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but i was deferred, and then accepted. so to the internet, i present:
1 a composition of two objects drawn from observation defining the difference between sticky and smooth
there was a cover sheet sewed onto this, where i wrote two poems, because the things i was thinking about milk and honey were much more important than the representative drawing. and i wrote the poem, that there's a representative drawing. i don't have any record of what i wrote for honey (it was mostly about devaluing the drink of gods [honey gives immortality] by putting it into a bear-shaped bottle) but milk's said:
"Dear milk, the initial gift,
To stroke, to squeeze
To draw you gently out
To hold you coolly in my hands,
Gently in my mouth
You pool and puddle in the moon
Ever circling, sinuous silk
Which pulls the sea onto the land,
As I now pull you with my hands
Gently even still"
2 a full-length self-portrait
this folds into a 5x7 book, handmade paper covers, binding from the fabric i used in #6.
3 view from a checkpoint
"Being in a broken family is like existing between two states; nothing is certain."
4 visceral
"sometimes my blood whispers to my bones, 'would that this flesh might fold into the lapping and overlapping of darkness, resolve into the black earth of mother', and my bones, softly, in reply, 'perhaps the gates will unclose to us soon'".
5 a sequence or series from a literary quote
these are photo-etchings, painted in with pomegranate juice. i wrote the quote on the envelope, it's from a poem called "Spring" by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
"What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. --Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning."
6 a clock or device which redefines the concept of time
this is an accordion quilt book. my hands made it, for fifty hours. i wrote the text. it says:
"The Whale, or, the effect on humans of the mechanical lung device/
I swear! I swear! You are mostly made of air/
and science has created, for you, a pair of mechanical lungs,/
a wonderful device to octuple your size and slow your time./
For time relies on mass and velocity, it is not an absolute property./
So I huff and puff and up you'll luff, into orcan proportions!/
Two seconds becomes two hours, in a body the size of a whale./
Latter days shall not be dour with such a magnificent scale."
anything in quotes is an approximation of what was written on the piece, either the back or the envelope. other text will be materials or descriptions.
Taylor Hand
Early Decision Questionnaire
I would like to preface these statements in saying that, in all I have written here, my ultimate goal is to be honest and pure. Sometimes this may give my responses a quality of informality, but I do entreat you, they are written in earnest attempts at a clean truth.
1. List all visual study courses you have completed outside of high school. Maryland Institute College of Art Pre-College Studio Residency Program, summer 2007
2. Describe any work experience which you feel relates to your artistic goals.
In 2006 I worked for seven weeks as a summer intern at the Norton Museum of Art, leading children’s tours groups, guiding art activities, and assisting museum staff. The culmination of the summer was the opening of a gallery showing the art work of the seven summer interns. We each made a piece based on our titular theme “Sewing Self”, and, as a group, organized and hosted the opening event. I think what I learned mainly is how to behave in a professional-type setting, and it gave me a glimpse into the bureaucracy of art. We had fun field-trips too, I would never have visited an art restorer or a metal-casting studio on my own. Working at the museum was my only real job, and though it was sometimes draining, I’m glad for the opportunity and the experience.
3. What are you goals after graduation from The Cooper Union?
I suffer from both physical and metaphorical myopia. What I mean to say is that I am near-sighted in one eye and I limit my thoughts of the future to that hurdle which is nearest me. Both of these give me a nice fuzzy world-view. In my defense, if I had actual life goals (beyond the existential one which I claim: to become a good human) I would be a person other than myself. Also, I think that the person I will be in four years will be quite changed from who I am now. If I am so fortunate as to spend those four years as a student of The Cooper Union, I will be molded in such a way as to be wonderfully, gloriously new—and how can I say now what I will want to do then?
4. Explain specifically, what other professions have you considered outside of the visual arts?
I hadn’t actually considered becoming an artist until a few weeks ago. Generally I have always felt that I would become a teacher. This might be less of a desire than something born of familiarity: my mother is a teacher. Also it is a good and necessary occupation, thus I accept that a teacher is what I will ultimately become. It is almost complacency by now, and I can’t really imagine doing anything else. But there are variations on the theme—I could be an international teacher, at a school abroad. And I have never wanted to pursue a degree in Education. Rather, I would like to study many things, and travel, and work on a farm, and have a breadth of experiences. Also this plan may be a bit of reality appended to my dream of being a perpetual student; there is nothing that I would like more than to have a life’s time to study and learn about everything. My greatest abilities are as an artist, a teacher and a student.
5. What books, works of art, and/or persons have inspired your interest in the study of art and why?
I feel like artmaking is something that I’ve always done. It was easy to do, as I have been for my whole life in magnet programs for either giftedness or art skills. (Because of this I sometimes feel like a mutant with a skewed perspective.) But it was not until last year that I started making art that was honest and pure, and therefore much better, much more like art than craft. I owe this to my mother, Dreyfoos, growing up, moving away from my mother, Emilie Gossiaux, Edith Hamilton, John Steinbeck, Tommy Coleman, and Kiki Smith.
My mother gave me my genes and my life and depression and the crazies. This is why I make art. She also gave me intelligence and books. Dreyfoos gave me Mrs. Christo, who told me not to hate my mother and taught me to print. Growing and relocating allowed me to create in a safe environment with a safe perspective. Emilie and Tommy came into my life two years ago and made me want to work hard so that I could come to The Cooper Union. Then last summer Tommy changed my mind (also I thought that I wanted to let art fallow for me so that I could study other things) and in November Emilie changed it back (also I realized that there is no place I’d rather go and nothing I’d rather do, because I need to make art.)
And the authors and the artist. Well, Edith Hamilton gave me my first metaphor and Kiki Smith helped me to use it. I first encountered Kiki Smith’s work in a gallery close to school; there I saw the etching “Come Away from Her” (they also had a Kiefer which is embedded into my memory). It was grand and human and beautiful. What I mean to say in calling it human is that it has imperfections, the lines were perhaps not exactly accurate, but they were real and made with feeling and intent. Now I keep her book of prints on the floor near my bed. Thinking about Kiki Smith makes me want to continue studying art, especially printmaking. She says that prints are like humans, “all the same and yet every one is different”. This is a lot like what I take from Steinbeck. East of Eden has informed how I structure my life now. I try to be a good person. Mostly this means denying my sadness, which is manifested in the things that I make. I think what I am saying is that, essentially, I need to study art so that I can be a real human and feel. All these people and their ideas help me to do that.
6. Explain any trivialities in which you engage.
During my review at The Cooper Union, Mr. Larry Brown (to whom I am enormously indebted) asked me what I do besides make art and if I have a job (no) and what my parents do (teacher/ CADD tech) and if I write (yes). So I told him that I play guitar, and am trying to learn to fingerpick. This may have been one of those times when I was thinking that I would really like to make music. Sometimes this happens. It’s been occurring at a high rate recently because I received an ukulele for Christmas and it is delightfully simple to play and just lovely to sing along with! I feel that this may be a step towards fulfilling my dream of becoming a 1940’s-esque singer. This was not included in question number four, concerning other professions, because it is simply ridiculous. Also, as I told Mr. Larry Brown, I knit. Knitting is good for my brain and my nerves; it makes me less jittery when I get scared. Alas, oftentimes my finger joints will ache after knitting or writing or painting or picking. It is mostly knitting, though, that causes my hands to hurt. And it worries me—maybe I am having arthritic-type feelings now because I will not ever be old, maybe all the pains and joys of life are getting squished in now so that I’ll have the full experience before I die. Conversely, I worry that if I do grow old, the pain will only become worse. And then I will not be old, I will not be anything, I will be not more than nerves. Without my hands, what will I be? What will I do? I guess I will tell stories. And sing songs. Finally.
Also, when I think about being gray (hopefully now I am pink, or maybe green, at least in judgment) I wonder whether I will still have the things which I am making at this moment, which mean so much to me now; if they will have disintegrated or become meaningless, particularly to my progeny. I wonder if my children will say about me the same thing that I have heard about my Aunt Susan—she studied art in college but dropped it the rest of her life. I worry that they will disregard my work, which is selfish, I suppose. But someday I will have babies, maybe. And I will be good to them, though sometimes I might forget. But everything that I am is in them, the way it is for all animals, and that is what my work is about.
7. Describe an event or idea that has been very influential in your life. Here I am going to put the essay that I wrote for the Common Application, because it is applicable and also something that I have spent a long time cultivating.
I am human. I am a human. Oh, the import of such a thing! I am a human, and I want to be good, and to love and be loved. I am a human and I can choose to be good, I can choose love. I am a human and I carry within me magnificent things—proteins passed through the ages. It is thrilling to me, to be a human and hold the same genes with the same codes as all other living things. Hereditary information in gene form has been enabling living organisms to reproduce for millennia, and now I have my own unique combination. Oh, oh, I am a human.
There is this book that I love. It is an epic of sorts, and holds within it the oldest story ever told and all the things that being human means. John Steinbeck’s East of Eden is biblical and monumental but still so approachable because it is very much human. It recognizes that, as humans, we have within us the capacity for depravity and cruelty but also great good, and that our humanity gives us the agency to choose. “Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.”
Because of choice, as Dostoevsky says, “people are still people and not piano-keys”. Each new human has the opportunity to choose the right, choose goodness, choose love. And here I am now, with the future stretched out before me, and ancestors upon ancestors lined up behind, attempting to discern my path, to make out good choices. It is imperative that I learn from my past and my predecessors, and create a life which is good and kind and clean to prove to myself that I am my own person. This is so extremely important to me because my life so far has been marred by a great deal of mental anguish which stems mostly from that person, that human, who gave me my life and half of my genes.
It was accepted among psychiatrists of the mid-twentieth century that parental love and affection toward babies and children was unnecessary and sometimes harmful. Harry Harlow’s experiments on baby monkeys helped to change this perception, and simultaneously generated an unprecedented wave of animal rights activism. Through his admittedly awful tests, Harlow proved that love between a mother and child was real and not based solely on survival. His tests showed that baby monkeys would always cling to a mother which was soft and made of cloth rather than a mother made of wire, even if the wire mother was their only food source. And further, the babies loved their cloth mothers so much that even if the cloth mothers rejected them or physically hurt them, the babies would return to their cloth mothers and try to win their love again.
Maybe my mother did not know where to put her love. I understand that much of why she did certain things comes from her own past. To explain what she did to me, as honestly and purely as possible, is to say that she made me feel as though I wasn’t a human. That may be the best way to express it. Though my mother will always, always have some sort of influence on me, as we are connected in a way that is both universal and extremely personal, I recently removed myself from her physical influence and have since been grappling with the remainders of my time with her. My mother gave me intelligence and humor, yes, but she also gave me depression and anxiety and fear. These things, I believe, are undeniably inherited but also environmentally reinforced. And now I am trying to conquer them, because ‘thou mayest conquer over sin’. That, from my revered East of Eden, is the biblical mandate of free agency. And I am trying to apply that in my own life in a way that is good. I worry sometimes that I have an attachment disorder, that I cannot empathize with other humans, but I am trying to train myself away from those thoughts and feelings. I make art in order to understand myself and read books in order to understand others, and I must continue to do so.
I am the product of all those who came before me, and also of all the things I have experienced since birth. But I am a human, and I may choose. I want to be good.
8. Why do you think it’s important that artists speak or write about their work?
Giving literal form to the product of hands is a healthy practice. In speaking or writing, one is forced to consider the work in a new way, with a different part of the brain. This can make the work more whole in the mind of the creator, and facilitate digestion by the viewer. Writing, or at least organizing pertinent words, gives an idea clarity and integrity. To do this retroactively is an opportunity for the artist to consider the work as a whole, and recognize parts which may not have been consciously integrated but which are necessary in the final form. For me at this time, the words of artists in their statements and interviews are a rich resource. Artists who speak and write about what they think and do are teaching the next generation to cultivate and articulate their ideas.
9. Why are you applying for Early Decision?
It may be myopia again, but I can’t see another future for my self. I think of the day in February when I may or may not receive a telephone call, and my heart quivers. Actually, this sensation is not limited to my heart, but extends to all my insides, all my (if you’ll allow me) viscera shivers and quakes. On the one hand, there is bliss, there is beauty, there is boundless opportunity. Oh, the golden tones of a ringing telephone. Or else there is a grand regret, a self-abasement. I will shave my head in atonement. But this is all so ridiculous, so melodramatic. I hadn’t wanted to apply early, I hadn’t wanted to apply, not until the gracious Mr. Larry Brown pointed me on my way. I have for so long done so many things and followed so many pursuits (intellectually, at least) that my search for post-secondary fulfillment was akin to swimming blindly in a mud puddle, up to two months ago. In November I went to New York. I think that it was the contrast that I saw with Vassar College which fully changed my mind. I realized that however much I am afraid of The Cooper Union (which may have been a key deterrent) I need to be there. I need the classes and the professors and the people which are all singular to the school. Also I am in a position where my only financially viable alternative is a state school within Florida. Of course, the college experience is mine to mold, and I will find ways to be happy anywhere I go. But here I am, choosing to be bound to you (if only you would accept me), because The Cooper Union is what I want the most. It is good and necessary; it is where I need to be.
Postscript: I have been grappling with my time, whether to spend it with learning French or writing or art or biology. But, in doing the home test, I have felt in myself an honest dedication—I loved so much to sit and sew that I didn’t want to eat, because it would take my hands from my work. I found this a happy sign.
10. Answer an important question that we have not asked.
These are things which I feel that propriety may not allow me to say aloud.
I have only really been making art for a year. I guess what I mean by that is that I’ve begun making things which are meaningful without being contrived or premeditated. In tenth grade I decided on a concentration and followed it, which overall wasn’t very fulfilling. So last year I just started making work, with the intent to make sense of it in retrospect—hopefully things would be cohesive by virtue of having been made by one person. In this way I began to work more intuitively, eventually coming to trust myself to a great degree. The Disney-soaked part of my brain calls this “listening to my heart”. But it works, and I try now to apply it almost universally. I essay to let my conscience be my guide and follow my heart, because my bones know better than my brain what to do. Recently I have begun to recognize this impulse as, perhaps, my subconscious. Things which are apparent in my art are maybe less visible in my person. So there is this subconscious/superego dichotomy. The self that I have created and maintain is a direct response to the thoughts and feelings which find their place in my art because I make no place for them in my brain, in my conscious mind. They hurt me to think about.
I say “things”, “thoughts and feelings”, “them” and “they” because I do not want to say outright words such as “sadness”, “disconnection”, “fear”, “sex”, and other things in a similar vein. I fight to repress this vein, as well as thoughts which are rude or cruel or pretentious or generally hurtful to others—though these things rarely show up in my work. I am trying to deny that which I perceive as either a character flaw or a personal inhibitor.
I hope that it is safe to assume that other people experience similar thoughts, and that I am not alone in these things or the cause of them. I am not sure what I am trying to achieve or qualify by making that statement. What I really need to say is that I focus so much energy on ‘conquering over sin’, as it were, because I am determined to be a good person, a good human. All these sentences are fabricated to avoid that which I really need to say, that thing which is the purpose of this essay! Yes, all these sentences are worthwhile and necessary to a degree, but I must get to it. Ok. I have shaved and paired my thoughts, trying to get to a verifiable truth, because above all things I wish to be honest and pure.
My mother made me feel as though I were not a human.
This is perhaps the best way to say it. I could also say that my mother abused me and my father didn’t save me. My brother is disabled and now, now, my sister is not able to look at me. One might call this ‘a kettle of fish’. But that mention of my siblings has little to do with the other things. My sister, who is four years old, has mild autism. It mostly affects her ability to communicate, but there is also the condition that she will not, or can not, look into people’s eyes. She also will not face you when you hug her—she turns around to avoid eye contact.
That may have been a diversion, though it is of burning importance to me. The person who (or whose memory, at least) has the most import in my life is also the person who gave me life and half of my genes. The bond with mother is strange because it is simultaneously personal and universal. My mother was sometimes awful and cruel. I am sure that she loves me, but I think that maybe she forgot how to behave and just slipped into yelling mean things at me. But still, I love her. In order to maintain myself and my constructs, though, I have repressed her and attempted to deny the effects of her actions on me as an individual person. This denial has forced my inherent (inherited) depression, anxiety, and other malignancies to show themselves in the things which my hands have made.
many pages. ridiculous.
everything either is 5 x 7 inches or becomes that size by folding or stacking. i wanted it to be personal, like photographs. anything brown is hand-made paper.
I sent them everything important, in terms of supplementary work, because most of what I do is small printmaking. I sent printed-out photographs of a very large painting, a moderately large drawing, and a dress that I made for a chair. I essentially sent them my entire physical portfolio.
even five months later i see the poor quality of the work, but i think there's something there, an idea or a feeling to it, that they caught and i'm glad of it.
cooper's a mystery. listen to your heart.
Anonymous
May 30 2008, 12:07:24 UTC 3 years ago
So glad
This seems extraordinary, and your honesty and openness are remarkable. I am so glad you got it. Congratulations.May 30 2008, 22:40:14 UTC 3 years ago
Re: So glad
je vous remercie.Anonymous
May 30 2008, 13:01:35 UTC 3 years ago
by the way
does anyone know how to post your room on the facebook spreadsheet? Does the administration do that? Or do you have to do it yourself. Can't figure out how to get my room assignment onto the post.May 30 2008, 13:26:14 UTC 3 years ago
Re: by the way
join the group, then post it in the "what floor and what line" discussion. gabe made it, he's the only one who can update it.Deleted comment
May 31 2008, 03:59:12 UTC 3 years ago
i had to lurk your facebook to see where you're going next year, someone mentioned chicago (saic maybe?), but i saw emily haines and it was a nice reminder--one of the tarcs borrowed that cd from me most of the time we were at mica.
gosh i just love good sad girlie music.
i hope your life is happening nicely
May 31 2008, 05:12:47 UTC 3 years ago
I'm glad you posted this, it's wonderful.
I feel that in all of the hometests posted by accepted students, there has been a thought process that really distinguishes itself. Even if admissions still seems like a bit of an enigma to us, I think everyone gets in for a reason.
Anonymous
June 2 2008, 07:59:39 UTC 3 years ago
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May 31 2008, 15:00:55 UTC 3 years ago
May 31 2008, 22:10:10 UTC 3 years ago
also i heard youre not going to india
ah well
mebbe next year
June 6 2008, 04:07:21 UTC 3 years ago
particularly the questionnaire -- i've never seen anyone post their responses before and it was very insightful
i think it's a shame that people responded more with bitterness instead of looking at the beautiful stuff you thought about.
by the way, just to put it out there, i've never felted before. hahaha.
i feel like there are these stereotypes coming up about processes...
collage, quilting, etc. weird!
June 6 2008, 11:05:20 UTC 3 years ago
i dont know if you were here when the community was collapsing
i posted my responses on the alternate group http://community.livejournal.com/cooper
and i believe a bunch of early decision kids have theirs up
a couple of plages back
taylor- i liked your answers an awful lot too
June 6 2008, 16:44:51 UTC 3 years ago
i knew there was beef going down this year but not that there was a completely different community! shit son i did not get the low-down
anyhow, thx
3 years ago
June 6 2008, 19:50:17 UTC 3 years ago
i was getting frustrated for a while, thinking no one was out there on lj, except for nameless antagonizers, and i was ready to take it down
i would love to live in a cabin on a mountain
and make a felt wrap to carry my baby on my back
but i think maybe you mean different stereotypes, a-ha
Anonymous
3 years ago
August 2 2008, 02:24:50 UTC 3 years ago
you're talented as fuck, i wish this group could see ALL of the amazing work you do. i feel rather lucky that i was along for the ride. i loooove you.
talk e-shit get e-hit, lololololol.
Anonymous
August 5 2008, 05:51:59 UTC 3 years ago
August 5 2008, 06:51:29 UTC 3 years ago
Anonymous
3 years ago
December 31 2008, 21:15:16 UTC 3 years ago
You're an incredibly transparent writer, an honest one, the best kind
I'm currently applying to the cooper union school of art early decision. I looked up this live journal community for insight into other people's motivations to pursue cooper, as well as their experiences during the entire process. Your final words say it all. How do you like the school?January 1 2009, 16:40:29 UTC 3 years ago
re
ah, wellthank you
very much
I'm going to answer your question on my own journal, I want some more space to sort of exist in; this community is maybe not the best place for my personal Cooper reflections. k?
but, sincerely,
thank you
January 1 2009, 17:15:39 UTC 3 years ago
re
also i added you so you could read itAnonymous
January 9 2009, 01:05:00 UTC 3 years ago
that was some of the best writing i've ever read
and your work has special beautiful hands you usedJanuary 9 2009, 03:07:51 UTC 3 years ago
Re: that was some of the best writing i've ever read
thanksgee, thanks
Anonymous
January 4 2010, 02:23:35 UTC 2 years ago
Thank You
This looks and sounds just like my diary when I get the compulsion to start writing and I don't stop until pages later. The same style too. The allayment I feel from such an affirmation is truly great.Thank you.
ô¿ô
January 30 2011, 02:39:28 UTC 1 year ago
February 28 2012, 04:16:47 UTC 2 months ago