2005/04/19

female gaze?




For the brave : a good writer that was uknown 'til the 60 when the feminist movement gave her the recognition she deserves: Jean Rhys.
Her work and ,in general, the female view is still tabu or aside mainstream culture anyhow: a postmodern topic.

"She wrote about the loneliness of being a woman, poor and homeless, better than anyone I know of. She wrote about what being used takes from you and how you never get it back. Women who should have been reading her read The Catcher in the Rye or Jean Genet instead because her books were gone. We had books by men on prostitution and street life: Genet's broke some new ground, but there is a long history of men writing on prostitution. In fact, at the beginning of Voyage in the Dark, Rhys makes a writerly joke about those books. Anna is reading Zola's Nana: "Maudie said, 'I know; it's about a tart. I think it's disgusting. I bet you a man writing a book about a tart tells a lot of lies one way and another. Besides, all books are like that--just somebody stuffing you up.' " Well, Voyage in the Dark, a book by a woman, doesn't just "stuff you up." It is, finally, a truthful book. It is, at the very least, a big part of the truth; and, I think, a lot closer to the whole truth than the women's movement that resurrected her work would like to think. But her truth wasn't allowed to live. To hell with their fights against censorship; she was obliterated. I couldn't learn from her work because it wasn't there. And I needed Jean Rhys a hell of a lot more than I needed the above-named bad boys: as a woman and as a writer."

24 Aug., 1890 Birth of Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams at Roseau, Dominica.

1907-8 Attends the Perse School, Cambridge.

1909-10 Tours as a chorus girl.

1919 Marries Jean Lenglet and moves to Paris. 29 Dec., birth of a son who dies three weeks later.

1922 Meets Ford Madox Ford.

1923-4 Husband in jail, affair with Ford.

1932 Divorce.

1947 Marriage to Max Hamer.

1957-66 Works on Wide Sargasso Sea after public interest following a radio broadcast of her work tracks her down.

1966 Wide Sargasso Sea published.

She was born Ella Rees Williams to a Creole mother and a Welsh-born doctor in Roseau, on the Windward Island of Dominica. As a white girl in a predominantly black community, Rhys felt socially and intellectually isolated; in 1907 she left the island for schooling in England, returning only once, in 1936. Although Rhys's attitude to her birthplace remained ambivalent throughout her life, the Caribbean shaped her sensibility. She remained nostalgic for the emotional vitality of its black peoples, and the conflict between its beauty and its violent history became enmeshed in the tensions of her own often-fraught personality.


2005/04/17

blackberries and virgins with wings


Blackberries! mmmmmm. My grandmother's backyard had a shrine for the Virgin with overgrown blackberries: a crazy shrub with thorns that has shaped as a tunnel... I always wanted to see the virgin like "campanita" or tinckerbell ... The shrub with fruits needed a fairy rather a lame white figurine looking sad. But the berries made the contemplation of the boring statue, worthwhile.

This is my new blog: telling you some mundane stuff about my life, wherever I am.

2005/04/09

Gnomes, pitufos, espiriticos?



Some time ago I developed an anthropomorphic creature that was used as a brand rather than a characters.

Later on I got to know the work of French designer Genevieve Gauckler.
I was so inspired by her approach to design that I decided to explore characters construction from that identity that I had created.

These images are two examples , (out of 30 : a months work) of compositions that I made.


To develop characters that live in a parallel universe is quite interesting!

2005/04/07

Jr. Review.
































There is this stage in the educational process that I'm going through called "Jr Review":
Four designers critique my work and crown me or behead me depending on my performance and potential as a designer. The designers that were in the reviewers panel, were all pretty much successful in the field: Santiago Piedrafita (uruguashhhan/brazilian)chair of design from the school, Kindra Murphy, ex-urban outffiters/MCAD designer and faculty member, Emit (forgot last name) Walker art center designer, and a 4th faculty member that I don't know much about.
They complemented the art direction skills in my photos for the application of an identity system. Told me that is a strength in my work. I can tell that I'm sensible to environments and people , and yes I enjoyed my self while doing the photo shoots.
I'll show other work of mine later on.

So hurray! for my JR review:A miniscule step for human kind but a huge step for me.

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