PRODUCTS OF A BIFURCATED FOCUS 2016
Anticipating a cohesive body of work, I have been waiting for some time, to post something consolidated—a show, perhaps, or a completed project—but I have to acknowledge that my life is not that monolithic right now, including family, a young child, and a full time job. Most of the work I do occurs between home and studio in stolen spaces, between reports and lesson plans, between homework and playdates, sometimes on the subway, sometimes in my classroom. I am lucky to still have a studio. I have more ideas in various media than I can accommodate, creating an uncomfortable traffic jam in my head, and I feel that I am running to fill a bucket with water grasped in my two bare hands. Most of the time I get there with empty hands or never even reach the bucket, but sometimes a drop or two gets in, these drops represented by the work below. In grad school, an advisor introduced me to the concept of "bifurcated focus", the practice, mostly by women, of splitting one's attention in many directions simultaneously. As a single, older woman dedicated to making, I did not envision that it would happen to me. But here I am. And after years of marginalizing my small creations for their "frivolousness" I come to realize that this IS the body of work. I embrace the fits and starts and questing that fit my radically altered opportunities to create, and I embrace the privilege given me to create at all. This page is dedicated to what is happening here and now, whenever I can make it happen.
