Professional Practices

Abstract

My spring gallery, Feral Feminism and Other Stories, begins where my English SIP (Senior Integrated Project), i’d kill a man for you, started. And that 60+ page monster started with a lot of pain. Emotional and physical abuse that took moving 1,600 miles away from my family to really come to a head. And my first coping mechanism was writing, pressing printer paper to the wounds, and then letting the bloodied words flow. Embroidery has, traditionally, been an undervalued ‘feminine’ art that housewives, young women, and girls were expected and encouraged to learn. And, because if it’s ties with the homebound femme, it was looked down upon. Painting was seen in a similar way in my family, as something to do just so long as it doesn’t become what you bet your bread and butter on. Because then you were dumber than a fool and of no use to anyone. As someone fairly good at either, it's a natural leap in mind to meld the two into what I hope to be a feminine and angry voice. My earlier work shows just as much with red and black taking the main stage in all my pieces, colors that I later learned to be a bit more tactful about later, but still have special importance to me in regards to the feral feminine. So, embroidery and painting has always just melded together for me, not unlike the way two wallflowers decide to ditch a school dance together, hand in hand. Blurbs and titles were how I melded the art and writing in a way that wasn’t overbearing or narrowing. Because you don’t need to read to ‘read’ my artwork. It helps, sure, but I hope I was able to convey the feelings properly enough so that those who get it feel comforted by the ideas there. It's because of that that I don’t like to think of both my SIP and my gallery as ‘bodies’ of work. Bodies are systems upon systems that, if any one thing goes wrong, it can all collapse. And that’s not only anxiety-inducing to try and create towards, but it also implies a kind of codependency in between pieces that I’ve had enough of that in my life, thank you.