Blair: so late on Wednesday night.

Well, I'm tired as hell again, which is perfect. I'll be all ripe for another nap tomorrow afternoon. This project, for me, is becoming an exercise in sleep deprivation. I hope that I'll be able to function properly when it's all done and I have to go back to school and a regular style schedule.
The gallery is right beside (sort of on top of) a big, noisy, kinda crappy dance club called Mynt, and tonight, it was thumping until quarter to three...things were falling off the tables because of the bass. It was stupid. I indulged in a little private performance, dancing by myself in the TNG office, whilst reading documentary texts of the Golden Streams project with General Idea and NE Thing Co. and Image Bank and all those kids. People from the bar would occasionally glance up and see me dancing, but it was pretty unsexy--I'm a fairly disappointing dancer, I'm afraid, and I kept all of my clothes on, even my toque.
It's quiet now, and I should probably go to bed soon.
Some good conversations about the project were had, during this thumpy and ridiculous late night, but no real conclusions were reached.
Some bits of that conversation, paraphrased, and mostly reflecting my opinions, not necessarily the opinions of my esteemed colleagues:

- There is a place in the world for big idea art and small idea art, although small ideas are best expressed in small ways. Occasionally, I see work that is big and beautiful and impressive, but reflects ideas so simple and slight that the presentation seems extraneous and kind of ridiculous. The result is work that reads as not being very conceptually sound. I don't necessarily think that means that that little idea isn't valid, just that it needs to be expressed in some little way.
- there also seems to be difficulty in finding a place somewhere in between didactic and ambiguous, where real dialogue can happen. My favorite work looks simple and easy at first, but reveals layers of meaning and becomes more interesting after spending some time with it. I don't like feeling alienated by art, and generally prefer work that looked like it was easy and fun to make. I like democratic art practices.
- I also don't want to make work that is gimmicky, but recognize that if there isn't something immediately appealing or interesting in a piece, that it's pretty hard to get people to care about it. Another tough line to walk.
- I sometimes worry that my own work is a little bit too slight, or too easy. I also realize that I have a strong bias towards work that is fuzzy or tiny, or features charming little drawings, or is about animals, If one were to present me with a tiny, charming little drawing of a fuzzy animal, all criticality would go out the window and I would fall madly in love with it.

My birthday is June 1, if anyone would like to make art dream happen.

Love,
Blair