#embarrassing object

I chose to showcase something embarrassing in a beautiful way. It is a subtle representation of me and my sexuality. My object makes me both uncomfortable and proud. I need that.

Xenolilly:

Unfinished For theartassignment, “embarrassing object” I took French for five years. But as time went on, I did less and less of the work. I’d promise myself that I’d do it later, and I held on to every incomplete assignment, to work on “later”. Soon, I told myself, I’d get right back on top of things. This went on for the last 3 years of high school. I kept saying that I’d do better, to myself and to my teacher. She let me progress up with the class each year. Each year, I would fail again and again. I was unable to admit defeat, to say I couldn’t do it. But when my advisor and my teacher transferred me out of the class at the second semester of senior year, I was relieved. Without that transfer I wouldn’t have had a chance at graduating on time (and as it was, I graduated a few months late). Still, I held onto those papers. “One of these days I’m going to use them and teach myself!” I’d tell myself. I still hadn’t given up, I hadn’t lost this battle yet! So I had a stack of papers, at least five inches high, although it may have been as much as a foot. I’ve finally begun allowing myself to get rid of the papers, but I still held on to the instructional pages, and those are what show in the picture.

I called this “unfinished” because, as always happened in my head, I hadn’t given up, I just wasn’t finished yet! I added some objects that I’ve kept similarly. “One of these days I’ll figure out how to fully repair this clock!” “I’ll figure out knitting and finish all my [not pictured] half finished pieces!” The flower isn’t itself unfinished, but represents the hope that one day, I will finish these things. I will send off that hair to locks of love, despite the fact it’s been a year. All of these things have embarrassed me in one way or another. Yet this, to me, is about my personal refusal to admit defeat, even when it’s detrimental to myself, and on acknowledging when something isn’t worth the fight. I hold on to the clock, despite the fact that all it will end up doing is taking up space.

This is probably the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever put on the Internet. 

flapjackmcricecake:

This is my first art assignement, even though I have been following the series since the beginning, I have never had the guts to really complete one.

My creation is a collection of the things I need in order to sleep. The two night lights I’ve had since childhood, I plug in one near my bed and one on the other side of the room. The stuffed elephant is my oldest toy, and I’ve slept with it all my life. I take plant-based pills to help me calm down, and melatonin, which seem to better my sleep a little. But still, I sleep like shit.

The Art Assignment: Embarrassing Object

For this assignment I wanted to make a sculpture that embodies(pun intended) the feeling of embarrassment: Like my gut is curling up in knots. Similar bodily feelings also happens when I’m excited or worried, but that is where the materials come in to play to distinguish between them. Embarrassment is the loud and obnoxious one.

So I dug into my sock-drawer to dig up a collection of old socks and tights. Besides from being the perfect material to make a giant knot of, they also represent some embarrassing moments - as you can see, I used to have a fondness for loud colours,patterns and stripes. 

This is my response to The Art Assignment’s Video “Embarrassing Object”.

This is a legal pad with half of the pages torn out.

I am bipolar, and this notebook used to be filled with my manic notes. Written evidence of my psychosis. It was pages and pages of delusions, capital letters, crude drawings, and it was all color coded according to the characters of my delusions. A few days before I watched this assignment video, I found this notebook while looking for spare paper. I held all of the pages of the journal between two fingers to rip them out. I ended up having to rip it in two turns because is was too thick. And I threw away the evidence. I never want to go back to that place again. My mania was a horrifying transformation of myself from a normal person who enjoys writing fiction into a raving, yelling, rage and euphoria filled, uncontrolled mass of energy. My memories from that time are a little blurred, but on the paper all of it was preserved. Finding that was terrifying.

I watched the assignment video and immediately knew what my object had to be. The actual notes were gone, but I stabbed the remaining part of the note book through with a pen to symbolize forward movement, as well as me condemning my delusions, but also stuck in their remnants. It visualizes the journey I had to go through in order to become comfortable with creating things again. 

On the notebook you can see the stubs of the ripped out pages. That’s what embarrasses me about the sculpture. It is so much easier to pretend it never happened, that it’s just ripped out pages, but the empty space where those pages were, to me, is still filled with their ghosts. (In a non-psychotic, metaphorical way.)