All work and no play makes for a very cranky king. Lately I have been super-busy with work (riding with a tight rein, pulling the classes back into order), school (lots of writing for my classes, plus grading the essays for my TA class), and home-life (mainly driving all over the south with the boy, going on adventures, pondering the upcoming potential date etc). Basically, I wake up early, work all day, come home and work or obsess about work in the evening. What I haven't done in over a week is have a night to play- sit and escape with videos, make things.
Last night I *should* of been good and dutiful and write my comparison of progressive vs. reconstructionest education, or do my textbook reviews or snuggle in with some lovely art appreciation essays.... but I was bad. bad. bad. bad- in a most excellent way.
It was raining, cold- I made tea and bread and actually *did* work until about 6 when the devil got aholt of me! I decided that I really needed a night off... so I put Angel on the video (watched 5 episodes!!!! Hedonistic!!!!) went through some of my newly acquired auction book-stuff, and settled in to make some art. I ended up with two things- the frog isn't finished, the other might be (not sure yet)....
The not-frog is a collage on masonite- I started with pages from one of the medical books showing a diagram of the brain (top left thing that is now blue/purple with the red spot) with labels on the parts that have to do with hormone release, hysteria, and sexuality (remember this book is from the 50's). The man at a desk and machine-like apparatus is from the same book- it is a breathing treatment room where the fumes of sulfuric acid and piped in as a lung treatment. (I'd rather be sick than smell sulfuric acid...think rotten eggs) I suppose they figured, 'hey, sulfuric acid clears out drain pipes, why not lungs?'.... I layered up with water colors, colored pencils and sepia- making the brain into a tentacled octopus/root thing. Modpodge, luminex, doveink and turquoise...I made it intuitively, with no real plan.
What the interpretation now is- well, the back text (with the brain) was on brain function and male/female sexuality and attraction. The combination with the breathing machine is two fold- the natural response of altered breathing when people are attracted to each other (want to know if someone likes you? watch their nostrils. They will unconsciously flare a bit...left over reaction from sniffing each others scent) and my alteration of breathing when I am stressed (I hold my breath or breathe heavily...I didn't realize it until my ever-observant students pointed it out) . Anyway, the left side- brain- is very organic, twisting, female. Receptive, overpowering, flowing. The right side- the man-in-the-box- is very structured, machinelike, logical. Sealed off. With the pumps and gaskets and gauges, it could also reference the machine-like qualities of men... when their 'gauges start going' they get 'pumped up', then 'blow a gasket' and..... (sorry about the slightly creepy euphemisms, but you get the idea!). The unconscious mind is a beautiful thing and I bet the original artist of these diagrams never thought that a breathing machine could be related to sex.
The frog... half of a chopstick box, painted over with luminex, collaged, repainted frog... additions of doveink, crushed rose hips, pink salt and magnetic gold sand. So there is a little bit of magic going on. The whole prince charming thing, which is *not* what I set out to do... I was thinking of all the peepers that have just started calling in the ditches, and our little green sticky frogs on the windows. But then it turned into prince charming, and then- oddly enough- when I was putting on the gold sand the auction-guy called. Of course, he has one of those low register southern voices so I couldn't hear him on the phone...sigh. dangit. But we are going to meet at the auction on Saturday and make plans for the date-thing. After he finished talking and I finished saying "What?" (good thing that he has a sense of humor!) I realized that I had been turning the frog into a prince-charming-charm. NOT intended, but the unconscious does as it pleases....
No comments:
Post a Comment