turtle manifesto

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I'm starting a new series and I'm very timid about it. It's particularly difficult to feel so timid with your only real form of speaking. There are things we don't have language for, things that need to be said and I don't want to say the wrong thing. I liked the mutants that I painted this summer and I'll probably come back to them but for an exclusive subject matter they're limiting and problematic. The problem is I'm so angry about so many things but the complexities and intricacies are overwhelming, even without the necessity of words. A professor of mine gave me some articles about the problems with "identity" which I'm basically really really super excited about because I think they could help tie everything together. At least as much as it needs to at this point.

I wish that frogs were not going extinct.

Here are some silly study drawings that will probably become actual work within the near future.caw caw


I know, I'm awful at drawing planes. That's what that thing at the top is supposed to be, by the way. It kind of looks like a banana. A mechano-banana. I promise I'll be better in the actual paintings.





I've done one painting for the series thus far but it needs to be changed if I'm even going to use it. I like certain aspects of it but... I don't know. I'll stop there. I've been looking at it for far too long. Sorry for the crappy photos, my lovely photographer was out of town.

When I was in the studio documenting it somebody told me that she "thought a boy did it," whatever that's supposed to mean. Maybe because there's penis graffiti all over it?


"Xiphactinus"
Crooked installation view. Thank you for your kind note, Amber!

Panels by themselves

I also wish that fish were not going extinct.

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In unrelated news, this is totally what I want for my birthday guys
http://www.thomaskinkade.com/magi/daytona/home.do?link=Daytona_2008/hometoda

And OH MY GOD, Thomas Kinkade is making a MOVIE. His website is counting down the SECONDS. Somebody gag me with a spoon.

twilight zone

"Of course, we all know dolls can't really talk, and they certainly can't commit murder... but to a child caught in the middle of turmoil and conflict, a doll can become many things: friend, defender, guardian, especially a doll like Talky Tina, who did talk and did commit murder."

worst ending ever

acanthostega

Studying for another, in which I hate the construction of biology.

small collection of past works

elephant seal

hummingbug

king nisos

manigordo

bush baby

tralalalalalalalalalalalala

productivity = fail

There's nothing like underwear and elephants to brighten up a gloomy day. And to help you avoid responsibility.

With so much to do for this last week, I probably should get started, but...

sometimes you need to stare at something as pure and beautiful as Chinatsu Ban's Elephant Underpants to help you get through the day.

some of her art works

tiny tiny tiny tiny

I’m becoming really interested in art as nostalgia and escape, looking a lot at artists like Amy Sol whose works are subtle and touching, never negative but not sweet and saccharine either. I’ve never really made stuffed animals as art before this class and I’m learning that I can’t treat them the same way I do my paintings – in both, I’m very concerned with deception but due to the nature of the stuffed animals, in process and the finished object, I’m not nearly as effective in pointing this out as I do in my paintings. There’s a sense that I feel in making the animals that the deception can be healed, and that it’s okay to recognize that some things in this world aren’t misleading and won’t betray us, like the tiny tiny dog in the above picture. This is Lucy, my boyfriend’s five-pound Chihuahua who contains all the happiness in the world inside her Tupperware-sized body. Seeing her get up on her tiny toes and flapping her tiny arms at you in excitement is an instant antidote for any negativity. In my art I am more concerned with getting to the root of these negative feelings and helping to cure them rather than just forgetting about them through cute!puppiness but it helps to remember that there is so much good within something so small and fragile and shaky.

Because anger and shame doesn’t get us anywhere. The point is to care about each other, to help each other enjoy this life to the best of our abilities, whether this is through dramatic change or just by enlightening someone to the adorable pitter-patter of your tiny dog’s feet (thank you Evan).

silent balloons

Sometimes there is no way to say the things that we really need to say. They stay with us at the base of our spine and we think that someday they will all come spurting out, travel up through our backs and over our neck, to the tip of our tongue to be revealed by our lips, but sometimes they are homebodies and never leave. The world does not wait for them to renew their passport and get the hell out of there, and before long it is too late. But there is a difference between the things we do not say and the things that we cannot say. The latter are stubborn, more powerful than our screams and our tears and they mock us when we try to speak their message, transforming into "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah" and turning back as soon as the mouth is closed. I want to tell you but there is no way. The words have colonized the bottom of my spine and that is where they will stay.

Does anyone else, when they see an incredibly deflated balloon, have the urge to jump on and pop it, but refrain from doing so because you feel like you'd be destroying something somehow? It seems like so much fun and it's not every day that you see a deflated balloon just hanging around but I still can't bring myself to do it.

The following is a (extremely non-discriptive and poorly scanned) study for my next project -- I definitely have other ideas for it beyond what is here but this is the basic surface sketch of the animal. I want to experiment more with materials, especially cellophane and gauze. Any other ideas?

sugar bombs

There was something endearing about the way he called me a fat whore in the grocery store, in front of the balding man trying to decide on a cereal. He didn’t mean it, but he said it like he did so that everyone would think that he meant it, everyone except just us two and it was our little secret. Not that he actually thought about it that way at all, not that it was anything but funny to him to watch Bald Cereal Guy’s reaction to that phrase directed toward a small, innocent, 85-pound frame, but I, always oversensitive and overreacting, thought it was funny too, actually was able to let go of my preconceived ideas of hatred and wrongness and affection. We would sit on his bed and watch Planet Earth and I would eat Taco Bell and chocolate cake and he would poke me and say, “Fatty fatty fat fat,” and I would respond with “I love you” and he would smile and say “I love you, too.” I think he was telling me that I was beautiful. He’d tell me that plainly, just “You Are Beautiful” like no one had before him, but it didn’t carry as much adoration as the insult. And sometimes I wondered if that was true or if I just thought it was and then I wondered why because I wonder too much, but at some point I would stop caring because he thought something of this really short, kinda white little girl and that was worth all the chocolate cake in the world. I would give anything for someone who would watch turtles all day with me. For someone who could alter my obsessions for the better rather than towards thoughtlessness. He told me once, when I was practically a stranger, that when he was a kid he used to have this fear that he wasn’t wearing any pants. He’d look down and see himself fully covered, denim superbly forming a fortress around his lower half, but anxiety told him was all an illusion, that the reality was Oops, No Pants. I think I fell in love right then. I won him over three days later when my narcoleptic habits caused me to fall asleep on top of him for two hours. I must have adhered myself like a leech in my sleep and never let go. Sometimes when I am trying to decide on a cereal I think to myself, “You Are A Fat Whore” as a statement of dignity. Somebody loves me. They are just words and their dictionary meanings are poles away. Bald Cereal Guy may never understand, but we do.

It is 6:20 and I am awake and he is asleep on my arm. His 160 pounds are not heavy.

aminals

Sometimes I wonder why, if I am so concerned with people and their actions and feelings and relationships to one another, my work always features animals. Some people are interested in playing with color psychology; for me, emotions are best expressed through experience with an animal for some reason. Elephants always show up in my work when I feel guilty, especially over something I can't help, possibly because my mother inherieted this gorgeous ivory bracelet with Chinese dragons carved into it from some relative, and as a kid, I secretly loved it -- secretly, because I was ashamed that I liked something made from elephant tusk, as if through my admiration I was supporting the ivory market. It's not something I even think about but just kind of happens, for example, today at work I was thinking about how irrational my chronic guilt is and this doodle of an elephant and a rediculous-looking dragon reconciling just kind of showed up:

I don't remember much from when I was young but I do remember watching animals, ants and spiders and worms especially. They fascinated me because they were so different -- I could never possibly know what it was to be an insect (or any other kind of arthropod) -- but I couldn't help from anthropomorphizing them, wondering why they did what they did, why they would trick and kill the weak. When I got a little older and started paying attention to the world outside the rocks in my backyard I found I was asking the same questions. I don't know if seeing the world pretty much the same way that I did when I was four makes me a child, I do know that stuffing my face with ice cream and donuts and making penis jokes all the time makes me immature and that wearing pigtails and plastic duck barrettes isn't going to prevent me from getting carded until I'm thirty, but I don't really care because I feel like the few things I remember from being a kid have taught me a lot and influenced me in a (hopefully) positive way.

One of these was Calvin and Hobbes, probably my first really powerful artistic influence, which I first read when I was six and inspired me to be a cartoonist until I realized that I wasn't funny. It's still probably one of the smartest and most creative things I've ever read.

And while I'm on literary influences, I should probably also mention The Little Prince which I read a couple years later and still do at every chance. If I used a book as a religious text, I guess this would be it; I've said that I could never date a guy who didn't understand The Little Prince because they could never understand the way I think. Plus, as horrible as it sounds out of context, it has given me the opportunity to see people wearing a boa constrictor digesting an elephant instead of wearing a hat, which is just delightful.

another

I was feeling pretty down the other day so I made myself a little painting. It’s related to my turtle hand puppet but is less societal in nature; usually when I make these little pieces that are simply fueled by emotion I keep them to myself but sometimes they seem to strike a chord in others, and also since you guys know the context behind the turtle etc. I thought I’d share. Maybe more will be posted if anyone is interested, and I’d love to see sketchdoodles that belong to any of you.

As you can probably tell by now, I really am quite fond of turtles, so maybe it's not that much of a suprise that the crit last week made me think of these lovely chelonians.

It's not that I am just always thinking of turtles (cause that's weird) but what I find fascinating about them are the ways their species' relate to ours: as a shy person, I am utterly jealous of that protective shell that they can just hide away in whenever they feel like it. I cherish art so much because it's my most valuable tool in expressing that which I'm passionate about, but the crit made me realize how difficult it can be to talk about certain issues even through art -- even though most of us care greatly about climate change, it seemed like for a lot of us (myself included), it was a hard topic to make art about, and I think that forcing ourselves to talk about an important but overdone issue in a new way that was relevant to us as artists was wonderful; in other words, as people with privilege, as residents of America, as those few lucky enough to get this kind of education, and especially as artists, it's our responsibility to talk about these things rather than hide from or avoid them because it's easier.

I'm tired of letting convenience keep me quiet, I hope that these little scraps of felt will become turtle hand puppets that help me to remember that.

hellooooo

Hi, my name is Mary, I'm very quiet and I look like I'm fourteen.
I like kittens, French toast at IHOP, drawing penises, and long walks on the beach; I'm fascinated by most anything, especially societal privilege, evolution, and watching ducks eat.

I'm new to all this so I'm not quite sure what to say. Silly things inspire me so this will probably be full of them. I hope to get some sketches or artings or ramblings of some sort up soon.