Bad! Kitty Art Studio ~ Portland Oregon~ New Art and the Quote for the day...
BAD! Kitty Art StudioQuote for the day
andNEW ART!
Read on...
These two quotes below
are the motivation behind the idea I had for my new body of work...Yup, you guessed it...Trophies.
Awards for Excellence.
Not an award for performing a public act....
but rather I am making trophies for those quiet inner
battles, lessons, accomplishments,
that Humans have to go through in order to become more
than just a human being...
Classification, scientific theory,
the mere sum of your biological combinations...
to be Human and dare to become More.
I have more to say about this but...Here are the quotes that helped me figure out what the hell I was doing with this last 4 weeks of work...I mean everyday...Working , and it took 4 weeks to feel right...And to understand what it was I was doing in the first place...Besides playing, and keeping my hands busy while my mind expands....Growing and changing my being....Really art is my way of talking to my real self...She speaks in symbols , tone, texture, song, and impulse.
***
"The most important moral of all is that excellence is where you find it. I would extend this generalization to cover not just higher education but all education from vocational high school to graduate school. We must learn to honor excellence, indeed to demand it in every socially accepted human activity, however humble that activity, and to scorn shoddiness, however exalted the activity. An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water. "
John William GardnerAmerican writer & educator
***
To win the trophy of enchanting grace: Ranks of Carnations, to all ladies dear, Of whose sweet taste I write approval here, For these pre-eminent myself I think, As long as you don't overdue the pink.Ruth PitterEnglish poet, author of delicate lyrics on nature, love & religious themes
***
Trophies.
I didn't get many trophies as a kid.
I got a couple as a teenager for sports...Archery,
and being a power weight lifter.
yep, I had to conquer everything at a young age...
Girls don't do what?
OK...Well then I'll do that.
I was the first and only girl in my high school
to enter and excel in the drafting program.
I also was a dancer in the dance program, and
I was a young model and actor...
girls do...do those things...So I didn't find them
challenging enough...
I refused to take home economics...Or typing...Or cooking...
but Ballet was always and still is a passion...
dance in general...
hip-hop funk saved my life once open a time...
so did an opera...
music soothing the wounds and building
bridges into the world
That I now live in.
***
I was the skinny tall girl in high school...
I got beat up at home often...And had been trained by my Father and Grandfather (Golden gloves heavyweight champion in the 40's)
to fight...No such thing as a fair fight...
so anyway...I was always proving how tough I was...
I walked into the all male weight room, with all the football
jocks pumping iron
slapping asses
spitting
and asked if someone would like to help
me learn how to pump iron.
Baby...I ain't never been ugly...
but I was awkward and graceful
and tall.
So... I decided after loosing a fight with the local bully...
he went to far...And instead of just shoving and pushing and taunting...
he had touched me...
I had "lost" the fight in my mind because he was stronger.
I vowed never to loose a fight again, because of stregth, I would become stronger...and smarter...
I needed strength...
so I went and got some.
A few years later...When I was in Job Corps...They too had a smokin gym.
I again found I was the only girl out of 550 people...Who had gone in and worked out.
It was "guy" territory...
Gender has always been an issue for me...
I refuse to be less than any human...Always have...Gender don't matter
one iota, when your getting your ass kicked.
When my size was awkward at 16,
at 18 I was an Amazon.
I was no longer a girl.
I was a Grrrl.
The coach got all excited to have a female...Which meant he could then tour us and we could compete with other centers.
I was #1 heavy weight in females...corp wide for a year or so...but there were only five of us competing so...as far as grrls go...I was best out of 5...
I have the little ribboned medals still...
but I didn't win them for me.
I won them to prove something to everyone (the world)
else.
I was strong...See I have the trophy to prove it.
I was a pure, clean, simple,
human machine, that could dead lift 424 pounds.
Simply because I was made tall...
I never bulked out...
I was slender...Unassuming.
A Fucking Powerhouse
hidden...
explosives tend to
expose themselves
in their own time.
***
I have worked hard for years to repair...
to create a healthy human.
I have faced my mortality.
I have faced
aloneness.
I have faced demons, and
slayed them with the release of my
truth.
You don't get awards for
inner growth.
You don't see million dollar televised, red carpet
award shows dedicated to
who is
most bright
from the inside.
***
I need to award myself for all that hard work.
The need for something tangible to mark
my struggle,
and my growth.
My change that has spawned change in
so many ways, I may never know the full extent
of my reach.
So, I made a trophy...
for
keeping on, keeping on,
for the joy of creation,
for the power of living in the moment,
and as a testament that
self esteem alone...really can make your
ass look great.
I have more trophies coming.
This one also lights up...
to remind us all
the the brightest parts of ourselves
can only be discovered
in
the darkest
of velvet black..
black the color of all consuming...it absorbs everything around it...
***
It is also made completely out of recycled vintage objects...
the soda bottle is a coke bottle from the earliest days of production (read: I don't know the date)...Back when they sold soda water...
and a cold press plate from a 50's Polaroid camera....the bottle is filled with red, yellow, orange and clear broken glass...the queen top I robbed off of a Miss Oregon of 1953 trophy I found in a dumpster...she stands on vintage wooden spools, there is a 1960's Cracker Jack toy elephant....Many messages hidden all over the place...And the top is made from a vintage metal hair roller that I took throw away light bite toys and melted them into the holes....And then filled in around them with fancy handmade glass beads...The very tip-top is a pewter pepper shaker top from the 30's.
What is old is new again...
That deserves a trophy...That effort...So I made one.
Expect more.
***
I fill the world with my light...
here's to being worth
a trophy
for just being you,
just the way you are.
Love and light,
Heather
If you would like more information or pictures
(read: better pictures of this yet untitled and unfinished work)
or would like to commission your own trophy...
just contact me.
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