Touch

Touch is a full body experience that can be applied to the other senses. When my neice was enjoying this watermelon and laughing and covered in watermelon juice it was not only adorable, but she was really using all her senses. The skin is the biggest organ in our body and I think children are so messy because they are still so enthralled and everything is so new and fun to them.

Body Sculpture

I originally wanted to make my body sculpture primarily of sand and found objects at the beach and tried multiple times to capture the tide changing my sculpture by washing it away. This is a photo from my first attempt.


Final body Sculpture

The idea evolved over time to something I could control more, but still had the same concept of my sculpture disappearing and leaving me nude. I got inspiration form Yoko Ono's Cut Piece and Marina Abromavics Rhythm 0. I reversed the video because I thought it was more interesting to view it backwards and gave it a more magical effect, making it less obvious what was actually happening. The song "Sip o Poison" by Cherry Glazzer is the music in the background which I chose because it has a similar sound to the hair dryer which was the actual noise this project mad and I get an empowering feminist feel from the lyrics.

Memento Mori

I chose matches, super glue, and various wrist bands from The Spirit of Suwanee Music Park to represent the memories I have camping at music festivals with my family, hanging out around the campfire, and our tight bond even for a large family.

Susanne Stewart's "On Longing"

"The body is the primary mode of perceiving scale."

These delicious giant blueberries gave me perspective, especially when using my hand to perceive how large they are.

"Capacity of objects to serve as traces of authentic experience."

 

This cardboard sign was made as a last minute attempt to try and get pit tickets to a Rebelution show that all my friends already had tickets for. I waited for hours outside the concert and at the last second scored a pit ticket. I still have the sign in case I need it to work its magic again.

"The souvenir reduces the public, the monumental, and the 3D into the miniature, which can be enveloped by the body." 

Saving a flower and drying it out is a habit  I got from my mother. I think its a way to save a kind gesture from someone instead to just throw the flowers away when they wilt.

"Nostalgia cannot be sustained without loss."

I loved my cat, LouCat. I had him for about 3 years and he ran away my first winter in St. Aug. I think hes out there getting cute cats pregnant and ballin' out.

"To have a souvenir of the exotic is to possess both a specimen and a trophy."

I didn't get to keep this painting but it was a group project I did at a nudist festival with random young nudists. Andrew was the one who brought the supplies so he kept it but since then I have brought supplies to create one with strangers at every naked event since then. Its always a fun keepsake and I love getting people who don't see themselves as artists involved. 

"The place of origin must remain unavailable in order for desire to be generated."

Going to the Suwanee River a few times a year is always a magical experience. I think if I lived closer to it I would take its beauty for granted like I do the beach. 

Altered Soap Sculpture

Soap Alterations

Additive:Nail hammered into head to signify stun gun

 

Additive:Tied up and hung upside down

Subtractive: Slit throat

Additive: Added red ink to slit to signify being bled out

Subtractive: Scalding water bath for 6 minutes

Subtractive: Accidentally poured soap water mixture down drain when trying to pour into cool container.

 

Remaining soap piece in strainer and soap mixture in vase

Additive: Chia seeds and nail added to soap mixture.

Response to Janine Antoni "Loss and Desire"

I love Janine Antoni's use of soap and chocolate to show the controversial expectations and assumptions of women. I interpret her use of soap as making a statement about how women are expected to always be clean, pure, and to smell like butterflies. I think her use of chocolate and the act of gnawing away at it, signifies the stereotype that women love chocolate , crave it during menstruation but are expected to uphold a "perfect" body, which of course we all know chocolate is full of sugar and milk fat. I like that she plays and juxtaposes these stereotypes and societal pressures on women to make a feminist statement.