Date of Award

Spring 6-4-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Painting

First Advisor

Jackie Gendel

Second Advisor

Roger White

Third Advisor

Angela Dufresne

Abstract

I work hard to keep language out of my studio. Language reminds me of my mom’s voice, people telling me what to do, not having the right accent, critiques, criticism in general, mis-truths, and never being good enough. Language is the material of my thoughts, and most of my thoughts, or the ones on a constant loop anyhow, are all those voices over and over again.

Painting is where I get to be me, with myself, and in my body. Painting is my home, family, refuge, and best friend. I’m not looking at myself from the outside, no one can fucking tell me what to do, and I don’t have to explain myself.

Naturally writing a “thesis” feels counterintuitive and is absolute last thing I want to do. It’s a messed up hierarchy, where after two years of material investigations and dialogue, “schooling” is only complete with a written component. It feels like beating a dead horse or killing the whole damn thing.

I’ve thought of a lot of ways to do this part of my education without actually doing it: 1. Commission essays about my work 2. Conduct interviews and use transcripts 3. Provide a quick abstract stating my position followed up by a curated reading list 4. Write an exhaustive list of all the voices in my head that I have to shut down before I paint 5. Type up the notes from my Can’t Stop Coyote book 6. Include other manifestos or make my own 7. Smoke a final pack of cigarettes one last time and “write a thesis” whatever that means 8. Try to get an exemption 9. Submit the exemption letter as my thesis.

The bottom line is I’m not ready to write and have no desire to. As I lay here on my stomach and think about forcing myself to sit, reflect, and name stuff, I feel like I want to kill myself and smoke till I die. I don’t know what the following pages that make up my “thesis” will contain. It might be linear, impressionistic, or fragmented. They might be my words or the words of others. It may describe my paintings or not. My compromise is that I am willing to try, for the sake of my “education”, to explore some other possibilities for language in relation to my practice.

Comments

View exhibition online: Tala Worrell, Can't stop coyote

Included in

Painting Commons

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.