To you,
I’m trying my best not to be embarrassed.
Because it’s all for myself
for fun.
And to tell you the truth, I would rather play dress-up than defend my work in an academic setting.
I’ve always just gone about making things I wanted to see or poke fun at. I veered off this way of creation for some time at university but am trying to return to this impulse and after reflection type of process.
My medium changes with every project I make, however a sense of organisation and display comes from my initial studies in art which were photography. I like to dress my work up in a way that may feel contrived because I was trained to make it look nice.
Organisation also comes from the rules I set up to conduct each project. These rules create an arena for me to work within and dictate my physical movements while making the work.
It’s about perception and taste.
I’m wondering what happens when a learned performance becomes so ingrained that you can no longer scrape it off your skin.
I use to lie a lot.
I was the only American kid in a British school and I told everyone I was from Malibu. Education was effectively spat at you. I liked to leave the classroom to wander around the halls and look at school publications from previous years. Then I’d return having come up with a tragic incident that happened somewhere in the hallway between the classroom and the water closet. But I never spoke a word of these stories or in general which left teachers calling my mother to ask if I was mute.
I liked when we were tasked to replicate a painting we saw on a visit to the Tate. I chose ‘A bigger splash” by Hockney. In my head this painting was America.
I liked art class
geography lessons
lunchtime and swapping stickers.
I liked “Victorian Day” when we would pretend we time travelled, dress up in 1800s attire and kids were taken outside class to get slapped with rulers. We would tea stain paper to falsify a sense of age and then decorate these with cursive writing.
I liked to research all the places in London that I thought were American and pretend I’d grown up going there every weekend.
Lucky Seven Diner
Bowling at All-star Lanes
Roller Disco in Vauxhall
and of course Arcades
I like riding horses for the silent communication between the rider and horse. They can feel fear through a saddle. But what I love most is the look of a dapple grey horse in boots. HOT
After a series of incidents at an American school.
Anytime I left my house it all became a performance.
Art class became the place to look at things I liked, or dress the way I desired.
Photography, to go up to strangers and speak to them.
Making magazines, to gather a group of people together outside of school.
I like looking in the art library but I don’t read anything except Sophie Calle. It’s her work that I’ve studied since high school. I like the way she acts on an impulse, finding an address book and calling every number or following a stranger until she loses them. I read J.G Ballard’s books for his snarky one liners about the English upper class and descriptions of scenery. And to feel like I’m home when I’m away.