Armour

I’ve been working for a while now on a new collection of costumes. It all stemmed from this idea I had about growing older. What would I do when my face started to fall and my body started to change? My instinct is to go with it. It’s going to happen whether I want it to or not so I may as well learn to be happy with aging no matter how I feel. Plus, it’s interesting to see how your body changes, even if it’s not always what I want to see in the mirror. I’m frightened of what I like to call the “cock-a-doodle-doo neck” that runs on my mom’s side of the family. That extra skin that extends from your chin down to your clavicle. If I had my choice, I’d like to stay in my 30’s. I felt so vibrant like I’d made it through a difficult challenge and came out the other side happier, less fearful and more able to understand the world. Now I feel a little bit invisible. I think most women go through this moment in their lives. It feels inevitable. But it also feels like I’ve just taken off a pair of shoes where the soles are so thin my bare feet touch the ground when I walk. I exchange them for slippers and let my feet be warm and comforted for the first time in years. If I forget about my outward appearance the feeling I have is one of wholeness. I feel more at one with the universe, like I’ve been given a seat at the table among the oldest and the wisest. They pull the chair away and say sit, but I’m still young in my fear. I wonder if I’m worthy. They’re never going to encourage me to take my place or try to cajole me. They expect me to know how to take my seat at the table and indulge in the bounty set before me. I’m still unsure of what to do. I’m pulled by voices that still tell me I’m not good enough. Does that ever go away? I hope so.

The costumes I’m working on are padded like armor. They’re made from colorful spandex shapes, stuffed with pillow fluff and stitched together sort of like a quilt. The process makes me feel calm, hypnotic. I like to hand sew and I’ve developed a stitch that I use on everything. I think if someone was looking at my work and wondered if a piece could actually be attributed to me, they would know by the hand stitching. It’s all the same. It was meant to be a blind stitch, hidden but it’s never hidden enough. It’s a stitch and then a knot. I like security in my work. I developed it when working with Karen O because of the multiple mishaps that happened on stage. You have to make sure those seams are stitched tight. I think I came up with this idea for armor around that time as well. I wanted Karen to feel protected. It must be so hard to get up onstage and reveal yourself to an audience. I could never do it and I’m in awe of anyone who can. That is part of this new series of work as well. I’m meant to be making these costumes for myself to see what it feels like to wear them and figure out how to move. But I’m not a performer. I’m unable to give my heart over like that. I’ve built a cage around it and I’m only willing to reveal it to a few. However, I’m determined to figure out some sort of movement. I want to learn to allow my body to be free, even though one of the last times I did this I felt so embarrassed I thought I might puke. It’s not a natural feeling. My body actively rebels against it.

I was photographed recently in one of the new costumes by a good friend of mine, a photographer named Milton Arellano. The shoot took place just a few days after the big snowfall here in New York and so the snow was still somewhat pristine in areas near our home. I put my costume on and we set out, my husband in tow. I like to have him near. He’s another one of those humans who can reveal himself onstage and so I knew he would be encouraging or at least a home base. Once in the costume my arms and legs suddenly became foreign to me. I can stand on a street corner and be photographed but moving is something else. I felt clumsy. I tried to move, put my arms above my head, but I was like a board with a couple of tree branches stuck in at one end. Then I tried to take big steps. It still did not work. I couldn’t free myself from my mind and just move. I needed to make up a story and so I pretended that I was in Siberia running from wolves, falling in the snow, standing up to look back and running again. It was all very melodramatic and a group of workers from the warehouse near where we were filming came out to watch. I remember thinking, wow they’re actually watching and they seem engaged. I must be doing something right. My husband made a video of my imaginary ordeal and put it to Gamelan music. It’s a tragic comedy. The photos, magically turned out well. Fortunately, Milton is very good at his job.

I realized that I had not thought one bit about how I would actually move once I was in the costumes. I’m the costume designer not the costume wearer. I need to either give them to someone who knows how to move well or figure out how I’m going to do it. Most often when think about this, I think of the video of Pipilotti Rist going down the street and busting out car windows. That makes more sense to me, just being in the world and reacting to it and having it react to me.