**heavy sigh** Every once in a while I get a little slap in the face. I just got notice in the mail about the web site for Andrea Zittel - known more in the art world than as an industrial designer. I have always thought of her work as inspiring (and actually parallel to my own) though today it brings me a sense of defeat. Sometimes I think I battle more with the word "prolific" than I do with anything else. Seeing ten years of work all neatly plopped onto one web site while knowing that most of my work is all half baked ideas scribbled in various notebooks – all grandly judged by me as pipe dreams for when I ever have the money to follow through on any of them... well, it can be a bit discouraging. I live in this eccentric little fantasy world where everything is tidy and systematic and joyous and productive. All things have a home, all homes are happy. The more I procrastinate... the more I see my cherished ideas floating away and landing in other (more productive) people’s laps. I say, "I am going to get off my bottom and do more". I go over to my dusty work area and squint and close one eye, purse my lips and decide that the first thing I need is to wash the dishes – I can’t make more of a mess if the dishes aren’t done, can I? It takes so long to get anything totally done. In The New York Times a few weeks ago they had an article about Francis Bacon’s studio (here or here) that was just moved in its entirety to The Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin . They painstakingly and exactly recorded the position of every single piece of dust in order to recreate the space in its new home. The funny thing is that the room was a total disaster – papers everywhere – pallets on the wall, the door – everywhere. It seems to me that he – like Oscar Wilde lived as his work. What happens if your work is about the neat little organized home? There is always something to organize or make better ... one can get a little obsessed. Especially if you aren’t naturally all that tidy. Well, there you have it. I’m going to get to work now.
posted by jenifer constantine on 10:25 AM