Janky Leg

I've been kicking around the idea of writing a memoir, but without a real plan for what the book would actually be.

But I know what my book is about now.

My Janky Leg has a story to tell, and so does this piece of art I am making out of it: I'm making a visual representation of the pain and numbness I experience in my Janky Leg.

There's the whole story of getting inspired to make it. That's a good story, with a pretty predictable story arc: Artist has an injury, works to understand and overcome it, makes art about it. Great.

But there’s also the story of actually making the art, which is in my opinion, the more important perspective.

I was hung up for a long time, about wanting to do it “right”. I wanted it to be a life cast of my actual leg, but the only way I know how, is the flimsy plaster bandage kind, which would not be strong enough. To do it “right”, I should learn how to do it “for real” with alginate and resin, and I then splurge for the fancy rhinestones, to make it “good”, like “real art”, and not just some bullshit idea. (Whoa hey there Little Hater, it’s not a bullshit idea, it’s actually a good idea, and it deserves to be treated like real art because it is. So let’s go make the art, ok?)

The technical aspects of doing it right were intimidating, and it became clear that I wasn't going to be able to do it myself. So I just kept NOT doing it. I didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on materials for making a thing that I don't know how to make, that I couldn’t make without help. There were too many hurdles, and I couldn't do it, and my Little Hater loves it when that happens.

Trying to do it “right” was making it impossible to do, but it was such a good idea, and I really wanted to do it, and it kept coming back up. I kept trying to think of ways to make it easier for myself. How easy does it have to be, before I’ll actually make it?

Maybe I'll do the flimsy plaster bandages, but I'll make it really thick. It'll be thicker than my actual leg is, but it doesn't really matter. It still counts blah blah blah just do it. Okay, great. I'll do that. But I’d still need help, but maybe only one other person, so that’s ok, I can get one person.

But I still wasn't doing it.

And then, I'm like, okay, well, what if I don't make the cast? What if I just get a mannequin leg and start sticking cheap stones on it, is the bar low enough yet? But then I couldn't find the kind of leg I wanted, and I stalled again, because I didn't want to pay hundreds of dollars for a specific style of mannequin leg. Then I was gifted a pair of mannequin legs, and I tried to just shut up, and hot-glue rhinestones on it.

It was a pain in the ass, and I didn't enjoy it as much as I had wanted to, because I burnt myself a lot, and it was time consuming. And it was two legs, not one, and that was bothering me, because it was different from my original vision, and I imagined cutting it to be too challenging, and I would still have to solve the problem of how to get it to stand up by itself.

So then it just hung out for a long time, with just a few stones stuck to it, with Little Hater taunting me for another one of my “brilliant ideas” that will never see completion.

I don't really have a distinct memory of deciding to pick it up again. I was just colour-sorting a bag of rhinestones, I wasn’t even planning to do anything with them that night, and then suddenly I was setting up a work station.

And it's coming along now. It's not done, but there's a lot.

Once I had a bit of momentum, and started to like it, I decided that I really didn't want it to be two legs, and I was gonna just deal with that however I could.

I don't have the right tools, but I’ve got this weird little saw for cutting tree branches, so I just hacked that mofo in half. It's a little rough, and needs to be filed down, but that's fine.

And then I cut a hole in the foot. Started it by hand with a utility knife, and then I borrowed some tools. Still not the “right” tools, but it got the job done. I just want to brag a bit here, and say that the cutting guide I freehanded was exactly correct. A broomhandle fits perfectly through the foot, and sits in a little metal stand that I screwed into a wooden base. Tah dah!

I'm sitting here looking at this partially rhinestoned leg, standing up all by itself, on this beautiful spring day, and I am fucking delighted to be sticking it to the Little Hater. I am walking my talk, and making the art I wanted to make. I could still hate on myself and say yeah, but look at how far I had to reduce the barrier for entry before I’d actually get off my ass and do it, but fuck you, I'm doing it. It's happening right now!

And I think there is so much to be shared from this story, about how we talk to ourselves about the things we want to do, and the ways that we think we have to do them, and whether we feel worried about what other people will think.

A large part of what was going on for me, was this head trip I was on about being a “real” artist and, well, a real artist would do this or that or whatever.

I remember being a person that didn't feel like they had a choice about being an artist. Back in the day, I used to say I made art, “because if I didn't, I'd die”. Art felt more like something that was happening TO me, than something I had to decide to do.

But somewhere along the line, I got all up my own ass about it. Art school. Creative industry. Societal expectations. Patriarchy. Capitalism. So many threads to talk about here.

This Janky Leg project is an excellent vehicle to talk about artistic process.

I used to be a person who wouldn't have thought twice about executing on an artistic vision, no matter how "wrong" I was going about it. I would staple garbage to other garbage to make art. I literally did! I love making shit out of found objects.

When I was a little kid, I found the remains of an old typewriter, and I was obsessed with the keys. Utterly fascinated. I wanted to make something out of them so bad, and I didn't have anything to do it with. No wire or no pliers, but there I was, sitting in the dirt, trying to attach busted typewriter keys to rocks and sticks with hair elastics.

There were long periods where I could not afford art supplies, and I’d use whatever I could get my hands on, to make whatever I felt needed to be made. Not having the right materials didn’t stop me from making a reasonable facsimile, and I’d daydream about getting good materials and making high quality versions.

But once I could afford the “good supplies”, I didn't remake any of those things, because I got twisted up about wasting good materials on bad art, and using expensive materials incorrectly. I got paralyzed by self criticism, and I kept raising the bar. I've got years worth of half-finished paintings, sketches that never went anywhere, and projects that ended up in the recycling bin.

I did finish some things, but every single piece was a struggle to get myself from the idea-place to the finished-place.

And, I used to think art was something I had to keep performing, if I wanted to keep calling myself an artist. As if an artist magically stops being an artist, any time they're not actively art-making. It's a very “what have you done for me lately” kind of way to measure oneself, and a constant fight against hasbeenism.

And I'd get into fights with myself about whether this or that “actually counted”, and who is qualified to judge, by what standard, for what purpose?

Sticking it to the Little Hater is not just about this particular project. The Little Hater has this persistent story that I'm an imposter, that I'm not really an artist, and I can't follow through on my projects. That I have tons of ideas and only a fraction of them ever get started and only a fraction of those ever get finished. And only a fraction of those ever get shared, and only a fraction of those actually make any money.

But I currently pay my rent with money that I make by being an artist, and I intend to spend the rest of my life being an artist

I have been challenging myself to look at literally everything I do, everything I have done, and see that I am making art ALL THE TIME. I've been looking at 30 years worth of notebooks and taking mental stock of all the things I've actually done. And it's a LOT.

And I am not done. I have got so much more shit to make. And I don't care anymore, if anybody else thinks I'm any good at it or not. I just want the shit to exist.

When I am dead, it will not matter if my art was any good.

It only matters that I made it.

So, yeah, that's what my book's gonna be about.