Black Yarn. Erin Gibson. Colored Pencil on 8.5 x 11 in. paper One of my first jobs in high school was working in the office of a local campground during the summer. At that time, during the late nineties/early aughts, there was a clear gender divide between staff roles. There were maintenance "men," and office "girls." The maintenance men enjoyed the title of men, even though some of them were my peers. At any rate, one special summer, there was one of them that stood out among the rest. Maybe he was the new guy, he was different somehow - whatever the reason - it was decided that he would be given the least desirable tasks and that none of the others would be helping him. This meant that he had to apply a fresh coat of paint to the swimming pool in the glaring sun. After having enough of the harder chores and ridicule, he reached a breaking point. "I'm only one man," he said. And then: "I feel like a pin cushion."
This provided further grounds for contempt, and I heard the maintenance guys jokingly repeating this in the office. They also gave him the nickname Picasso, since he was talking about having painted the entire swimming pool all by himself. I'm not claiming to be innocent in all of this, I laughed along with everyone else. It was generally a fun place to work, and there was a lot of banter. That statement, though. I feel like a pin cushion. It struck a chord with me, and back then, I had no idea why. There was something about how he had been targeted, put into an impossible situation, and then shamed when he was triggered by all of it. By then, I was going to art school, but still working there during the summer. I had to do a project for video class, and I decided to appropriate the phrase in Featherhead. It was a performance piece in which I dressed in a faceless mascot head, with my body covered in feathers. There were two repeating phrases, "How much do you love me?" and "I feel like a pin cushion." The dizzying editing cuts created disorientation and confusion. There was a tension between the first phrase, which was self centered, and the second, which expressed some painful emotions. I was lucky enough to have a video professor who introduced me to Miranda July's work. Miranda July was doing video chain letter tapes for the Joanie4Jackie project, and I submitted my piece. Mine is listed here. If you don't have the VHS tape that I sent you back in 2001, you can contact the Getty Research Institute to view it. They also may be posting them on the Joanie4Jackie site at some point. Miranda July accepted every submission, and this was an unconditional acceptance into a community that I really needed at the time.
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AuthorI am an artist and a social worker. Disclaimer: The ideas on this site are not meant to replace clinical care. If you are having a mental health emergency, please call 911 or your local Crisis Services provider. ArchivesCategories |