private or for everyone else

My intermittent, but consistent, contemplation of the elephant in the room continues. As I keep searching for ideas about where the elephants reside, I thought that maybe they are personal demons. But now I am wondering if they are the things we don't acknowledge publicly, but that others will gladly acknowledge behind our backs.
I spent the weekend doing various neighborly activities, such as participating in a multi-home yard sale and watching football. Throughout encountering various familiar faces and quasi-acquaintances, I also began to learn incredibly intimate details about their lives, and not from them.
I stumbled into the murky political waters of social positioning, which grows more complicated because it exists on either side of our house, across the street and down the road. It is a realm of who knows whom, who has what, and how many iterations and generations live on the block. I can only imagine what they are saying about me. And in fact, where is this information leak coming from?
Among tid-bits and pieces learned, I heard about various crimes, substance abuses, and other degrees of personal judgement. All stuff I did not need to know, and things I am certain would be considered hurtful to the owners of said gossip, but stuff that was gleefully passed to me, a new-comer who has only resided here for three years.
So what I am wondering is, is it safe to say that the elephant might be things that we won't acknowledge within our personal environs, but things which become owned and discussed inappropriately in the public realm?

please allow me to introduce myself...

My search to find the true meaning of 'feminism' has intensified over the years. Not to insinuate that mine is an all consuming passion to answer all questions pertaining to the state of feminism, but rather an on-going process to figure out what kind of woman I am, how that compares to my peers, and where we all fit in to society.

Throughout my adulthood, I have encountered many beautiful, intelligent women from all walks of life. We can relate to the physical sisterhood and bond based on our gender, roles, jobs, education, taste, lifestyles, hobbies, etc, etc, etc, etc. The one thing we never seem to agree on is the state of feminism and a woman's role in society.

Have 'we' made progress? Have we not? Are things the same since 1950, or different?

I don't know. I say that with a weary tone in my mind's voice. I do know though. I know what my life is, what my experiences are, where I come from and how I feel about myself situated in the world around me. And I often disagree with many of my peers. Or maybe they just disagree with me. It's not an unhealthy disagreement or debate to have, especially between us woman. In fact,we are really the only ones to have this debate, as we are the most affected by the outcome.

So, let's start in the beginning... who, or what, is a woman? Must she have a vagina? Ovaries? Breasts? Must she be conventionally pretty, maternal, soft-spoken? What if she used to own a penis, but traded it in for a better model? Shall she be invited to the feminine discourse that determines who and what we are as a group?

Maybe she still has a penis, but otherwise lives every moment of her life calling herself 'she'? Or should the 'real' we disqualify 'her' from our awesome little ya-ya group in the same way we have been discriminated form in the past?

This is only the beginning and it seems clear why everything is so convoluted.

Recently I came into contact with two pieces of literature that once again got me thinking about the current state of feminism. But I dislike the word feminism because it carries so much political baggage. I keep thinking about this whole topic as the state of being a woman, and how each of us individually owns our womanhood and what this means as a greater collective. The first was an article in Newsweek sent to me by my awesome friend, and the other is a book I am currently reading.

Both of these will be cited in my next post. I just want to throw these initial ideas out there. Furthermore, let me disclose that my information, ideas, and process' are anecdotal at worst and intuitive at best. I am not a scientist, I am not trying to please anyone, and I do not have a degree in this particular subject.

So with that being said, time to get busy being a woman.

sketchbook pressure

I have been contemplating 2 aspects of my sketchbook project. 1- what exactly is the elephant and how should I depict it and 2- I have been a little stuck on the idea that this project is for exhibit. I am wrestling with a desire to make images that are precise and complete in their own right, and then feeling disgusted that I should be so caught up in the preciousness of the sketchbook. I must once again reiterate that the sketchbook should be a place of freedom and discovery. There should be no cap or expectation on what will be delivered other than ideas, roughly sketched, until a useful kernel forms.

As for the elephant, I have given him much consideration. I have decided that he is a 'he'. I have also decided that the elephant is not mine, it is usually someone else's. Or else, the elephant is a residual social character who exist strong and heavy, but invisible, as most dividers are. Since I am prone to pointing out many things that turn out better left unsaid, I have decided that my elephant is more of a personal demon. My elephant sits quietly behind me, never saying anything, but always alerting me to his extreme displeasure and un-approving irritation.

Sometimes I make words up. Who cares? Fuck off mr. elephant. Don't bother me tonight and I won't get annoyed by you.

I keep envisioning a line drawn character that is repeated and abundant throughout the pages. Maybe on a string like a little bookmark, and maybe just pasted unceremoniously onto the scene.

I can't remember who.

Someone told me not too long ago that blogging was a good idea. I am dubious, but now that I have more time on my hands, I figure it can't do too much harm. Herein lays the challenge in relying on conventional representations to express ideas. We must all agree on what that initial information must be. So my challenge becomes how do I make succinct little expressions that are accurate and read conclusively to the ideas I want to express?

Sketchbooks are usually visual diaries. Journals for brainstorming, experimenting and developing our thoughts and methods with the end goal being some other project or final piece. I had an art teacher in high school (I cannot remember which one but probably Mrs. Freger) who cautioned us from becoming too attached to the pages of our sketch books. I used to draw very precisely and carefully, always only on one side of each page, rendering still lives and the human figure meticulously. I was so proud of this hard bound book, but when I showed my teacher, she criticized the scores of blank pages and the overly rendered objects within. The ego blows came early, and never seem to cease but I can usually look back to find the lesson inherent in each ache.

In this case, it was a caution to not take myself, or my sketchbook, too seriously. The danger in this being that potential trap of getting stuck between two pages with no room to move. Not to mention, if I can't get off the pages of a book and into a larger space, I will not have the space to grow.

Now I tend not to keep sketchbooks as a general practice any more. Depending on what medium I am working in, I will sketch directly onto the canvas, make a sequence of images until it is right or work in multiple layers. This is a form of journaling I suppose, but I might benefit from rediscovering the practice of keeping a bound space to jot down ideas without being forced to commit to the project before I know what it is, or else covering all the tracks of my process.