Crit Week #4

At least I think this is crit week #4. Midterm is coming up soon, for me specifically it is March 19th. So then that is when the hammer comes down. But for the most part I think I have settled on a form and direction. This last session of Thesis crit went pretty well. We actually ended early and I got feedback that went somewhere. It was good having made an important decision and then just moving forward with it.

It is going to be a multiple book project, each book dealing with various perspectives of the stereotypes that Asian-American women have to negotiate around daily. At this point I am thinking that I would like to have one book for each major stereotype, the Dragon Lady, the Lotus Blossum, and the Repressed War Victim/Prostitute. They all deal with sex, gender, and race, but each stereotype is so rich with images and content that they will make really compelling books. I managed to find a good book, out of print and therefore pricey at Green Apple, one called, Woven and Interlocking Book Structure that I think will help me develop the idea I have for treating the images of these stereotypes.

It's been a struggle as to whether or not I show the found images of the stereotypes in my work at all, but as talked about in my crit this last week, it's more about how I use them, how I edit their viewing that will be the most powerful voice. I can ridicule them, strip them of their voyeuristic destructiveness by showing only the parts I want, and in a specific way. This book about woven book structures is sort of like sculpture with paper in a 2D format. Kinda like when you were in kindergarten and they gave you strips of construction paper and you had to weave them in and out to make a paper place mat, but much more artfully done. That way the images are spliced, reconstructed, and used to my own editorial voice.

Then possibly a type only book with all the slurs, and gross sexual jargon used to exploit the Asian-American woman stereotypes. Just page after page of the words to really shock the reader into the never ending bucket of slime that exists, that polite company may not know about, but is present in our society. Then as a final book, my own voice, my own slant on a topic that has consumed my own artwork and experiences.

Throughout it all though, I would like other people's voices. I would love that to be a part of the plethora of voices in the book series. It NEEDS to be there, otherwise we are just willingly being complacent and silent about an issue that warps the way America exists. This topic needs to be brought to light with understanding, humor, and above all awareness of the many people who have to deal with it, whose identity is shaped by these stereotypes, an insidious type of racism. So if you haven't yet responded to the email survey, PLEASE DO!

LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD!