching but maybe I could guide some sort of writing and drawing workshop at the WRC. I'm just not sure I'm confident enough to really guide a group of people to do anything. But it could be collaborative!

I'm reaching the point in my blog post where I'm realizing how severely under-caffeinated I am and am having a hard time staying focused, however in summary: Nicole Georges rules, is a babe, is super-talented and bad ass, and is one of my main sources of inspiration. Her blog is here and her etsy store is here. I'll probably return to this post later after some coffee.


-h

Eleanor Antin, Exhausted Ramblings, CARVING

First of all, I'd like to mention that I've been thinking about this project obsessively all day. Secondly, I am extremely tired, and typing this from bed on my shitty laptop that doesn't "work," exactly, in that it's like 6 years old, someone gave it to me for free, the touch pad is broken, a lot of keys are missing, and it only temporarily picks up internet. Point being, this may not be my most eloquent post.

Anyway, after mentioning that song by Le Tigre, I had it stuck in my head all day. So I came up with the bright idea of researching some of the artists they mention. One of the first ones was Eleanor Antin. Yet another feminist artist from the '70's (I'm not sure why I've been on such a '70's roll today), she made a video piece called Representational Painting in which she records herself applying make-up in front of a mirror. It's meant to explore the ways in which society pressures women to live up to certain impossible ideals of beauty, which of course is an standard concept that feminists love to explore (I'm not trying to imply that it's cliche, just that it's common; as long as we're expected to live up to societal standards, then it should continue to be challenged).

Working off of where she was going with Representational Painting video, Antin took a series of 148 pictures of herself over the course of 37 days, during which she dieted with the goal of losing ten pounds, entitled CARVING: A Traditional Sculpture. The pictures are reminiscent of Eadweard Muybridge's famous photographic studies of motion from the 1800's, except hers are all of the same four positions: front, back, and both sides. Hers is not a study in motion as much a study of the effects of dieting on her body; the motion is in the dwindling size of her frame.







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Suzanne Lacy, New Genre Public Art vs. Traditional Public Art, Three Weeks in May

Last term in Intro to Art & Social Practice, we read an article by Suzanne Lacy from Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art, an anthology of essays about the evolution and place of public art, which apparently she also edits. The essay was entitled Cultural Pilgrimages and Metaphoric Journeys. In it, Lacy distinguishes between what she calls "new genre public art" (which sounds a lot like what we call social practice art), and traditional public art (such as what Tom Wolfe refers to as "the turd in the plaza"). Of NGPA artists, she writes, "artists of varying backgrounds and perspectives have been working in a manner that resembles political and social activity but is distinguished by its aesthetic sensibility." "Public strategies of engagement are an important part of its aesthetic language," as well as "collaboration with his or her audience." This is how I've been defining social practice art since last term. I feel as though the essay is really helpful to anyone who is as confused as I used to be about what defines social practice art, so the essay can be found here.

What I didn't know about Suzanne Lacy when I read that article last term is that she's also a pretty awesome feminist artist, and could be thought of as a social practice artist as well! She studied under the aforementioned Judy Chicago at the University of Fresno in the '70's, and participated in the University's first feminist art program. In 1977 she collaborated with artist Leslie Labowitz in a series of events entitled Three Weeks in May, the goal of which was to expand awareness of the prevalence of sexual violence against women. The series included installations, performances, and even self-defense classes for women.

"On this map of Los Angeles, installed in the mall outside City Hall, Lacy stenciled the word 'RAPE' in red on the approximate locations attacks reported to police during the three weeks of the project. (At the close of Three Weeks in May, ninety rapes had been reported.)"-MOCA

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Judy Chicago, the Dinner Party, & Le Tigre

I remember hearing about Judy Chicago in a previous class, but I can't remember if it was an art class or a women's studies class. Anyway, she was one of the first established and self-proclaimed "feminist artists," and she was also a total bad ass. Anyone who's familiar with feminist art has heard of Judy Chicago, so it feels like a pretty good place to start.


Her most famous project was the Dinner Party, which was basically a triangle-shaped table with 39 table settings; all of the table settings were for for mythical or historical women who were famous for one reason or another. According to wikipedia, "Each place setting features a table runner embroidered with the woman's name and images or symbols relating to her accomplishments, with a napkin, utensils, a glass or goblet, and a plate. Many of the plates feature a butterfly- or flowerlike sculpture as a vulva symbol. A collaborative effort of female and male artisans, The Dinner Party celebrates traditional female accomplishments such as textile arts (weaving, embroidery, sewing) and china painting, which have been framed as craft or domestic art, as opposed to the more culturally valued, male-dominated fine arts. The white floor of triangular porcelain tiles is inscribed with the names of a further 999 notable women[1]."




The naming of different notable women sort of reminds me of the Le Tigre song, Hot Topic, because they do the same thing, although they're naming more modern, radical feminist and queer artists/performers and obviously doing it in a less formal way. However, I think the idea of giving "shout-outs" to traditionally marginalized artists is similar.

I think that the Dinner Party is rad in it's celebration of historical female bad asses, but it's definitely a second-wave piece (of course, because it was made in the '70's by a white woman), and in that way is not free of universalizing or erasing qualities. Chicago disproportionately represents white, straight, typically-abled, middle- or upper-class cis-women in her work and in this piece, which is unfortunately a pretty typical quality of any second-wave feminist art, writing, or theory. However, one cool thing about it is that even though it's considered "fine art" and is housed in a musuem, it was more capable of being widely recieved by and accessible to the general public than other "fine art" of the time because it went against the period's stuffy modernist tendencies in utilizing a variety of materials as well as more blatantly political, feminist symbolism.

-h

figuring it out

So, for my Intermediate Art & Social Practice class, I'm doing a term-long artist residency at either the PSU Women's Resource Center or the Women's Studies Department (this remains to be seen, depending on the specific needs of my project). I haven't figured out what my project is yet. I'm starting this blog to sort of document my thought process. Hence the current title of the blog, "feeling around in the dark;" hopefully that'll be changing soon once I get things figured out.

Today, my goal is to research some feminist artists of the past and see where that takes me. I also am supposed to come up with three different tentative proposals to bring to class later today, so hopefully I'll come up with something. Right now, there are a few different areas I'm thinking about exploring: transfeminist theory and the role of trans* women within progressive third-wave feminism compared to the past, queer female/woman experience and identity (and the vast multitude of ways in which queer identity can manifest itself), or something to do with anti-oppression work/theory (the least interesting option to me, but I could tie it into another class I'm taking on the subject, which is appealing).

While I know generally what kinds of subjects I'm looking to explore with my project, I'm having trouble figuring out how I can integrate it into a social practice model since I'm coming from a primarily traditional 2D background. I feel as though the majority of artists we've looked at this term and last term viewed aesthetics as irrelevent, or at least as secondary to whatever else they were doing; most of the projects were not object-based, which I'm definitely not used to. The idea of hosting group discussions or even dinners that I could somehow collect the stories from into some kind of zine or cookbook is appealing; however, this sounds dangerously close to Lexa Walsh's dinner-and-cookbook project (I couldn't remember the name?), and I want to do something original. So... let the research begin, I suppose!