Thursday a.m. Idea Post 10/15

Lately I have been thinking over the idea of juxtaposing an act of freeing oneself and then placing the documentation of that act in a place of confinement. A place where in many cultures a woman is told is her place where she should stay. Yes in the states women have gained more respect and are given more opportunities to make a career and a future for themselves independently. The traditional, marry and stay at home with the children, has now expanded to the new woman of today. The multi-tasker, the superwoman, the mother, the wife, the caretaker, and the office manager or CEO at her work. This is today here but this is not reality in places outside of the U.S.

When I did my first performance, as I talked about in my last blog, I attempted to embody my character. To emotionally capture and feel the stiffness of my situation and what about my life and social conditions that I am having a problem with while acting as a Japanese Geisha. I watched several performance videos by the Geisha and tried to take in who they are on stage and what it is that they are saying and performing. When I put myself on my own outdoor stage I then became a suppressed human with needs and wants to be free.

When I had my first meeting with Jeff he had something jarring to say about my previous collection that I believe is what tipped me off into heading into this direction I currently am. As he was reviewing through my previous work he was drawing these domestic homely correlations from them. For example my piece in the field hurdling over all the furniture he took as a woman trying to make it through and beyond all these household items and not getting stuck in the process. The other performance he made that correlation to was the indoor performance that depicted layers of a problem using layers of clothing. He saw the articles of clothing all around the figure as weight, domestic weight. He saw the figure drowning in her laundry/responsibilities/life. I am starting to see the connections and feel that continuing in the direction that I am could be a good place and also keep my work cohesive between the two semesters.