Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Baudelaire was Way Cool

"To be just, that is to say, to justify its existence, criticism should be partial, passionate and political, that is to say, written from an exclusive point of view, but a point of view that opens up the widest horizons."

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Some fun in between the working and the progress.

It has been a busy fall for me.  In many subtle ways I am looking for balance in the simple completion of tasks (this week I sorted and cleaned and mended every sweater I own, case in point!).  Things I can accomplish in one sitting that will help me to feel empowered as I enter the next phase of applications/proposals that are just a little bigger than the ones I have previously applied for... New work cycle...

I am also reading a great deal.  All summer long I was sick with the desire to read and read and read.  I suspect this came from having next to zero time to sit and even look at words.  Looking at words is something we do every day, for many of us it is all we do all day, I hope to never take my literacy for granted again.  As a solution I am reading three books right now. Two are books of essays about Art and Craft, and the third is a densely written autobiography that I thought I should read because I do not often read autobiographies and it helps to keep the art/art theory dialogue in check.

The first book, Barbara Caruso's 'Wording the Silent Art', is currently on the top of the stack as it recently fell into my hands and I don't want to put it down.  I really enjoy the way she neatly presents her ideas, and how she offers insight that is both critical and reasonable.   I will likely have more to say on the book when I complete it.  Right now I am impressed and wish that she were still around so I could follow her on twitter, and re-tweet the intelligent things she would have to share with the world.
Reasonable, somehow I think that all her tweets would be very reasonable.

The second book is another collection of essays published by YYZ in 1998- I was still in high school when 1998 happened!!  Hooray for YYZ!  Maybe if you aren't doing anything with your life tomorrow you will read this and decide to visit them, I hope you do.  The book is called 'Material Matters, The Art and Culture of Contemporary Textiles'.  I found it in a thrift shop and decided to get it because the topic was so close to my heart, that and there was a creepy super weird picture of a child in it that I could not help but want to own and wonder about.  I have been thrilled with this find as much of the writing is useful to my own work/research on the language of craft.  It is nice to have a reference for the work that has come before me, mostly to help me not feel alone and second mostly so that I may have a small foothold of support theoretically.

The autobiography, is Gandhi. I thought that because I did not often read autobiographies that I should start with a big, good one.  Then I was gifted a chapters gift card. Then while in the store I realized I had enough money for two whole books!!  Soo naturally I decided to pick 2 biographical books and compare the individuals lives and values.  The other person in my comparative study is Coco Chanel.  I am going to discover if there are any common things between Gandhi and Coco, judging by both of their followings today, I think I can!

Well now that you have read all that I will thank you with some juicy new pictures I have been playing with in my spare time.  I am really just making pretty things that I would later like to reproduce in other media. So enjoy them now for the sake of enjoyment.  One of them is a self portrait. Can you guess the one?