this is a disguise

Yesterday I had my first collage studio with Mariano Del Rosario. He was super busy preparing for the yearly class exhibition, but he sat down with me for a couple of moments. First he flattered me when he said, "It looks like you've done this before." Then he walked though a couple of things with me. "More next week," he told me. I appreciated this. Baby steps.

I like working with collage but wonder if it's challenging enough for me, or how I could bring something new to the medium, much like Arturo Herrera brought up in one of the interviews I read or saw from him (he actually just recently set some of his work to a symphony). I know I'm jumping the gun a little, so I'll revert back to what I just previously said, baby steps, and calm down.

What I love about collage is the layering process. It becomes like a diguise. A rip can become a seam can become a face can become a hole. The piece I began centers around a group of Indian reservation politicians. They assume the dress of the European, the ones who ousted them from their homes. They want to assimilate and be better because they have been defeated. They want to become much like the people who defeated them, to wear the chic clothes that the women seem to swoon over. Is it a fairy tale they thought would come true, instead of the reality they would eventually face?

I too disguise myself every weekday.

I work for an investment bank, where I am not myself completely. I wonder if people notice the small imperfections or the invisible wall I've built around myself so that I don't fall prey to being stuck here for life. And once I emerge from the basement bathroom stall at my art school in my casual clothes, do the artists wonder if this too is just a disguise?