What Not To Wear

This is the day before my Portland debute- "The Tribute Gallery" group show themed "Transition" is tomorrow night from 6-9pm. After watching quality programming such as "America's Next Top Model" and "Plain Jane", my mind is swarming around my wardrobe with the frantic question of what I am going to wear tomorrow night. It seems so shallow to be honestly consumed by this. Of all the things to be thinking about, I am concerned with what I will look like. Part of me has the disdainful attitude of Janeane Garofalo by equating my clothes with tea party members and not giving a damn, while the other half is feeling like some sort of fashionista trying to convince me that my image is everything. Sell my image, and then I'll sell my art. What crap.

But honestly, I am well versed on books for emerging artists and I am always surprised to find the topic of what to wear to openings in them. They always seem to say the same thing- look the part. Want to be taken seriously in the art world? Then look like an artist- be outrageous if necessary. Stand out from the onlookers. Do not look like "Joe Public" but instead create an image for yourself as "The Artist".

So, when I read this- someone who does not have much fashion sense since I have never really thought it to be of extreme importance- I see "wear clown shoes, a scarf, red lipstick for eyeshadow, and a tutu. Look as senile as possible. The crazier the better. Be as loud as Chuck Connelly is drunk with your wardrobe. Let's buy into the stereotype that all artists are crazy, unstable, and socially dysfunctional."

Anyway, I find this advice lame and dishonest. It seems fraudulent, and disgusting. I want people to look at my art, not me, and I want to be approachable- not a freak of nature. All fashion is a projection of image to present to others. Every piece of cloth we put on our bodies is a costume. A disguise. An advertisement. Though I want to be myself and honest in who I am to the public, I do not want to show up naked and have my 15 minutes of fame (one of which was spent already by my appearance on Happy's Place) spent behind bars for public indecency. So again, I ask myself, what am I going to wear?