Little outings/ big ideas.

The weather was finally a little nicer this past Sunday and I pushed and shoved my little brood until I got them out the door and on the way to the New Museum. I had my eye on visiting since I had noticed the sailboat attached to its slick exterior a few weeks ago when we went to the annual Bowery Babes holiday party. A sailboat attached to a building, hovering over the heads of pedestrians! Lovely.

We parked right smack in front of the museum (a luxury) for free. Now that does not happen often. If you are a driver in Manhattan you will soon come to realize that Sundays are the best. The feeling of getting a spot and rolling out like you own the block is the right start for any outing.

Almost the entire museum, which is a new tapering 6 floor glass and steel structure with high ceilings and an airy lobby that invites the street in, is currently dedicated to Chris Burden's "Extreme Measures". His giant sculpture installations easily take up all of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors. 

Becoming familiar with Chris Burden's installations is like taking a walk in raw nature someplace new. It's beautiful, but there is always the possibility of danger. He hung a 1 ton cube off a boom carried by a restored Ford pick-up. He balanced an asteroid and a Porsche on a giant scale. He spun a huge wheel attached to a motorcycle's accelerator. He created a "beach" the size of our apartment upon the sands of which microworlds of military scenes play out in the viewer's imagination. For the "actors" and "decor" he used mostly children's toys (robots, soldiers, tanks, all sorts of weaponry, indians, etc) and miniature models of castles, train depots, tepees, houses, ships, towers, corals, plants and a lot more.

He hung a few hundred tiny submarines off the ceiling and provided us with a list of their names- a list that corresponds to a real list of submarines used in American military operations. He made a conical structure out of cement bags. And there is more.

My first reactions to his work was "Wow". The second was careful speechless examination. The third was "Noooooo". For you see, my little girl was feasting her eyes upon the extraordinary visual balancing acts in front of her, but unlike me, she could not stand still. She made quite a few determined fast and almost successful lunges toward the delicate artwork quickly and in panic intercepted by me. As much as I was mesmerized by my surroundings, my motor skills kicked in to the amused gaze (and in some cases annoyed) inspection of the museum guards.

Museum and toddlers! I can tell you something about that. Countless are the cases in which in complete desperation I have promised myself to never bring her again for I can literally feel my hair turn white as I try to navigate and "look" at precious artwork with my little girl in toe, a force that can hardly be contained. Yet I do it again. And I will do it again. It is worth every second because I expose my daughter to that what truly engages me. That what is truly special to New York City. To the reason why I moved here and stayed here. Her behavior, I argue, is a precious reaction to the world of artworks, and had the artist been standing there, I know that he would have seen the pure energy that is a response to the energy of the artwork.

I always feel recharged and inspired after I leave a grand museum exhibition and this time was no exception. The mere witnessing of these powerful pieces gave me so much hope. If others can, so can I.  I have to keep trying. I have to keep going with my own work, no matter what, despite the obstacles. 

Sailboat hull visible above.

Self-Portrait Series "The Mother's return to self"

This series began with the playfulness of matching lipstick and nail polish. It turned out that I have a blindingly bright red orange color of both, so I put it on and the transformation was immediate. The name of the lipstick is "Femme Fatale". I decided to play with that layer and mix it with the base persona of "mother".

Well, for me the two don't mix very well. The femme fatale gets up late and parties all night. The mother goes to bed early and gets up early to take care of her children. Or so it supposedly is (it does not always work out that way). But a femme fatale can turn into a mother and vice versa. And that's where we get something interesting.

So in these portraits we get a bit of the vulnerability and a bit of the coquettishness and a touch of the wisdom behind aging. We get measured liberation, rejection of being defined by the every day objects of mothering (notice the bath toy and the toilet seat) and determination to not be pigeonholed. 

Ava noticed me setting up to take the pictures and in her stompy gait quickly arrived to bombard me with a million "Wha doing mami? Mami, mami, what doing mami?" I explained that I am setting up to take some self-portraits. She quickly grabbed the camera remote and started taking the pictures for me. It was nice. It was really easy to all of a sudden be able to pose freely. My little one did not stop taking the pictures until I indicated that we are done. It was a seamless collaboration, without that many words. And then this beautiful realization crept through the vine of my thoughts- even young children can feel the subtle shifts of mood that create unspoken communication during the creative process.

So bellow are some photos from the shoot that I edited in order to heighten the ideas behind them. I hope that they speak to you. I hope they help you undertake your own questioning of what's beneath the surface of a mother's persona. This type of question deeply motivates me- what is beneath, what is beneath, what is beneath the surface that we see. I can hardly ever look at something without questioning it especially if that something is widely accepted as a norm.

There are two other important aspects to mention- the use of hands to frame the face (inspired by the one and only Auguste Rodin, whose reproductions I grew up with and by Madonna's "Vogue" choreography), and the color processing I applied in order to create a slight surrealist feeling when it comes to perceiving skin (inspired by one of my most favorite artists who I revere beyond description- Louise Bourgeois).

And here is a quote by her:

"Sometimes it is necessary to make confrontation - and I like that." Louise Bourgeois