FINISHED!

I would just like to announce to the world that I am finished my thesis paper for my masters degree. I was bit concerned considering I was flying to Canada from England the week before, making an 8 hour time change. I managed to avoid drastic jetlag (I now know the secret) and write a legible paper.

My Latest Studio

Here a couple of pictures of my latest and best studio so far here in London.

Sell, Sell, Sell: The Stink at Degree Shows

Click here for an interesting article.

My Favourite of the Chelsea College BFA Grad Show

The Boat: Part II

I am still obsessed with the boat. It still sits there in the middle of the parade ground. It still symbolizes freedom for me. Freedom from my Masters. Freedom from schedules. Freedom from "regular" life. I am in London in the midst of my MFA. I have wanted this for 8 or more years: this school and this city. I've placed tremendous pressure on myself to "succeed", to make a name for myself in London, to get a gallery, and to rise above everyone else and be the best. The sheer insanity of that goal has not yet sunk into my determined one-track mind. I am tense. I am overwhelmed. I am focused at times and frazzled the rest. I have not even taken a real opportunity to stop and enjoy the city I am in. The other thing about that boat is that Lia has merged two of her life disciplines. Boating and art. How have I done that? I have art, cooking and foods, travel and anthropology. How do they merge? I have experimented this year with cooking as live performance. My research paper is more of an anthropological look at how food is tightly wound around culture and culture around food. I came across artists in my research who use food as theme, food as medium, and food and lifestyle as performance. So am I really hitting the right nail on the head when I sit in my studio painting pastries or when I cook as live performance? If a live performance is at its most honest, would it be independant from the context of an art institute? As one of the other students voiced, would that not make the "real" art makers those who do not think of themselves as artists, but go about their everyday lives? Regular people performing REAL acts of art completely unconsciously? Sigh. It is a bit of a dead end to bring up in my group tutorial...as I tried. I was going to advocate that I go to chef school as the most unconcious and truest act of being an artist. Anyway...that boat. I like it. I like what it stands for in the midst of this particular setting. It is something of a wider view than the institution it was set up for. It includes all those "non-art" doings of an artist. Well...back to my studio!

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The Boat

I sit in the library trying to concentrate on the research paper that is due in 4 days. I can see from the window that there is a ship being reassembled on the parade ground outside. The tall sails catch the wind and reach higher than the 3rd floor that I am looking out from. I am in the middle of London, England. The press are here and are furiously snapping pictures of this gigantic construction. I run down to meet the girl who is responsible for coordinating this. I hear little tidbits around the school that she has just been sailing across the ocean and is recently returned from India. Lia left for India in her first year of art college and then sailed this boat across the Atlantic back to England. I tell her it is my favourite piece in the Bachelor of Arts Grad show (which opens in a week). She points out it is the only piece that is actually already exhibiting. We talk about travelling. My research paper (on food and culture). Food. She is renacting her ocean voyage and will not "touch ground" for 28 days. Maybe I should bring her some crisps(?). I tell her I will drop in and see her periodically. I hear the sail ripping in the wind as I walk off. In the midst of my research it represents a freedom and travel urge that has suddenly reared its head on this breezy sunny day. I think of India. The ocean. Desserts. Jungles. I think of my "almost husband" and his desire for adventure. We are going to have fun! Yee haw!

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