progress/process
to {progress} i must {process}
{last} february
Around this time last year, my friend from wayne, hayla hay, came to me with an idea for her curatorial debut – g i r l h o o d . an exhibition at the detroit artists market exploring each artists interpretation and history with the expansive theme of girlhood, mixing the work of emerging artists and established detroit artists for a show culminating in a show featuring how race, family, religion and general upbringing can shape ones perspective of girlhood.
I was thrilled to be included in this, and to work with a subject matter that is very up-my-alley. I usually start my art-making process by writing down all of my initial ideas, which was no different this time around. I spent a lot of time thinking about my childhood, my mother, looking at old photos of myself, reflecting on being a weird little girl.
A common thread throughout all of my ideas was the overwhelming loneliness i faced growing up – i felt misunderstood amongst my peers and inherently judged by the conservative, religious beliefs of my household and church. Up until writing this, i didn’t necessarily see loneliness as the common link, but taking a step back, i see the effects of adolescent blues and all of my time spent alone in these works.
I narrowed down my list of ideas to a manageable four paintings and one quilt and started to brainstorm.
{change} is hard
As much as i was itching to start new paintings, i was, shortly after the meeting with hayla, gearing up to move out of my studio at 556 custer and move into the russell. And at the same time, i was getting ready to move apartments. For my own sanity, i waited until my moves were over to begin.
A year {long} process, unpacking girlhood
Often, when i’m getting ready to collage a composition i will look into all of my saved images on my computer, google drive, etc. i have a bunch of reference photos of myself, random images from the internet, scannings of clippings i find, you name it. i keep my ideas everywhere. Due to the pixelation i love to use, i often have to do these collages digitally, because no, unfortunately, i do not naturally see the world in pixels.
Since i had a year-ish to make the work for the detroit artist market, i really wanted to get my mind focused on the subject matter – when i was in the studio i was curating a playlist that brought up some feelings about growing up which you can listen to here. I listened to this playlist over and over again during the last months that i was working on these pieces.
When i didn’t listen to this playlist, i listened to audiobooks – specifically Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, Who’s Afraid of Gender? and Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity. Although none of these titles particularly emphasize girlhood, they each had an overarching theme that helped in the creation of this work - childhood/the role of parents, gender/reactionary politics, and finally neurodiversity/being deemed {d i f f e r e n t} .
these are some behind-the-scenes and work-in-progress photos from this last year working on these pieces. Some of you may have heard the pipes burst at the detroit artist market, so the exhibition has been relocated to be shown at The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD). which is a CRAZY sentence to be typing. i wrote the majority of this before we finalized the details, but now i can {formally} invite you all to come to the opening on march 14th, from 5-8pm. hayla promised me to not reveal all of my pieces before the exhibition, and i’m a man of my word, so you’ll just have to come see in person first ;-) !
{intermission}: i’ve never been to the {west} coast
In the midst of my process creating work for the detroit artists market, i got a lovely little instagram dm from an art collective + magazine called club rambutan based in san francisco and phoenix inquiring for me to apply for their third zine / cohort of artists. I don’t know anything about the west coast, i’ve never been, but it was a really cool feeling to know that somehow, somewhere, someone on their team saw my work and reached out. Very epic. And unlike most opportunities, the application fee was literally like… 5 bucks. Very epic.
“If you’ve seen those memes about every family having one emo, gay cousin you’ve had a glimpse into my life – growing up in a conservative, catholic household as a budding queer, radical woman was very isolating and brought on feelings of shame and ostracization.” -from my application
From august til december, i was in communication with the club rambutan team and the other artists in the cohort and was tasked with creating a brand new piece for them to feature in their upcoming magazine. Myself and the other artists had meetings with various team members who specialized in different areas of the magazine. We had one-on-ones with the creative director, meetings with the other artists, shared our works in progress, and were given many artist resources as the months went on.
They then announced the theme of this edition was/is… identity! Once again a fitting theme for me, but i do think i put a lot of pressure on myself to make it something crazy and exciting and new for me, which eventually just stressed me out and i panic chose my final idea because i was running out of T I M E.
I thought about my identity in terms of intersectionality and how each “piece” of my identity made up the “puzzle” of who i am. My initial digital collage had puzzle pieces with different image-transfers of people/places/anything that i felt like shaped me into the person i am today, which i didn’t go with, but i think is something i want to revisit (maybe outside of the context of a puzzle piece). I ended up making an entirely pixelated portrait of myself, with different puzzle pieces on top highlighting different parts of my face. I titled the work, Missing Piece.
I had a great experience with Club Rambutan and would recommend applying for their next cohort if you get the chance. (*edit as of 3/4 the next cohort application is LIVE!!!) Especially if you’re an artist coming out of college, I found the gentle instruction/guiding to be reminiscent of a chill art class. They also throw a sick launch party in SF + Phoenix if you or anyone you know are local to the area. You can also buy a physical copy online here.
Un{til} next time
For fear of this month’s newsletter being really fucking long – i’ll call it a day. Next time, I’ll talk more about creating during the winter, quilting, and my non-painting projects. I hope to see you at the opening of Girlhood! Take care!
{connections}
my connections/resources has gotten too long for {e}mail so now i will share it via google doc here!! i’ll add new things from time to time so check in every now and then :-)