I omitted to mention that a couple of weeks back, the Semiotics class looked at Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida. Ellen asked me to choose the reading excerpts from the book for the class and to deliver my interpretation on the readings in class. It was a bit of an honor to be asked and a great experience. Of course, I got the pacing all wrong in my delivery but Ellen jumped in and helped me out when more explanation was needed.
I have had many, many meetings recently and I shall try to give some kind of a description of them. I met with Kerry Tribe, who is incredibly fast-talking, but charming, warm and gave some interesting thoughts. She was just around this semester as a one off and I regret not working with her more. Michelle Dizon is visiting faculty (Allen is taking a year out, Billy had this semester off and Kaucyila is having next semester off so there are lots of visiting faculty this year) and everyone adores her. She is extremely softly spoken, gentle, considered and polite. She seems to have a gift of being able to get into everyone’s headspace. I think CalArts should really make efforts to keep her. I had a wonderful meeting with her and really want to do an Independent Study with her next year. Martin Kersels has been a wonderful consoler, he’s great at bringing soothing and forgiving words to the situation when you think maybe your whole work is a big mess.
Although Leslie Dick has a brain as sharp as a tack our meetings feel like girly chats. By that I mean, I un-load my feelings of inferiority to her, she brings me uplifting and hilarious anecdotes, often very personal, as she is so wonderfully open. She said in one meeting that I was ‘smarter than 90% of the people here’, which I doubt, but I appreciated the sentiment. I give her my ideas, she builds on them and gives them back to me and I reciprocate. Leslie easily gets into my area of thinking, very much like Kaucyila, with whom I swap lines from 1940s musicals and film noirs. Kaucyila gets really invested in my work and to some extent a kind of defensiveness comes out sometimes when I tell her about my criticisms and discussions from others – comments like, ‘What is relevant about the 1940s to now?’ Kaucyila has given me a bank of quips to deal with such lines of thinking. Patrick Killoran met with me the other week and he saw my show last year. He came in and told me what a great show it was and gave me his read of that work. That started a really probing conversation about my work and as I was the last meeting of the day he talked to me for an 1 ½ hours instead of the allotted 45 minutes.
We had a lottery at the start of the semester for meetings with the visiting artists and I managed to get two – one with Marnie Weber and other with Joan Jonas. Here’s a thought I’ve been thinking: if I were studying in the UK, I wonder what artist’s names would come up most in my meetings. As I am here two LA-based artists crop up the most – Marnie Weber and Andrea Fraser. I was really excited to meet with Marnie, and she was very generous in our meeting and related my work to her work. Joan Jonas was nice, but she was pushed for time and essentially I seemed to tell her all about my work, she asked me further questions then just said, 'great'. The visiting artists have to meet you and perform in 45 minutes and that either works or it doesn't.
I love working with Natalie. I think Natalie and I have great rapport. And I think to work closely with someone on your work; you need to feel that you can trust them. Natalie is great at listening to me talk about my work then pointing out the flaws in my thinking. She spotted a huge flaw recently, around my preference for the still image in relation to issues around women in representation. She really encouraged me to look at that so I’ve been reading a lot of theory and writing my ideas down for her in order to really get a handle on what I think and why its relevant. I’ve been doing a lot of spider diagrams.
I talk with Ellen when we ride to and from school together. We talk about all sorts on the 40-minute commute, but my thinking on my work is one of the recurrent themes. She is really supportive, but she knows Natalie is on my ass so she gives me encouragement and we put our heads together and try to come up with some answers on my work. On the days that I do the commute alone I have audio books on my i-pod which Ellen gave me. It’s a wonderful way to read novels without looking at the pages. (I just finished Lolita read by Jeremy Irons – his dulcet British tones are soothing)
There is a lot of tension and stress floating around the MFA2 Art & Photo people. My support system is husband, the ranch and Lily. Husband copes really really well with the situation – I know many people are experiencing tough times in their relationships due to the stress. Not here. And that’s credit to Husband. Lily is the most kind, friendly and sweet natured Springer Spaniel. (Sometimes I just drive home praying she is at our place so I can give her a big cuddle. The other night she stayed the night here as she does sometimes. She stays on the sofa but manages to find her way onto our bed before morning.)
I was shocked to find out how many people are on prescribed medication for the stress. (It is very American to pop a pill if you are not brimming with happiness. I think that there is a huge pressure to live some kind of an ‘American Dream’ and if things go wrong psychiatrists use medication in the first instance. I find it all rather sad and feel very thankful I am a Brit and am allowed to be mardy sometimes. There is no friendly slang for being moody here and I think that is another symptom of what I am talking about. I miss the word mardy).
CalArts is all about the artists in different fields working under one rough in order to swap ideas and collaborate. Collaboration proper doesn’t happen all that often, but skill swapping and favours do. I’m really excited as I am getting singing lessons as I photographed a singer in 1930s style. I want to be able to sing for a video I am doing that will be in my thesis show – singing and dancing an excerpt of Laura Mulvey’s Visual Pleasures in Narrative Cinema. Also, I’ve put together some text to do with my cigarette cards/dancers project and I hope to work with a really sweet designer next semester to produce book(let) of the work.
Friday was the last Post Studio and the class went for a meal out together. I came back from the toilet and everyone had left! I missed my opportunity to say goodbye and thanks to Michael. I enjoyed the class, but I did not do as well in it as I first thought. Funnily enough, the conversations hit on areas where I have no expertise - philosophy, Kant, Foucault, Adorno, and stranger still, this seemed to connect to feelings I had around being expelled from school at 16 for not being academic enough. I eventually got some confidence back, but I'm the girl who likened someone's work the the moment in 'This Is Spinal Tap' when the stone henge copies get lowered onto the stage and they are something like 10 inches instead of 10 feet high. I am that girl. I had a meeting with Michael on Thursday and I was nervous about it so I blurted out at the start of the meeting that I did not know if I was Michael-ready yet, and he said, ‘I’m not sure if I’m [Tallulah] ready yet’. The meeting was all too short, but he thought that I might have a case to argue in my work. He really is rather special. I mean that.
Yesterday some people in the class came out to the ranch for a spot of orange-picking – I thought it may be a nice idea as I take a bag or two of oranges along to class so its become a bit of a theme.
Dad is coming to visit on Sunday, 21st December to 1st January and I’m so excited about to see him and show him the ranch.
Such an interesting post Tallulah, I particularly love your comments about your meeting with Joan Jonas. "It either works or it doesn't"- you're so right, the whole success or failure thing is what can make these types of meeting so fraught with anxiety. Mostly, it just about works, and you get a snippet or two: sometimes it doesn't and you get nothing. But every now and again, it really works, sparks fly, and something great happens. That is as much to do with the visitor's sense of what they are doing in pedagogic terms as much as anything. And we want more of that (well I do).
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