Things I found while cleaning out my office: A bunch of forms titled “Annual Request for Outside Employment” in which year after year I requested the university’s permission to make art, as if not making art was even an option. My responses on these forms got funnier and funnier year after year, as I found art more and more relevant and the form more and more absurd. In 2015 I wrote: Nature of Outside Employment: “free-lance artist, writer, creator of T-shirts with my dog’s face on them.”
When and where will this work typically be done: “at home, in luxury hotels and select independent bookstores; on social media.”
This was then signed by yours truly, by the department chair, dean, and provost. I think I might frame it and display it in my studio.
I also found a picture of myself in Norway about ten years ago. I loved Norway. I didn’t love the research that brought me there, though. I remember that summer well. It was cold and I just wanted to stay in bed and read novels. It never got dark, which I loved, and I’d just spent a fortune on silk camisoles and vanilla lotion. I had cut my own bangs way too blunt after seeing a movie with Penelope Cruz all by my lonesome in a movie theater in Barcelona. I was brewing up some pretty interesting personal drama with an international twist. I was a bad girl who didn’t want to do scholarly research. And I still am, but now it’s out in the open and I am happy. That’s all.
Good for you, Elena!