The week was marked by the start of my period, which was not bad, just painful and emotionally intense. Remember how I told you I went back to my irregular schedule? well, it only took me to type that to begin the agony, which explains a lot about why last week was emotionally draining and I was crying everywhere without warning and the fact that my expectations were too high for the Juried exhibition didn’t make this emotional storm any better. Just a few days ago I confirmed that a lot of my feelings were hormonal and triggered by a lot of the emotional writing I’ve been doing in the last month, so I am not feeling as bad anymore. Additionally, Christmas music makes me very depressed because I can’t spend the holidays at home. The last time I spent Christmas in Chile was in 2006, and whoever picked the music at work decided that Feliz Navidad by José Feliciano would be a fantastic song to play, well that person is a sadist because that song screams Christmas at home (in summer) because my dad used to play a cassette tape with that song since my very first christmas in this earth, so whenever I listen to that song I have to fight myself to keep it together. I know it doesn’t justify why I am so whiny, but I just have too much on my plate. Unfortunately it can’t be changed because it is a corporate decision and I need money. At least the other issues have been partially solved and I have an answer that makes sense and I am looking for coping mechanisms to stop feeling so bad.
This week’s struggle started last friday. I was running late for my first official show at Stamps. That day I was frustrated for a lot of reasons, basically I was having a bad hair day. The first reason was that I thought that the show would start at 6, but it started earlier. That meant I had to run from work in downtown, put makeup on the bus and I didn’t have time to look good, so instead, I looked like a slob and I didn’t even want to get a picture with my own camera in front of my artwork. That meant that my parents won’t see pictures of me in the show, unless my friends sent me the ones they took but I know I won’t look good though, so I don’t know if I want to see them. I usually don’t care how sharp I look because I am tired and I have no time to look good and I am working everyday. Also, I tend to ruin my clothes with paint, resin, or even food, but that day I just wanted to look good and feel pretty for once and I didn’t accomplish it. It would have made a difference in my attitude too, but instead I looked like a raccoon troll and acted all neurotic because it was not a good day. Not cool, Mona. Not cool. However, my friends Naomi, Javier and Daniela were very kind to show up and they made the day a lot better.
I wasn’t feeling physically comfortable and I was of course, tired, but I had a gut feeling and expectations since I heard good things about my work, so I thought I had a chance to win a little money. I fantasized about having some money to spend Christmas in Chile, or paying off my credit card, maybe having more money for IP, or save it for studio space next year, but I wasn’t awarded money. I didn’t care about the money when I first got in the show, but then I realized it was a competition. At the same time, I couldn’t believe I even got accepted because I am not used to the recognition at Stamps. I was getting ready to present in the Shit Show because that’s what I did last year and I actually loved it. It was a great experience.
I started overthinking about the show, then I started thinking about my overall experience at Stamps, and I realized that since I am a transfer student, the faculty doesn’t know me very well and I have had to take a lot of intro courses where I have done little things, so my body of work from Stamps is not chunky enough but it’s not because I don’t want it to be that way, it’s just that the circumstances have shaped my experience at Stamps in an odd way.
Let me start by saying that I am and I will forever be grateful for being accepted at the University of Michigan and the Stamps School. It changed my life in wonderful ways. I am a completely different person and the opportunities I have gotten from the experience can’t be measured. However, being part of such a big university as a non-traditional minority has been so hard, in so many ways but I am not sure who’s to blame, maybe I could blame myself for wanting to do something with my life, or I could blame a system that enables traditional patterns and algorithms to be successful, but I am not sure if that will make me feel better. I just accept my circumstances and work as I go.
I am one of the only Latinas at Stamps. Right now I know only about four other students that come from Latino households. I have a fantastic relationship with all of them and I wish I would have met them earlier in my academic career at Stamps because I had zero friends during my first semester and I had no support. I did make friends with grad students because my classmates were 18 and I was turning 25 and I felt very isolated because we were going through different processes. The grad students I befriended understood me a lot better than my classmates, but there wasn’t really time to hang out with them, some of them still became very close to me and we shared a lot.
Anyway, I was stuck taking intro courses until Fall 2014, so I didn’t really make meaningful things until then, but that fall almost doesn’t count because that was the most horrid semester I’ve had because I was coping with grief after I lost one of the friends I loved the most to suicide. I just couldn’t talk about it to anyone other than my therapist, the people that I trusted back then didn’t want to be around me because I was very depressed, so my performance at school suffered for all those reasons. I overreacted a lot, I didn’t deal with things well. I was a mess but I still did what I had to do and continued with my hectic life.
In Winter 2015 I took a lot of courses that were completely new to me. I took fibers and programming at the same time, I still don’t know how I thought that was a good idea, but it was helpful. I made new friends and thing started looking up. I pulled off my first independent research study in Chile, even though it was my own country I had to put up with a lot of rejection to make it work.
Suddenly, it was time for IP and now I am here, thinking about what these two years have meant to me and all the sacrifices I have had to make to be where I am and they are worth it, but sometimes I wish it could have been easier. I have had a lot of disadvantages as a financially independent transfer student. The fact that I work two jobs and go full time to school doesn’t really leave time to make new things either, so winter 2015 was the first semester I did something that I was proud of, which was the artwork that made it to the show. I titled it Vaginal Landscapes, it is an homage to the female in the Fiber Arts movement. I wove pennants with vaginal motifs and considered three types of visual representation for each pennant. One of them was abstract, the other one was dominated by color and the third one is more realistic. I thought I had a shot. Not meeting my expectations at the opening made me feel like all the effort that piece took was not enough and I questioned myself a lot. I didn’t see many people interested in my work. Some dudes took pictures of it and laughed because probably their only encounter with vaginas has been in porn. Also, I was confronted about my visual choices, and while I love discussing why do I use genitalia in my work, I was just not in the mood to explain it. I will write an entry when I finish writing about it, but I am still working on it. I do know I have to get used to it because the art world is not as glamorous as it looks in art show openings.
After talking to a lot of my peers and mentors though, I realized that it’s just not that the work is not good enough, it just belongs somewhere else. Deep inside, I’ve always known that everything I do will fit in somewhere, in a place that I haven’t discovered, but it will be a long walk before I find it. At least now that I have fantastic mentors like Holly, Heidi, and Carolyn that understand me and have been so supportive and that gives me fuel to create more things. It’s the first time I feel like someone gets me at Stamps and it feels great! I just wish I had more money to have more time and create things that I could use to show as part of my portfolio once I graduate.
Overall, I feel like the lack of financial resources has given and taken important things from my experience at Stamps, I haven’t excelled to my full potential and I feel like some professors read my circumstances as excuses, well I have no time for excuses because that takes precious working time from me so nope. I truly have no time. Heck, I haven’t made it to the Dean’s List because I am physically unable to take 15+ credits, but my GPA is pretty decent.
At the same time, I can’t discount my own experience working two jobs, because I have learned the value of a dollar and it has built my character in ways that nothing else would have done it. I have learned to talk to all kinds of people. Also, I have learned to manage my time. Those skills will stay with me forever and they will be important when I try to get other jobs.
However, before I forget I can’t be ungrateful and not mention how thankful I am for the IP Grant, so THANK YOU!
Anyway, back to IP. The week before I started working on a new project for a performance. I was at Joann Fabrics looking for pieces to turn some of my resin pieces into jewelry and I found these aluminum rings and I bought a few packages to make a belt or panties using the inspiration of medieval chainmail. I want to make people wear it, so they feel what is like to feel heavy when I am having my period. The other objective of this project is to test my patience and resilience because my mom says I am too impatient, so this will prove her wrong. I am very patient, otherwise I wouldn’t be working in retail and I would have gotten divorced a long time ago, so my capacity of not putting up with bullshit doesn’t mean I am not patient, it just means I am VERY selective with my patience.
Also, it’s the first time I work with metals, so you can only imagine the pressure I feel, but it’s good. To me, each time I try something new, it opens a portal to new opportunities and things I have thought of but never knew I could make.
The last photo it’s the beginning of a project where I started embroidering on the bus. I don’t know where it’s going, but I find the idea of crafting on the bus interesting. After all, it is a communal space and I remember that the first time I found out about Judy Chicago was because I saw her artwork on the computer of the person who was sitting next to me. Also, the most mad I’ve been and the loudest I’ve yelled at someone was on the bus.
I have made a lot of friends on the bus too, a few of them ended up being chilean, so public transit is important for me.
The embroidery piece is titled- The only Bush you should vote for.
