Desolation

It is my thesis show in three weeks. I have just edited and changed a lot. I think the show will be a video projection. Maybe a video projection opposite.

My show will not be great. It will be ok. I feel desolate. I will not be the best in show. I will be an also ran. I've taken the morning off to cry.

I feel I'm not good enough. I'm not ready for the artworld. I'm not that good an artist. How can I apply for things and try to exhibit and talk about my art? I feel unworthy of the faith art-friends have in me.

I've just finished listening to Rita Hayworth's biography 'If This Was Happiness'. That is unrelenting misery in itself.

I feel desolate.

Performing Artists

Yesterday we celebrated Posada with Gorado and Marta and their family. I am not sure what it is, but its related to Christmas and involves singing, role play and the whole neighbourhood eating together in someone’s backyard. We had great fun.



I’ve been thinking about performance a lot. Different qualities and aspects, really. Let me give you examples. A class I should have taken this semester taught by Martin Kersels - Performance & Execution – had an end-of-class-performance at Santa Monica Museum where Martin Kersels currently has an exhibition. Me and husband went along. We missed some stuff, it went on for hours and most of it was impenetrable showings-off made by undergrads. Joanne, from my class, collaborated with a woman called Flint in a rather fascinating piece – both women pressed noses against each other and then in turn helped each other to strip, swap clothes and keep on swapping clothes. The women, both lesbians and presenting very different approaches to both femininity and androgyny in their everyday wear, drew attention to this by moving through different outfits that pointed to different identities and kept on moving through identities until we returned to normality. It was extremely intelligent and very well rehearsed, and resisted platitudes and easy answers. I describe this all as an aside. What I really want to say is that the most awful performance was one that went on for what literally felt like an eternity. It involved a young performer reading against Darwin’s theories of evolution – a creationist view, whilst putting on different ill-fitting items of clothing, cutting into the clothing and felt-tipping words onto his torso. This gesture was repeated over and over and over again. Tension began to fill the audience – when will this end? The audience was composed of CalArts students and faculty. For this performance there was an additional, most attentive audience member – a small-framed man in cap and sunglasses, with white/grey hair. Who was this performer? Who was this audience member? Henry Hopper with father Dennis Hopper enthralled. Oh yes. Hollywood is very much a hop, skip and a jump away from CalArts and with my own navel gazing musings here I sort of forget to report back on that type of thing. I really should share some of my gleanings one day.

Why has Henry Hopper’s performance lingered with me? Well, I got to thinking about narcissism. Narcissism without talent is a repellent gesture to an audience. Its as if the audience are surplus to requirements. But, narcissism with talent is an inviting, generous gesture. Think of Rita Hayworth’s performance of ‘Blame it on Mame’ in Gilda (I mention that moment as it is one I am working with for my thesis show). The audience is invited to collude with the performer, a flirtation between watcher and watched. Craft is an interesting strategy – something held up to the viewer, something generated by the performer. I’ve been thinking about this in relation to women in classic Hollywood film and I’m nearly there with my thoughts – it has got something to do with the agency of the performer and the female masquerade. I’ll get back to you on it.

The visiting artists must perform themselves. Each Thursday night in F200 (aka the room in which I broke my wrist. Incidentally, that was right before doing a performance in an end-of-class showing. I’ll come back to that in a bit), an invited artist shows examples of their work and/or gives explanations or reads aloud recent written material. They then take part in a Q & A session, which is un-moderated and can become an opportunity for the audience to pick holes in the artists work. There is no promise of politeness at a CalArts Q & A – some artists will not come become of its reputation. A team of three students is paid to coordinate the lectures. I find the structure of the whole thing interesting in that the student body shapes the series. The artists often do studio visits too. Isn’t it all performing? Like a performing seal? Performing the self. I remember Sharon Kivland’s maxim: - “an artist is always on duty”. I am going to list all the visiting (performing) artists in the series from the last three semesters. I’ll mark where I attended with a §, when I asked a question with a π and where I had a studio visit with the artist with a Ω.

2007
20th Sept Lisa Anne Auerbach §
25th Sept Mark Lewis
27th Sept Kamau Patton
4th Oct Stanya Kahn & Harry Dodge
11th Oct Francesca Gabbiani
18th Oct Sue de Beer
1st Nov Morgan Fischer
8th Nov Mathias Poledna
15th Nov Frances Stark
29th Nov Symbiotica
6th Dec Lisa Lapinski §
13th Dec Mel Ziegler
15th Jan Miles Coolidge
17th Jan Walid Raad § π
22nd Jan Nicole Cohen
24th Jan Patrick Killoran
29th Jan Edgar Heap-of-Birds §
31st Jan Katja Eydel § π
7th Feb Michelle Grabner
14th Feb Hirsch Perlman
21st Feb Carolla Dertnig (visiting faculty) §
28th Feb Robert Pruitt
6th Mar Richard Hawkins
12th Mar Stefan Romer screening of film Conceptual Paradise §
13th Mar Janice Kerbel § Ω
20th Mar Lane Relyea §
10th Apr Ben Weissman (visiting faculty)
17th Apr Seth Price
24th Apr Lecia Dole-Recio (visiting faculty)
1st May Mary Kelly §
8th May Rebecca Morales
18th Sept Mungo Thomson (Coneptual) §
25th Sept Mindy Shapero (Sculpture/Drawing)
2nd Oct Linda Palmer (Neuroscience of Kantian Philosophy)
9th Oct Yvonne Rainer (Experimental Choreography & Film) §
16th Oct Charles Long (Process-Based Sculpture)
23rd Oct Kim Fisher (Abstract Painting)
30th Oct Panel Discussion: Efficacy of Art & the Politics of Change (participants - Natalie Bookchin, Andrea Bowers, Ashley Hunt, Daniel Joseph Martinez) §
11th Nov Eve Fowler (Portraits/Photography) §
13th Nov Matthew Coolidge (Center for Land Use Interpretation) §
18th Nov Sarah Thornton (author, Seven Days in the Art World)
4th Dec Marnie Weber (Multi-Disciplinary) § Ω
11th Dec Joan Jonas (Video & Performance) § Ω

Each lecture I usually have a question to ask, but I am unable to say anything through (audience) performance anxiety.



In my meeting with Marnie Weber, she told me how it was nice to use my dance knowledge in my artwork. She thinks it is nice when you incorporate your skills into your practice. She was looking at my cigarette-card dancer photos on my studio wall whilst I was telling her about the day I broke my wrist right before our performance presentations. The event was put back a week and I did my performance with a bandaged wrist and on heavy painkillers. Marnie saw a link with my dancers project to this performance – the subversive element of the real person coming through.

Giving and Thanking

We spent Thanksgiving at the Ranch, and friends of Ellen and David came to celebrate it with them. We were invited up to the main house to join in with the meal and merry-making. I took pan-baked brussel sprouts which were so yummy and got lots of compliments. Leslie Dick and her daughter were amongst the merry-makers and it was lovely to spend some time with them. Leslie was really impressed with husband too.

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.

No Information In Advance of Need

- is the CalArts school motto. Which is rather interesting.

It appears a lot has happened since my last post. America has a new president elect. Saint Obama. A new regime is so needed that election night was an emotional affair, friends and teachers were declaring they would leave the country if he didn't win. You win some, you lose some - in California, the much opposed, but Mormon funded 'Proposition 8' was passed. The one about gay marriage.

Halloween came and went uncelebrated, this year it occurred to me that Halloween is just not as nice as 5th November so we decided not to do anything. We were house/dog-sitting in Silver Lake again and a couple in their 20s came round asking for treats. We had to give them some of our small chocolate supply. On chocolate, most American chocolate, or 'candy' (a word which conjures up cheap, coloured sugary tasteless stuff to me) is inedible, and certainly gives no pleasure. However the fantastic shop 'Trader Joe's' which I shall miss, does a large bar of Belgian chocolate which we make sure we always have in.

I survived Post-Studio! Being under the spotlight for 4 hours was draining and afterwards I had that feeling of 'fine, I'll never make any work again, its all so shit'. But I recuperated and reflected and realised that it was a great conversation where people who don't speak regularly spoke and people discussed the work insightfully and generously. There were some negative points, but I was grateful for them. I took my 'Art Encounters' sound piece. Michael Asher was kind about my work too. He is so funny in class, he has a habit of swinging on his chair, shutting his eyes as if asleep, then opening them and giving an assured epiphany.

American English has a word that I have certainly never encountered in British English - 'docent' - 'a person who acts as a guide, typically on a voluntary basis, in a museum, art gallery or zoo'.

I enjoy staying in Silverlake (back again now to pick up dog, then back to the Ranch for Thanksgiving). Last time I was here I went to a free LACMA talk with Amy Adler, Alex Slade and Penelope Umbrico. We are, however, staying at the ranch, having looked around for elsewhere to live. We found nowhere cheaper or as private, or as large. Additionally, Husband needed to find employment and he looked around for work in LA, which he would have done, but not enjoyed. Ellen and David needed another full-time worker on the Ranch, and Husband loves working on the Ranch and with Gerado, so he's pretty much working for our rent. This does mean that money is a little better for us and we should drive to LA each weekend for art openings etc. Another LA resource I want to explore is the Academy Awards archive and library.

However, last weekend there was a wonderful day of museum interventions at LACMA in collaboration with experimental gallery/space 'Machine Projects' which I was desperate to go to. Fires nearby resulted in road closures that made our journey 4 hours long. Any enthusiasm was pretty much drained by the time we got there. Ellen even had an opening over the road, but that barely perked us up. An opening at 'COMAspace' - and exhibition from Art MFAs who graduated this year made the evening more fun.

On Sunday Husband was invited on a special horse-riding trip: with Gerado and his Mexican friends. An all male affair with beer - they run out of Bud Lite and had to ride into town to buy more. They rode along the river bed and periodically galloped fast. Husband, a novice, kept up with the riding and drinking. He enjoyed it despite the afternoon being pretty much conducted in Spanish. Now he wants to learn Spanish and get a cowboy hat.



My 'Thesis show' - the exhibition I create that is the culmination of my research here, with a coherent set of ideas that are resolved in it, is scheduled for the week of 21st February. I am currently trying to resolve my work for it, but I keep hitting on problems. I have a pile of books around me and I think they all contain the answers I need, but I want the information now, I want to be able to scan each chapter (like a scanner) and absorb the points and know the arguments. But alas, I must sit here, isolating the most pertinent chapters and reading them, notebook, dictionary, pencil for underlining and page tabs to the side of me. I want to figure it out. I had a meeting with Natalie yesterday and she got to the heart of my conflict/incoherence. A lot of people I meet with are wonderful and have a great read of my work and give me really helpful leads. Natalie will not let me get away with anything and I love it. She asked me to put my ideas into writing and refer to theory. I think this will really help.

No information in advance of need.

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.

Ranch Life

Husband and I are here together this year. We're on a 100 year old ranch in Santa Paula, home of David Bunn and Ellen Birrell. They have a number of guest houses and we are renting one. It's very hard to understand how we got so lucky, but we have. The ranch is like some kind of retreat. Lemon and avocado orchards are commercially picked and the fruit sold, with plenty of fruit for us and additional grapefruit, orange and pear trees. Chicken and ducks lay eggs and there is a vegetable patch with chard, squash, herbs and I'm not sure what else. Our veg bills will be non-existent. As a vegetable eater this just heaven. We only really need to buy dairy foods, tofu, cereals and pulses to sustain us. There is also a swimming pool shaped like a lagoon, designed by Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch designer earlier in his career. The ranch backs onto National Parks type land (forgotten their terminology here) so when you run out of the 3800 acres of ranch land you can keep going into park land.

We hope to subsidise the rent by working on the ranch. The commute is 40 mins to CalArts, but its a straight drive. We really hope to make it work living up here. Its not city life but it is something rather unique and idyllic. We had to grab the offer with both hands.

My three months at home were great. I got to see pretty much all my friends (bar two) and spend time with Dad. When I got home I really need to rest after the nine months I'd had and with my broken wrist. Husband and I watched two seasons of 24 in a short period of time followed by the Hitchcock Signature DVD collection and a Film Noir boxset. I caught up with one of my old workplaces, the Sheffield Yoga Centre and spent some time with my lovely yoga teacher. A friend's very dear mother whom I visited two days before I initially came out to Calarts last year, lost her battle with breast cancer and I was so privileged to be home and able to attend her funeral. I was home for my own mother's birthday and the tenth anniversary of her death. We don't morbidly dwell on such dates but it was nice to reflect on them at home. I went from a disorientated shell shock of recognising home but not quite being there, to fully being present there. And now I'm here. Again, with a kind of recognition of CalArts but a disengagement of it. That will all change soon. As the term starts the pace will pick up and I'll feel like, 'we're off again'. I'm so lucky to have husband to ground me this year.

I really hope I have a good year this year. I have a plan of what I what to do and I really hope it happens and goes well. The challenge of the year will really be in taking part in the Mid-Residency show and the end of year Los Angeles show, that the students organise. This will be where the diva egos raise their ugly heads. And they will. I hate diva behaviour, and from artists it makes me cringe.

It's Nice To Be Home

CalArts now seems like a dream sequence, it did as soon as I got home. It's hard to reconcile the experiences of the last nine months with life back in Sheffield. It is great to be back. Though I am taking it slow re-connecting with friends as it feels a bit, erm, cheeky re-inserting yourself into your old life. I have to be considerate of others and not just go 'ta-da!' here I am. Or at least thats how I feel.

A rather valued good friend managed to get me a well paid temporary job, which I really love. Doing PR for b.TWEEN 08, a media/technology/creative event happening in Manchester next week. It's fun. It is so nice it makes me feel like, wow, have I been here all year and not noticed? I don't know, that struggle to bring back California Me pervades all my thoughts.

I have seen a rather successful artist good friend and she's had a great year and I liked hearing her news. I popped into S1 and Bloc and although both are doing well the Arts Council are really putting the squeeze on all art organisations. The Arts Council just pisses me off and I have a lot to say about what they get wrong but I fear if I start to blog that I will be here all day, and also may lessen my chances of getting money off of them, which I probably will want at some point. Even though I think having an Arts Council logo on your artwork is deeply uncool.

Obvioulsy re-uniting with husband was lovely and we are so back into normality again that for me it feels like I haven't been away. I don't think he feels the same way, the nine months having been harder for him. But we've done it. I think that is the longest we will have to be parted and its behind us now.

My little 2-year old friend, Freya is doing very well and is lovely, as are her parents whom I adore, (Pat & Jo) but I don't think Freya remembers me. And that makes me a little sad.

Feeling at home involves re-connecting with people and also tastes of home. Tastes include:
eating fish and chips - our local chippy has changed hands and they now do soggy chips which I cant stand so I'm a bit gutted about that
curry - love it, love our takeaway, wish I could eat it every night
HobNobs, eaten some at work
Ribena - tastes better out of a box rather than out of a bottle
Fruit flavoured beer - Belle Vue - not available at our local offy or supermarket so was pleased its now on tap at the Showroom
Blue Moon cafe meals

Tastes that I miss from my other home:
Pinkberry frozen yogurt
Oreos
Breakfast Burritos
Pancakes
All breakfast food

A Fall Comes Before Pride

Last week I fell and fractured my wrist in three places. It was in F200, I was doing a few dance steps, nothing fancy, my left foot just gave way and collapsed and my right hand broke my fall. And broke, as it happens. I was preparing for a performance night I was doing something for, for Carola's class. I was going to reprise 'Me Against the Music'.

The Follow Up:
The last thing I wanted to do with a bandage wrist was to type up the story, especially in a morphine-laced painkiller addled state. So here's the expanded version. I fell, broke my wrist and could see that my wrist was mishapen. The adrenalnie from the impending performance saved me from feeling the full extent of the pain. A friend, Carlin, drove me to the local hospital. I had to stay there three nights. They gave me morphine intravenously. I had an operation to set my bones and had a steel plate put in (which does not set off airport security). The drugs made me extremely nauseous and not very lucid. Alexis and Dana were absolute angels, visiting me in hospital twice a day and spending time with me and helping me. I fell ten days before my flight home and I needed a lot of help and support to pack up my clothes and bits from my dorm room and take to my studio and also pack for my return home. A lot of people helped me with all sorts of things from wrapping up and boxing my kitchenware, returning the hire car, washing my hair and driving me to the airport. All this help was amazing and it humbled me to see how willing people were to help me out. It sort of was the response to my earlier blogs posts that were reflecting on my isolation here. It that sense, my wrist break really helped me see my situation in a different way, perhaps a way that I needed to see. It was painful, and the hospital bills are shit, but apart from that, I won't moan about it.

Finding Everything And Realising / Freedom of Expression As Revolution*

And that's it.

I finished. At 10.30pm precisely, tonight, I finished watching every single episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I was crying my eyes out. I watched the last episode again with Joss Whedon's commentary. You may think that I am just vulnerable to the syrup and simplicity of children's television, but I would argue with you there. The emotional themes of the show and the honesty in the writing and producing of it made it truly amazing; outstanding. The ongoing theme was really the experience of being an individual, having to take on life and face your battles alone. But, paradoxically, also as part of a group, a small, tight group with strengths and weaknesses but a group nevertheless. Spike was/is amazing. He basically saves the world by causing the Hellmouth to implode and destroying Sunnydale in the process. I commit very easily to things which partly explains my determination to complete watching all of the shows, but there are deeper reasons why Buffy won my heart. The small class has been a great place for me to really work through psychoanalytic readings of conventional Hollywood, Freud's ideas on the dichotomy women are faced with, creating resistance and subversion within the male gaze and growing in personal confidence with developing my own ideas and vocalising them in class. There were no photo MFA students in the class - mainly art and film students and evenly split between grad and undergrad students, which gave me a break from my usual set of peers. Its given me the opportunity to understand why I am here, 5000 miles away from home, following my vocation, alone, but part of a network of close friends supporting me and keeping me on track. I have been able to meditate on the purpose of life. I went to breakfast this morning with Dana - we went to a diner and and ate pancakes - and Dana was telling me all about being confused by the variations in the guidance she receives on a daily basis from her mum and dad and I realised then that I do not have that, an adviser, like that. But then I watched Buffy and I understood my situation a little better. I do not need an adviser because I can interpret and learn through art what it is I do and how to do it. And finally, indulge me here with a syrupy moment of my own, I'll try to keep it brief. I found Buffy and Spike's relationship utterly plausible - a girl, with a vocation, though lost, treading water, wasting time and a boy, been doing the same thing for years, not going anywhere, repeating the same things without fulfilment and in the process of leaving behind old habits and without a game plan or seriously understanding the nature of their love, growing and evolving and becoming better versions of themselves because of that love. I'm sorry reader, but I identify.

I've had a long day - after breakfast I went to the Fuzzy Pictures class show installation and put up my piece. It is a piece of text that I have printed very large and laminated it so that it is shiny like a photograph. The text stands in for a photograph and allows a meditation on representation. I wanted the text to operate the way I speak in class - which can be quite lucid and articulate, which is disappointingly not usually mirrored in my writing. So I invited the other class members to email their definition of 'Fuzzy Pictures' and suggest to me an example of a fuzzy picture. I'll post my text piece here so you can have a read of it.

After that I took part in a re-do of Allan Kaprow's happening 'Publicity', which was organised by CalArts students working with David Bunn and MOCA who are doing a retrospective of Kaprow at the moment. The whole thing was thoroughly enjoyable and really unique. A bunch of us went at Vasquez Rocks - which has been used by Star Trek - and wearing hard hats, erected any kind of temporary structure out of string and wood and debris, whilst 4 people videoed the action and others used loud speakers to call to each other. It was a strange kind of way to understand how Kaprow's happenings work, maybe he would or woudn't approve. But you know what? I enjoyed it.

On Friday I went to Miller Updegraff's house. He and his wife hosted a rather lovely dinner party with a great group of people. There was only one other current MFA student there, in the mix where an animator/tv person who works on South Park, the curator of the Hammer Museum, a theatre writer/director & reviewer for the LA Weekly, 2 CalArts faculty, a woman who is one of the 17 assistants for Mike Kelly, Taryn the admissions director for the art school and lil ol' me. I was quite nervous about the evening and thought I might be out of my depth, but I really had a great time.

Last week the visiting artist was Mary Kelly who I found very interesting and I really liked her and her work and the week before I went to a film evening with Carolee Schneeman. It's been so lovely to get the opportunity to see these women in the flesh and hear them talk about their work. Although Carolee's latest video piece consists of photographs she takes daily of her being woken up by her cat licking her on her open mouth first thing in the morning, which I'm sorry to say, I found gross.

The other week an art MFA2 student, Nate Page, removed all the posters from the school (which is against school policy) and turned them into a giant piece of artwork on the far wall of the main gallery. I did not see the piece itself but I hear it was quite beautiful and extended all the way up to the high ceiling. As a violation of school policy Facilities removed the piece and re-stuck the posters around the campus. That evening, Aaron Wrinkle did a sort of protest performance in defence of Nate, which was really thought provoking, all about bringing back the radical spirit to CalArts. Arguably, CalArts is less radical than it has been in the past, but what I am interested by, is that we, the students, are encouraged to think of this place as ours, and to do with it what we want. We make the place. And that is true here, more than any other place I have experienced. And I love it.

I have 11 days before I come home to Sheffield for the summer. And that's it.

*taken from the lyrics of F.E.A.R. by Ian Brown