so what if i am?

I would like to preface this post by saying that I really don't think I'm bitter, so much as genuinely confused. A different outcome in this circumstance wouldn't really have changed my life any more that probably given me a little more validation for the way in which I allowed myself to waste my college years. Also, I love the idea of buying something handmade from a "craftsman" or whatever they want to be called, rather than a corporation that will barely pay the six year old Asian kid who made it. Regardless of any of this, I think this little iPod thing is adorable.

Now I will move on to the judgment I'm about to make. With all that ass-kissing, it was inevitable. I spent four years in college working tirelessly at a pointless, pretentious art major with an emphasis in sculpture. I was okay at it, I guess. It was pretty typical - I used interesting materials I found at hardware stores and in the basement of my dorm, I ironed and welded and tied vinyl, rope, fabric, burlap, wire, and a various assortment of caustic plastics together to make lumpy shaped, life-like forms that were supposed to represent my feminist isolation. I spent four years doing this and drinking, almost exclusively, in a huge wood shop with only one other dude and my male art professor, who probably thought I was a cute excuse for diversity in the sculpture department, which made me pretty hell-bent on receiving some sort of pat on the back (or at least its equivalent) for all that self-imposed white girl suffering. I set up and put on two solo shows in the tiny gallery student gallery - which consisted of hanging and transporting really heavy stuff mostly by myself up four flights of stairs. I was only one of two art majors at my liberal arts college to put on two shows by myself like that. A lot of people jump on the art major bandwagon toward the end of college. Most of them were girls, and all of them except for me and another girl (who had been an art major all through college) won an art award.

So when it came time to announce senior awards at our joke of a senior show, the girl who won the biggest female art award made some shit that basically looked like that: felted iPod cases. I guess letting her win was representing the significant shift in art toward the end of the decade, and the rise of etsy and crafting and the huge need for people to buy something in which to put their chilly iPods, but there are about fifty etsy sellers who make iPod hats and sell them online, and a lot of them look very professional and like something I would actually buy. I'm not saying I was God's gift to the art department at my university - I certainly wasn't. I also didn't demonstrate a proven commitment to staying active in art - I had an AmeriCorps position way before the awards were announced. I was just looking for something to pay my $500 in unpaid Home Depot Bills, really. I get it, though. Eva Hesse was a big deal a long time ago.

If you want to buy that thing (it's really growing on me), you can do it here.