Obscene? Really?

So I entered this piece in the faculty show at my school and apparently someone complained that they find this "obscene." Really? Evidently, they see some relationship between these brushes and tools used for "female pleasure." WTF? One friend's response was, "well, they're plastic and have brushes," but that sounds more like a female torture device to me. I guess I have some things to learn...

More vibrating grooming tools

Toothbrush, or some kind of fancy sports car? You tell me.

Who among us is really so lazy that they can't move the floss between their teeth? It's called "the hummingbird."

Art Guilt

If I learned one thing in my 7 1/2 years of academic art training, it was to feel guilty about any moment of any day that I did not devote to the creation or conception of a "real" work of art.

While I have been making things since I left grad school and moved to Southern Illinois this past summer, I have not actually worked on much of what I would call my "art," until now.

So here it is. Proof that I have at least marginally continued the train of art-making I began in grad school. The white part is a vibrating tool intended for exfoliating one's face and I have loosely attached onto it the butt-ends of bright green toothbrushes. I have plans for more of these "rattles" since the new wave in grooming tools seems to be vibration--even in shaving razors...An idea which actually kind of horrifies me.

The Allstars

This upcoming spring, during the 2008 SNAG conference, I will be participating in a curated show called Legacy and Lineage. Gail Brown, the curator, wants only one piece per artist, and so she asked me to assemble a group of my toothbrushes that uses brushes from all three pieces (from my thesis show at Kent State). This, I did. I like to call them the "allstar" set, as it represents my favorite brushes from my thesis work. Enjoy.

Everyone else is doing it...

why not me?

I am fresh from grad school, marooned in Carbondale, IL, and adrift in a sea of overwhelming possibilities, which usually makes me want to not to do anything. So, I thought I'd see if following my progress on a blog makes me feel less powerless and intimidated by adulthood.

above is a detail of my piece Pivoting Brushes from my thesis work in grad. school. materials: found toothbrushes, sterling silver.