this has been a month of gathering.  i’ve continued work on my wall pieces at a snail’s pace, but taken time a few evenings each week to flip through books and websites, researching for my next body of work.  i selected a few books from my shelf: college biology text, microscopic photography, louise bourgios exhibition catalogue as well as the global feminisms catologue and a contemporary art text, also from college.  i learned a few things.  almost every page of the global feminisms catalogue features figuritive art.  robert arneson was a pop artists working directly with clay in the 60’s.  jason briggs’ work is freaking amazing and i wish i could see him demonstrate.  i remembered how very attractive eva hesse’s forms and materials are.  reading the abc’s of louise bourgeios presents art about you familial obsessions as rather favorable, i mean, since i’m obsessed with it anyway.

i guess in a way family is biological.  the way we are tied to people genetically is disturbing and uncomfortable.  the way we are tied to people who do not share dna with us is biological as well.  maybe this is why the figure factors so prominently in feminist work, or, you know, art in general, because people are obsessed with other people, the way they shape up, nurture us (which could be a good thing or a bad thing), mess with us, etc.

it’s like you spend the first half of your life figuring out why things are the way they are and then the second half realizing that it doesn’t matter because you just have to play the hand your dealt regardless of why…

but i’m not sure where this leaves me.  there is a lot going on in my brain but it hasn’t puked itself out yet into images to be assembled.

a problem i had with the garden path was that it was too pretty.  working in such a rapid way allowed the process to become more important than the concept.  i’m not very prolific generally and maybe that’s why.  the process is important, it’s the fun and the flow of the peice but the process is not the point.  the process is a tool which allows the peice to make it’s point.

i could make a sign that says “the world is fucked up” or “i’ll vacuum my uterus if i want to” or “racists are so lame and boring” but that wouldn’t be very much fun would it?