Video Festival Proposal

Original idea derived from: http://www.videofest.blogspot.com/

to be developed later

Video Festival Proposal

Original idea derived from: http://www.videofest.blogspot.com/

to be developed later

Thingstaken

Natural Fabric Stuffers

http://www.crochetmemories.com/crochet8.php

http://craftingagreenworld.com/2011/07/21/diy-natural-fabric-stiffeners/4/

Oh and they might sell this at Joanne's:

Aleene's® Fabric Stiffener and Draping Liquid 16 oz

This unique product shapes and stiffens fabrics and trims. Thinnable and tintable, use it to stiffen crochet doilies, fabric, lace, ribbons, cheesecloth, and appliques. When dry, it’s water-resistant and easy to paint. Recommended for: Bows, laces, ribbons, trims, doilies, appliques, costumes and fabric.How to use Aleene's® Fabric Stiffener and Draping Liquid
1. Wear gloves to keep hands clean.
2. Use a bowl or bag large enough for your fabric.
3. Pour enough liquid into the bowl to cover fabric.
4. Work liquid into fabric until saturated.
5. Holding fabric over bowl, squeeze out excess liquid.
6. To make a shape, choose a form over which you can drape your saturated fabric. Balloons, bowls, cups, and balls work well. Cover form with protective wrap.
7. While shaping over the form, continue removing excess stiffener.
8. As fabric dries, gently loosen from form.
9. Use a damp cloth for cleanup.
10. While considered permanent, humidity may affect dry time and stiffness
11. Always test for best results.

Tips & Techniques
1.You can tint the stiffener by mixing in a water-based acrylic paint until the desired color is achieved.
2. To thin the stiffener, add up to 50 percent water depending on the type of fabric and stiffness required.
3. Use on ribbons, trims, cheesecloth, doilies, lace, burlap, gauze or any weight fabric.

the quiet american: American Noose series

i'm reworking a project for a class. this was the original output.

heres a picture a rough copy. (its sideways if you can tell)

materials used: cherry wood, fabric, glass, photographs

i was thinking about time and space and relationships to place.

i was also listening to NPR while working with this model.

----- now i've sort of pulled a lot of my ideas together and am thinking about a Patriotic Noose obsession still using some of the ideas i have here but cleaning things up a bit.

i'm moving slowly away from the aesthetics of trying to perfect my ideas and just processing things through. i feel this is a better healthier processing i tink.

How The Color Grows

Hello Folks from the 4th Dimension!


Hope ya'll are having a festive and convival fall quarter. You know what I've learned recently?
That there is never a shortage of ideas. You just never know when they're gonna pop up. Herman Melville wrote once about ideas "they are not down in any map; true places never are."


Welp. I aim to manifest these places.


This post is about my next installation project.


I would like to translate my abstract drawings into three dimensional form.


The Abstract is a space where all kinds of memories abound. And I'm always asking about memory. For example: What the hell does it mean to remember? What does it mean to forget?


Here are some pictures from the early stages of this project. Please offer commentary if you'd like:

• The first two pictures are some drawings I'd like to translate.

• The last three pictures are of the current fabrics, visions, space, and forms I'm working with.

(Everything is at the early phallic looking stage right now.... that's probably because I'm interested in exploring What it means to be a Queer Asian Woman/The hypersexualization of male and female forms...)


(I am really inspired by an art friend JP Neang. And also Shirin Neshat. And Chiharu Shiota. And of course the fabulous Amy Hemmens.)

processes

i would like to learn how to screen print and/or silk screen

or that photo cyanotype thingty

and transfer renaissance humanist paintings onto tights or stockings!!!

Pieter Bruegel

Love Letter #1: There is Beauty in the Handmade

To the Good People of the Earth,

HEY THERE! I hope ya'll are having a festive and convival summer. With the Summer-filled surrogation to Fall and the Halloween holiday quickly ascending upon us, I find myself reminiscing to mind the many blessings and bestowments of the past. I suppose having matriculated to my twenty-third year has provided me with a depth of insight which I am only beginning to excavate. This project "Wolf Moon" is a handmade and vintage endeavor about special memories, family, animals, traveling, and folklore. Have you ever taken an old and discarded object, and used it to prove how amazing the world is?

That is how I feel about fabric. I am pleased as punch when I am surrounded by simple things that have a lot to say. Toilet Paper. My Grandpa's Glasses. Old Sweaters. Cups of Water. Shadows. (All these things represent timelessness, antiquity and sustainability.) There is beauty in the Handmade

Since the month of May I have been reconstructing and deconstructing old raggedy sweaters over and over. It gets annoying alot, making sewing mistakes, sewing up the seams, pulling out the seam. But I pick up that Godforsaken Needle and try again. To those who have been handpicked for this project: Your role is important and necessary. You are the purveyors of folkore. As role models, you will wear the clothes and be placed in an environment that speaks of the past (in a present sort of way). You will embody things within places that are suppose to be lost. For example, the Zapatista Movement, the Filipinos Struggle for Self-Determination and Democracy, the struggle for human rights and dignity; the Palestinians struggle for Equality, Peace, Land, Freedom. You will embody the Animal Spirits that watch over us and guide us. You will represent indigenous cultures on the brink of extinction. New deadline for this photog thingy. Sept 10th. I will have already sketched out the sets for the photoshoots by then. This project will also be in the Summer 2012 Zine I'm gleaning together as we speak. The Zine will also be called Wolf Moon and be devoted to lost or forgotten things and also found objects.

Ruminations are particularly profound when one begins to notice:

every piece plays a

unique role in the fabric of

humanity.

So until around September 10th, here is my pledge to ya'll readersp: you can count on me to be truthful and certifiable in giving honest-to-goodness scoop in two weeks. I will need to be taking your measurements and such before then.

Isulong,, ,,, ,,,The Awkward Pedestrian :)

----Wolff mMoon----

style and spiritual politics

The most frustrating things about sewing sweaters has to be the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing.

sewing from the S(o)u(l)

summer sweater project

Speaking about a Blessing and a Curse: I hate being experimental. Being experimental means i'm always trying to embolden the original thought. My mind enters this mode of expansion and contraction. Everything is Everywhere. Everything is Nowhere. Everything is Lost. Everything is Found. Everything Is. And Everything Isn't. Everything is Illuminated. And Everything is in Darkness.

Creating is like giving birth.

To not be fully organized, to contain the chaos, to develop ideas. This is the struggle of the artist. haha. no, really.

Personally, this sweater thingy is the first project where i'm going to try and implement """time management""" because I would like to follow through with my ideas and meet my deadlines. Managing time is so strange and new to me. I believe there is no time, and time itself was just something fabricated to make sense of the spaces we inhabit. But in any event, and under the current human circumstances, knowing time and living by it is necessary. ;( ;( ;(

this s u m m e r,
one of my main projects is to sew up a bunch of old sweaters and make them look all folksy and shitty in a good way

C O L LEC TING MATERIALS
from may 22-29, i went to a bunch of not-so-random places and found good random&ODD materials @ Crimsom and Clover (16th, bn P & Q). I saw Kara working that day and we talked about the different Saints on this saint charm bracelet I found. Here are some pieces I hunted and gathered that day and some time before:

(P.S. ---- did you know there was a Patron Saint of Cars?)

(P.S. ---- Crimsom&Clovis got cheap stuff if you dig deep and go during sale time. i got hella notions and bits and bobs for like $2 Dineroz!!!)

THOUGHT THINKERING THOUGHT
A rundown of last week and where this project is going:

[i would like to deconstruct a sweater to understand what makes it a sweater
] [i likeyyyy those doily circle tangs cuz they can B cut
and sewn in so many neat ways! ] [continue sewing
dioly tangs tangz on sweaters while watching DVDs] [trace names of revolutionaries and sew them on] [add geometric
shapes] [take classes at Meisners and
learn to sew better like a PROPOR PORKCHOP] [sew one sweater by Saturnday 8pm] [i
like James Luna, look him up] [Deadline for 5
sweatarrrz will be August 5, 5pm] [learn the basics
of silkscreen] [maybe silkscreen can be a good way to
add syntax to the fabric??] [WHOA, SYNTAX might be a
good name for this project] [come up with name for this project!]

AWKWARD NOTATIONS
RANDOM STORES WITH INTERESTING VISUAL DISPLAYS

Also went to Mission and Valencia and finally brows'd The Painted Biiiiiiird , this place was decent in pricewise and so LA, but hipster misappropriations of Native American Art????the headdress? such a stereotypically cultural misappropriation, i mean use it in context and provide some sort of creative insight into the tribe who wears the headdress instead of just using it as a misinformed visual. BUT i did like the way the store was set up, same goes for The Bell Jar

A Lamp and I Making Conversation, The Painted Bird, 2011

the above picture is a good way to make a statement

1) Peterson, Latoya. "Waking Up In America." Racialicious 11 Nov 2008 5 Dec 2008 .

The author of this article talks to Everdayfolk about the outcome of the presidential election and its relationship with how change is subtle after Obama’s election, how things are still the same yet there has been a “shift” somehow. This is relevant to my thesis and has quotes I can use to support my arguments.


2) LeBron, Marisol. "Obama and Myths of Racial Democracy." Racialicious 19 Nov 2008 5 Dec 2008 .

The author of this article discusses the myth of the media’s insistence on a post-racial society. This article has a lots of written and video information that I can use to suppose and maybe even refute my argument.

3)Wenner, Jan S.. "A Conversation With Barack Obama." Rollingstone 7 Jul 2008: 34-39.
This article conveys Barack Obama’s ideologies and conveys his attempts to relate to the younger generation. I can use this in my essay when discussing how Obama has influenced a new generation of people maybe to engage themselves more in American politics.

4) Hawley, John C.. Postcolonial and queer theories : intersections and essays . Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001.
This book discusses certain islands of identities in depth so that I can learn more about the backgrounds of how race and sexuality played among the outcome of the 2008 election.

5) Vasil, Raj K.. Politics in bi-racial societies : the Third World experience . New York: Advent Books, 1984.
This books discusses race relations in developing countries and I may utilize this text to parallel America’s relationship with race and compare our current racial relationships to other countries’.

6) Dupuis, Martin. Barack Obama, the new face of American politics . Westport: Praeger, 2008.
This book will aid me in understanding and learning more about Barack Obama’s presidential expectations and potential.

7)Rabushka, Alvin. A theory of racial harmony.. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1974.
This book will help interconnect my argument toward more optimistic patterns concerning America’s future.

8) Shulman, George. American prophecy : race and redemption in American political culture . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
This books seems very relevant to my thesis on the politics of racial theory in the outcome of the 2008 elections and will strongly reinforce my arguments.

9) Marentes, Luis A.. José Vasconcelos and the writing of the Mexican Revolution . New York: Twayne Publishers, 2000.
This book seems to talk in depth about racial theory and I can broaden my thesis to other realms of culture that spans beyond black and white.
10) Glover, Terry. "Can Michelle Be America's Hostess." Ebony JET 26 Nov 2008 5 Dec 2008 .
I can use this article to as a rebuttal against my paper, but I will have a lot to say against it because I disagree with the author that the Black First Lady, Michelle Obama, is not merely America’s “hostess”.





Jessica Ortanez
Flamer-Banks
AFRS 214
4 December 2008
Research Paper Proposal
My tentative title is: Encountering the Cross-currence of Meltingpot Dreams. This election enlightens a cross-racial/cultural feminism through a Black first lady and Black First Daughters that subsequently promote a redefinition of beauty among the women of America both past, present and future: the beauty of difference.
The preliminary issue that I will extend in this essay is how the multi-media has conditioned Americans to perceive beauty. Whether it be on television, or in Vogue magazine, the stores we go to purchase items for our wardrobes, the beauty departments at Macy’s- all of these things affect our conceptual frameworks about the double-consciousness of both being a Womyn and one of color-fullness too.
I will use information from such blogs that promote a general awareness and activism towards Womyn of color issues. Racialicious, A Woman’s Ecdysis, Queer women of Color, Angry Black Woman, La Chola… all of these blogs I will use as my online evidence in discussing Womyn of color perceptions of beauty.
(A subtle issue I will discuss how Obama’s campaign for Change is really a statement to be reckoned with because when race and politics intermingle you have to acknowledge the truth about these relationships in the most sincerest ways to really promote decolonized change--- this I will try to relate to my thesis by showing how we first have to acknowledge and accept that America has a problem with with Womyn of Color beauty (and will continue to do so) before we can allow for transformation among these things to take place. This is also the rebuttal I will openly discuss in my paper concerning the parallels that White Feminists may have in retaliation to the opening up of this new colorfull beauty corridor of this Era.
--------------------------------------- notes
Speaking of both civil rights and gender rights, Michelle Obama said, “I stand here at the cross-currence of that dream.”

After my desperate and fruitless hunt for street parking, I managed to elegantly schlep through wild lawn grass (which looks like it hasn’t been trimmed for weeks) and make my way across the naked, tree-laden courtyards to enter the most tourist-filled paradise: DeYoung!! Eager to finally explore the Jolika collection of New Guinea, I carefully walk up the stairway towards a New Guinea sort-of-heaven. But this heaven was different. Dimly lit and quiet. I guess that’s what you expect from a museum that over-advertises its designer couture collections rather than its collection of Oceanic artistry spanning centuries…
The atmosphere is mystical. There are artifacts placed in positions that command your attention, placed up high to instill a sort of “Godly” fear from those who dare to stare them down! I look around again and again, and it feels like some pieces are just floating in the air. I become entranced. There is a potent magic in the air when you feel as if you are a part of this exhibitionist ritual in a space where ancient New Guinea art looks at you with 1000 eyes while you only get to look with two eyes. Now that’s what I call entoptic phenomena!
Each artifact was displayed either in a glass case, mounted openly (without glass isolation), or both. And almost every object was illuminated by a single spot light… like the ones you see lighting up actors in a Shakespearian play. The symbolism behind this specialized lighting may be to “unique-ify” artifacts, and imply how each one speaks differently, tells something different that only the spectator can know only through their most reasoned imaginations. (Here I say “reasoned” imaginations because you are essentially given a tiny morsel of historical name-plate like information as you ponder each artifact… therefore, you are hermeneutically limited in your imaginations as well.)
Modernity was the foundation(ADD THIS LATER ON)
A reoccurring motif among this collection indicated a deeply rooted spiritual culture in the world of New Guinea inhabitants. As one typed description stated, “Ancestral spirits, recently and long deceased, were venerated almost everywhere in New Guinea.”
Ancestors are recreated or depicted or implied through an eclectic array of artifacts like skulls, hook sculpture, masks, hair and dance ornaments. Warfare and/or hunting is implied through masks (which serve as guardians for protection or “aggressive devices”) and very long spears. It is fairly apparent that the different peoples of New Guinea were hunter gatherers (hence the display of the “hunting amulet”). An example is the Abelam who subsisted off of mostly yam and sago. There is also a definite penchant for intricately beautiful woodcarving skill among the peoples of New Guinea. Nothing seemed un-inspired, everything was created with detail and many artifacts were painted. Maybe woodcarving is an artistic tradition within certain cultures of the different people of New Guinea?
Hooks are prevalent in this collection. I was in awe over an artifact labeled “Cult hook.” This hook had a small description beneath it stating: “suspension hooks were hung from the interior beams of houses to keep personal and religious objects or food out of reach from flooding or rats.” I am guessing this was their form of a multi-purpose refrigerator? If so, this is a technological form that shows these peoples were way beyond their time!
In a few pieces, there are explicit references to canoe transportations. The Biwat people, who lived by the Yuat River, transported their produce to markets by means of canoes. The wooden paddles on display were also an overt implication of this type of transport.
Some artifacts imply head hunting embedded in certain cultures not only because of their descriptions but from the abstract and concrete head imagery among many artifact such as decorated skulls and artifacts where the head is large and/or prominent from the artifacts bodily entirety.
The documentation of the exhibit gives rough, approximate estimates of each artifact (I.e. 19th century, 18th century, 1490-1660- with a C14 dating of 94.5% probability), some artifacts have unknown dates. The provenance of the artifacts had no exact location, but were moreso implied through regional areas. So yes, in a way, one is able to determine where most artifacts came from, but anything more than that is a up to the individual to research and collect by themselves.
Some of the oldest artifacts were the stone tools. The female suspension hook was also fairly ancient (1330-1470 with a C-14 95.14% probability) A Male figure from the Middle Yuat River region was also fairly ancient (1280-1400). Accelerator Mass spectrometry was helpful in dating these artifacts.
This collection really emphasized the “ancestral spiritual” aspects of certain New Guinea cultures.

Happy Sad Birthday

and we swam
in the red cups
filled with
soda

we swam so deep
bubbles fizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzed up
to our ears

my older sister
chewslapping bubble gum
AND i couldn't hear
her chewslaps

unfamiliar family running
tumbling
eating
wah wah wah-ing
the numbing sound imbues

and birthday boy lays on a big brown couch

with no friends to talk to

with no happy

just birthday

and cousinslike flies surrounding his once empty room, now full,
still empty, a red cup with no soda, a white paper plate with no rice nor adobo nor macaroni salad

i despise macaroni salad

macaroni salad fiends need a smoke
or two
three
ten
eleven
i
cant
stop
smoking
i
need
to
party
and
get
fucked
up
because
im
stupid

or just lazyliketheweedsinmyneverendingsoulfulabysslyingonagrave-ishbrowncouch

happy 18TH birthday.


(what have you done to make your life better?)
-------------------------------
(what is written here is based on an actual event NutMeg foresaw at a recent family birthday gathering for her cousin)

i'm high enough from all the waiting, to ride a wave on your inhaling

lately, i've been feeling scratchy. Si, scratchy, not just plain itchy. its feels as if the scratches are catalcylsmic evils bouncing from my unshaven shins to my mouth's duplex with throat and tongue.

lately, no one, nothing seems to motivate this nineteen-year-young who looks more like fifteeny.

she's sad for no reason, but it's going away now,she says.

A good friend, a great mom, and a bitchin quote turned thoughts into movement that flows like sips of water, permeating her system, red nile water, cleansing her stone heart.

some inspiring slice of pie from the pages of Tanuja Desai Hidier's Born Confused:
---Sometimes eveything feels so huge.
---So nebulous, he said. --I know. But I've usually found making one decision can clear up all the clouds, the way one ray of sun can light a dark room. It's funny, but it's true.