My Working Question- How can I make compelling art that shows the process of my eating disorder and recovery in a way that feels authentic and innovative?

My hours, which I may not have recorded fully

The only artist I was able to find who works explicitly with eating disorders as her subject matter (also does happenings!) – Maria Raquel Cochez

Here is the culmination of my works this semester. Click on the videos to watch them!

I am grateful that I had the time and space this semester to delve deeply into my art and artistic process. It felt so good to uncover the themes that seem inherent to my work and examine them. I finally embraced the fact that I make art about my eating disorder and recovery, it seems like it steeps into all of my art and was present even before I realized it consciously. I also have noticed that BDSM visual themes find their way into my art as well. Maybe that is because BDSM and EDs have much in common in terms of hunger, wanting, restraint, bondage, and punishment. This is a relationship I hope to explore further in my future art.

Here is a humorous video exploring food BDSM

When we were encouraged to research what was interesting to us, I began to dig into the intersections of Eating Disorder and art. I wanted to find art about EDs that was for more than purely symbolic representational or for therapeutic value. I read “Sublime Hunger, a Consideration of Eating Disorders Beyond Beauty” and my mind was blown. I started thinking about how EDs are so much bigger than just appearances and concern about weight. Eating disorders are addictions, they are ritualistic, they are comforting and stabilizing, they are powerful. I want to make art that concerns all the things about EDs that one cannot so easily see. I am also interested in this topic because it is very difficult to find artists that are explicitly working with ED’s as their subject matter. I think they need to be spoken about in more contexts so they can be more deeply understood and have the stigma around them broken down.

With this knowledge, I was able to create the video Water Talk, which depicts me both drinking water and walking into a pool fully clothed. This video showed my descent into the ED behaviors while my other works this semester show my struggles with recovery.

I started this semester’s research thinking that I should create more photoshop self-portraits (which I do enjoy making and I want to work on more in the future). However, I was very glad when Professor Ruby suggested that I push myself by experimenting. From this discussion I set up three experiences: Dinnertime Happening, Blue eating, and Donut Game. The results of the Dinnertime Happening were very exciting, I felt that Maya and I both being blindfolded and her struggling to feed me was a very good representation of my body reconnecting to my brain and the difficulty of it in recovery. It felt exciting to know that I could make art about recovery, not just the worst depths of my ED. That gave me hope. Blue eating felt a bit weak but possibly could be a place of more exploration (what does it mean to eat like a child, play with my food, coerce myself into eating)? The Donut Game was incredibly silly. It was based off a game that I and Gracie (the other player) had experienced as children. I added the hand ties to our version because I knew I would cheat otherwise and it made it adult difficulty. This experiment specifically sparked questions about similarities between EDs and BDSM as it was visually very BDSM. There were elements of restriction and pleasure in this piece that are inherent to both. Does the restriction cause pleasure? I would like to recreate this experiment again with some different foods and people.

I felt as though I should include the video “Leave You,” as it contains themes of containment, loss, interpersonal struggle and bondage. It would be very easy to assign my ED big ideas to this video.

Next, I came up with the idea for “Stomach Punch.” It came from me thinking about how by having an ED for so long I basically might have punched a hole in my gut. EDs do irreparable damage to one’s body and I will be dealing with the physical consequences of mine for a very long time. I did the initial painting in two hours because I did not want to become too precious with it and not want to punch it. When I punched the representation of my stomach and it felt satisfying in a sick way. Then I felt guilty for doing it, and I was filled with some regret. Eventually, during the process of sewing, I was able to overcome this feeling. The process of sewing took so much longer and was much more difficult than the instant relief of the punch, but in the end, I was glad I repaired the painting. The scar is still there, but it also adds something to the piece. This action was a pure metaphor for my ED.

A longtime goal for my art is to move away from self-port portraiture. I want to do this to make my work more universal and less self-centered, which is why I was glad when Maya asked me to paint a large nude of her. Because she wants to give this portrait to her boyfriend I thought it would be humorous to model her pose after Venus of Urbino by Titian. I also included fruit and flowers in the picture because she really likes to eat fruit. I think the image has some type of symbolic meaning about recovery but I haven’t figured that out yet, maybe I will when I finish the painting. I like the challenge of painting and spending the time with it.

I do not feel bound to any medium specifically and am happy I got to play with a variety of mediums this semester. This work felt incredibly productive and powerful and I cannot wait to continue in my senior seminar next year. 

I realized after giving my presentation to my peers I am not making art about eating disorders, but art about the process of recovering from an eating disorder! It is very hopeful for me to recognize that.

It was incredible to hear Yehimi’s story in person, as she presented to the LDR class I tutored for this semester. She is a forceful public speaker and a fearless storyteller. It was moving when she spoke of her dad being gone in her childhood because he was illegally crossing the border to the US to scrape up enough funds to move them from an aluminum (?) house, to a wood house, to a concrete house. Her family is important to her, and she represents them consistently in her art.

Yehimi spoke about moving to the US so that her family could reunite with her father when she was in elementary school. She knew no English and felt ignorant except for art. She said how art became her solstice, and something she was passionate about. She won the Holocaust remembrance art contest when she was in middle school. Because she didn’t have a social security number she couldn’t accept the prize money, and this seemed like an important turning point for her as she saw how severely her immigration status impacted her life. Money was an important thread throughout her story. Money is what made people move from country to country to accept jobs in terrible working conditions, but money is also what validated her as an artist and person. When she was able to get a full ride scholarship to Agnes Scott, she mentioned how astounded she was with the amount they were offering her.

Along with money, education has been important for Yehimi. She said Agnes Scott’s education was liberating for her because of the way it made her think about intersectionality. She has returned to teach at the high school she went to and has been an important figure for the students. The representation she provides them with because she succeeds even though she is undocumented is incredibly important, especially in the wake of Trump’s election. She said about his election “I knew it was the truth of our country but I didn’t think it would be legitimized.” She guided her students as they prepared art pieces and rallies about immigration rights.

“I knew it was the truth of our country but I didn’t think it would be legitimized.”

She said that she didn’t make art for 3 years when she started teaching, and in that time she stopped calling herself an artist. I found it inspiring how she was in the right place at the right time to get the chance to make her first Butterfly mural. It’s good to know that even if you stop making art for a bit, it will just happen if its meant to. Yehimi had never made a mural before, but her Butterfly mural was a huge success and now she is a rising muralist. She is getting to paint what she really wants, which is portraits of people that are important to her. Her art is inherently social justice related as she fights battles for representation. The Butterfly mural has been painted over because she refused to silence herself, and the political and humanitarian nature of the work made the owners of the wall uncomfortable. I was able to help her with a tree mural in November 2017 and she is one of the kindest, funniest and most deeply inspiring people I have ever met. I am excited to continue watching her success.

Nell Ruby’s sabbatical research talk was more like a story one might read about an American adventure than a lecture. She showed us an impressive map of the places she traveled around the United States. She revisited childhood inspiration as well as sites of artistic wonder, such as the Lighting Field. Her journey was exciting and inspiring to me because of how fearlessly and freely she traveled alone as a woman artist.

The way Ruby equipped her big green art van with solar panels seemed like something I would have dreamed of as a child. It was a charming and impressive way to travel. She mentioned that she was somewhat of a spectacle, as an older lady driving through towns alone in a weird green van, and that people would talk to her because of it. As Ruby spoke about how she stopped for everything beautiful, she showed countless pictures of clouds and sunsets along the road. She said she wanted to encounter nature directly and get away from her usual machines which we are so connected to daily.

The goals of this trip included escaping a static state, jogging new artistic inspiration, and working in different contexts and scales. She also joked about wanting to be a “real artist” who goes outside somewhere to draw nature, wear a beret and be stereotypical. I understand this feeling, like all of the modern art we do is fun but there is something so simply pleasing about depicting the world we see. I connected with this notion that we should do what our gut is telling us to do and figure out why later.

I saw parallels between Ruby’s journey and the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit I saw at the NCMA. O’Keefe was drawn to depicting her surroundings in huge and abstract softness. Ruby mentioned how rocks are profound, and I was intrigued by three paintings of rocks O’Keeffe had done. They obviously share a profound respect and interest in our natural world. I  also think that the way Ruby found such an interest in the repetitive visual quality of rundown houses and barns by the side of the road is similar to the way O’Keefe was obsessed with the things like skulls, and subverting their usual meaning.

I was surrounded by an audience of other faculty and staff who clearly admired and respected Professor Ruby, and I can easily understand why. The way Ruby discusses art is very accessible. Her journey examined the beauty of our world, something at the core of art however you look at it. She documented the trip with her iPhone camera and spoke about how framing creates meaning, and photography is a practice of looking. It doesn’t take a fancy camera to see like an artist, in Ruby’s view. She mentioned that drawing is just “looking harder.” I am so thankful I could hear her discuss her trip and I hope to maybe take on like it for myself someday.

It was even more exciting to hear Robin Lynch talk to us this time. She has harvested the fruits of her through investigation and begun considering what she wants to make. I was impressed with how deeply she has researched Uncle Tom’s cabin. She dove into it until she felt she fully understood it, or at least understood more than our cultural perception of it. She recommended that everyone actually read it, which I plan to do.

I think Lynch’s process of research is really interesting because it is so much more extensive than mine. She looked into exhibitions that were themed around Uncle Tom’s Cabin and read curators comments to gain their knowledge. She also read books that seemed less directly related but are still important to her goals, such as books about earlier graphic design and the Getty collection of posters advertising about Shakespeare. Lynch is trying to understand her subject from many different angles, from historical to visual.

Lynch found that the images which have been recreated most from Uncle Tom’s Cabin are of Topsy, Eliza running with her child across the ice, and of Uncle Tom and Eva. These depictions of characters are from neutral moments in the story, not ones that show the brutality of slavery that Lynch believes make the book so powerful, even to this day. The ubiquity of these images has led Lynch to many important questions. Of the whitewashed image of Eliza, she asked “do you have to look like that to get sympathy?” When examining the almost featureless or inhuman images of Topsy, Lynch is asking what it will take to undo the incredibly racist base of our culture. She is also thinking about the suggestive depictions of Uncle Tom and Eva’s relationship, and this is the part that intrigues me the most.  

As someone in an interracial relationship, I feel a lot of discomfort coming from the culture around me about what my relationship should and shouldn’t look like, in ways that feel just as indescribable as they are pressing. I asked Lynch how looking at these images made her feel and she said angry, but that the images are nowhere near as upsetting as the graphic nature of the brutality written about in the actual book. Then she asked me how the images made me feel and I said uncomfortable. The supposed child Eva, who has a pretty womanly figure, is shown in intimate poses with Uncle Tom, who in many of the images doesn’t look very old. You can do an easy google yourself, but this is a great example. Here is another. I don’t think the interpretation that these images are sexual in nature is at all off base. I wonder if our culture still views white women in love with black men as little girls playing with emasculated slaves. I just wonder why people created images of this sexual nature. What is it about the story and these characters that so entranced peoples romanticism? Why did people change so many key features of these characters to depict them this way? I am glad Lynch showed me these images because I think they will help me as I continue to consider my relationship’s place in our country today.

Lynch plans to create a visual collection of these images, in some type of book that subverts these images or makes them contemporary. She was also considering the format of an anti racism Alphabet book for children, or animation. First she has to create mind map so that she can see everything visually. I cannot wait to see what she makes, especially after I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  

Here are some pieces of advice that I will most likely follow:

• She suggested buying slow dry to make acrylic paints dry less quickly which I think is a really good idea.
• She said that adding medium is like adding water but better for holding the paint to the canvas, so I think I should invest because I like my paint to be really watery but it sometimes can mess with the paint already on the canvas.
• She mentioned that one can paint the canvas one base color that is common in the entire image before actually starting painting. I really wish I had done this for the Maya Nude, it would have been so easy to paint the whole thing pink to start off with!
• She also told us how she interned for free with an artist and how that experience was very influential for her. This is something I will definitely look into.

After giving the talk to our class she joined me in my workspace to look at the Maya nude and critique my progress. She said that I should fill up the huge white space that I had thus far neglected, and we agreed it was bad to leave so much white space on the canvas. I immediately colored in the space and I think psychologically it does make a difference that it isn’t just blank anymore.

I appreciated these nuggets of wisdom and will hopefully be able to explore them more in depth soon.

This exhibit was very exciting to me because it paired work from throughout O’Keeffe’s career with pieces by currently working artists. The NCMA even commissioned a floral mural to be painted on one of its exterior walls for this show, which is very beautiful. I enjoyed the juxtaposition between the works of O’Keeffe with their sexual undertones and the works by modern artists such as Tschabalala Self and Monica Kim Garza, which confront the viewer with female sexuality a little more forcefully. There were also many works that explored nature and its beauty, as well as American Landscapes. I and my Dad spent a very long time in front of the Light Atlas by Cynthia Daignault. We enjoyed figuring out the organization of the 360 small paintings, some of which were idyllic and some of which were less so. Because it was created on an American road trip, it reminded me of the prints of Nell Ruby.

My Dad and I also enjoyed the 3 walled video of O’Keeffe’s home and work environment which she narrated. This show gave me a deeper appreciation of her works and her artistic skill in general. We had fun drawing a still life at the end of the show.

Artpapers!

Artpapers is an art journal that during our visit gave me insight into what it is like to be a small nonprofit arts organization. The head office is housed in a repurposed school building and the staff was comprised of less than 10 people working full time. The current executive of Artpapers discussed the struggle with funding and making sure that they are serving the right population.

The visit to Artpapers, although brief, led me to consider a bit more deeply the various directions and options I have in terms of art careers. I didn’t even realize that working for an art journal was an option. I  think the idea of writing about art is attractive but in the end I feel more drawn toward actual art making. One of the staff people at Artpapers said that the art world is oversaturated and it’s hard to get a job doing what you want in it, but I just feel hopeful.

Here is what I have done so far:

• Dinnertime Happening (link)
• Water Talk video (link)
• Donut Game. I handed all of the control over to Maya and Julia, who set up the game. Gracie and I competed blindfolded and hands tied in a slightly more difficult version of this traditional children’s game which we had both played when we were younger. It was out of my comfort zone to give all of the artist control to someone else in an artistic concept that I engineered. I don’t usually buy that many sweets at once, and Gracie said that she liked the game when she was little because she got to eat more donuts that she is normally allowed to. It’s interesting that BDSM themes appeared in this piece, and that donuts have such an element of denial, pain and struggle attached to them for many.
• Blue Foods- This was a brief sketch I did to make myself more interested in the food I had to eat. Ruby suggested more iterations of this, with more colors.

• Watched the Amy Winehouse Documentary- She was a Jewish singer with bulimia and a drug addiction. It got me thinking about how we know so many intimate details of singers lives but don’t necessarily know the same about artists.

What I am working on/planning to do:

• Stomach punch painting and happening
• Maya Nude painting
• “Leave You” music video
• Bob for apples? Or another food.
• Maya and Julia want to play the donut game.
• Possibly paint with my mouth and food.
• And I also wanted to use the darkroom, not sure if I have time for that.

I have been feeling so forceful and full of creative energy which is very exciting. I think it’s because I have not been able to really make conceptual art in a supportive environment since high school and it feels very familiar, yet thrilling in its newness. It feels good to let myself make things without exactly knowing why then figuring the “why” out later. There is always a reason that I am driven to create. I am not sure if I have done exactly 12 hours of this but it feels like a lot and like I am pushing myself. 

Talking to Ruby has been an essential part of this brainstorming process. She suggested that I create this word-map that shows how expansive my conceptualization is of eating disorders so that I can see all of the space that exists for me to make art inside of.

I have made two works recently that I think are both very successful beginnings of this investigation of how I can authentically but also curiously represent my eating disorder and recovery. The first project is my video Water Talk. I was more interested in the visuals and wrote the spoken word aspect in about 2 minutes because those words are a part of me they were easy to regurgitate. I think the most important part of this film is the end where I explode out of the water, hinting to recovery. Even more interesting is the idea of sexuality, and I wonder how does sexuality interact with ideas of eating disorders? They are obviously related but I want to mine deeper about how.

After much discussion with Ruby, I sat and thought deeply about how to challenge myself and be experiential. I thought about how trusting others in my art is something I have almost never done. I also do not usually explicitly include food in my work. Combining these elements, I had Maya feed me while we were both blindfolded to create my Dinnertime Happening. An important thing Maya brought up during our discussion after the happening is that I am not making art about spiraling deeper, I am making work about me trying to claw myself out of this hole and recover. The happening had a sense of play and mothering which was really positive for both of us.

The happening was messy and kind of gross which made it more interesting to me.

Going forward I want to create more happenings, as well as creating visceral and tactile pieces. I want to play and punch things and be wild in my art so that I can find out about how I make art and why I do. I think I need to look a little deeper inside of myself to see what is going on, but not let that prevent me from going with my gut. I am very excited.

I have been thinking about it literally all the time, and I have tried to record it with this chart but need to be mroe on top of it. I know I have done more than this.

Here are some other things I have been ruminating on

• Can an eating disorder be separated conceptually from its context (being a woman/ living in america/ the news)?
  • If no how can that be shown in art?
• What about typical/ therapeutic eating disorder art turns me off? Why is it so repetitive?
  • What is it about representing recovery is different from representing the spiral?
• Why is eating disorder art so hard to find? Is it actually more common than I think but just less explicit?

Although hearing about her background was already interesting, things got exciting for me when she began talking about her current research into Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the cultural response it had and still has to this day. I had read a summary of her research; however, her speech about it gave the history so much life and it was very obvious how passionate she is about the subject. When she began discussing the visual repetition of certain poses seen in the book’s paraphernalia, her passion began to infect me. I could see exactly how she traveled from interest to artistic obsession with the idea that the symbols of Uncle Tom’s Cabin are still incredibly relevant today.

Whether she creates her own “tom show,” or morphs the imagery into something bizarre, one of her goals that she shared with us is that she wants to find what exactly was so effective about Uncle Tom’s Cabin at the time it was written. Robin seeks to discover how this book created empathy in those who, prior to reading it, had none. By harnessing this imagery in today’s contemporary culture (possibly using images from protests like Ferguson or using live actors) she hopes to move people’s hearts and bring back the empathy that is missing in today’s discourse. I think her audience will be similar to that of the audience that was most impacted by Uncle Tom’s Cabin originally, which is those who are indifferent.

It was very helpful for me to see Robin’s entire process of going about her research so plainly laid out. I could also see the sparks of interest that led to her continued creation, starting with the simple statistic about the popularity of the book’s play adaptation on Broadway. Then when she revealed the visual patterns that she saw in the work derived from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, I saw what a good lead for artistic research would look like. Robin said she was always looking, and I think the ability to constantly look for patterns is going to be a skill I need to develop to further my artistic research.

The developing process with chemicals was just like how I read about in books, but I honestly expected it to be more difficult. I almost wanted to be in the room alone so I could concentrate more on the counting to make sure I was keeping the photos in the chemicals for the right amounts of time. I am so thankful that I got to experience this art form and I understand the allure of the process of the dark room.

I think this session was incredibly helpful to me as I begin to try and understand the processes of Joel Peter Witkin. He is a black and white photo artist who manipulates his images in the darkroom by scratching and marking them to create a distinct style. I love the richness he creates in his photos and I believe that the darkroom process is inherent to his work.