papers and art

Right now I should be writing a paper for my American Indian Women Artist Seminar Class, but maybe I will be inspired to do that later. I am writing about an interesting lady though. Maybe if I talk about her a bit, it will inspire me. I have now realized that I am not as good of a writer as I like to think I am. Now, I can do the art part and all the interpreting and I kick ass at that, its just the filling stuff and the blahdy blah stuff, that baffles me. Plus, I am a comma whore, if you've noticed. David always edits my papers and I secretly think he is horrified. But, I have never had training like him in the art of writing, only the art of art and that is only recently.

Back to the lady I am writing about, I am writing about Kay Walkingstick because when I saw her paintings they intriqued me. She uses a diptych system, and juxtaposes images together, like a landscape image with a body. She uses these to show how two different things are related, be it biracialness, her body and the landscape, or whatever. She was painting during the women's art movement and during the time that Native American studies finally started in the 80's. You could not take a Native American Peoples class in college until the 80's. Which when you think about it is really sad.

On a differernt note, This is my latest painting up top, I haven't painted in a long while, due to that terrible painting class which the professor discouraged me from painting. Not by telling me that I am bad or anything, but because he was such a terrible teacher.
I picked up painting the second semester of my freshman year of college and I instantly fell in love with it. I pretty much was a hermit my freshman year and stayed in my room a lot, so I painted, on the floor. Before I started painting I had thought to be a english major, which is completely ridiculous to me now, I am terrible at spelling and whatnot. And, after my freshman year became an art major. I actually had to do a hometest and send in drawings which I did in maybe an hour. Luckily, I got in. And here I am today, a Junior, now in love with ceramics, although I still love painting. What I love about ceramics is that you can never control it completely, and it is always a challenge.

Back, to what I was saying about painting, that I had forgotten how I loved painting due to that terrible teacher, but I am glad to be back painting. I had been given that stretcher by a friend to paint over and finally did it. Its huge, well huge to me. What I felt when painting that, was actually peace and calmness, but determination and worry about all of the drippings on the floor and worry about my cat jumping in it. It's 48" x 48". I like it, and it definitly says hello in my tiny dining room.