knots

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted anything. This blog is supposed to be a record of my MFA experience, instead it feels like yet another thing I should do but I'm not.

I'm feeling very unsatisfied/agitated by the "work". I feel a little stuck and don't know how to push forward or if I can push forward. What if this is it? What if there's nothing more, nothing better to come from me? Or another way I guess I can think of it is...What does the next level look like? feel like?

I imagine feeling free and more than that I imagine feeling courageous. What would I do if I wasn't afraid? Make art. Make more art. Make bigger funkier messier art. Share my art. What would it feel like to be an artist? It would feel important. I would have something to say. I would know what I want to say. What does it mean to say something through making art? How do you make a statement using just color, shapes and lines?

What am I afraid of? Failure. What's the worse thing that could happen? I would make art and show my art and people would hate it and laugh at me for thinking I could be an artist. What would happen after that? I would feel awful and I would feel mad. But worse than that is I would make art and share it and everyone would say it's nice but really think it was sad or pathetic and no one will tell me the truth so I never know how truly awful my work is. That's the worse thing that could happen.

I know the enemy is me but still I can't get me to shut up in my head and keep it steppin' sister.

They've arrived!

This weekend new visitors came. The books finally arrived and James my youngest invited himself to stay for a week. Just him and me and the books.

I've been looking forward to having him over. I can't say the same about these books. I really did not want to read anything. But now that they're here I'm glad.

Float on...

Newspaper, color paper, felt and beads on thread

Felt and pony beads on thread

"Cut from the same cloth"

Look what I found on Pintrest?

I can't believe it. I'm so excited! I feel like I finally found someone who speaks my language.

http://andreamyersartist.com/home.html

I also saw an exhibit by Emily Payne at Erica Tanov.

http://www.emilypayne.net/index.html

When I looked on Emily's website I remembered she'd done an earlier installation with Erica Tanov similar to this:

And this work reminded me of Ruth Asawa.

evolving idea...

Two new directions

Alma Woodsey Thomas and Joan Brown

I'm going to spend some time reading about and being inspired by their art.

Alma Woodsey Thomas

Joan Brown

Notes on the animations

1) These animations and the imovie all look a little blurry. I think this is the transition from SAM to quicktime movie. They don't look blurry on my computer before I export them.

2) On my next experiments I'll put titles and credits.

3) Here's my favorite animation by one of my favorite animators/filmmakers. i love the simplicity of the images.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpunQZ4cUyI