Connection and Dissolubility

There are moments, where everything seems to lead to a single point, and there are other moments where it all just drains away. I'm talking about the art-making process of research, connecting and overlaying ideas and then resolving the work. On that final point, I'm not there yet. When connections connect, then continue to connect and connect and connect it can feel rather like being on some conspiracy theory chase. Do they really connect? Or have I just lost any discernment?

Last week we had the MFA Mid-Residency Exhibition. For it, I decided to continue my investigation of text as art, the next step on from Fuzzy Pictures, and produced an MP3 of my voice, describing art encounters (see tumblr). I was thinking back to a conversation I had with Mentor/Genius friend and recalled 'Stendhal Syndrome', then I was talking to her about Freud's Apres Coup/Deferred Action and discussed this with Leslie Dick in relation to the work. I was reading Saussure and Barthes for Semiotics. Then I was reading 'Reading For the Plot', and pretty much all the above turned up the in first chapter. Which freaked me out. In the space of days everything I was encountering was repeating itself elsewhere. This can mean you are onto something and of course, it can be a red-herring. How does one recoup from such an overload? Well I went from a swim in the school's pool. I did that thing where you lie in the pool just looking up, floating. The sky was cloudless, and for a moment everything connected, before it dissolved.




I have that kind of tight feeling that I am not getting enough done, making art is taking too long, I'm making mistakes, correcting myself, taking time, but I want to go faster. I'm thinking about how I could apply for shows and send work out there into the world, but then I want things to connect properly before I do. My brain is constantly pushing and pulling me. I want to do this, I want to do that. I cry frequently...

Husband and I are currently house sitting in LA, for Kaucyila again, and I'm rather enjoying it. There is a buzz to LA; although motor-based, perhaps its more of a car purr. The LA buzz/car-purr is so hard to hear sometimes that it can feel like the act of hunting the buzz can be too daunting a task. Not so this time. We've had fun. I think we are really thinking about moving to LA for next semester. On Sunday I went to a screening of Liz Goldwyn's Pretty Things documentary film, exploring the lives of the 1940s-60s queens of burlesque. Of most interest to me was Goldwyn's subject position in the film - the film is cut with photographs she took of herself in collected burlesque outfits, learning burlesque dance routines in dance classes and from the queens themselves. It was very interesting, the research and area being rather aligned to one of my interest/areas. I bought her book 'Pretty Things' afterwards and spoke to her briefly, about emailing her. It would be wonderful to pick her brains. She was in conversation with Charlotte Cotton at the beginning too - Charlotte always being both lucid and humorous - with a new short haircut too.

Onwards with my artwork then, back to my ghost towns work - I'm counting down the days now to my Post-Studio cruxifiction on 14th November.



Husband has his down days, away from his home and friends, but this week he has been mountain biking and has been much happier, albeit with heat exhaustion! We got our car now, small engine and the seats go down, so he can put his bike in the back.

Yesterday there was a black widow spider underneath my door handle to my studio. I saw the red hour glass on the underside of its abdomen and everything.

The Semiotics of Mexican Christening Parties

My internal emotions have been fairly all over the place since I arrived, so I avoided blogging for fear of moaning. In truth, nothing is wrong, per se, but I am a bag of anxieties. As I get further into the semester things are getting better and my paranoias are easing off. But for a while there, I was paranoid, and that’s usually not my style, so the experience was pretty damn disturbing.

This is my Fall Semester schedule; I’m taking a Final Cut Pro technical class, a Visual Semiotics class which I am the teaching assistant for, a class called Narrative Withdrawal about video art and its relationship to film and finally, the world famous, possibly longest running class at CalArts, Post Studio Art with Michael Asher, aka the 8 hour crit. Fortunately it is not my turn in Post Studio until 14th November. I love it, it’s the hardest class I’ve ever done, and it is extremely brutal. Essentially I think that being the critee is rather like stripping yourself naked, pinning yourself to some kind of mast or cross and inviting an audience to ritually abuse you. Just a little observation, based on the faces of those being critiqued by the end of their session and their recovery time. Michael Asher is a sweet though, a real monk to art.



Ranch life has been fun, but it can feel rather like a gilded cage. Its true, you can pick a lot of food here, and it tastes nice, you can also go for walks, see nice views and go for freezing cold swims in an unheated pool. But our rented car, a Lexus, is really bad with fuel consumption and we just cannot justify round trips to LA for the evening, which leaves us rather stranded out here. Money, like the rest of the world, is going rather worse than expected.

However, DVD box sets of Poirot, Foyles War, Upstairs Downstairs, A Bit of Fry and Laurie and Monty Python betray our landlords Anglophilia. We are working our way through their DVD library; at the moment we are addicted to House (the accent may be American, but the timing is British).

I’m having lots of meetings with faculty in my studio; most very positive (notably, not all). Ashley Hunt is a visiting teacher and very charming, with an ability to get right to the heart of the work. Carla Herrera-Prats pushes, and keeps on pushing. Lesley Dick is unreservedly wonderful, as is Christine Wertheim whose all-inclusive vision of feminism is wonderfully provocative, warm and funny – she is my current cheerleader. I regret not doing an Independent Study with Kaucyila Brook, with whom I can talk black and white movies to infinity, and whose relationship to Queer Theory means she brings a greater understanding of female desire and how that is hidden from view in society to our discussions, which are animated, warm and fuelled by pots of tea.

Mary Kelly is organising a happening in Orange County, I had signed up to be a participant in May and was very excited about the opportunity having seen Mary talk last semester. On Sunday, I didn’t know anyone I could share a ride with, and I could not justify the 220 mile round trip expense, so I did not take part. I was gutted not to take part. Each week another opening, talk or happening that I want to go to takes place and I do not go as it is too far away, too expensive and feels too mean to leave husband stranded again on the ranch. We need to rethink our living arrangements for next semester.

Not all is doom and gloom. Our silver lining has been getting to know Gorado, our next door neighbour and ranch foreman. A friendly Mexican whose rushed, clipped English would be fluent if he could relax whilst he spoke. Gorado wins our respect for being the realest cowboy we have ever gotten to know. He wears a straw cowboy hat, boots (with wear and tear signs from spurs on them) and jeans at all times. He loves horses and has been know to ride down to a local restaurant and tether his horse outside while he ate. A couple of weeks ago it was his daughters ‘Baptisto’ party (Christening). He and his family friends cleaned out the barn, brought in tables and chairs and lavender and white balloons, a heart sculpture made of balloons, cakes, crates of Bud Light and lots of Mexican food. A family friend made some kind of a roasted pork dish by cooking it overnight on a fire outside – either on a spit or in a pot, we couldn’t quite work it out. Food was served at 4pm, a band started playing at 9pm and the party finished sometime not long after midnight. We stayed until the end with time-out breaks in between. We tried to imitate Mexican dancing (rather badly, but it was well received). We had great fun at the party and we were praised for being the only white people to stay after the band arrived. It was such a spectacle to see the little boys dressed as cowboys and the men dressed in their best suits with cowboy trimmings – rather like a Mexican Mafia look, mixed with other more urban hip-hop Mexican styles. We were amongst the most under-dressed, but we made up for that with our ability to party.

Finally, I love cuddling Lily, the springer spaniel, who reminds me so much of the dogs we had as I was growing up. I'm back doing CAP classes, this time on Monday evenings not Saturdays which works out better.