High-minded ramblin'.

Last day of Spring Break. It's been quiet and pretty boring here, so I've taken the time to work on my McKnight Fellowship application. I'm feeling pretty good about the work I've put into it this year. Even though I only started with a week to spare, per usual, I feel like it's in much better shape than it's been the last two years. In attempting to put into words what it is I do, I've had some realizations about how I work, so even if I don't get lots of money out of it (and, well, I'm trying not to hope much that I will), it will have been worth the time I've spent on it. So that's cool. Looking online for resources on writing Artists Statements (if you thought cover letters were bad... ugh...) I found an excellent quote from Cocteau:

An artist can be expected to discuss his art as much as a plant can be expected to discuss horticulture.

Paraphrased, so it's not completely accurate, but hell, it was translated from french anyway. While I realize it's become a necessary evil in the modern art world, and that I just said it was a good thing for me to do, discussing things with words that are meant and made specifically to express something without them seems kind of silly in a lot of ways. And the more I'm confronted with it the more I hate the insinuation that if you aren't effected by a piece of "Art" it means you aren't smart enough or educated enough or snobby enough to understand it- maybe, just maybe, it means the artist did not effectively communicate what they wanted to express. It's a difficult and highly subjective thing.

Anyway. Enough of that.

I am adjusting to being home from North Cackalakie. I had never met the word "Cackalakie" just as I had never met the RDU airport. I guess my trip was educational. Anyway, had a fantastic long weekend with sarendipatree and ilexcassine. And vaxjo (Pictures should be up this weekend, for those who care.) Warm weather, outdoor scrabble, kitties, homemade curries- all good stuff, and I came home with their old PlayStation, deemed obsolete by their PS2. Last night I acquired a DanceDanceRevolution pad, and attempted to acquire the game to go with it with no luck. But sooooooon, soooon, and just in time for spring I will be taking full advantage of the fact that no one lives directly below me with my favorite indoor exercise routine. I guess it will go with the fantastic new scarf that buttons made for me this week. Ah, irony.

By the way, thanks to all you folks for the kind words in the face of the lj-spewed bout of artistic self-doubt. You're all fantastic.

Looking forward to sleeping in a bit tomorrow.