this is what my heaven looks like

more notes from old sketch books

this is from a book a read called "where is ana mendieta?" by jane blocker. she is discussing mendieta work in relationship to heimlich vs unheimlich (freud). i don't really remember exactly what that means, but it reminded me of the abject. but here are some quotes from the book that at the time i really related to and i still do when it comes to my art and process around my art.

"it is an entirely alien configuration that disrupts the horizon and defamiliarizes the land"

"nothing new or alien, but something that is familiar and old established in the mind and that has become alienated from it only through the process of repression" about the unheimlich

"home is a concept related both to feelings of belonging and to repressed memories of alienation."

"the heimlich always bears within itself the quality of the unheimlich"

then i wrote "seems to carry the same tension and possibility as the abject. carries the seeds of its own undoing. i would like to think of that is in my work too. the unheimlich of femininity, this perverse other that has been living there all along, an unattended child who turns up dirty, scabbed, violated, angry." this is from 2001. somethings have changed in the way i relate to my art and how i think of it. i still like the perverse other.

women's textiles and tees exhibit at the historical society

Here are some images of a show i put together for the glbt historical society (queer archives rule!) the quilts were made from donated tee shirts and done by a group of older lesbians, the needle work is cathy cade, and the rest of the stuff is from the collection.

I love when the internet actually works and i can upload hella images. I need some photoshop angel to come and liberate the divine monster series, so it can be printed, edited, and projected. 

in a journal/sketch book from 7 years ago i wrote this:

"wrapping. binding. confusing. dealing with my body confusion. i know who i am. but i don't know who my body is. multiple desires for a single body...a visual confusion yet personal healing. emotionally soothing yet physically painful. ribbons. femininity. quest for excess. a conversion with my body. NEED MORE SKIN. NEED MORE KNIVES. NEED MORE POSSIBILITIES. NEED MORE ANSWERS."

and there is a polaroid of my hand resting on a pink fuzzy pillow wrapped in shredded panty hoes.

this still feels important to me. sometimes i forget that it is ok for my work to feel personal. i have learned to distance myself from my work in an attempt to have it be more serious, that whole cliche about women artist and how everything they do is a personal narrative.

my cunt is not a flower...taken today