Two things:
1) There’s that phenomenon whereby as soon as you learn a word you start hearing it everywhere. Well, the same day that I learned what a triptych was during my visit to the Cloisters, where there are many, I was asked to make a triptych of girls with guns
2) My friend was totally right about that whole appealing to the male demographic thing
After the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, a coworker held an art auction as a benefit and I donated two pieces. My coworker gave me some images from Haiti that I could use. The first is a woman praying – this piece was important for me obviously because of the cause, but also because I hadn’t really thought about framing or negative space before. The second is children on their way to school. This was important because I hadn’t done much with multiple people, and especially with such small people. This was also a diversion from what had really only been pictures of women before. (Please excuse my reflection in the photos!!)
Another student group t-shirt contest (or really they said it was a logo contest but I chose to ignore that distinction). Queer Health Task Force made me think of fighters for good, defending the innocent, and bringing justice to the world, etc. Also Pride. So that lead me to the Power Rangers, that I repurposed using rainbow-colored construction paper. I’m not sure whether this one actually made it onto a t-shirt or a poster or what, but I did have the original taped onto my bedroom wall for quite a while.
Another calendar my old roommate brought home was of yoga poses, so I picked three of them and made a little series. I decided since it was to be a legit series that I would use the same paper choices for all three. And I chose more muted patterns to reflect the calming nature of yoga.
My best friend and I were having a Hanukkah party at my apartment in Portland. But if you know anything about Portland, you know that there aren’t many Jews. In fact, if we just invited our friends, there would be one and a half Jews coming aside from ourselves. So we told our friends that they couldn’t come unless they brought a Jew with them. This ended up being amazing, and hysterical – I wish I could have been there to witness people asking their token Jewish coworker or friendly acquaintance from their volunteer job if they wanted to come to this party. But it was a great turnout, and super fun.
As it would happen, one Jewish friend-of-a-friend who came to the party saw the Brooklyn Girls haphazardly taped to my wall and started asking me about them, and ultimately asked to buy two of the girls from my wall and to commission a 3rd that would become a birthday present for her boyfriend (hence why those pictured are colored copies). This was pretty exciting!!
Turns out her boyfriend didn’t like them – I think he felt uncomfortable because of how provocative they were. I’m not entirely sure what ended up happening with them, but it was cool for me!
