[ISEA97] Artist Statement: Jay Sims — The Cup

Artist Statement

The Cup is an on-going web journal that explores my perception of women portrayed through our cultural history, literature, art, family custom and mass media. The image of the”cup” refers to its ancient symbolic origin as a representation of the female. In this project it appears as the familiar contemporary icon, the generic coffee cup. The content of this work is framed by personal experience in the form of anecdotes, stories, observations, letters, queries, common knowledge, and matter-of-fact statements. My intention is to form a media collage of found and manufactured material, everything from old sewing patterns and auto mechanics diagrams to performance art pieces. My work is an on-going study of women that is expressed through personal experience, observation, intuition, and invention — a sharing of common experience. The site is divided into seven sections (in various stages of development):

  1. Garden Journal:The Fall from Grace (Eden): Horticulture and the concepts of nurturing and harvest… having babies… getting ideas… building a house;
  2. Woman’s Journal:  Written messages about women through the ages;
  3. Calendar Girls: Preservation of body and canning food… “beauty”… resurrection and the plastic arts;
  4. The Mind Wanders: Photo essays about travel;
  5. Montana Color Theory: A theory of color mixing described through association with common household objects;
  6. Dream Journal: Photo/sound pieces of an eclectic and often surreal nature;
  7. Getting Jobs: Mother sister lover whore wife caretaker butcher baker cabinet-maker…
  • E. Jay Sims (U.S.A.) I have been a dancer, potter, filmmaker, performance artist and now multimedia/web designer. BFA Univ. of Colorado 1970, MFA School of the Art Institute of Chicago 1985.1 taught film, video and computer art to high school students in Manhattan for many years and now work as a freelance multimedia designer. ejaysims.com