58 - still life

things have been pretty quiet and still around here as i've been devoting ALL my time to preparing for my comprehensive exams, giving it one last push to complete and submit my annotated bibliography so that i can write the exam in November. what better time, then, to share this animated Still Life (2001) by British artist Sam Taylor-Wood, a silent film work in which a painterly bowl of fruit decays at an accelerated place. engaging the seventeenth-century art historical traditions of vanitas and memento mori, it is perfectly visceral in the way it distorts time and captures the banality of the everyday. 

i particular like the way Taylor-Wood's work actively but subtly engages historical conventions and constructions. as i have been reading about the invention and representation of hysteria in the nineteenth century as part of my study of intersections between art, medicine, and the body, i am naturally drawn to another of her video works, Hysteria (1997), in which a woman performs the emotional states of laughing and crying in the absence of sound, blurring the distinctions between them.

52 - hard at work

i am out of town on something of a work(ing) holiday, nestled in a quiet old stone house in a small town along the St. Lawrence River, where i will be spending the week studying for my upcoming PhD comprehensive exams. inspired by this lovely silkscreen print by Erin Dollar, which i am posting as both an illustration of the week ahead of me and as an artful reminder of the work i need to accomplish this week, my goal is to remain focused and "work hard." while i am always hard at work, steadily working days & nights and weekends, i am also constantly distracted at home by any number of things: nova lily and other art-making projects, playing house, wedding planning, blogging/reading blogs, snuggling with my kitty.... as September is quickly passing by and deadlines are fast approaching, i need to stay focused on my academic work so that i can get through this phase of my degree, return to my life with andrew, carry on with my research, and devote more time to my art.

so, it is time to crank out some serious work. and there is no other placed i'd rather be....

visit Erin's etsy shop for more artful goods. you can also find Erin on her blog.

26 - bibliophile: book darts

as i have already mentioned, i am currently studying (i.e. reading a large amount of books and articles over the summer) for my PhD comprehensive exams. while passing through Ottawa last weekend to visit andrew, we stopped at Lee Valley Tools, where i finally purchased a tin of book darts—the most incredible little page and line markers ever! after getting repeatedly frustrated with paper flags and the amount of waste they produce, i jumped at the opportunity to snag these elegant paper-thin bronze reusable markers. they are unobstrusive and book-friendly; they slide onto the page easily, stay securily in place, do not leave any marks, and are infinitely reusable. made in the USA, they have lasting value for any reader who wants to reclaim a great phrase or mark an important section of a book. as a researcher, they are my new favourite, must-have tool, but they are useful for anyone looking to make reading more effective (and enjoyable!). i find them so magnificent and delightful!

books featured:

Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity (New York: Zone Books, 2007). 

Jackie Stacey, Teratologies: A Cultural Study of Cancer (London and New York: Routledge, 1997).