rewritten thesis proposal

i am fairly sure this sucks.

My life experience has been marked by a sensitivity and hyperawareness of my physical body. How I feel about my body, more than anything else, has informed how I live my life. It has dictated the social situations I allow myself to enter, the physical activities I participate in and whom I love. These sensitivities are my constant companions, both as a person and as a maker. For this thesis body of work I will explore the sensitive, intimate spaces of the female body through a series of mixed media sculptures incorporating fabric, thread, fired and unfired clay. I want to understand how these bodies function within themselves as well as how they function and live within a private, intimate, domestic space.

I have chosen the domestic space as a framework for these objects to live in for a myriad of reasons. The domestic space serves not only as a conceptual framework but also a literal one; I am using these objects – hooks, hangers, shelves, chairs, boxes – as an armature to hold up these bodies. I have closely investigated and contemplated spaces commonly found in a domestic setting, what is located there, who can access it, how it hung or folded or tucked away, how it is brought out and displayed and for whom the display is intended. I felt pulled toward the domestic space because of its obvious associations with the female as the traditional keeper of the home, but also for another reason: an opportunity to observe and watch these intimate spaces and what (or who) is in them.

A space is made private by virtue of who is allowed to see or enter it. I do not wish to create any sense of voyeurism or violation of these private spaces, but rather an invitation to enter into what is most tender and vulnerable, with the aim of understanding, sensitivity and awareness of the precariousness and preciousness of the intimacy.

Jen Davis’ photography, more than any artist, embodies the quality that I will strive for when creating this body of work. By making the public/private barrier permeable, she allows her body to be observed in small intimate moments. It is this true intimacy that I will seek to explore in this body of work, to understand the precarious nature of the relationship between a private space and a public space.

With this sense of precariousness in mind, I was first led to concentrate on exploring the nature and depth of boundaries and how they divide different spaces. My fascination with boundaries has manifested itself in many ways through my work. First was the boundary of skin, the layer between the human body and the rest of the world, an outer covering that is constantly exposed to the forces of the space outside of it. My interests then expanded to include the boundaries of social understanding, communication and interaction, and where a body can and cannot enter. In an effort to bring awareness to these boundaries and the spaces within them, I constructed a number of “line” pieces, beginning with “Watch the Red Line”, installed along the baseboards of the ceramics graduate studio space. This concept eventually progressed to “Boundary”, where the line was no longer thin and map-like but had expanded to a mass of flesh-like tangles forming a circle.

I can now understand how boundaries were important in developing the idea of the precariousness of intimate space. The boundaries between different kinds of space are forever changing and always permeable. Because these boundaries are always in flux, the space within it is always changing, winking in and out of sight. Access to an intimate space can be easily granted and just as easily snatched away. This is why I believe the spaces that I will create will be special and deeply affecting – they are not something one can find and keep easily. Intimacy with another human being, with an object, or with a specific space can be an intense, scary and satisfying thing. As a culture, we remain largely alienated from the intimacy of our own and each others' bodies. It is my hope that, through this body of work, I can restore an appreciation for the precariousness and rarity of that intimacy.