2:49 p.m. - 2005-03-08
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Wow. I haven't updated in days! I have been totally in my own little world.
It's a strange little world. Every once in awhile some event will rise to the surface and I'll take notice, but most of the time I have been just kind of lost in a fog.
I think I'm spending way too much time in my studio. I also think my therapy sessions with Carol are starting to take effect. The combination is strange and dangerous!
For example, one day last week I wrote, in my head, the entire history of my epilepsy. I had it all completely mapped out, from childhood to art school to right now. But, despite the fact that I have hypergraphia, I couldn't seem to get it transferred to paper. Consequently the world will never know the amazing and fascinating story of the first night I took Tegretol.
Today I'm having all these thoughts about being a fiber artist back in the mid-80's, when being a liberated feminist woman meant leaving behind all those girlie things like crocheting and embroidery. Being a feminist seemed, to me, to mean trying to be as much like a man as possible.
It was so much "fun" to be a fiber artist then. Because I was working in "traditionally female" media I was "male identified" and "unliberated" to all my ultra-feminist fellow female artists. They were all metal sculptors and informed me I was buying into sexism if I wouldn't get with the program and pick up a welding torch. This would have been difficult due to my epilepsy, never mind the fact that steel just leaves me cold.
Yet, all the male artist's I knew insisted what I was doing wasn't even art. "It's just craft" they insisted. "It doesn't matter that it isn't utilitarian and we've never seen anything like it. It's a traditional female thing, all that fiber stuff. It must be craft. You aren't really an artist."
And my art school professors? They just really didn't know what to do with me. There was a fiber art department at my art school, but it was very heavy on industrial weaving processes and paper making.
No wonder I have shied away from really promoting my work all these years. I just got very tired of trying to justify it and explain it.
Weirdly, I've been noticing lately that, among young feminists, there seems to be a resurgence of interest in needlework. Suddenly you can be liberated and still crochet!! It leaves me feeling a little angry (ok, more than a little) about how much crap I have put up with over the years over stuff that is now considered so cool.
Sigh.
I really didn't enjoy coming of age in the early eighties. What a politically correct and intolerant decade!
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So what's been happening in between the bouts of fog?
Morgan has been recovering a bit, but Loki, unfortunately, has a urinary tract infection. I'm a bit worried about the little guy, but he seems pretty chipper.
The scariest news? I interviewed a potential adopter for Finny and Napkin. And, horror of horrors, I actually liked her! I actually might let her adopt them!!
Man, I will miss those two like crazy, but I would love for them to have a great home. I think she would be a great home. We'll see.
At Tater's suggestion, I have been reading "Katherine" by Anchee Min. This is exactly what I needed - a novel that is about such a completely foriegn experience that I am taken out of my own little fog-world into someone else's. Wow. I highly recommend it if you are wandering around in a fog. Thanks Tater!
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