The Lollipop Girls Struggle on the Hard Earth

The Lollipop Girls Struggle on the Hard Earth is about the rupture that begins when one becomes a subject in the symbolic order. It’s about trying to get something back that we never had. It’s about the fundamental human desire to escape the Real. In order to avoid the Real we attempt to make an Imaginary Self we can pretend to believe in. When one becomes a subject, we regularly face an awareness that what we hoped for isn’t there, so we add the symbolic to avoid the lack in the center of our subjectivity. In this film, Madeline projects herself into a spectacle that resembles her youthful conception of what being an adult would be like. Eventually, Madeline comes face to face with the Real. It has met her there.

Love, Especially First

My first love is difficult for me to fathom, even thirty years later. It felt like going home. The innocence, ease and completeness helped it take years to get over even though the relationship was brief. I just couldn’t accept that he could love me and then suddenly, not.

My faltering sprung in part from having idolized an uncle who then died at eighteen years old. I’d been too young to understand death. Nowadays, with a Real love that includes both average misery and also a sense of completeness, I’m looking back at love. Inspired by the perfect, terrible luck at ever having loved completely - much less three times.

Nº5 with Toby Altrabulsi

Advertisement for Chanel, Inspired by Adolph de Meyer’s 1930’s photographic ads for Elizabeth Arden. The score is by Vangelis from a well-known Chanel No5 commercial from the 80’s, “Share the Fantasy”, directed by Ridley Scott. Additional work from this series in portfolio three.

This project is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department