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Day 227 in the mirror with press and dreams, 95%

Posted by daynarama

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Day 227 in the mirror. As my Dad pointed out over Xmas, this project seems to be a study in bathrooms. I guess there is always that to fall back on if this whole feminist-performance-artists-using-the-body-now-that-they’re-over-40/cougar analysis doesn’t work out. But how can it not with press like this?! Note to self: speak in more of a monotone! Next time! For print! And web! Interviews!

I now dream in leopard print. It started about a month ago. Shopping, folding clothes, getting dressed. Friends showing me animal printed things. Fairly banal, shallow, dreamscape consumervision. I also have nightmares that I am wearing plaid or that I am all dressed in black. That I have forgot. That I have lived a few days without the print, and realize that it’s too late. That my project is broken. That I broke it and it’s too late to fix it. That it’s wrecked. That I failed. Sometimes when I get dressed, I fantasize about wearing black cords and a soft red sweatshirt, wondering what that would feel like. Not the fabric, but the patternlessness of the material.

But onwards and upwards, I’m more than halfway there. No sense getting all Apocalypse Now on you (I’m debating about showing this in Intro to Film at CEGEP when I teach it again).

As for the pictures, I will try harder to mix it up or at least take you to bathrooms that you haven’t seen because you’ve pretty much experienced the whole wardrobe which I may or may not burn on June 2nd, 2013.

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Day 222 at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, 95%

Posted by daynarama

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Day 222 in the washroom (surprise surprise) at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema for Tom Waugh’s class, The Sexual Revolution in Quebec Cinema, 1963 to 1980. After class, a woman said that she liked my outfit, and I immediately came out about my project of wearing animal print every day for a year, whereas yesterday I did not. Funny that, 95%

Day 221 at McGill, 95%

Posted by daynarama

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Day 221 at McGill, continuing my washroom tour. I am still waiting on paperwork to ensure that I can take a class with Amelia Jones, which I attended today. After class, a woman who sat next to me asked if I knew Kate Craig’s work. At first, I did not recognize the name, but once my classmate mentioned Kate’s persona Lady Brute who wore much leopard print, I remembered her instantly. As Jayne Wark mentions in “Dressed to Thrill: Costume, Body, and Dress in Canadian Performance Art” in Tanya Mars & Johanna Householder’s “Caught in the Act: An Anthology of Performance Art by Canadian Women” (2004), Lady Brute “took the leopard spot as her defining symbol” as did Dr. Brute, the persona of Craig’s then collaborative partner and husband, Eric Metcalfe who applied the leopard spot to all of his creations including his kazoo-saxophone. This was the early 70s.

In 1974, after their collaboration ended, Kate Craig performed The Flying Leopard in which she wore a winged leopard costume fitted with a harness that she shuttled down a cable that was “rigged from the hull of a beached freighter to a tree on the shore over the beach in Dollarton” outside of Vancouver. She put her leopard clad persona away in “Skins” a performance for video with Hank Bull in 1975 which I would love to get my hands on (the previous quote is also from Caught in the Act, only this time it’s Karen Henry’s look at Craig’s work in, “Kate Craig: Living in Character”).

Another classmate asked me in the hallway if I had made a film with a ball-gag and Mary Poppins. Yes, yes I did and you can watch it here.

I know, I know. This shirt amplifies my muffin top and looks like maternity wear, 95%