thinking...thought process

soo...even though i said that i would stop thinking about where i was going with my work, i continued to think and of course everything i was thinking ended up in what i wanted to produce and i could not feasibly produce what i was thinking of making. So i've simplified the site specific that i had planned because origionally there was too much going on, i had the pod(clay plant holder) along with a wire guided cage for it to grow along for me to manipulate, but now i think that it would be beneficial to just have the pod on the body where the plants just grow and you think about the relationship and how the plan grows with the body and how the context affects the meaning/translation that the viewer sees and understands, some examples are growing out of the stomach and how works with the body, but at the same time it could possibly symbolizes fertility. other places i'm planning on working with are the wrists, shoulders, ears, potentially the mouth and thinking about how placement can affect the meaning and how it can potentially grow into jewelry on its own without any guidance, limited guidance because i will potentially manipulate the plants with the other plants growing alongside each other, this is mainly because i have a hard time getting away from the body, i'm trying but when i'm looking at my drawings of solitary free standing sculptures there is no interaction with the space around it, i've drawn site specific ones also and it is just not the same, i have a hard time comprehending space when the work is not surrounding a form (or body), eventually i can get out of this state of mind, it is potentially not the correct subject matter for free standing, non-body adornment, because in the past it came natural to create wall/floor sculptures with what subject matter i was working on, and i've realized that i should not force something that i cannot envision it should just happen.

gallery space...

Thursday there was an exhibit opening at mobilia gallery in cambridge, it was for Kevin Coates in conjunction with Baskets as Architecture. In one of the exhibition cases there was the work from Joe Wood, who had the show previous to this exhibit. There was also furniture in the window of the gallery, near the baskets, which worked with the baskets since most were made from wood and other natural materials. I work at mobilia, so i helped to set up the basket and furniture exhibit it was very difficult to do because of the conversation between the different pieces since it was from multiple artists rather than two or three. The basket wall was built into an organized chaos, where each basket had their own space on the wall but there were so many on the wall that there was a conversation between materials and color schemes that played out in order for the display to work. There were several other spaces in the gallery where the baskets were able to be displayed since not all were from the same color pallet and design sense. One of the spaces was based on color and materials, where the colors were pastels and school supplies such as pencils and tape measures and another space was created for several houses to be put upon astroturf, because they were created from playful materials such as tickets, paper scraps and were very colorful.

Kevin Coates exhibit was on the adjacent wall and spoke about order and cleanliness. This was because everything had a uniform case and setup, everything was measured and calculated to fit on the wall where there was a blocked out and painted area for the artists' work. Each one of his pieces (which were brooches) were set up on a piece of notebook/sketchbook paper where his research came out and spoke to the brooch, showing its origin and ideas. All were around the same size and had the same feel about them as if they were all marching out of his head and onto the walls. The two exhibits complimented each other because they had their own space while thinking about structure and order, whether it be through materials or through scale and color.

body modification? non-western topic

one thing that did come up during the class critique was body modification and so i thought how to connect it to the research topic of this phase which is non-western, i looked up different areas of body modification and found one that takes place in new zealand, and i'm sure now in other areas. But the "artist" Steve Haworth was looking for a way to give a client a permanent "bracelet," The first human canvas for this art form was a woman from New Zealand who came in and asked for a bracelet. Haworth pondered the challenge, then suggested that he could place series of beads under the skin around her wrist. She enthusiastically agreed.
In years that followed, subdermal implants became popular in the community of extreme body modification. The process creates a raised area on the skin in a shape of the artist's choosing. The effect is dramatic: Implants can be most any form you can think of, from Star Trek ridges and small horns, to little stars and hearts sprayed across the chest. Many people with body modifications have combined their implants with tattoos to create often beautiful or terrible effects. this article is located at: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2006/03/70322?currentPage=all

this form of body modification, while interesting is not what i had in mind for body modification, what other cultures come to mind when thinking about this? of course there is foot binding, neck lengthening, etc. these are also interesting, but how does this connect to what i am doing, it can possibly be lightly connected through the process of modifying how you hold soemthing, how it sits on your body, does it change your posture, etc.





other non-western cultures involved in body modification is for the divine passage or sacrifice to the gods, where in the hindu culture celebrates Thaipusam by cleansing themselves through prayer and fasting. On the day of the festival, devotees will shave their heads undertake a pilgrimage along a set route while engaging in various acts of devotion, notably carrying various types of kavadi (burdens). At its simplest this may entail carrying a pot of milk, but mortification of the flesh by piercing the skin, tongue or cheeks with vel skewers is also common. The most spectacular practice is the vel kavadi, essentially a portable altar up to two meters tall, decorated with peacock feathers and attached to the devotee through 108 vels pierced into the skin on the chest and back. Fire walking and flagellation may also be practiced. It is claimed that devotees are able to enter a trance, feel no pain, do not bleed from their wounds and have no scars left behind. However, some of the more extreme masochistic practices have been criticized as dangerous and contrary to the spirit and intention of Hinduism. http://glennh.tripod.com/wa_sing_tpsm.htm


some may wonder what constitiutes as body modification, and the extremes of them are in australia there is a conference for body modification, the topics included are:

non-mainstream: body modification (tattooing, piercing, scarification, branding, etc)
body sculpting (corsetry, dieting, body-building, binding, constriction, negation, elongation, etc)
body politics
transformative rituals
body modification in non-Western cultures and/or in other historical epochs
transgender and/or transsexualism; intersex
cosmetic surgery
fatness; anorexia; eating
technology and the body (cyborgs, nanotechnology, reproductive technologies, transplants, implants, cloning, ethics, etc)
virtual bodies
self-mutilation
fashion
illness; pain
sadomasochism; fetishes; bodies and pleasures
pregnant embodiment
the racialization of the body; hybrid bodies
monstrosity; the normalization of deformed bodies
ageing
addiction
reading/writing the body
intercorporeality

these topics make you realize that there is more to body modification than tattooing, binding, and is more expansive to be a state of mind rather than being just a state of the body and how you can personnally change and manipulate it, proving that the mind can be as powerful as the actual physical doing of manipulation.

In the Flesh the Cultural Politics of Body Modification
By Victoria Pitts-Taylor
is a book that focuses on the many layers of body modification and where it lies in different cultures, minds, etc. It also speaks about the transfiguration/transition of the body and the endless need for transformation of the self. I would be interested in borrowing/buying the book to furthur read into it.