The End to the Dec Review Drama

So how was it? Umm... interesting. "Interesting" is what my father says when my mother cooks something he doesn't care for. Reviews are something necessary and valuable, but no one says "wow, when can we do that again- that was great."

The set up that Hannah and I created was the best possible in order for me to feel as comfortable as I can be in these situations and I'm really grateful that it was an option. For me to not give in to my urge to bail which would have been bad for everyone, I really needed the understanding and support which i received :)

I was really worried about timing because in both practices I had stopped to ask questions during it and had no idea if my timing would be off. It turned out just fine- I ended at 20 min 11 sec.

I have mixed feelings about the comments. Some seemed helpful and it was interesting to see what was taken away by people that aren't me. However, I felt some comments were unrealistic and if I followed them I'd be sacrificing quality strictly for conceptual reasons, which I am not willing to do... ever.

The first comment I received referred to the tattoo lamp and referenced how in the holocaust they killed jews in a specific way so that they could be skinned and their skin used for lamps since their skin was tattooed. There was an awkward silence as they waited for my reaction. I am politically and historically retarded, so I'm not surprised that I had no knowledge of this. I think it's an important thing to be aware of but I feel that the artistic choices I made made it obvious that I was not making a statement about that and I think that's ok. I did search for other tattoo lamps while I was making mine and I'm not the first person to make a lamp like this since the Nazi's. If my audience thinks I'm a Nazi I suppose I'll have to deal with that but I have no desire to make a statement about the holocaust. I believe that the majority of people would not think of the holocaust when viewing my work.

A comment was made questioning my photo choices that I used in my slides. I had good reasons for my choices and since the comment only referred to my work previous to the start of the term, I am trying to forget it was said. I made my choices in order to have clarity and use time wisely so that I could get to the more important issue- my IP project. Let's stay productive shall we? You need to when you only have 20 minutes to explain a college career that started in 2003!

I continually heard things like "you're playing it too safe" or "you're not taking any risks" or "you're not letting yourself be vulnerable." I've found that if a work is too personal, you get asked to verbally explain it more but the more personal you make your work, the more uncomfortable yo are with answering any questions. If I could ship my work to a gallery and have it viewed with no explanation, I'd gladly make work that disturbs and confuses you all. However, that's not going to happen in this setting of academia because silence is not an option. Right now I'm straddling that line of making work that is meaningful to me and my existence but doesn't dig too deep. I guess it's a choice I have to think about.

I was asked why I'm making work about myself and yet I'm not the one in the photographs. The answer: I considered that and found it to be impossible. I cannot be a model and a photographer. I have no desire to do self portraits, and I loathe trying to direct someone else to capture my vision- I'm too picky and I want the visual control besides the fact that if I don't take the photos I don't feel like it's even my own work. With tattooing in particular- I do not have money to spend getting tattooed at this point in time. My camera takes 2 hands to operate and when you're getting tattooed you're too focused on trying breathe and trying not to move so that you don't have messed up artwork on you for the rest of your life. I'm not going to accidentally move while being tattooed because I was trying to take a picture. Not happening people.

I was extremely happy to hear Lisa's suggestions as far as materials other than that this particular film is hard to find and expensive...

I'm curious to read the written comments in order to see the whole picture instead of the few things that were shared in the moment.

So that's my longer version of "it was fine" with an expression of horror on my face.