Friday, July 31, 2009

Up and Running

Finally!! The renovations and updates are complete at my website!!! Now you can visit www.gretchendiehl.com for my news updates, my most up-to-date images of my artwork, links to sites of other fantastic artists, and also view my latest revision of my artist's statement and CV/Resume!! I am excited, can you tell?! Anyway, take a moment to review all of the updated awesome and let me know what you think!!

(My site renovations were made possible by otherpeoplespixels.com. Any artist who is interested in designing their own site should totally look into working with them. Mustafa told me about their services, which are totally affordable. You can set up a free trial website, and then pay for it if you like how easy it is to use!!! They make updating and even selling through paypal really simple! Let them know that i referred you and i get a free month! and then you get a free necklace from me! ...or something, we can negotiate!!)

Monday, July 20, 2009

man babies

I've always been interested in the reasons people have for procreating. At 27, I am undecided as to whether or not children will be in my future, which does not particularly stress me out one way or the other. As a child, I collected Cabbage Patch dolls, and had, like, 50 (no exaggeration). I had a Barbie kitchenette, a kid-sized hutch and doll-sized cradles and strollers taking over my room. I thought that getting married and having children was the only way that becoming an adult would happen, and that unmarried women had some kind of social disorder. Once I started going to college, I started questioning all of the bizarre mommy-training that had been going on throughout my childhood (and almost every other woman's childhood), and have since been quite interested in my biological urges and the extent to which they can be attributed to conditioning. In this situation nurture obviously outweighs nature, but to what extent? When I think of myself as a mother in the future, is it because that is really what I want, or is it only the remnants of this strange doll tradition? When I believe that is not a part of my future, is that really what I want, or is it a backlash against the doll tradition? Who thought of giving little girls facsimiles of babies to play with in the first place?! I think almost every woman has to deal with the assessment of where these urges and counter-urges come from, whether or not it matters, and which ones win out in the end.
At the end of graduate school I started exploring this idea a little more intimately, and created a series of stuffed rabbits with masks of babies faces on them. They came out extra creepy and funny, and I called them the surrogates. I liked the idea that one object can stand in for another, or be a place-keeper for a period of time. The idea was training for motherhood, and the weirdness of that venture; stuffed animals get traded in for dolls, which are then traded in for pets, and eventually babies. We learn over time to make living things dependent on us, and we start to love the feeling of being needed. The second series I was sketching out was a similar idea that involved the idea of blending genes, or keeping a man. I was going to do a series of collages of images of mothers and babies, with and without fathers, where the babies were wearing masks of the father's faces. It was supposed to illustrate the idea of taking some of a man and transferring it onto a dependent new human being. It's a little sick, but sometimes I think it's part of the motivation to procreate.
Well, I never did carry out that collage series, but Emily did show me this amazing website that did what I wanted to do only better. I know they are probably just trying to be creepy and funny, but I think there's something poignant about it. Enjoy Manbabies.

Friday, July 17, 2009

The Uniform Project Revisited


Sheena Matheiken's brainchild The Uniform Project seems to be garnering lots of support for educational programs in India. The last time I checked, there had been about $250 donated by fans supporting the site, but today that total is over $5,000!!! If you have not checked out The Uniform Project, do so today. It is tons of fun, and an inspiring use of fashion as vehicle of social consciousness. I like anything that makes me feel good about my job.
Also, she featured one of my necklaces (designed by me, drawn by caitlin kuhwald) on Jun 27, 2009.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

"Mom, you have way too many hats"


In an episode of Home Movies where Brendon gets writer's block, Paula attempts to help him get through a most delicate situation with some motherly advice:

Paula: "as someone who has worn the hat of a writer AND the hat of a teacher, I think I can be of assistance"
Brendon: "Mom, you have way too many hats"

When he brings up the issue of writer's block, she tells him "don't get it"
(HEY!! I found a picture of this EXACT moment!!)

At any rate, I am finding that I may, in fact, have WAY too many hats. Last night I had a dream that one of my college professors sat me down and lectured me about committing to achieving my goals and remembering my dreams. Now, anyone who knows me well and who has read my dream journal or my short stories can tell you that my dreams are never so cut and dry, and NEVER so realistic and logical. The only explanation I can come up with is that my sub-conscious is trying to tell me something, and that something is that I am in danger of spreading myself thin creatively. My jewelry business is taking off and becoming a healthy source of extra income, I have been in more gallery exhibitions this year than I was in throughout all of graduate school, I am teaching full-time and using my own personal experience as a retail manager and store buyer as fodder for my ever-adapting fashion marketing classes at AI, I'm working steadily on my book of short stories and I have been making drawings for the 32 page graphic short story I intend to plop in the middle of my first collection. But where is my identity in all of this? I have never wanted to be the type of person who ignores one kind of opportunity because it isn't close enough to exactly-what-I-have-my-master's-degree-in, or the type of person who settles for mediocrity when something outstanding is waiting right around the corner. I love that dissatisfaction is a driving force and that being open to new experiences has gained me some degree of local notoriety. I love the ride. I love not knowing. I love 9. But something here is WRONG.
So, what to do? I can continue on this path of living 4 or 5 separate lives at the same time or I can decide what needs to be focused on. Is this the moment in which I realize that it can't all be done, or do I just need to commit to not sleeping or having a social life? Should I be meditating instead of blogging? UGH.
but enough about me, how are you all doing?

Thursday, July 9, 2009

the 10! show

hi everyone!
real quick, my jewelry is going to be featured during a daily candy segment on the 10! show (local: NBC 10) sometime between 11am and noon today. if you have access to some tv at this time, check it out, and let me know if it was cool- I'll be at the Mood.