Crazy long days here as the Catholic guilt kicks in from taking a few days "off" for my birthday and house improvements. Drawing during the day (pics later, recharging camera batteries) and evening reading (The Importance of Being Famous: Behind the Scenes of the Celebrity Industrial Complex , Intimate Strangers: The Culture of Celebrity in America, and Paparazzi: and Our Obsession with Celebrity) and movie research for the paintings I am working on. Doing the research is making me think a great deal about the artists' relationship to subject matter. Some of the things I have read, and especially things that I have watched, are truly repulsive to me: there was one DVD I saw, I think it might be/have been a television show, where the viewer "travels along"with a paparazzi guy who literally stalks celebrities. I could not finish the DVD, and I felt as if I needed to shower repeatedly after watching it. I am entering into a world that is foreign to me, that I have a visceral response to, and I keep having to step back and look at everything through a critical filter, because the emotional impact of being immersed in this world is too strong. It reminds me of the first time I saw Jerry Springer, I literally wanted to throw up, it was so ugly. I am not "curiously drawn to it", it makes me so sad, it is almost unbearable... why people would want to court that sick feeling by watching the show repeatedly is baffling to me.

The impulse to make the current work comes from the gut, and the reading is meant to help gain a fuller understanding of the complexities inherent in the subject matter. This phenomenon has many layers beyond a standard addiction. Were I offered the chance at a second life profession, I would surely want to study psychology more thoroughly.

In between all of this, dealing with crating & shipping issues... trying to get the 150 lb. Defense Mechanism Coat to Kansas City, MO, for the Belger Art Center show this summer. Being a control freak, I have always driven the coat to its destinations, but I am trying avoid the 32 hour roundtrip drive and learn to let go.....

Doing experiments with aluminum tape to see if it might come in handy on the chair..... hope to start ripping apart said chair this evening.