feelings

allison janney, the only celeb i really cared about.  photo by lorri vodi rupard.

coming down from 10 days of crazy juggling--between the kids & house, teaching & school, film screenings, press events, & review writing,  i let my little blog go.

& i'm feeling a bit blue.

& i missed you.

i had many thoughts, feelings (or "feeleens" as it's pronounced in utah), and epiphanies.  but i've grown wary of my epiphanies.  because when the epiphanic moment wears off, it's a huge, huge bummer, and i feel like a fool for having believed it.

i think i'll share any way.  because really, dear readers, sometimes i can't distinguish between true inspiration, too much caffeine, or my daily bipolaresque roller coaster ride of emotions.  maybe you can help me sort it out.  maybe writing it here, for the little portion of the world that visits me in cyberspace to examine, will help me know when to

as kenny rogers so eloquently put it:

know when to hold 'em

know when to fold 'em

know when to walk away

& know when to run.

so here are the Most Important thoughts and feelings i had as a result of attending sundance:

1)  writers need to learn how to create characters, need to do better at fleshing out rather than creating types or making corrective statements to the world with their so-called characters.  also, the absence of smiling or happiness does not = profundity.

2)  filmmakers need better writers.  i saw really superb acting, cinematography and even better editing skillz in practice, but without a good writer, you're screwed.

3) (here's the part you need to help me with--am i just totally delusional and manic right now?)  10 films in 20 years.  i have a plan.  woody allenesque.  come up with a modest budget that i can sustain and fund every two years, a style of filmmaking that looks great even without $$$, and a guerilla film company that is locavore in nature, but maxivore in impact.

4)  filmmaking for social change.  something different from redford's approach, not that his isn't great and super important, but a new angle on it.  something to do with open source, something to do with positive and real work by women.

5) will the high adrenaline, complex multi-tasking and hat wearing, and mix of visual, aural, language, and action of film making, if i am lucky and smart enough to do it, be enough to keep me happy for 20 years?

One of My Favorite Painters is a Woman

An event I would have liked to have attend tonight if I was a halfway decent drawer: The artist Nicole Eisenman leading a figure drawing workshop at the Whitney. One of my favorite contemporary American artists, Nicole E. also happens to be a fellow school parent, and I stare at her starstruck every time she strides (because she totally has swagger) into the lobby to drop off or retrieve her kid. It's like Stephen Adler (another fellow gen-exer) walking into the room . . . but better.

 Nicole's work is also included in this year's Whitney Biennial which I have yet to see. Two paintings are below. Here's more on her her gallery's site.

She's the whole package: technically exceptional with dismantling ideas. Plus, it makes me weep with joy to see a woman artist kick some ass in a historically male-dominated genre and field.  AND two of our prints our up for auction at an upcoming school fundraiser.

 See, I told you I'm mini-blogging for another week!

girl power: ode to vida

the shameful numbers at the ny review of books

this blog, vida: women in literary arts, and this group of women writers is one of the most important things to happen for women writers. . . ever, i'd wager (i'd love to hear your thoughts on other important institutions and events that have promoted women writers and artists).

here's a classic example of girls kicking ass and getting out of tight places.

what they did, for those of you who haven't been following them, is start a thing called "the count" where they count how many women are being published, have bylines, are reviewing and are being reviewed in prestigious presses, journals, papers, and houses.

you might be surprised at how huge the inequity is.  or you might not. 

vida hasn't yet figured out the why, but they've got hard facts as to the what:  women are not getting published, awarded, or reviewed at anywhere near parity to men.

fact.

the count was started in 2010, and the 2011 results were just released.

so, cheers, vida, and thank you.

and thank you all you ladies who persist in the discouraging face of sometimes invisible, sometimes explicit, discrimination and keep doing it anyway.

legwear:  what's with the yoga pants?

inspiration:  shirking off discouragement

looking forward:  to tomorrow--got plans for saturday! no lurking about the house getting bummed out for this girl.

oh, and ladies:  you will be so much less prone to discouragement in a pair of beautiful new tights.  six more hours on the west coast to enter the GITP tights giveway.  just do it!

Untitled: The Artist is Not Quite Present

Spent most of the night here without any internet access, but now at the 11th hour, it's back on.  So here I go!

I raced home on my bike from work today to get the girls up to a member's preview of the new Cindy Sherman exhibit at MoMA.  In a blog that is deeply invested in promoting art by women, Cindy, like Marina, is one of my personal heroes.   Both girls use themselves as a subject and put themselves in tight places, but unlike Marina, whose art is personal and autobiographical, Cindy explores the range of the female experience, and obscures her own body in these heavily textualized archetypes that she critiques and often destroys.

I LOVE her work and have for a couple of decades.

And we never really know who the artist is.  Cindy, "herself," (unlike Marina) is never quite present.

And every single piece is titled "Untitled."

Omg, I took these photos of the exhibit's entrance illegally, and didn't even try photographing inside.

In a couple of the rooms, I told S. to close her eyes, and we did the whole thing in 30 minutes, so I'm going to have to go back when I'm by myself.  This week, the kids have been home.

Tonight we watched Bill Cunningham's New York.  Bill Cunningham is the long-time society and street fashion documenter fort the New York Times, and has my ideal job in you must know.  I was struck, while watching by how much we have so much in common.  We are both cyclists; we both take photos from our bikes.  Also, we both love Paris and cheap restaurants, we are religiously inclined and deeply admire dandies, and we are rather dull dressers who admire the sartorial work of strangers on the street.

But I digress . . . more thoughts on Cindy to come!

inspiration is slow in coming & the baroness

my favorite baroness schraeder dress

but to inspire means just to breathe in, right?

so i just took a breath just now

& another one

& no ideas came.

just a tiny clear space with a big mountain sitting right in the middle of it

so i can't see a horizon line at all.

i have no ideas

only plans to:

1) do something to make girl art more prevalent.  watch this, read this, and read this.

2) plaster bright pink "sexual assault prevention tips guaranteed to work" along the provo river trail.  still pissed.

3) order copy of body sweats by the baroness von freytag-loringhoven from mit press. (it's on my exam list).

and some questions:

what is the baroness schraeder's best line and best dress in s.o.m.?

what do you do to facilitate the making, promotion, and notoriety of lady art?

inspiration:  becoming more baroness.

legwear:  jeans that i picked up off the floor next to my bed this morning.  same ones as yesterday.  no s.o.l.e. today.

looking forward:  yoga with dean, dinner date.