Gail and Mary, thank you for being brave enough to share your art with us.  I am moved both by your work and your decision to share it with us.  Thank you again. 

I am starting to better understand my frustrations with this course. First, this course (like the discussed mestiza) is straddling many identities. It's online, it's new, it includes alums, its students have a variety of class years and academic backgrounds, it's an intro to feminist studies that does not require texts from the mainstream, historical feminist "cannon" (Woolf excluded): all of these things make for a challenging environment. Hell, many courses don't have much of anything about them that sets them apart from semester to semester.

First of all, I just wanted to say thank you to Gail for sharing your sculptures with us -- they're wonderful! I think it's interesting to see a visual representation of how ideas can change and grow over the course of just a month. I'm really glad you took the risk of showing us. :)

I spent the last month of my summer in Argentina on tour with a puppeteer and his crew. I grew up doing this sort of stuff, but this summer was my first real exposure to life in the big-time. Tandem Otter Productions signs contracts with riders! My family had pretty basic riders, but things were different with Basil because his showis so big. They bought us a fire house, gave us 2-3 assistants on-call, provided juice, dried fruit and nuts backstage, ensured everything would be grounded, etc. I knew, of course, these sorts of practices existed (who hasn't made an M&M joke!), but actually experiencing it firsthand spoiled me a bit. Now I fantasize about having riders in unspoken contracts of all facets of my life, but especially in class.

I first came to Guatemala for Easter vacation in 1974.  Guatemala's textiles are world famous and as a master weaver and spinner, I had dreamed for years of seeing them in their home.  I think we did what most tourists do in a week, nothing special.  But I left here in love, passionately in love with Guatemala.  Everyone could see it. 

Throughout history and across cultures, the force of memory has always held a prominent position in our concept of humanity and self.  The ancient Greeks embodied memory in a goddess – Mnemosyne, the mother of the nine inspiring Muses.  But what if a person possessed memories so upsetting and intense that they caused him to not be able to function as himself?  If you had the option, would you choose to forget or to distance yourself?  This dilemma is now a source of debate among scientists and medical practitioners.  Propranolol, a drug previously prescribed to people suffering from hypertension, has also