coyote is a boy

I’m posting two of my older pieces of work I did my first semester in metals because while I had some thoughts about making wearable artwork for myself, I failed myself a little when I made these. Hopefully in posting them I’ll remember not to do what I did in the past and maybe it will amuse you guys to see me be a conceptual art fail butt. :)

Statement I gave my teachers when I made the Jaw Piece:

Nodding my head to some contemporary fashion icons and mixing my own sense of phantom senses, I produced a hefty jaw bone and fangs. Despite it being non-precious and aggressive, the piece is intended to look elegant and light. The wearer is accentuating their own bone structure and it brings their jaw bone to the surface, as well as permanently bares their fangs. The piece also compliments a long-standing need of mine to have truly ferocious teeth that I feel I possess; this is a reminder that I am an animal and should be viewed as such.

And the claws:

I have always felt that because we as a species are used to the idea that our own hands are soft and we do not posses claws or talons that our hands then are viewed not as weapons but as vehicles for weapons; we are forced to design clothing, objects, and jewelry to otherwise compensate for our lack of protective and defensive arsenal. I modeled a dominant-hand set of claw rings in bronze for the purpose of continuing that tradition and to satisfy my desire to remove myself in ways from social domesticity. They intentionally cover and distort my fingers with bronze, a rustic and ancient metal, and in doing so prevent onlookers from viewing precisely what kind of body language I may have. In arming myself I have removed at least some level of comfort and understanding civilly as I walk around town. This allows me to reclaim a touch of feral human yearnings for safety and the instinct to defend myself through intimidation.

I don’t necessarily agree with everything I said in my statements because I’ve had time to think about them (these are from 2010). I also had to redo the claws because I initially had rabbit fur on the backs of them which made them look more like paw-hands but just didn’t work conceptually at all. Ultimately, I don’t want people to be intimidated by me. I thought I did.  After spending time wearing both in public at least once, I hated it. I’d rather find silent ways that I can be myself either in public or not that don’t make me seem scary or friendly. I’d rather keep that private.

I do however want to make wearable work that helps me invoke the canine body and mindset or helps me live through my phantom sensations into something real. The claws are nice in that they give my fingers and hand a weight to them that feels right. They pull on my fingers if I turn my hand in a way that makes my fingers feel pawlike. They fail at being useful as claws and look scarier than is necessary. Most dogs obviously do not have large claws. The claws there are less about “canine” and more about “intimidating and compensation”. 

Then of course I ended up wasting a lot of time looking at gauntlet armor and plate armor for the hands and arms and ended up feeling as though metal seems too armor related and too scary. I’m going to have to really consider what materials convey what I want them to and what I actually want the wearable work to do.

I think one of the first challenges I still want to tackle is to give myself a paw hand. One that makes my fingers move the way I want them to and one that gives me tactile sensations that are not cumbersome.

A little less serious, these are some photos of a shelf I keep above my bed. I keep a doe skull and a coyote skull (and a small raccoon) for myself and my partner as well as objects from my state, VT, and Poland.

I’ve seen people posting bits of how they revere and honor their identity through altars or shelves and other home spaces so I thought I would humbly post a small amount of my own. It is nice to log this as it will end up changing when I deal with a room change next september and when I end up needing probably a bigger shelf!

Some context about modern artists and whether or not they care or will make work about the animal people communties and otherkin. I saw a comment on here yesterday concerning my work as perhaps one of the few fine artists using their craft and position in the fine art world to share their identity. I will repost this comment and a statement I need to make about myself, my peers, and the community at large.

I’m getting social dysphoria from realizing the outside arts community is all human. :/ And identifying online as a human, causes me dysphoria. Yesterday, I thought of joining some art sites and admitting my non-human status. Because I cannot stand the discomfort of hiding this part of me. Shutting up who I am inside, fucks with my artistic energy, and it stifles me as a person. So this person is very inspirational to me. 

This is from user immachdracht. I don’t mean to point you out, but, I find this sentiment interesting and contrary to my own. I hope that me posting this will help you feel safer and more comfortable in the art community.

Above are some works that I am leaving identified from the senior show here at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. While these works were not made with non-human identities in mind, they are made with the ideas of identity and animality and human-animal relationships and empowerment. These are just merely three pieces of work being showcased today and these are by no means the only or top works concerning these ideas. There are many, many, many artists right now working within these conceptual guidelines and perhaps a few scattered across the world are identified as non-human people. They may, or may not, ever make work about it or talk about or they do but I may not hear of them, etc.

I am now one of those likely few who are less concerned with fantasy or escapism (such as furry artwork - of which, I am a fan regardless) and I am devoting myself for an indiscriminate amount of time to this particular community and highlighting our actual experiences and needs. I do not entirely know what that means yet, but, I assume it will eventually mean an alliance with other artists who may or may not identify this way. But, they will understand me and work with me. My own metals studio has embraced me and have been supporting me all along with these works. There are artists such as the creator of Theri There and Becoming Dragon who have questioned these identities, and there will be more.

There is no need to worry that the art community may not understand you and that they will not accept you for your work. It is up to you to find the proper media and stage to share your ideas. You can commission artists, collaborate with them, or become one yourself. Heck, throw your ideas at me and perhaps I can use them to make work for us all with your unique concept. But this is not at all a community opposed to who we are and what we stand for. Perhaps they just do not have enough of us doing our own duty to stand up for ourselves rather than wishing others would or for the right opportunity to just fall in our laps.

My time is now, and, I will move forward with the belief that this is the right place for me to present my ideas. I hope anyone else who is a maker and identifies with non-human sentiments will do the same.

Other than just some simple models for my face and hands, I experimented with scrap coyote fur bits over an aluminum wire and plaster base. This comes from me often wanting to wear the skin of a coyote (which is something I have done and will continue to do) and my obsession with illustration, it seems. This is nothing more than an illustration of an empowering object meant to make me hunch my shoulders and feel like a fuzzy canine. It has taken me from owning hides and pelts and making this object to realize that ‘suiting and adopting the actual animal bits to myself is really just for “me” and is me basically pasting the animal on top of myself. Layers. Ritual.

But, this doesn’t do what I first intended it to do. I wanted to make a model of the phantom sensation of the back of the neck fur and tall ears. I tend to feel this sensation via weight and pressure, not fur, but I know it is there. While visually or literally this is true, I am not sure if other than by thinking about it and being aware of wearing it does it do that sensation justice.

People have reacted to this with petting it, wanting to wear it, smiling at me, etc. I have found that it is not difficult to make this with the humble scraps that I procured that would have anyway gone to waste. It is made with possibly many coyotes who have died in the name of over population, starvation, and likely the sad truth of human presence and coyote’s adaptability. If nothing else I have learned a new method to work with fur and a lot to muse over.

My official statement I wrote for this past semester was:

Supernumerary phantom sensations are a curious psychological and neurological phenomenon. We are as a culture familiar with phantom limb syndrome by amputees but sans amputation some folks experience extra limbs. While there have been studies of those who have developed third arms with a full range of motion and sensation that is traceable in brain scans, there are millions of un-studied individuals online who claim to experience supernumerary phantom sensations of non-human limbs and body image. These experiences can be created outside of strokes or major trauma, which still confuses many neurologists as to why they are formed. Since my childhood I have struggled to understand and explain this aspect of my identity to others. I have attempted to use my metal smithing and printmaking skills to diagram what these extremities look like and chose two of the easiest, visually, to illustrate. The canine is roughly generic canis (though not taxonomical) and I have described a phantom muzzle and paw.

These are the models I made as a starting point to discover what sort of forms I might use or techniques I might use to make sculptures, wearable work, or kinetic art to describe phantom limbs.

I already feel like someone needs to really experiment with more augmented reality work. I saw this video by Chris Milk (someone posted it on swanblood) and one of my review board faculty mentioned the idea. If I knew coding and wasn’t focused on 3D right now..

I hope you guys enjoy these and have perhaps comments on the direction I am taking.

These are some of the photos I have currently of the prints I made this semester concerning my starting work in describing supernumerary phantom limb sensation for myself. I have decided to essentially use a generic ‘canine’ anatomy and reference for these as for all intents and purposes it did not need to be more specific here.

When I feel phantom sensations, I feel them ‘layered’ over my own sense of my body image and I attempted to get a texture on these plates. This was my first time truly grappling with printmaking as well - all other works had been experimentation with just doodles. I made this by etching the copper in a brine solution with electricity after having done a drawing on top of dye-chem. I included the final sketches that I used to transfer the drawings onto the plates.

I should note I have never been formally taught printmaking and I have been exploring this medium for the sake of how much it relates metalworking and illustration for me.

I thought I would start off my posting by first giving context with work that is purely experimental and distinctly existing in a performance that was documented. Fellow artist and partner Maresy (find her on deviantart or on FB as mountainbolalek) took these shots together at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in the fall of 2011. These photos were from a fleeting desire to capture some small moments of being coyote/canine (for myself) and deer for her.

While they are not the most successful as we had a limited time frame, little photo-skills, and it was pretty cold that day, it is something that I hope to continue to use as inspiration for documenting my process.

I have no official statement on these works so feel free to ask me questions.