Body Sculpture: Happenings

Artist Statement:

As long as I can remember my bed has always been my creative retreat. A place where brainstorming and dreaming becomes a very personal and flourishing act. From a young age I always kept a notepad on my bedside table because it always happened that my most expressive ideas occurred in a dreamlike sequence—or waking up from one. I would wake up in the morning and reread the ideas and it always amazed me because my thoughts were never completely linear—in bed they were fluid, but always shooting from every which direction and I have never been able recall how I would begin to come up with such ideas or come to my ending result of notes. All I know is that for me, my bed has always been that place of complete creative freedom, awareness and self-love.

For this interpretation I will represent my happening as the stark contrast between the public and the private on my creative aura. I will begin lying down in my room, wearing all white as a blank canvas—not exposing my creative being just yet. This is the realm in which I advance as a clean slate, covering up my most vulnerable personal self and this—is the realm that I wear in public.

I will then be alone, the blank canvas acting as my second skin will now become a creative outlet for me, where I can work out all of my creative ideas. I will be in the comfort of my own embodiment of self and safety, my bed. The idea of letting myself let go is uncomfortable at first, but despite that there is an even stronger urge to just create and allow. This transition between the public and the private very much emphasizes the idea of dreaming the outside world away, baring all by letting creativity flood through me—onto me. This me, is my final composition. The most beloved and self-healing me, the most unaffected by the world around me and the me that is willing to allow the flow of my creative self happen with passion instead of reason. With this me being present, the final scene of this piece shows me finally able to sleep, at absolute creative peace. A blank canvas come alive. 

In Process Pictures:

Video of Happening:

Final Compositions:

Dress Front

Dress Detail

Bed Sheet Canvas

Reading: Touch, a chapter from the book, "A Natural History of the Senses" by Diane Ackerman

The Section, Tattoo in Diane Ackerman's "A Natural History of the Senses" was interesting to me because I liked the way the section spoke in sequence. The story tied much more about the cultural aspect of tattoos which is something often overlooked now. This section reinforces an emphasis on the importance of past culture on present culture through tattoos. In reference to this idea I have created a photo collage of a cultural shift in cultural tattooing practices. The image begins with a strong sense of culture, a man who has had his face tattooed in for tribal purposes. The next image follows a tattooed neck, from the 1950's, showing a progression of less tribal/communal influence and more personal influence. The third Image, the one of the body, is the biggest because it is the heaviest influence currently--showing all personal and no tribal/communal influence.

The section, Inner Climate, in Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses is interesting to me because it really considers the bounds by which our brains are kept. I learned some interesting ideas in this section and found her way of incorporating scientific ideals in a very perceptual and personal way helped me understand the concrete concepts. Because this section, to me was very scientific-perceptual based I chose to create this diagram based off of my interpretation of the reading.

Yoko Ono "Cut Piece" Reaction & Reflection

This video is somewhat unnerving to me. I think the combination of the black and white video, her lack of face emotions and body language trigger this eerie feeling. The first time watching the video in class I paid much more attention to the people cutting off her clothing, for so many it seemed like a lifelong triumph--and others the intention behind cuts seemed lacking--mostly when the women cut as if they still did not feel their act permissible. I think any artistic work combining the idea of revelation of the human body usually warrants a lot of attention, but this one by Yoko Ono is much different because it is much more involved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYJ3dPwa2tI

Project 5: Momento

Artist Statement:

I have a vivid memory from growing up in Minnesota winters. Sunday mornings, sleeping in--snuggled up in warm flannel pajamas, smelling the wood burning fire drawing me upstairs. This area was most evidently a place of togetherness, a formal living room without a TV, filled with cozy velvet sofas and chairs and a huge fireplace. I would mosey on upstairs and hear the cracking of the fire along with the rustle of newspaper that my parents would pass back and forth--I was only interested in the 'pet listing' and 'comics' sections. My sister would be the last to awaken but there was never a worry of time, or rush--because we were all present at this place of togetherness.

For this memento the three materials that I used were newspaper, wood, and fishing line.

The newspaper is one from my hometown, within the logo I found a picture of a compass along with the name of my hometown--Minnetonka, and the classic royal blue color that was one of my high school colors. I decided to make the newspaper into a pedestal, to show how dear I hold this memory in my mind. The pedestal is made out of three miniature layers of newspaper and then I bound the newspaper as if it were miniatures of the real thing.

The wood is also from Minnetonka, and in this memento it depicts my family. The two tallest sticks representing my parents and the next tallest, my sister and the smallest, me. The texture of the bark on the outside of the wood is representative of the flannel pajamas and velvet sofas in my memory.

The fishing line is representative of the strong 'nearly invisible' but very present bond that we have as a family--to this memory and to the house (my childhood home) that we had this shared experience in. The fishing line is bound around the sticks 21 times to signify the 21 years we spent in that home. The line is half shorter on my parents sticks because they have lived other places for the other half of their lives, and for my sister the line has a smaller but still noticeable gap from when she lived elsewhere for college and now that she has her own apartment and for me the gap is the smallest since my life has predominantly been lived in that home--except for the time I've been away at school.

I've burned the wood and singed part of the newspaper to replicate the smell of this memory. The newspaper from the week prior would always be the base for the following fire which is why the newspaper is burned.


Process pictures:

Final Solution: (3 views)

Bottom (detailed) View

 Top View

Front View

Notes: On Longing + Personal Response Statements

My initial response to Susan Stewart's book On Longing was how difficult it must have been to write the book. Experience is such a personal reflective thing and yet somehow she was able to find the middle ground and capture the basic conceptualization of experience in writing. I found that because the statements in the book were both specific and open ended they became very relatable and ultimately triggered a personal reflection and thought process. 


1. The body is the primary mode of perceiving scale

The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis had an exhibit called “lifelike” that emphasized scale and pushed ordinary objects into extremely unordinary situations. This picture shows one of the small-scale works where the artist had downscaled two elevators—they even made real noise, lit and opened. This sentence reminded me of this experience because I remember how this exhibit caused me to compare my body as a mode of recognizing the scale of these objects and how I felt immediate intrigue in these everyday objects just due to scale when in reality they are just everyday objects, and are normally completely ignored.

http://www.twincities.com/entertainment/ci_20027479

2. The capacity of objects to serve as traces of authentic experience.

This sentence reminds me of when my soccer team hosted a team from England for 3 weeks and I had two girls, Kelli and Emer stay with me. They quickly became part of the family, and we still check in with each other every so often—I remember the day they left being so filled with the joy of having them in our lives as well as the sorrow of them leaving. What really captures this feeling for me is that we traded jerseys and signed them as a object of remembrance of our time spent over those weeks. The jerseys are handwritten accords of some of the funny things that happened and when I packed up my belongings this summer I vividly remember packing those away and thinking about the entire experience.

3. The souvenir reduces the public, the monumental, and the 3 dimensional into the miniature that which can be enveloped by the body.

Deephaven Beach is arguable the place that shaped my life the most. Here I met my closest most lifelong friends, spent countless days with my family and always felt completely content and safe. Italians have a saying 'A Tavola Non S'Invecchia' -- at the table one does not grow old, meaning spend time surrounded in good conversation surrounded by people you love because those are the moments that matter and the rush of life always seems to take moments such as that away from us. For me the table is most evidently Deephaven Beach. The countless time spent there lead to so many unforgettable memories--the type that are completely enveloped by the body and become who you are.

4. Nostalgia cannot be sustained without loss

This is a picture of the back of my childhood home that was sold this past year. What is remarkable is that like this sentence states I never held as firm onto my childhood memories made at this house, in this backyard, until now that I no longer live there. It seemed only after leaving for the last time on my way back to school that I felt flooded with all of the incredible nostalgic feelings of childhood.

 

5. To have a souvenir of the exotic is to possess both a specimen and a trophy.

I can't help but laugh every time I see my old fake IDs. Definitely a souvenir of the exotic--my parents would roll their eyes at their current state, framed in my room, absolutely turning them into both a specimen and a trophy. To me they are representative of a lot of good fortune and a lot of funny memories from my years in college before I turned 21.