One down, three to go: some thoughts and stuff on My Duke Experience
After a 12 hour sleepytime nap, I feel like I might actually be able to process things like “feelings” and “thoughts” without falling into a squishy little puddle of weeping and acrimony. Hey, look at me! Imma person!
So - done with the first semester at Duke. Work-wise, I feel like I’m in a really good place. I made three short video pieces that all seem like a good start. Two of them are going to be part of a longer series of lo-fi/abstract/found sound pieces. I am hoping to do more of them over the space of a year, really stretching my experimental film muscles.
The other one is part of a much longer, probably two year long process, putting interviews together for my Intimacy project. This will be part of my thesis work, if not my entire thesis, and… it’s a process, y’know? Things work, and then they don’t work, and I am still shaky on a whole bunch of technical issues. I don’t know what this will end up being - either a full-length documentary, or part of a larger gallery based installation.
As for school itself - seriously, I could not be more happy with Duke and the MFAEDA. Well, that’s not completely true - it’s a brand new program, and there are some growing pains. But nothing seems insurmountable, and everyone seems to want to really work together to create the best program possible. Plus, I have access to, and meetings with some of the smartest, most amazing artists and educators in the world. I don’t feel like anyone here is trying to split people into factions, or picking favorites, or trying to enforce their own agenda. Instead, they are all working together, trying to create something amazing. And I am so excited and proud to be a part of it.
As well, I have to say - my cohort are some of the most amazing people I have ever had the good fortune to work with. The work that these guys are creating is so impressive that I can hardly believe it’s only the first semester. What on earth will they have done by the end?
The only real complaint I have is an institutional complaint about MFAs in general, about funding. It’s incredibly hard to feel like you can take chances and create the bravest, most experimental and boundary pushing work possible, if you are scared that doing so means that you will be broke forever and ever, amen. I know that this is a common artists lament. and I am not really sure what the solution looks like. But I know that I will second guess myself on work I create because I want to teach after I leave school, and I worry that my work, sometimes of a sexual and controversial nature, will keep that possibility out of my reach. It’s hard enough to get fellowships and scholarships as an arts scholar, but if you are doing anything out of the range of the usual - IE, if you aren’t doing painting work or traditional narrative filmmaking, or if you do work about, oh I don’t know, sex workers - the money is just not there for you.
Meh. I know I sound like a whiner. I am still getting to do something amazing, and I am still trying to push as many boundaries as I know how. I fully recognize that my position right now is a privileged one, and the financial part is something I knew going in. I wish that made it easier. I also wish that I had the slightest inclination to work on something that would make me money vs making me happy.
So, after all this blabbity blab, if you are interested in seeing this work-in-progress stuff, hit me up and I will send you a DL link. I HEART YOU, INTERNET!
(Now to go for a run, take a nap, and watch some Netflix, woo!)
