State fair. Iowa Research Online. University of Iowa. Angela Christine Regas University of Iowa. Theses and Dissertations.

Transcription

1 University of Iowa Iowa Research Online Theses and Dissertations Spring 2010 State fair Angela Christine Regas University of Iowa Copyright 2010 Angela Christine Regas This thesis is available at Iowa Research Online: Recommended Citation Regas, Angela Christine. "State fair." MFA (Master of Fine Arts) thesis, University of Iowa, Follow this and additional works at: Part of the Art Practice Commons

2 STATE FAIR by Angela Christine Regas A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts Degree in Art in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa May 2010 Thesis Supervisor: Professor Margaret Stratton

3 Copyright by ANGELA CHRISTINE REGAS 2010 All Rights Reserved

4 Graduate College The University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL MASTER S THESIS This is to certify that the Master s Thesis of Angela Christine Regas has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Master of Fine Arts Degree in Art at the May 2010 Graduation Thesis Committee: Margaret Stratton, Thesis Supervisor John Freyer James Snitzer Thomas Aprile Laurel Farrin

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7 At the state fair, everything comes in candy colors, everything is bright, shining, 1 blinking, glowing, popping, chirping, everyone wins! Even the carnies, dried and brown and tired, push shy teenagers towards each other like smoke-stained Cupids. Why don t you win that pretty girl a rose? How can you help but smile? Laugh? Spin and shriek on the rides, get your hands and face sticky with funnel cake and giant hot dogs and win your girl a prize? I am reminded of childhood stories of fairy rings: places not of this world. They are everywhere at once, and nowhere. They exist outside of time. If I could enter, I might emerge a minute later and find myself one hundred years in the future, or I might stay for twenty years and only pass a day in real life. In a way, the fair is the space within that ring, it is always the same fair, from year to year and from state to state. It lifts up and sets down in another field or parking lot, the same rides with the same sunburned men and women running them. The fair is its own world, designed and built to please. But what happens when it isn t being enjoyed? When all its color and flash fail? For a moment, a clearing opens up in the crowd and I see a young girl standing alone, arms crossed, waiting for something or someone. She looks tired. Another moment later and she is lost as the crowd fills the space again. That is what I am looking for: the moments when the spell breaks, and all the cotton candy and inflatable dolphins can t stop her feet from aching. For a moment, the people in these photographs are no longer part of the excitement. Their bodies occupy the space but their thoughts are elsewhere tired,

8 2 anxious, bored. They change the space around them. While I watch them, the fantasy fails and instead of a fair I see a sad set of trailers on hard, hot, asphalt.

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