Saturday 27 March 2010

A Note I Wrote to Myself in Preparation for My Degree Show in 2001

How to present the 'Take Out' project is not a question of how to present the photographs, but how to present my intentions.  The 'hanging' of the piece has become more crucial and more integral to the work.  How the practicalities are negotiated reflects on the work.

I must not aim for perfect or bombastic just because its a "show" (ditch the tap dancers then) but must think of how the idea is best translated into 3D space.

Thursday 25 March 2010

They All Had Glamour

Sometimes I get so confused. I don't know where to start and start in the place I know: the middle.  I know for certain that I was trying to piece an idea from out of the tangle, I had to get hold of the thread and follow it, pull it apart from the others.  I knew it involved photographing; portraits.  

I have to get my camera out, I have to practise with it, what if I have forgotten how to work it?  What if I can't borrow lights and a tripod?  Will I have to buy my own?  I don't think I can, I blew all my money on three 1950s style wrap dresses, which are en route over the Atlantic now, they sent me an email.  

What if I can't work this idea loose, if it sticks together with all the others like cooked spaghetti left in the pan?  I won't be able to tell Jaspar about it, he will think I don't get ideas, that I don't work on them; he will think I don't think.  

I was in the theatrical bookshop off Charing Cross two weeks ago, there was a large book I wanted, but I was erming and ahhing about the cost: £25, I didn't know if I could afford it; but I wanted it and I didn't get it.  On the train home, I realised how important the book was, I realised I had to take glamourous photographs, not of myself, of the other residents.  They are pre-selected you see.  I don't think I knew when I was on the train that I was going; I just hoped.  

The book was called "They All Had Glamour".

Thursday 18 March 2010

The Personal is Political!

Here are the first few paragraphs from the introduction of 'Sisterhood is Powerful' by Robin Morgan (1970) Vintage Books

"Introduction: A Woman's Revolution

This book is an action.  It was conceived, written, edited, copy-edited, proofread, designed, and illustrated by women... During the year that it took to collectively create this anthology, we women involved had to face specific and very concrete examples of our oppression, with regard to the book itself, that simply would not have occurred in putting together any other kind of collection.  Because of the growing consciousness of women's liberation, and, in some cases, because of articles that women wrote for the book, there were not a few "reprisals": five personal relationships were severed, two couples were divorced and one separated, one woman was forced to withdraw her article, by the man she lived with: another's husband kept rewriting the piece until it was unrecognizable as her own; many of the articles were late, and the deadline kept being pushed further ahead, because the authors had so many other pressures on them--from housework to child care to jobs.  More than one woman had trouble finishing her piece because it was so personally painful to commit her gut feelings to paper.  We were also delayed by occurrences that would not have been of even peripheral importance to an anthology written by men: three pregnancies, one miscarriage, and one birth--plus one abortion and one hysterectomy.  Speaking from my own experience, which is what we learn to be unashamed of doing in women's liberation, during the past year I twice survived the almost-dissolution of my marriage, was fired from my job (for trying to organise a union and for being in women's liberation), gave birth to a child, worked on a women's newspaper, marched and picketed, breast-fed the baby, was arrested on a militant women's liberation action, spent some time in jail, stopped wearing makeup and shaving my legs, started learning Karate, and changed my politics completely.  That is, I became, somewhere along the way, a "feminist" committed to a Women's Revolution"

Friday 5 March 2010

New Pointe Shoes

I don't know, I can't explain, I don't have answers.  I found a new ballet class, with a good pointe class after it, and I did it again.  I wore my Gaynor Mindens and they were too tight.  So I bought a new pair. Half a size larger, and with a wider box.  I am 31 and I bought another pair of pointe shoes.  Part of me thinks it is practice; dancing ballet and pointe.  And another part of me despairs.  Oh but then they first part of me thinks - ha! I can dance en pointe in unexpected places, like giving a conference paper?

Wednesday 3 March 2010

Dressing in An Image Based World

When I think back to life between 17-23 years, I think about how I managed to maintain being size 12, and also, certainly up to the age of 21, how much flesh I used to bare.  I also remember talk of images of young models, how inappropriate they were.  You see, I could not imagine an identity beyond being a young woman, so the constant images of young women I was surrounded by did not register; I saw my own identity amongst them.  And I also misread them, I thought they were saying, this IS you, this IS how you should be and look.  I saw the pictures in Vogue, Marie Claire or even dare I confess it, More, and saw them as blueprints to re-create.  It did not occur to me that these were outfits designed to opperate in the context of a photoshoot, not streetwear. 

And now I as I see girls in stripper heels braving the cold with very little on, I smile to myself.  One day, they will realise the benefits of long-sleeved thermal vests from M & S.