From the Studio: Iterations on a title

Because I do not abide Untitled

I like long titles on artwork these days.

A title either participate’s in the overall visual story or it is decidedly generic. Generic, I have done that. I get the sense that it is more acceptable for artists who aren’t women. Maybe I am wrong about that. Maybe I am biased by all of the other things that are more acceptable for such artists.

For a while, I let nonsense live in my titles while I skirted the edges of it in my visual work, smoothing it out with clean edges and pretty colors. As our absurdist times compounded, I could no longer continue being so glossy.

The artwork and titles now, they are in it together. This is probably a good thing. My art can skew odd, and when people experience something even slightly outre, they want to know the name(s) for it. And I get to make up what to call it because all of this is made up.

Here are the iterations I went through for the title on a collage that is on its way to Jen Tough Gallery in Santa Fe, the collage shown above.

Actual Title: I might have been stoned when the vortex shimmered and the myth of dry clean only unravelled.

Iterations, listed in reverse order, including incomplete versions:

• Either I was stoned or the vortex shimmered as the myth of dry clean only unravelled

• Either I was stoned or the vortex shimmered as it all unraveled: dry clean only really is a myth.

• An inescapable, gloriously dizzying vortex of blue

• The fact that I was stoned threw off the vortex and

• That time I got so stoned

• breaking the spell of dry clean only and other such

• unraveling the spell of dry clean only and other such nuisances

• unraveling the myth of dry clean only and other such services

• dry clean only and other such superstitions

• Close the door, you’re letting in the vortex

• I have superstitions about black lipstick, the vortex, and old photo albums

• Superstition: I am suspicious of black lipstick ever since I got vertigo at the vortex.

• Suspicious, Superstitious, Vertigo, Vortex or Just Black Lipstick

• Black Lipstick Gave Me Vertigo at the Vortex and That’s How I Became Superstitious

• Is it vertigo or an out-of-vortex experience?

• It is Sometimes Inconvenient That This Vortex is

• I’m Having an Out of Vortex Experience

• The Vortex I Mean Vertigo Has Gotten Out of Hand

• It is Sometimes Inconvenient to Have an Energy Vortex on the Tip of My Finger

You might have a favorite in the list that is not the title I landed on and that’s information that can stay with you if you get what I’m saying.

Who knows? This collage might end up back in my studio where I will cut it up, repurpose it, and give it a new name. Or it might end up in a new home with a nickname, the title written across its back never spoken aloud again.