argh

I realized the other day that all of the documents I have submitted so far for the Art Matters show have my legal name on them, and so for the purposes of promotion, etc, I am being promoted by my legal name.

It's not THAT big a deal - not like it leads to misgendering or other serious stuff, it's just a personal preference. My given last name is boring as hell, and I haven't talked to that side of my family in five years or so (also: no plans on starting any time, well, ever).

I dunno if my curator has time to change it, but I have e-mailed her to let her know.

Fffff, I should have been on top of that, but I completely fucking blanked. Fuckin' derp.

I finally finished my mask mold - it looks good, but I haven't had a chance to cast it yet. I tried to take picture of it this evening, but my camera was like, "oh look, I'm going to turn off every time you try to take a picture." And then I borrowed a couple of molds from a friend and tried to cast those and totally failed at that - none of them came out at all.

Now I am going to eat garlic bread and sulk. Maybe tomorrow I will be slightly more effective?

Oh also campus crusade for christ is having a "debate" - that is, a recruiting session - at my campus next week. I want to crash it and cause a big fucking scene. Is this a good idea y/y

project brainstorming

So, I'm taking a class on ceramics and public art this semester, and I'm supposed to go around my university and scope out public spaces for an installation. Most of the spaces I've found don't inspire me at all; the only spaces I'd be interested in working with aren't really accessible for public art. I'm vaguely interested in partnering with the gender advocacy centre, but someone did that last year for the same class and I'm afraid of being redundant. I guess there's also QPIRG, but their space has tons of art already.

What I'd like to do is make a series of masks for my final project, and hand them out to students on the condition that they wear them for at least part of the day. There are a number of advantages to this:

1. It's temporary and won't leave any marks or physical impact on the space
2. It involves redistribution of art, a principle which is at the heart of my whole artistic approach
3. It directly involves the population that uses the space where the art will be, instead of just dropping a piece in the middle of somebody's space and being like "here, look at this" - the distribution would mean talking to people, involving people, etc

As for the theme, I'm torn. My first idea was to make masks that are reflective of the airs that I've seen a lot of students at the university put on around issues of class and class consciousness; there's a widespread appropriation of working-class identities and a glamourization of poverty that I want to expose and highlight. Masks are, naturally, disguises that you can take off at the end of the day - much like an appropriated identity from a culture or background that you have no real lived experience in. But I don't want to alienate participants by being like "here, wear this thing that I feel will prove my point about something that infuriates me"; people just wouldn't participate.

What to do, what to do.

Changing the theme seems like a cop-out, but maybe it's just not a good theme in the first place, at least not for that project.