Miranda July

Still trying to follow through on my decision to write my reflections on anything I finish reading on the internet. Usually I forget, and sometimes I just don't. My hope is that through this writing exercise, eventually I will have something to say.



(This photo is from Interview Magazine.)


I just finished reading a short interview on Dazed Digital with Miranda July. I've seen "You and Me and Everyone We Know," and read "No One Belongs Here More Than You." As I recall (and it's been a few years), she deals a lot with emotional vulnerability in relationships, which rarely captures my interest as artistic subject matter.

DD: Are you ever afraid that your work is too intimate?

Miranda July: I am concerned about that but there’s nothing I can really do. I try to push myself towards symbolism, partly for that reason but also that it is liberating. I often write a little reminder that says ‘move in symbols’ so I don’t get too autobiographical. Nonetheless, everything that I can think of that will be coming out in the next couple of years, I feel like I’m throwing myself to the lions. I really could just cry about it, that’s how upsetting it is to me, but I don’t know what to do. Oh well. Everything has its problems.

I don't criticize her work for the sappiness though. At least she's straightfoward. She reminds me of my bff's very sincere little sister who just started college and is apparently getting paid $12/hr to work part-time as a prop in an art piece at the Guggenheim. This same little sister, now that I think of it, is the one who initially recommended that I read her work. I think there's a lesson in here for me somewhere.