Late Suzanne Lacy

I'm one of those people that believes that art is everywhere and everything. I just am. Art can even be the thoughts I have running around inside my head, the images that pop-up in my consciousness when I smell something, see something, hear something, etc...

I think that taking time to justify what is art, what isn't art, if something was intentional or not is a waste of time. I wrote a paper last year in my Theorizing the Body class, arguing that Ed Gein, the notorious serial killer and grave robber, was in my eyes an "artist", because he made household items out of the body parts he gathered from freshly buried corpses. Now, as gruesome as it was, he crafted incredible things such as lamp shades made from human skin, belts of women's' nipples, bowls out of human skulls, and so on and so forth...

Obviously, there was no way of me knowing whether or not Gein considered himself to be an artist or whether he was just insane. That was not important to me because, as sickening as the items were, they were still things that he made. I consider him an artist...a seriously fucked up one, but aren't we all insane in some capacity or another?

When I received the paper back, my teacher wrote one comment: "Gein was not an artist. There is no way to prove this, because Gein was insane. I would like you to rewrite the paper."

I have to admit I was relatively shocked that a teacher would make such a bold statement, without even reasoning with my argument...and especially a teacher at CalArts, of all places!

I understand where she might be coming from, but I myself believe that art can be made whether it's a conscious choice on the art-maker, or not.

Needless to say, I did not rewrite my paper.

:)