Making It Personal?
Being in Paris is like being present for the constant unveiling of a revised museum specimen. Something that always existed, but has been repaired, or has something new to be uncovered. Due to the city’s great age, and vast history compared to the young country of the United States, Paris always has something new in the works, or always has brought together a lost collection of works for display for a short time. Hemingway always referred to the city as “a movable feast”, but I find that phrase more appropriate for Mumbai than here. Recently, I have attended the exhibitions on Lê Phô, Mai-Thu, Vu Cao Dam, Pionniers de l’art moderne vietnamien en France at Musee Cernuschi, Au Fils D’Or at Quai Branly, and today, I am setting out to see the Degenerate Exhibit at Musee Picasso, and the permanent collection at Musee Rodin. Here in Europe, being under 26 means a lot of great cultural exhibitions are free to attend and observe. Lucky me!
“The Letter” by Lê Phô at Musee Cernuschi
While I was at the Aquarium Tropicale yesterday for a life drawing session, I considered a lot of what has been on my mind while I have been in the city. I can’t deny the changes in myself, I’ve grown up, grown more independent, and feeling more comfortable standing my ground when it comes to what I find motivating for my work in both ceramics and illustration. It’s strange to think I had to travel 5,000 miles to discover how burnt out I really was, and reconnect with the things that mean the most to me. The best example I can provide for this is when attending Au Fils D’Or, I was really overcome with emotion looking at wedding saris from South India, and extravagantly embroidered kimonos from early 20th Century Japan. Not just because of the heritage I married into, but because my mother is a textile artist. She always studied these great feats of textile art as inspiration for her own work in both quilting, tailored clothes, and her woodblock prints. I never got into sewing or textile, and for a long time, I really detested how much attention my mother put into her work. I was envious of the way she focused on her machine rather than me. However, as I got older, our family dynamic changed. I realized how much love her work contained. She was pouring every possible emotion into every quilt, teddy bear, and repair. Even now, I have immense respect for my mother and her relationship to fabric and textile history. In the last 10 years, she has made over 120 quilt tops, all demonstrating skill in pattern, color theory, and composition principles.
Part of being homesick means understanding those nuanced moments that mean the most, and it was so strangely assuring on my recent phone call to my mom, to hear the hum of her machine moving slowly to piece very tiny triangles together. Even when I was in California, I was overwhelmed with joy to sleep with one of her quilts on the guest bed at my sister in law’s, a family gift from our American wedding. I have slept with one of my mom’s quilts on my bed my whole life, I have not been without one until these past 6 months.
Other things I noticed was that I have slammed into my dinosaur phase at 24. I don’t know if I can really call it a phase, when it’s been in the background my whole life? Having a sibling who is a paleontology savant meant DINOSAURS EVERYWHERE. ALL THE TIME. Again, I wasn’t old enough to appreciate it, nor did I understand a lot of the paleontology lingo until I was applying for this grant. Now that I work in the MNHN libraries, and can go into the Gallery of Comparative Anatomy anytime, it’s hard not to be floored by massive skeletons of long dead reptiles. I have been really into Jurassic Park again, as I reread the books and didn’t look back. The ultimate nerd in me has been watching fan made Jurassic Park horror animations, and other dinosaur media (most notably, the talented David Armsby). While my own work focuses on a lot of living species, the extinct has a special place in my heart, especially specimens from where I grew up upstate. A good chunk of my work is also revolving around “living fossils” or species that still survived beyond the dinosaurs, most notably: sharks, turtles, crocodilians, crabs, carnivorous plants, orchids, and so on.
Gallery of Comparative Anatomy’s Fossils
Ultimately, my whole point is that I am closer to home, despite being so far away. I am really able to discern why these species and objects drive me as an artist, and why it is personal. Despite my research goals here in Paris on colonialism’s monopoly on knowledge of the natural world, I find more reasons each day on why I pursued all of this in the first place.