Yale Notebooks Documents of pages from notebooks made while studying at Yale School of Art. Yale Notebooks 1993 Dialogical Self "While working on a second masters in Art Therapy my own struggles with C-PTSD surfaced, I struggled to balance, work, school, art and praxis. While working on my thesis about my shamanic experiences and my expressive performance work, I underwent EMDR and hypnotherapy. What emerged were flashbacks, dissociative states, emotional pain and complex body pain. I had to derail my thesis work to make a video about my intense experiences. This video become a dialogue between my artist; ego self, my sexual wounds, and a healer; a presence, what we call a shaman, or my own intuitive healing self, births what I am meant to be-come a wounded healer; an avant-garde shaman." "Damm girl what are you doing" Daily Authentic Movement Music "Damm girl what are you doing" Series. 2013 In Relationships We Can't Grasp The Intimacy 2011 We Can't Communicate 2011 How To Trust 2011 Chocolate Sublimation "Yes, the sounds I make, we make, at such moments of sensuous transcendence, the gasps, the cries of joy, the wordless moans, are like those you hear through the paper-thin walls of roadside motels. That's not sex or better than sex. It's just another wonderful moment a man or woman can share with all the same senses we use to register the sensory input of making love. Don't think of it as sublimation. Focus on what is, not what isn't. Just follow your pleasure. If one desire is not available at the moment, seize another. Sneak out of the office early and go to a movie. How dangerous. What fun. Have a Dove Bar. How wicked. seriously no think of sublimation-chocolate is not sex nor love. hot on the heels of a bar of chocolate? In Freud's classic theory, erotic energy is allowed a limited amount of expression, due to constraints of human society. Sublimation is the process of transforming libido into "socially useful" achievements, mainly art." Chocolate Sublimation 2010 Welcome to the Dollhouse "A 3 minute collage of performance videos from 1995-2004." Welcome to the Dollhouse 1995-2004 Still from "Welcome to the Dollhouse." 1995-2004 Still from "Welcome to the Dollhouse." 1995-2004 Still from "Welcome to the Dollhouse." 1995-2004 Sweet Facial Sweet Facial 2013
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Elf I didn’t know I’d lost so much weight until my sisters started commenting on how my jeans were hanging off me, how I looked sickly. But if I’d been paying more attention, I’d have noticed all the skinny girls on campus starting to swarm around me. Suddenly, they all wanted to be my friend, or at least spend time near me making passive aggressive catty competitive comments. I found myself having whispered conversations with near strangers about not ever allowing themselves to get into a double-digit dress size. It was bewildering. I wasn’t sure what was happening to me. I was still eating nachos for every meal but I’d stopped having my period. I had diarrhea every day and cried all the time. This was 2002. Body Pos wasn’t a thing yet. [Image Description: A stucco white wall, with a variety of pictures, cork-board mat, with pinned cards and doodles, with a central hanging image, framed in a funky wooden frame. The image in the frame is a line drawing of a nude torso of a white, femme body, from the chest to the upper thighs, centered on a white background. There are faint, pink shading of the nipples, aureolas, and under the breasts, as well as pink marks, indicating scars, in different areas of the abdomen. The figure is wearing a dog-tag, around their neck, and dark trousers or skirt.] One day I was sitting with one of these girls at a coffee shop and a man in his late twenties approached us. “Excuse me,” he said to my companion. “I don’t mean to bother you, but I design video games and you are the perfect model for one of our characters.” He dug into his pocket for a business card. “I’d love to have you come in and take photos of you. The character is an elf. You’re exactly what we had in mind.” My companion turned her pale face upwards, pushed her brown hair out of her bright green eyes. “Sure,” she said taking his card nonchalantly. “That’s cool!” I said, after he walked away. “Are you going to do it?” She just shrugged and put the card in the pocket of her hoodie, as if this kind of thing happened to her all the time. I felt jealous. I wished that men approached me at coffee shops and asked me to be an elf. Why couldn’t that have happened to me? Up until that point in my life I’d only been asked to come into an alley with a man and watch him masturbate while his friend took photos. Many years later I would discover that I have an adrenal disorder that makes me lose and gain weight uncontrollably, as if someone has cast a spell on me. For my body, there is never a size that is okay – it’s always a sign of my disease. And no one wins; if I have a doctor that’s bigger, her advice on health is irrelevant. If I have a doctor that’s skinny, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. No woman wins; we’re fucked either way. I know this is irrational, but a decade later I’m still jealous of that brown-haired girl with the big green eyes. I’ve been asked to do many things, to be many things, but I’ve still never been told that I’m a magical creature. Elf 2018
Buried 2016 Untitled 2008 Still photo of puppet created for one of (Emily's) stop motion animation and live action films. She can stand alone as an art piece as well. Pregnant Puppet 2011-2012 Stop Motion Animation Puppet made for the animation "Underneath". Still from "Underneath" 2009 Puppet With Veil 2009 Stop Motion Animation Puppet made for the animation "Underneath".
Masks
Not In The Eyes 2010 Small mask Emily made for a puppet. Puppet Mask 2010
Untitled # 1
Untitled # 1 from Emily Irvine on Vimeo.
Untitled # 1 2010 16mm Color Negative film, approx 5 minutes, Silent. Nails in the Jaw--secreted from the lip—bitten from the mind. They eat from the pot-- brewing their purged longings-- sweltering from the heat-- water trickling down their finger tips, into a puddle around them. The pool forms--sinking underneath. Stills from Untitled # 1 2010
[Image Description: Silhouette of a figure, depicted in black, facing a white or very pale purple light, in the center of a tunnel. The walls of the tunnel graduate towards the edges in a wavy ombre effect, from center light to darker purple and finally blue, with wave-like drawn details in black ink.] All Tied Up and No Place To Go 2018
Site and Sound .. Montages and Flickers Decoding stories through an altered reception. Sound waves and orbs come through the adapted surfaces by ways of rendered frequencies. There is also an element of illustrating what the gray area in the mind would try to convey, through alternative forms of communication. .. A black pool opened up at my feet … I dived in.. It had no bottom. NOELLE MALINE : SOUND MAPS Listening Device 2012 "Noelle Maline’s installation Sound Maps is inspired by a story told by her mother. As recounted by Noelle, her parents were traveling in Czechoslovakia in the late 70’s. Shortly after they arrived and en route from the airport to their hotel, the taxi driver firmly instructed her mother and father to only speak in whispers for the duration of their visit. As he explained, everything was bugged - - their hotel, the phone lines and, even the pipes running through." installation. sound and art Sound Maps 2012
"In 1970, it would have been another nineteen years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The liberalization of Eastern Bloc was still a far off reality. In Czechoslovakia and other Eastern European countries, surveillance was woven into the fabric of everyday life and with deep psychological effects on people’s sense of freedom. During this time of history, the wall between East and West Germany came to symbolize the physical marker of the ‘Iron Curtain’ (later to be referred to as the ‘Wall of Shame’) blocking the movement of freedom. Czechoslovakia was one of several countries marked by Soviet occupation after World War II and, with restrictions on emigration throughout the Eastern Bloc." installation. sound and art Sound Maps 2012 "Metaphorically behind this Iron Curtain, stories were shuffled through the invisible threads that linked the intellectual minds and spirits of those alive and deceased. While literally, stories and voices were captured in wires through the mechanisms that took tabs on people’s thoughts, whereabouts, affiliations and future plans. Emigration and defection was still an active threat to the powers that be and, with any fluid movement of freedom under strict watch." signals frequency ink and paint on old photograph "Sound Maps touches this concept of freedom through references to different modes of communication, whether through stories secretly passed or layered in different planes of existence. While black ink is scribed over, across and in between faces and bodies captured within old black and white photographs, we understand that messages and information have been and are being passed. While images are frozen in time, the artist alludes to the idea that stories, voices and whispers are transmitted between tangible and intangible worlds. Similar to a secret agent collecting artifacts, a map of found images and pockets of objects builds a larger contextual story. We may not explicitly know the linear narrative, but we know the narrative is embedded within." fragments ink and paint on old photograph
"Interspersed throughout the installation, Maline’s larger collage and mixed-media works further illuminate and become anchor points where identity and mystery congeal as moments of creative discovery. Perhaps, we (as the viewer) stop to pay homage to a time in history when the movement of freedom was not accessible and, to the untold stories therein. Meanwhile, it may compel one to reflect on current cultural and political shifts that leave us questioning ‘freedom’ as a taught ideological point of departure and possible reunification, barrier and emigration, deflection and return."
The Relic is Right The Relic Is Right 2018 With The Fire Filmed in the childhood home of René Kladzyk (aka Ziemba) in Forestville, MI. With the Fire Symbolic Reference Statement: "The ramshackle yellow house on Cedar street is where most of my dreams are located. It's the setting of my fondest childhood memories, and my terrain of mythic fantasy. It has sat there, uninhabited and decaying for twenty years now, filled with everything that was there when I was seven. The dressers are filled with my clothes, my toys are on the floor, my babysitter's club books on the bookshelves. It's all there-- the couch I spent sick days lounging on, the first piano I played on, and its dying, subsumed by the mold, wasps, raccoons, and decay that call it home now." "For years I have fantasized about paying tribute to the universe of my imagination that is centered around the house in Forestville. I recently went to the house with Corey Tatarczuk,* a super-8 camera**, and a pile of clothing formerly owned by my grandmother Ziemba, including the white suit that my gramma was married in (tailored by my great-grandfather Ziemba). We approached the house as a museum of my lost childhood, with me as docent. I showed Corey and, through her camera, YOU the key sites of my youth. We studied the wall of heights, the verdant ivy covering the barn, and the sweet hugging canopy of the weeping willow tree. We zoomed on the merry-go-round across the street, skipped stones at the crick, and walked the short walk to Lake Huron’s deep blue waters." "In the video two little girls, ghosts of my sister and I, run about the property as friendly fire angels, the shade of their glow pulled from the color of the film burning at each end. These girls are dear friends of mine, the younger, Zola, and I share a birthday- she turned 7 on June 20th, the summer solstice of this year. Shortly after we filmed the little girls for the video, I had a dream where I traveled to Forestville and met my childhood self there. This tiny version of me said that I come to visit her often, and she wasn't surprised to see me." "The With the Fire music video operates as a part of a multisensory self-portrait, linked to my debut full-length album, Hope is Never. There is a fragrance component to this album, a limited batch incense created in partnership with Pretty Hole Collective. The incense contains lilacs, cedar, and lily of the valley from the yard of the yellow house on Cedar street. Its something to burn while listening, a material signifier of the creative capacity of destruction and loss. I recommend burning this fragrance while watching this video. But if you don't have this limited batch incense readily available, perhaps consider lighting a candle. You are marching in a funeral parade of lost childhood, you are strolling through an exhibit of decay nostalgia, you are a witness to something that is already gone and can only be retrieved or held through memory and shadow." You can go before this sore horizon blinds you I will show you where our burnished union leads to Its a home set on scattered kindling made to burn with the fire with the fire with the fire You can go before the sick dogs lick your eyes When you leave I will find a place the embers can die If you mourn something lost before you can find it In the fire in the fire in the fire If you pass through where the pounding rain cleanses you If you pass beyond the burning bridges split in two There's a church where all your dreams of death are sanctified With the fire with the fire with the fire" - René Kladzyk June 22nd, 2016 With The Fire 2016 A Door Into Ocean A Door Into Ocean 2017 "The sonics of "A Door Into Ocean" are meant to inhabit space in the same way that fragrance does; it’s not really a finite song, more an exploration of a place. It’s another oozy architecture. "A Door Into Ocean" may be listened to on repeat while stretching or relaxing, lingering in its mist; or as a fragment, a sample, a layer in a panoply of sounds. The intention of making a sonic fragrance is to play with perceptions of space and the body: to ground the listener in whatever space they inhabit while also transporting them, drawing their perception toward the realm of the intuitive and sensuous." "I was inspired by the linguistic system of the novel, A Door Into Ocean, which takes place on a planet solely inhabited by women, without landmass, only ocean. In this novel, there is no capacity for violence because their linguistic system understands identity through connection. There is no linguistic way to express inflicting something upon someone else, without necessarily also inflicting that thing upon yourself." "A Door Into Ocean" features the LIGO chirp, which is the sound of gravitational waves as two black holes collide into one another. Documentation of this sound last year was seen as a revolution in physics, evidence for Einstein’s theory of general relativity. If this “sonic fragrance mist” is a place, then our human location is fixed at a nexus in time and space. We are that point at which the ripple effect begins to spread outward; we can be very tenderly weaving the fabric of time." -Excerpts from "Meet Ziemba, The Musician Using Fragrance To Shape Time And Space" The Fader Some Don't Grow Some Don't Grow 2017
MOVING About "One day, a few years ago, after watching Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker again (I teach scenes from it, so I review it pretty frequently), I thought more about the final scene than I ever had before. At the end of the 163 minute film, in which three adult men (a Stalker/guide, a writer and a professor) search for a place that will supposedly give them what they most desire, we see the Stalker’s daughter reading and then sliding glasses across a table with her telekinetic powers. I’m not going to dive deeply into a reading of the whole film here not only because such a discussion would take up too much bandwidth, but also because MOVING grew from looking at that final scene as an isolated event." "I was impressed with this youg girl, watching her read, take a break, and then calmly test out her powers. And with the exception of the nearby whining dog, she is all alone, demonstrating her powers only for herself. At first, I simply wanted to shoot an updated version of this scene, but over time this idea grew into the desire to create different fictional scenes of the same length and simplicity, highlighting a variety of telekinetic actions. As I started to cast these roles in my mind, starting with performative friends like Lee Blalock and Lyra Hill, I found the fictionalizing of the scenes to be boring. I wanted the spaces and the movements to be true to the character, perhaps possible, and I wantedto get to know people through their choice of movement/object/scenario. I decided to shoot all real people playing themselves and grew to love the idea of collaborating with each one of them to envision what their telekinetic moment might be. I wanted to illuminating simple powers, or the small, everyday powers that symbolize or may eventually cause some kind of change. I wanted real people to reveal to me what their strength could be, as exemplified by what they move in the portrait and how. Finally, the support from the Chicago Digital Media Production Fund Grant, Voqal and Chicago Filmmakers provided me with the resources and encouragement I needed to approach people and shoot all twelve scenes. Why twelve? I wanted to shoot a number of these portraits and I instantly saw them playing back in my mind in a grid. I knew I would have to bring it all together somehow and a linear compilation didn't excite me as much as simultaneity. I love the chaos and harmony of multiplicity and I love the act of sorting through it all as a viewer, letting your eye drift from image to image. It can be overwhelming, but I think you can also find little moments of solitude within it. It was important for this project to go beyond the idea of isolated scenes and to eventually create a chorus. Perhaps if we’re loud enough and there are enough of us, people can hear us? Even if we’re saying different things? Oh, and four videos across and three down fits computer monitors and screen fairly well. Some of the subjects came to mind right away and others were recommended to me by friends and strangers after I put out a call for nominations. As the list of twelve started to form, it became increasingly important to me to get to know people better, to meet new people, to go to unfamiliar neighborhoods, and to learn more about everyone's ideas, careers, and philosophies. This project took my crew and I from Evanston to South Shore, from Pulaski to downtown, into colleges and bars, onto rooftops and into basement studios. A side note on my crew: As I started to schedule the shoots, I decided to work with only women on my crew (with the exception of my husband who built the website and assisted me on the Jenny’s shoot, mainly because there were kittens present). I wanted to break old habits and challenge myself to give women the opportunity to collaborate, gain more experience, and get paid. Even if I barely made a dent in the much much larger problem of inequality on film sets, I ended up with a fantastic, collaborative crew who was up for any challenge. Each scene required a bit of improvisation, timing, experimentation, resourcefulness, and logic (some also requiring puppetry and extremely strong magnets)." "The act of meeting and recording the subjects of these portraits was just as important as the videos we were going to make together. This realization spawned the inclusion of the interviews and behind-the-scenes photos. I knew that if I were viewing this project that I would want a hyper-linked experience offering me a chance to meet each subject, hear their voices and take a glimpse into the collaborative process. I also found great joy in the process of making this project and so I wanted to attempt to share it. There is such power in collaboration, play, asking questions, and listening. Telekinesis seemed less important as time went on. The practical effects were certainly fun to plan and arrange, but in the end, they amount to merely the appearance of power. I found the real power and the real magic in the mix of personalities coming together and learning from each other. It sounds corny, but it’s so true. I believe in positive and productive energies. I believe in movement on the smallest scale. We can hold those energies within us and we can express them outwardly. We can move people emotionally and we can move matter. Sometimes we don’t have or need the words or the physical strength. Sometimes we simply think, look or emanate...and something happens. Perhaps MOVING provides a chance us to slow down, focus on our energy and ask ourselves how we might express or depict our power. What could we move and why? How simple can it be? How big? How every day? How fantastic? Who is it for? I still have a lot of questions and that's wonderful because asking them is my favorite thing to do." Lori Felker, May 2016 Patrice excerpts and screen shot:
"I'm trying to figure out how to phrase this next question, because I don't really know what I want to ask. I'm wondering if there's anything in your life where, and maybe it's your relationship to the city that you've been in your whole life, but something about being a woman, and not just a mother, but just you as an individual. Has that given you a particular kind of strength or perspective? Have you experienced particular setbacks? And do you even think much about it, or are you just Patrice? There are certain parts, yeah. I think I would be a lot different, and this is a strange thing to say, but the feminine part of who I am is strangely connected to me having a daughter. As you know, there is an abundance of male testosterone in the house, and I think having a daughter and being a mom, had I just had boys, I probably would have been a different kind of person, a different kind of mom. But she gives me just enough edge to remind me to tune in to some softer things, because I didn't really growing up, I was a different kind of girl. I didn't like playing with Barbie dolls and stuff like that, so I was kinda worried when my daughter came along. We played dolls and stuff like that, but it was arts and crafts and more stuff like that, more creative things. I think she's helped me stay in tune with being creative." L[3]^2 (Lee Blalock) excerpts and screen shot
"(Sarcastically) What do you think about women? [laughter] I keep questioning myself as to how to ask a question about women, or if someone wanted to interpret it as femininity or just the question of gender even. Not just "What's it like to be a woman?", but do you consider your gender? Are you forced to? Do you want to? Does it play an active role? I think part of my not being able to do what I want... If people see me and see the package and then expect less than I would normally be able to do, or anybody else would be able to do, that kind of strips me of power. My reaction to that has always been to be faceless and to be bodyless, be genderless and be raceless and all that stuff. I know that's a political statement to make, but I think it's also a really nice option to have, if you can have it, if you just want to get stuff done. I don't know. It's hard to say when you try to build bodies that aren't encased in viscera or whatever. It's sort of hard to put a gender assignment on that. I think it's a great idea to do projects that give voice to people who don't have them. At the same time, I know that I've turned away from stuff that emphasizes what I look like, what genitalia I have, just because it reduces me to maybe two or three descriptors. I'm fluid. I'll do the things that feel right for me and I'll turn away from the things that feel reductive. I don't know how else to say that." The catalyst and inspiration for Lori's MOVING project: Andrei Tarkovsky Stalker - Final Scene
I Hate My Purse: Based on the essay by Nora Ephron "I recently created this piece based on an essay by Nora Ephron entitled, "I Hate My Purse" from her collection of personal essays: "I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman." Eventually I hope to make a series of 1-2 minute films based on Nora Ephron and her writing. This project was made out of fond affection for Ephron and the desire to celebrate her work." I Hate My Purse: Based on the essay by Nora Ephron Produced, Directed and Starring Genevieve Mercatante Filmed by Justin Koleszar 2013 I don't care (I love it) Medly - Pam Donaldson Q:What do you call a bag of peanut brittle and dentures? A: My entire weekend! I don't care (I love it) Medly - Pam Donaldson 2014 Art Lipstick Gouache 2007 Lipstick Sharpie 2007 Anna 2009 Blue Woman 2012 We're Okay 2009 Anna & Stacy 2009 there ain't nothin' to do in the dirt 2009
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I put on warm clothes and hopped on my bike for Bald Hill. There was nothing left of the fog but what harm was there in enjoying the January sun even if alarmingly unseasonable? Along the bike path a Red Tail swooped off a power line into the grass, a Downy Woodpecker hopped around the backside of a tree by the trail.
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I stop and draw a tree. It is not any great study, I’m hungry, the high sun has washed out all subtlety, and my attention span has left with the sparrows. Sometimes it's enough to do one tiny thing. Back on the bike path the horses linger along the fence line wearing blankets that make them look like monks. A harrier flies over and lands in the middle of the field where there may have been a mouse. |
Pearl from sierra dufault on Vimeo.
beauty from sierra dufault on Vimeo.
southern girl from sierra dufault on Vimeo.
Featuring visual art, fiber art, writing, spoken word, music, video and performance, in contemplation of isolation and femininity.
What is it to identify as femme/construct femininity, in this current moment?
What is it to navigate femininity through chronic conditions, trauma, heartbreak?
What does it mean to get all dressed up, with nowhere to go?
*Some work featured may be nsfw.
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018