Make-Up on Handkerchiefs, Glass, Twine, Wood, Fabric
Fall 2010-Winter 2010/2011
I want to go back to when everything was pure; when Barbie’s were just girly toys instead of sex symbols I aspire to be, when make-up was something I used to make my sister look like a smurf rather than make myself look like China doll. I want my Sunday mornings to not remind me of the repenting I need to do for Saturday night. I want my bed to a safe-place, not a burial place for shattered hearts and relationships.
In this body of work I have made objects to tell you a story. Each of you can walk away with a different version of it, but I hope at the end of the day its one you remember. After all, the moral is worth learning: you are worth so much more than you may think.
Each piece is hand-broken, hand-made, and personal. The glass bra was pieced together and taped while the glue dried to bond it all together. The process was frustrating due to the fragile material and the delicacy of the process, taking days to complete. The bed was cut, screwed, and woven by me (and with some help from a fabulous friend), then layered with the sheer fabric and sprinkled with glass. The pillow is hand-sewn. The handkerchiefs were make-up applied and wiped off my face. The barbies (Below) were a process of wrapping masking tape around string and other strange items. I wanted each piece to be a part of me, a part of you, and a part of our stories.
On one hand, this is a self portrait. On the other, it’s a work that is supposed to be universal to a certain extent. I would not call myself promiscuous if asked to describe myself, as that is not the truth. Over this past year, however, I have found a certain confidence in my sexuality that I can assert proudly. I do not feel the need to cover up my body because it is “flawed” or “ugly,” and I feel like I can go up to people I am attracted to and be able to hold a conversation with them without retreating back in to a turtle neck from self-consciousness. I may have negative thoughts about myself from time to time, like everyone, but even this term of school has made me see a drastic change in myself. This piece started off as a glass dress, and I have intentions of making that piece later (though with a different form and completely different meaning), but right now this bra is what defines me. Broken glass is seductive; it’s dangerous, translucent, edgy, beautiful, compelling while still menacing. You want to touch it but you really do not. The material choice reflects how I see myself on certain aspects, but the material in touch with the form it takes is what matter; bras have had a serious history in the world. In the sixties they were burned, in the eighties they were worn as clothing, and now they’re bought in various patterns and colors to be shown to strangers after nights in dive bars where women have had too much to drink and too little time to think. When I think of bras, I think of overt sexuality but also the pain of that, how damaging that is to women. I wanted someone to relate to this piece because it told a story about their last one night stand, their last relationship, their last “slutty” outfit that they wore to impress men but made them feel awkward all night long. I wanted to bring out that feeling.
This bed piece is my "final project" of the term, and the piece I have fallen in love with. It started out as a mock-up on a sheet of sketchbook paper and became this full fledged bed in about three weeks. The frame was built from 1x3 lumber, measuring six feet by four feet (with a height of two feet). I wanted this to be creepy but seductive. The piece can take on whatever meaning you would like to give it, but when I made this I was thinking more along the lines of the remains of a broken relationship. So many women believe they have to trap men by sleeping with them to make them fall in love, weaving a web of lies and unhappiness. I have been told by men I was involved with that if I loved them I would sleep with them, and while I'll leave mystery behind whether I did or not, I think this piece is universal for every person who's given up their morals/beliefs in the name of "love," just trying to find that one person to make their lonely nights less lonely.
This piece was a self-portrait in a sense, but also an exploration in mediums as well as facial blurring. I find it funny that when women are getting ready they say they are "putting on their face." We wear masks every day, and yet we don't even realize it. We hide behind colors of make up to make us look flirty or sexy or "natural." So what happens when I take off my mask? There is something about distortion of recognizable that is chillingly beautiful, so I decided to play with that. Blush, lipstick, eyeliner, mascara, and eyeshadow were all applied to my face carefully and wiped off with one of these damp men's handkerchiefs in subtly different palettes.
