Go Big or Go Bust: Plaster Jackets, My Rogue's Gallery

So to wrap up this saga, I wanted to show you some examples of this 'plaster jacket' in my work from 1990 and 2010. I had no idea what it meant at the time but couldn't resist using it. Who knew this image would turn out to be a message to me about myself, just like in a dream, where everything (allegedly) represents the dreamer.

"How To Be Louise" (1990)  Maggie Burke and Mr. Green         Dir. of Photography Vladimir Tukan

"How To Make Matters Worse: The Louise Log #22" (2010)           Pascal Yen-Pfister is under there.

Go Big or Go Bust: On believing that you're good enough (part 2)

As you may know, I’ve been feeling over-the-top anxious about my next step in this adventure of ‘going big or going bust’: pitching the pilot is on my list just above ‘having fingernails pulled off’. But because it's under the surface. I'm not usually conscious of feeling anxious. I'm taking actions! And you (wonderful people) are giving me all kinds of support and encouragement ... so I have some new tools!

Naturally it came as a surprise to wake like a shot at 3 AM the other night,  and then to toss and turn for a full hour and a half.

But, lucky me, I had what might turn out to be a life-changing revelation.

I’d tried all my tricks to get back to sleep, the breathing, the hypnotherapy, the hot milk and honey. Lowering my expectations to simply ‘stay warm’, I huddled in the fetal position in the 40º room (window open, the way I like it) covers pulled over my head. Sixty minutes passed, seventy, ninety, BOOM.

It came out of nowhere: the image of a jacket made out of plaster. MY jacket. The jacket I’ve unconsciously chosen to wear for my entire life. But one that is no longer serving me.

Imagine this four inches thick, made of plaster and with crumbly bits of plaster and gauze hanging off the edges.

What was once maybe protecting me, feels like it’s become the problem. I think I’ve been wearing fear 24/7 in the form of a rigor-mortis-stiff, pretty much impenetrable jacket. Sure, it blocks the possibility of getting a knife in the back, but it also makes receiving and even 'feeling' next to impossible.  

Huddled there under the covers, I threw my shoulders back to break up the ‘plaster’ and wriggle out of the ‘jacket’. Yeah it’d leave my back completely unguarded and vulnerable to attack but I immediately felt more, and more free and more comfortable in my body. And that feeling continued the next day and into the following day and shows no sign of abating. (to be continued)

A hoop skirt from 'the good old days' when women WERE actually trapped by their clothes.

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