Your teenage years can be on of the most challenging periods of your life. It's a period when the lessons that you have been learning as a child about how to be a man or woman get cemented into an adult identity. Playtime is over; time to get serious about your gender. One way to think about those lessons is that they are recipes or scripts. One script says that if you sit one way (but not another) and wear this color (but not that one) and perform a hundred other actions, then you'll become a woman. You must learn these scripts well because you'll need to repeat them for the rest of your life. Mullis' artworks ask how these scripts are played out on our bodies and in physical space; what is the motion, the shape, the fabric, and the language that our culture has determined is feminine? By breaking gender down into these building blocks, Mullis also seems to suggest that they can be put back together in new combinations. Scripts can be re-written or improvised. Performing them can be experimental rather than rote memorization. Even the end goals—becoming a man or woman—may be expanded or redefined as an ongoing lifelong exploration. It's playtime again; do try this at home.  - Richard Rinehart, Director, Samek Art Museum