well, after the first few weeks of Continuous Outfit – Altered Daily, a few things became clear. i’m only writing them up now because i’m bad at documentation, not because it took me this long to grasp them.

the most important was that my original understanding of the analogy the piece is making had been a bit off. i’d thought in terms of making consecutive alterations to one fixed set of garments, but hadn’t really considered how modular Continuous Project – Altered Daily was. but actual practice led me right back to a structure that’s much closer to rainer’s piece than what i had imagined before starting.

some first realizations:

with daffodil photos to come!

i didn’t go out into the world much the first day or two: i was at home for my birthday after going to pick up my dairy & meat order, and then the next day was not so nice out. so it wasn’t till yesterday that i had the experience of going out into the world in the outfit and instantly knowing what the next few alterations would be. the capelet was absolutely right (and needed the tie-ribbons), but now i need arm- and leg-coverings, in a modular, removable way. so i’ll make some fake pants (just legs) and a linen garter belt. milo says the layers of linen straps of the underwear and garter belt will be fun; we’ll see. and perhaps the sleeves are a shrug, or perhaps armlets – maybe i have something (old socks-turned-armies?) i can just absorb.

what i’m wearing is far enough outside people’s experience that i don’t seem to be getting very active reactions (except from smaller kids, who are fascinated). i’m getting looks, but something about the look doesn’t seem to parse enough for a label to stick. the exception is a few young adults who i read as being more actively fashion-thinking types; they’re complimentary so far.

the underwear is definitely part of the outfit. partly it just feels like it: the kaftan is different with the sleeveless shift and the sleeved one, with the breechclout and the jock-style g-string. and partly thinking of it that way – with a layer of alterations that are most (or only) noticeable to me (and still make the outfit “noticeably changed”) – gives me more space to work longer and more thoughtfully on additions and changes.

and that, i think, brings me back to the rainer structure: doing rehearsal in public; doing something as performance that isn’t necessarily different in form from what they did the day before without an audience.

the audience really doesn’t matter, for CP-AD or COAD. not that people being present as observers doesn’t make a difference: it does, and trying to understand the shape of that difference is part of the point. but the way to start figuring out that shape is to hold the form, the structure constant whether there is an audience or not, and then see what changes when there is one.

and that rhymes with montano: Life/Art is what you do whether or not there’s an audience. and sometimes it’s “art” and sometimes it’s “life”, or some parts are one and some parts are the other, and the audience can’t necessarily identify either of them (or, maybe better: their identification of what’s what has no particular relationship to yours).