Performancing Sexed Interactions, A Muddy Mastery Performance Series

Abstract

“As my body experiences, I see a reflection of both pleasure and frustration as I interact with the material world. I have considered and acted upon materials in various performances, installations and processes as I think about my personal sexuality as a woman. Contemporary society exposes us to a manipulative and controlling framework mainly through media images and messages. The convoluted and contradictory depictions often leave me with messy conceptions of gender and sexuality for which I continue to poke and prod. My relationship to clay is just as complicated. When I interact with this material body, I do not attempt to discover what it can build, I desire to unfold the complexities of its consistency in relation to my corporeal experience. Why does aggression appear over and over as a ‘theme’ of my work? Is this unusual for a woman? Where do active/dominant roles appear between bodies? Where/when does submission take place? How do our thoughts/reactions speak to our sexual identity? In A Muddy Mastery, I manipulate and exploit using sensual, aggressive, and impulsive actions for which clay will hold in its memory. Letting time run its course with the clay, it dries out; it breaks down and reconstitutes to be used again. This ephemeral process emulates the constant defiance and struggle with the mainstream allegations toward a free woman. I find myself in a constant cycle of acceptance, rejection and redefinition for which someday I hope to solidify on a basis of acceptance for these differences I feel from what is ‘normal.’”