the man said Art doesn't work without pain.
i have been taught to disregard statements like that but, sometimes, when i look at my own work, the painful origins of my images are too stark and strong to deny. i read his statement again and see that it is honest, accurate in a way that makes me uncomfortable. uncomfortable maybe because i am an american and i want to seem tough, cool, collected, unshakable. then i remember i have a blog and i remember the things i've written on this blog and the reality of the situation dawns on me: OH SHIT! MY BLOG IS ON THE INTERNET! EVERYONE CAN SEE IT! hahahaha! silly, i know, but i try not to think about it. i've actually been pretty successful at convincing myself that no one reads this thing and that all my words here are really just skipping stones across a quiet lake. it's better for me to think that way about this practice because otherwise i might not say anything at all. i might become too embarrassed, too ashamed of my own life, my own lived experiences and expressions of pain. i might hide instead and cry where no one can see.
but where would be the benefit in that? where would be the art?
it is more than pain, something beyond pain, but pain nevertheless, in each contour, in every shimmer... because life is like that too. some things must be alchemised if we expect to be able to look at them. some types of pain has to be romanticized in order to even be carried. some pains are just that great, just that crushing. a conversion must take place. we develop new eyes, new words, new hands that are capable of holding new pain. we must, if we must continue.
Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.
— Anaïs Nin
Showing posts with label art thinking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art thinking. Show all posts
Jul 20, 2011
Nov 2, 2010
breath
we are losing day light. the season is robbing me of my beloved early mornings. i noticed today how dark it still was today at 6am. absolute black here at the forest's edge.
it's been freezing in the morning too. i will need to get a ski mask so that i can keep running in the winter.
running has become a ritual. breath and blood- pounding pounding, surging. a necessity. and my mind travels through time, through branches, through fog toward early light and shade while i leap across the two-lane highway, barrel down the lane along vineyards, orchards, tenements, and the wide, unkempt fields littered with rotting walnut husks.
stray dogs. squirrels. signs for who to vote for.
i am making a big cup of tea with honey in it. after i enjoy it, i will go vote. exercise my rights and then come home, dive back in to my black graphite, scratch scratch scratch the page, and sit in bed with my Mr. Wonderful- Roland Barthes. it is high on my To-Do List today to re-read Camera Lucida. it's been years. i don't remember a thing about it and that makes me feel too silly to not do anything about it. besides, as i go along, i seem to crave more and more time with Barthes' writing... believing, in a way akin to faith, that dealing with his work truly does make me a better artist. i am sure of this. and in becoming a better artist, also a better person.
i've been singing lately while i work. yesterday, i sang almost all day long while i sat on the living room floor working on a huge drawing. the day moved so quickly. and i felt such a deep stir of emotion while i worked. the swell and release that only the act of singing seems to bring. an exorcism of sorts, i suppose. a reckoning. and i felt like i accomplished something good and true just sitting here on the floor, singing and drawing, all day long.
it's been freezing in the morning too. i will need to get a ski mask so that i can keep running in the winter.
running has become a ritual. breath and blood- pounding pounding, surging. a necessity. and my mind travels through time, through branches, through fog toward early light and shade while i leap across the two-lane highway, barrel down the lane along vineyards, orchards, tenements, and the wide, unkempt fields littered with rotting walnut husks.
stray dogs. squirrels. signs for who to vote for.
i am making a big cup of tea with honey in it. after i enjoy it, i will go vote. exercise my rights and then come home, dive back in to my black graphite, scratch scratch scratch the page, and sit in bed with my Mr. Wonderful- Roland Barthes. it is high on my To-Do List today to re-read Camera Lucida. it's been years. i don't remember a thing about it and that makes me feel too silly to not do anything about it. besides, as i go along, i seem to crave more and more time with Barthes' writing... believing, in a way akin to faith, that dealing with his work truly does make me a better artist. i am sure of this. and in becoming a better artist, also a better person.
i've been singing lately while i work. yesterday, i sang almost all day long while i sat on the living room floor working on a huge drawing. the day moved so quickly. and i felt such a deep stir of emotion while i worked. the swell and release that only the act of singing seems to bring. an exorcism of sorts, i suppose. a reckoning. and i felt like i accomplished something good and true just sitting here on the floor, singing and drawing, all day long.
Oct 26, 2010
tuesday morning art and politics with William Kentridge and Riot Grrl
William Kentridge: charcoal and torn paper and opera... the man is amazing. i fell in love with his work, with his mind, the very first time i saw it. i am lucky that my first experience with his work was in the flesh, face to face at LACMA. i was 20 at the time, i think. my mother and i decided to drive out to LA and see what was going on one day, completely spur of the moment, and that's when i learned of William Kentridge. immediately, i was at home with his images and aesthetic. i was working primarily in charcoal at the time. black charcoal and white acrylic together on a page- ghostly swirls of grey. and the second i saw Kentridge's work, i looked at my mom and said: SEE! someone else who loves charcoal! art can be made this way, it doesn't have to be oil paint! i was so excited! overjoyed! and then when my friend Daniela and i accidentily stumbled across his show in San Francisco when she was up here visiting a few months ago. gorgeous etchings based on Gogol's short-story The Nose.
over the weekend i watched the new Art:21 documentary about his current work and he seems like such a playful man. seeing his work is an experience that i can only really describe as Home Coming and it's so heart-warming to watch him in the studio. in the documentary, he speaks briefly about "the seriousness of play" and it reminds me of what poet Rebecca Loudon stresses- finding the site of deep play and there is where the poetry grows. and then later in the film, he says (and i am paraphrasing), "my life and work changed when i started seeing the world as Process rather than Fact". something about that statement hit me so hard. in the face, in the heart. it is still hitting me hard. it's so damn smart it makes my head spin. and i try to catch it so that i can hold it, apply it, trust it, such a brilliant tool! and of course, when i think i've managed to catch it i lose it again. isn't that always the way. ha! but there is something in that statement that is so inviting, so opposite what dominant american culture espouses... process rather than product. the Means rather than the End. a life's work, always UP UP UP. not climbing in the hopes of finding a pleasing plateau, but climbing because that is the job... to climb. and i know this is all romantic and beautiful and so i run to it as fast as i can! these kinds of ideas are so attractive to me. the idealist in me flings her arms wide open to embrace all this beauty of thought and action. my americanism snaps me back and squeezes my face, forces me to look at the goals that are permissible for me to have, the desires i am supposed to chase. the money plateau. green and leisurely. and then just sit there, just coast, do nothing but spend...
it is uncomfortable and lonely to be Outside but i must be Outside. i must remain Outside. in my sketch book, i have a quote written and i have no clue who said it but here it is: Becoming aware of your power to make choices and not go with the status quo is a huge first step.
last night before bed i read Joanne Gottlieb's and Gayle Wald's essay "Smells Like Teen Spirit: Riot Grrls, Revolution and Women in Independent Rock" about zines and music, power, how girls can create their own agency by resisting the cultural allure to stay inside, stay quiet, sit down, and continue the practice of minimization and silence within themselves... that something as seemingly simple as making a zine or t-shirt or stitching your own scarf is an act of resistance to the Status Quo... a dominant culture that still, right now, prefers everyone to fall in line, do what they're told, and do not make waves. this is definitely still the case. and right now, with all the economic worry and hardship and fear, i think it's an even scary proposition i'm making to ask myself (or anyone else) to ignore the status quo, basically forgo safety and security, in order to establish a bit of freedom for myself; a bit of agency, a bit of happiness. but look where the Status Quo got us! i mean... come on! the president cannot do a damn thing about individual levels of greed and feelings of entitlement. he just can't. that's my job and that's your job. it comes down to not only a re-evaluation of what we hold dear culturally, but also individually within our own homes and families. i simply cannot fall in line with the practices that led us to this place of completely unethical levels of spending and wanting and grabbing and enslaving others to our desire to collect as many status symbols as possible. i just can't do it. and ofcourse the temptation is there. it always will be. yes, money is a necessity in this era... but does the necessity of money mean it must be worshipped as a God?
in the William Kentridge documentary he relays a funny story about a friend of his who basically made fun of him for always trying to figure out what he should do, like, for a job. ha! and the friend told him, look, you're 28 and you're unemplyable. no one is going to give you a job. so stop arguing with your trajectory. success or failure, you're an artist. that's when William Kentridge decided to say fuck it and just be himself.
and so i had a hard time falling asleep because i was so excited and encouraged by the film and by what i had just read, but also a bit afraid. it's hard not to feel afraid once realizing that i am completely in control of my own life and it's really just a matter of what i'm willing to put myself through in order to build a life that feels right for me and is respectful of who i am. this comes back to what Kentridge said about seeing the world as Process rather than Fact: that the world is malleable, changeable, able to shift. and so i must somehow become ready to make a shift as well. it is the world in me that must change first. my body and all that it contains. my perceptions must shift. i must identify them as process, not as fact, and establish my agnecy through acts of art-making and writing and crocheting my own sweaters and running along the highway regardless of the perceptions of others. and somehow i must become okay with all this... to stop worrying about whether or not anyone understands what i'm doing and why it is relevant.
over the weekend i watched the new Art:21 documentary about his current work and he seems like such a playful man. seeing his work is an experience that i can only really describe as Home Coming and it's so heart-warming to watch him in the studio. in the documentary, he speaks briefly about "the seriousness of play" and it reminds me of what poet Rebecca Loudon stresses- finding the site of deep play and there is where the poetry grows. and then later in the film, he says (and i am paraphrasing), "my life and work changed when i started seeing the world as Process rather than Fact". something about that statement hit me so hard. in the face, in the heart. it is still hitting me hard. it's so damn smart it makes my head spin. and i try to catch it so that i can hold it, apply it, trust it, such a brilliant tool! and of course, when i think i've managed to catch it i lose it again. isn't that always the way. ha! but there is something in that statement that is so inviting, so opposite what dominant american culture espouses... process rather than product. the Means rather than the End. a life's work, always UP UP UP. not climbing in the hopes of finding a pleasing plateau, but climbing because that is the job... to climb. and i know this is all romantic and beautiful and so i run to it as fast as i can! these kinds of ideas are so attractive to me. the idealist in me flings her arms wide open to embrace all this beauty of thought and action. my americanism snaps me back and squeezes my face, forces me to look at the goals that are permissible for me to have, the desires i am supposed to chase. the money plateau. green and leisurely. and then just sit there, just coast, do nothing but spend...
it is uncomfortable and lonely to be Outside but i must be Outside. i must remain Outside. in my sketch book, i have a quote written and i have no clue who said it but here it is: Becoming aware of your power to make choices and not go with the status quo is a huge first step.
last night before bed i read Joanne Gottlieb's and Gayle Wald's essay "Smells Like Teen Spirit: Riot Grrls, Revolution and Women in Independent Rock" about zines and music, power, how girls can create their own agency by resisting the cultural allure to stay inside, stay quiet, sit down, and continue the practice of minimization and silence within themselves... that something as seemingly simple as making a zine or t-shirt or stitching your own scarf is an act of resistance to the Status Quo... a dominant culture that still, right now, prefers everyone to fall in line, do what they're told, and do not make waves. this is definitely still the case. and right now, with all the economic worry and hardship and fear, i think it's an even scary proposition i'm making to ask myself (or anyone else) to ignore the status quo, basically forgo safety and security, in order to establish a bit of freedom for myself; a bit of agency, a bit of happiness. but look where the Status Quo got us! i mean... come on! the president cannot do a damn thing about individual levels of greed and feelings of entitlement. he just can't. that's my job and that's your job. it comes down to not only a re-evaluation of what we hold dear culturally, but also individually within our own homes and families. i simply cannot fall in line with the practices that led us to this place of completely unethical levels of spending and wanting and grabbing and enslaving others to our desire to collect as many status symbols as possible. i just can't do it. and ofcourse the temptation is there. it always will be. yes, money is a necessity in this era... but does the necessity of money mean it must be worshipped as a God?
in the William Kentridge documentary he relays a funny story about a friend of his who basically made fun of him for always trying to figure out what he should do, like, for a job. ha! and the friend told him, look, you're 28 and you're unemplyable. no one is going to give you a job. so stop arguing with your trajectory. success or failure, you're an artist. that's when William Kentridge decided to say fuck it and just be himself.
and so i had a hard time falling asleep because i was so excited and encouraged by the film and by what i had just read, but also a bit afraid. it's hard not to feel afraid once realizing that i am completely in control of my own life and it's really just a matter of what i'm willing to put myself through in order to build a life that feels right for me and is respectful of who i am. this comes back to what Kentridge said about seeing the world as Process rather than Fact: that the world is malleable, changeable, able to shift. and so i must somehow become ready to make a shift as well. it is the world in me that must change first. my body and all that it contains. my perceptions must shift. i must identify them as process, not as fact, and establish my agnecy through acts of art-making and writing and crocheting my own sweaters and running along the highway regardless of the perceptions of others. and somehow i must become okay with all this... to stop worrying about whether or not anyone understands what i'm doing and why it is relevant.
Sep 30, 2010
honey and agony
last night, i went to bed feeling pretty happy and satisfied; and today, i woke up feeling the exact same way. i wonder if it's the tea and honey?
i started doing a bit of research on honey because i got scared i was somehow thwarting my own attempt to kick as much refined sugar out of my life as possible (mainly, all that delicious hazelnut creamer i dump in coffee). turns out, honey is super healthy for us. as is tea. and i totally had my limited knowledge about tea and coffee all mixed up and backward- i though tea had more caffeine in it than coffee. nope! coffee has twice, some times 3 times, the amount of caffeine that tea does. though i wasn't at all concerned about caffeine consumption when i decided to step away from coffee and i'm still not concerned. it's a myth that caffeine is dehydrating unless you're consuming mass quantities of it in one sitting. but excess is excess, and even water can kill a human if they drink too much of it all at once. which was a very strange thing to learn.
it's mainly all about sugar for me. and the natural sugars inside honey are totally healthy and packed with antioxidants (cancer preventative) and every single bit of honey is put to use by the body. and, even though it's got calories, the calories aren't empty- they are easily converted in to heat and energy for the body and it's even recommended that people eat a spoonful of honey before working out. not just for the energy boost, but it also prevents muscle fatigue. as a runner, this is really good to know!
all this to say, my decision to get away from coffee and all the sugar-cream i dump in it has provided a very happy accident! a positive faux-pas! yay!
and another reason this is all so exciting to me is that i wasn't really taught that many healthy behaviors and decision-making skills growing up. i really wasn't. and i'm not mad about that- most people truly are doing the best they can under their particular set of circumstances. and the circumstances of my childhood were pretty heavy. and what that means for me now is that i have to unlearn certain behaviors and attitude and figure out how to teach myself how to treat myself well and with respect. especially when it comes to my body.
i was never involved in any type of team sport when i was in school. i was not at all interested. NOT. i thought those girls were jerks. haha! (sorry girls. i was angsty and shy.) i though high school was the worst place on earth. and it kinda is for a lot of kids. high school sucks. it's probably always sucked and i couldn't wait to graduate so i'd never have to go back. and for anyone in the audience who might still be in high school and hating it- my life got so much better after high school. so much better! and my teenage notion that high school society is ridiculous was instantly confirmed once i left and was out in the work world and on a college campus. the point being: if i didn't have to participate in something i hated, i didn't. and, though that sentiment is actually a pretty good one, i never really took (or saw) the opportunity to take care of myself in meaningful ways when it came to my body. i was much much MUCH more focused on taking care of my brain and my spirit. it didn't occur to me until much further down the road that the brain is a body part like any other and that, on days when i felt incapable of taking care of my brain, i could choose to take care of my body... and thereby get myself in a much better mood and a much more creative place as well. a rush of oxygen to the brain makes us more alert, more focused, and more creative. had i known that back then, i might've had a different opinion about exercise.
but, truth be told, i'm just not that in to sports. i'm just not. i've tried to be and i've failed. it's just not something that has ever come close to capturing my heart.
and then the other morning, my sweetheart was watching Sports Center before heading off to work and a program about running came on. the reporter described running as a "sport of agony". that phrase definitely captured my heart. ha! first, i was wrapped up in this idea of agony. is it agonizing? do i feel like i'm in agony when i run? am i an agony glutton? an agony addict? OH, all the lovely masochistic questions! ;) and then my mind turned to the other word: sport. running is a sport??? i had never thought of running that way. not once. but on my runs since, i've been thinking about it... how when one runs, one is competing with/against oneself. how it is only dedication and willpower that makes you finish the run. how i put myself instantly in to a measured and rhythmic cycle of breathing, get myself inside a day-dream, and ignore whatever pain or discomfort that might be taking place in my legs. the zone, as they call it. time falls away. i look at the light of the day. i dream as i breathe. ideas float in and out. and some of the best ideas i've ever had come to me while i'm running. and if i can stay locked inside those great ideas, i do not notice any pain in the body. it's when i don't let my mind go that i become cognizant of the agony of the run. it's when i focus on my legs rather than on my life or letting my imagination spin, that it becomes an agonizing thing to do. and that is the competition itself. to overcome oneself and keep moving. one more stride, one more stride, one more stride.
this is a metaphor (and practice) i am trying to apply to art as well.
do i feel agonized by art? sometimes, yes.
can art be talked about in terms of the phrase "a sport of agony"? yes! it definitely can be!
especially when i think about art as competing with/against oneself. when i think of how painful it can become, how agonizing, how hard, when i focus on the wrong thing. when i don't allow myself, for whatever reason, to get locked in to an idea i love. when i look somewhere else instead. when i compare my stride to the stride of others.
when i compare my stride, i'm not doing what i should be doing. i'm no longer competing with myself, i'm competing with someone else. i've made someone an adversary. someone i could be choosing to learn from or even just be excited for. but instead, seeing it as a competition leads to jealousy. envy. all sorts of self-mockery and hate and disillusionment. and all that amounts to is becoming Unfocused.
my stride is my stride. my breath is my breath. my work is my work.
i noticed a long time ago that when i am diligent about running, i'm diligent about art too. it's scientific for sure. a biological event. that rush of oxygen to the brain making me more creative, more alert, more excited. it is a spoonful of honey that way. it keep the fatigue at bay and i can just go.
i love the connections between things. i love that they are everywhere. and i love that i'm getting to a place where they are easier to see. i'm teaching myself some very healthy things. things that are tailored to me and the type of life i'm attempting. it takes time but i'm on my way. and on days when i'm feeling disappointed in life, this is all very good stuff to remember. that even making the decision to eat some honey is a healthy one and that i've done something good for myself. a small action that can lead to tremendous benefits if i just find ways to keep doing it.
and the same thing goes for all our paintings and poems too, friends. it really does. it's hard to keep my eyes on that fact some days but i'm learning, now, how to do that. and if an art practice is anything, it's learning how to keep coming back to the ideas we are compelled by and locking ourselves in to them and not measuring ourselves by the ideas of others. it is teaching ourselves how to sustain a Mighty Run.
find some honey. ;)
i started doing a bit of research on honey because i got scared i was somehow thwarting my own attempt to kick as much refined sugar out of my life as possible (mainly, all that delicious hazelnut creamer i dump in coffee). turns out, honey is super healthy for us. as is tea. and i totally had my limited knowledge about tea and coffee all mixed up and backward- i though tea had more caffeine in it than coffee. nope! coffee has twice, some times 3 times, the amount of caffeine that tea does. though i wasn't at all concerned about caffeine consumption when i decided to step away from coffee and i'm still not concerned. it's a myth that caffeine is dehydrating unless you're consuming mass quantities of it in one sitting. but excess is excess, and even water can kill a human if they drink too much of it all at once. which was a very strange thing to learn.
it's mainly all about sugar for me. and the natural sugars inside honey are totally healthy and packed with antioxidants (cancer preventative) and every single bit of honey is put to use by the body. and, even though it's got calories, the calories aren't empty- they are easily converted in to heat and energy for the body and it's even recommended that people eat a spoonful of honey before working out. not just for the energy boost, but it also prevents muscle fatigue. as a runner, this is really good to know!
all this to say, my decision to get away from coffee and all the sugar-cream i dump in it has provided a very happy accident! a positive faux-pas! yay!
and another reason this is all so exciting to me is that i wasn't really taught that many healthy behaviors and decision-making skills growing up. i really wasn't. and i'm not mad about that- most people truly are doing the best they can under their particular set of circumstances. and the circumstances of my childhood were pretty heavy. and what that means for me now is that i have to unlearn certain behaviors and attitude and figure out how to teach myself how to treat myself well and with respect. especially when it comes to my body.
i was never involved in any type of team sport when i was in school. i was not at all interested. NOT. i thought those girls were jerks. haha! (sorry girls. i was angsty and shy.) i though high school was the worst place on earth. and it kinda is for a lot of kids. high school sucks. it's probably always sucked and i couldn't wait to graduate so i'd never have to go back. and for anyone in the audience who might still be in high school and hating it- my life got so much better after high school. so much better! and my teenage notion that high school society is ridiculous was instantly confirmed once i left and was out in the work world and on a college campus. the point being: if i didn't have to participate in something i hated, i didn't. and, though that sentiment is actually a pretty good one, i never really took (or saw) the opportunity to take care of myself in meaningful ways when it came to my body. i was much much MUCH more focused on taking care of my brain and my spirit. it didn't occur to me until much further down the road that the brain is a body part like any other and that, on days when i felt incapable of taking care of my brain, i could choose to take care of my body... and thereby get myself in a much better mood and a much more creative place as well. a rush of oxygen to the brain makes us more alert, more focused, and more creative. had i known that back then, i might've had a different opinion about exercise.
but, truth be told, i'm just not that in to sports. i'm just not. i've tried to be and i've failed. it's just not something that has ever come close to capturing my heart.
and then the other morning, my sweetheart was watching Sports Center before heading off to work and a program about running came on. the reporter described running as a "sport of agony". that phrase definitely captured my heart. ha! first, i was wrapped up in this idea of agony. is it agonizing? do i feel like i'm in agony when i run? am i an agony glutton? an agony addict? OH, all the lovely masochistic questions! ;) and then my mind turned to the other word: sport. running is a sport??? i had never thought of running that way. not once. but on my runs since, i've been thinking about it... how when one runs, one is competing with/against oneself. how it is only dedication and willpower that makes you finish the run. how i put myself instantly in to a measured and rhythmic cycle of breathing, get myself inside a day-dream, and ignore whatever pain or discomfort that might be taking place in my legs. the zone, as they call it. time falls away. i look at the light of the day. i dream as i breathe. ideas float in and out. and some of the best ideas i've ever had come to me while i'm running. and if i can stay locked inside those great ideas, i do not notice any pain in the body. it's when i don't let my mind go that i become cognizant of the agony of the run. it's when i focus on my legs rather than on my life or letting my imagination spin, that it becomes an agonizing thing to do. and that is the competition itself. to overcome oneself and keep moving. one more stride, one more stride, one more stride.
this is a metaphor (and practice) i am trying to apply to art as well.
do i feel agonized by art? sometimes, yes.
can art be talked about in terms of the phrase "a sport of agony"? yes! it definitely can be!
especially when i think about art as competing with/against oneself. when i think of how painful it can become, how agonizing, how hard, when i focus on the wrong thing. when i don't allow myself, for whatever reason, to get locked in to an idea i love. when i look somewhere else instead. when i compare my stride to the stride of others.
when i compare my stride, i'm not doing what i should be doing. i'm no longer competing with myself, i'm competing with someone else. i've made someone an adversary. someone i could be choosing to learn from or even just be excited for. but instead, seeing it as a competition leads to jealousy. envy. all sorts of self-mockery and hate and disillusionment. and all that amounts to is becoming Unfocused.
my stride is my stride. my breath is my breath. my work is my work.
i noticed a long time ago that when i am diligent about running, i'm diligent about art too. it's scientific for sure. a biological event. that rush of oxygen to the brain making me more creative, more alert, more excited. it is a spoonful of honey that way. it keep the fatigue at bay and i can just go.
i love the connections between things. i love that they are everywhere. and i love that i'm getting to a place where they are easier to see. i'm teaching myself some very healthy things. things that are tailored to me and the type of life i'm attempting. it takes time but i'm on my way. and on days when i'm feeling disappointed in life, this is all very good stuff to remember. that even making the decision to eat some honey is a healthy one and that i've done something good for myself. a small action that can lead to tremendous benefits if i just find ways to keep doing it.
and the same thing goes for all our paintings and poems too, friends. it really does. it's hard to keep my eyes on that fact some days but i'm learning, now, how to do that. and if an art practice is anything, it's learning how to keep coming back to the ideas we are compelled by and locking ourselves in to them and not measuring ourselves by the ideas of others. it is teaching ourselves how to sustain a Mighty Run.
find some honey. ;)
Sep 28, 2010
life's work
i've been thinking a lot about limits lately. and art.
perceived limits.
how all the artists and writers i admire have highly multi-faceted practices. they don't just write or just paint. they embrace a wide definition of what art is and can be. and what it can be made with. and i'm so attracted to that. i'm so compelled. just turned ON but that expansive, inclusive, generous view.
and then a few nay-sayers arrive and start trying to infect me with all sorts of dualities that i simply don't agree with, that i find no real foundation for. the nay-sayers that shout oil paintings are better than drawings and why would you waste time crocheting when you could be painting and writing? i thought you were a painter?
for awhile, these interferences accomplished just that: interference. but i've decided that part of being an artists is simply being yourself and ignoring all that chatter. because those nay-saying remarks, those limits, those expectations are not critique. and therefore need to be thrown out and turned a blind eye.
the really wonderful, happy circumstance of my life at present is that i have no one to answer to, no one to argue with about these things, no one to sell my ideas about art to. i can sit, alone and quiet, and hear the crunch of the road i'm on. i can find a site of stillness where i know, beyond any doubt, that i am moving in the right direction for me, for my practice. and it's become important to track down like-minded people who really do truly care about the job artists do and believe in its relevance. this blog has been absolutely wonderful in that regard. completely. my instances of fear and doubt are becoming less and less frequent as a result of this practice, this weird electronic landscape.
but is it weird? it doesn't feel weird. i take it back. it feels good. it feels happy.
thank you for travelling over to Gaga Stigmata yesterday. i hope you liked the work. i hope they are good images regardless of what your art opinion is of Lady Gaga. she's become very interesting to me in the passed few months. very compelling. the image she's made. the images she continues to make. and there's just something about that Hair Bow.
also, when it comes to music, anytime someone gets labeled "poison for the minds of our youth", you can be sure i'm going to take a better look at what they're up to. ;) and it's especially scary to me that she's been labeled as such when her dominant message is to love oneself.
but i guess that is a dangerous message somehow... if we all loved ourselves a little bit more (love, the opposite of indulgence) we probably wouldn't waste time caring about the kind of car we drive or who has the hottest boyfriend or how thick our wallets are. if we all loved ourselves a little bit more, our social values would definitely begin to shift. education and culture and walking through life with respect and kindness... ethics... would become much more prevalent and important within our society. maybe even come to be viewed as necessities?
somehow this all leads back to DIY culture in my mind. how it shatters a lot of those perceived limits. how it is the best antidote to consumer culture available to us right now. relying, every step of the way, on buying survival puts me in a very weak position. and i'm talking about the basics- food, shelter, clothing. i have to buy a place to live and buy the food i eat and buy the clothes i need to cover my body. i have no choice but to participate in the system.
wrong.
after making the most recent banner, i realized that i already have a skill that can be used to satisfy one of my basic needs- clothing. and with autumn's arrival, i decided that rather than buy sweaters and scarves, etc, etc, etc... i'll make my own. i'll buy yarn instead. and lead a more artful, more creative, more compassionate life that way. i want the objects in my life to have some type of meaning... and i just don't find the meaning i'm looking for in mass-production. can i find a way to love myself enough to figure out how to be less reliant on a system that keeps artists down? yes i can. i totally can. it takes time but i've become willing to spend my evenings with my crochet hook (and learn to knit too!) so that i don't have to buy a blanket or buy a pair of mittens. i'd rather give cash to the people who make the supplies with which i can use to build (truly build, with my own two hands) a life that i love and feels good. making my own sweaters is a good way to begin. it's a start. it's a start that takes a stand too. and i think artists and craftsmen who do this need to be supported as well. i think it's wonderful to buy t-shirts and stuff like that from the artists on etsy and places like that. a t-shirt can carry a lot of meaning sometimes.
i'm not going to choose between painting and drawing and crocheting and writing. i'm going to do them all. i love them all and they all feed each other. having a wide practice makes life more interesting, more beautifully complex. it erases dualities and strictures and just opens the world up. a sweater could be Art, for sure. a sweater can operate as a billboard. just like the banners do. fashion is Art, so why not?
one of my favorite art pieces ever is Jenny Holzer's t-shirt project. body as billboard, clothing as a warning label. i love it.
talk about a ton of bricks, right? t-shirt as Art.
thanks Jenny. :)
perceived limits.
how all the artists and writers i admire have highly multi-faceted practices. they don't just write or just paint. they embrace a wide definition of what art is and can be. and what it can be made with. and i'm so attracted to that. i'm so compelled. just turned ON but that expansive, inclusive, generous view.
and then a few nay-sayers arrive and start trying to infect me with all sorts of dualities that i simply don't agree with, that i find no real foundation for. the nay-sayers that shout oil paintings are better than drawings and why would you waste time crocheting when you could be painting and writing? i thought you were a painter?
for awhile, these interferences accomplished just that: interference. but i've decided that part of being an artists is simply being yourself and ignoring all that chatter. because those nay-saying remarks, those limits, those expectations are not critique. and therefore need to be thrown out and turned a blind eye.
the really wonderful, happy circumstance of my life at present is that i have no one to answer to, no one to argue with about these things, no one to sell my ideas about art to. i can sit, alone and quiet, and hear the crunch of the road i'm on. i can find a site of stillness where i know, beyond any doubt, that i am moving in the right direction for me, for my practice. and it's become important to track down like-minded people who really do truly care about the job artists do and believe in its relevance. this blog has been absolutely wonderful in that regard. completely. my instances of fear and doubt are becoming less and less frequent as a result of this practice, this weird electronic landscape.
but is it weird? it doesn't feel weird. i take it back. it feels good. it feels happy.
thank you for travelling over to Gaga Stigmata yesterday. i hope you liked the work. i hope they are good images regardless of what your art opinion is of Lady Gaga. she's become very interesting to me in the passed few months. very compelling. the image she's made. the images she continues to make. and there's just something about that Hair Bow.
also, when it comes to music, anytime someone gets labeled "poison for the minds of our youth", you can be sure i'm going to take a better look at what they're up to. ;) and it's especially scary to me that she's been labeled as such when her dominant message is to love oneself.
but i guess that is a dangerous message somehow... if we all loved ourselves a little bit more (love, the opposite of indulgence) we probably wouldn't waste time caring about the kind of car we drive or who has the hottest boyfriend or how thick our wallets are. if we all loved ourselves a little bit more, our social values would definitely begin to shift. education and culture and walking through life with respect and kindness... ethics... would become much more prevalent and important within our society. maybe even come to be viewed as necessities?
somehow this all leads back to DIY culture in my mind. how it shatters a lot of those perceived limits. how it is the best antidote to consumer culture available to us right now. relying, every step of the way, on buying survival puts me in a very weak position. and i'm talking about the basics- food, shelter, clothing. i have to buy a place to live and buy the food i eat and buy the clothes i need to cover my body. i have no choice but to participate in the system.
wrong.
after making the most recent banner, i realized that i already have a skill that can be used to satisfy one of my basic needs- clothing. and with autumn's arrival, i decided that rather than buy sweaters and scarves, etc, etc, etc... i'll make my own. i'll buy yarn instead. and lead a more artful, more creative, more compassionate life that way. i want the objects in my life to have some type of meaning... and i just don't find the meaning i'm looking for in mass-production. can i find a way to love myself enough to figure out how to be less reliant on a system that keeps artists down? yes i can. i totally can. it takes time but i've become willing to spend my evenings with my crochet hook (and learn to knit too!) so that i don't have to buy a blanket or buy a pair of mittens. i'd rather give cash to the people who make the supplies with which i can use to build (truly build, with my own two hands) a life that i love and feels good. making my own sweaters is a good way to begin. it's a start. it's a start that takes a stand too. and i think artists and craftsmen who do this need to be supported as well. i think it's wonderful to buy t-shirts and stuff like that from the artists on etsy and places like that. a t-shirt can carry a lot of meaning sometimes.
i'm not going to choose between painting and drawing and crocheting and writing. i'm going to do them all. i love them all and they all feed each other. having a wide practice makes life more interesting, more beautifully complex. it erases dualities and strictures and just opens the world up. a sweater could be Art, for sure. a sweater can operate as a billboard. just like the banners do. fashion is Art, so why not?
one of my favorite art pieces ever is Jenny Holzer's t-shirt project. body as billboard, clothing as a warning label. i love it.
talk about a ton of bricks, right? t-shirt as Art.
thanks Jenny. :)
Aug 25, 2010
kitsch???
i've been following this discussion about kitsch and its "poetry roots" for the passed few days and i find it so compelling. totally intriguing. and there is such a huge possibility for this kind of discussion to blow up, morph, twist, writhe, and then maybe create a site for a bit of understanding too.
i went to leave a comment but my comment got so big i decided to just stick it here. :)
-----
mmmmmmm... Greenberg. i have issues with Greenberg.
a lot of his theories are based in class/social systems/beliefs: those who can afford leisure, those who have time to become educated about art vs. those who don't. and he is quite blatant in his theories that poor people are stupid because they can't afford to become un-stupid: they're too busy working and scrubbing and scrimping.
i have deep, angry issues with Greenberg.
and so, based on his theories of Art: rich people have art. poor people have kitsch.
did poetry fall in to the hands of The Poor? did Poverty impoverish poetry? did The Poor infect it with their "bad taste" and lack of education? is it "fraudulent" to be poor? or... is it the social pressures to HIDE poverty that make one's actions (poetry) appear "fraudulent"? is it "evil" to be poor? and therefore, Evil to express poverty? or, by way of lack of access, to function within/expose a language of impoverishment? dirt offends. that's why The Angel of the House never did any cleaning. women are expected to be "pure" and not offensive. and so she had some other Poor Woman to do the cleaning for her, touch the dirt, finger the grime. status in direct connection with one's proximity to dirt. to cleaning. to scrubbing floors.
and so i really like kitsch described as an "ineradicable residue" - dirt that cannot be removed. a grime that does not go away. a stained language. or the language of The Stain.
there are only two choices then: to ignore it (which has been the case) or to reckon with it (war or acceptance).
but, since the era when Greenberg was shoving all this out in to the world, the middle-class has become the biggest class in America. they create(d) a space between the extremes of rich and poor. but... a person of The Middle Class does not ever want to be mistaken for "Poor". if anything, a person of The Middle Class would love to be perceived as "Rich". and so i wonder... is kitsch, now, a sort of keeping-up-with-the-jones's value system? is it a new breed of disdain for The Poor? that we are soooooo taken in and harnessed by the appearance of wealth (not necessarily actual wealth, just the appearance of it) that people who have the means to emulate wealth, do? or at least attempt to? is kitsch a Faux Elite?
if so, would kitsch, then, be an object produced that, through simulating the appearance of wealth, actually makes Greed concrete?
is kitsch, in essence, a representation of envy?
and therefore: shame.
an object or language that feels bad about itself? an object or language that refuses to accept itself as is, and wants to be perceived as something else? a play of pretend? a conscious action of trying to "trick" the sight and perceptions of others? a "poser"?
sight is the most easily tricked of all the senses: if you look like you have money, people will think that you actually do have money. kitsch understands this but somehow manages to miss the mark. there is the "ineradicable residue" of self-loathing (an acceptance of the ideology that "Poor" is a crime) on the surface. it is, somehow, an anti-reality. it doesn't understand The Myth of Photographic Truth.
Bertolt Brecht said, "realism is not what real things are like, but what things are really like"
i have to read that statement out loud most of the time to get it. but once i catch what he's saying, it makes such wonderful sense that it is the only way for me to describe my personal experience of what Kitsch "is". it does not attempt to describe things as they actually are. it describes its own desire to be something it isn't but hopes to be mistaken for. it is Frailty made visible. it is Inferiority-Complex made visible. it announces its complicity with regimes of wealth, power, and desire. it agrees that individual human value can be determined through the appearance of wealth. and, at this stage in the game, the actuality of Poor and the appearance of Poor (in its extremes) line up and therefore have an authenticity that kitsch will never have.
the Language of the Stain has honesty in it. art can be made with such humble materials. it can transcend its physical components. kitsch does not have the power of transcendence because it attempts to mirror what it sees to be art, not what art actually is.
Greenberg had it wrong. poor people are able to see and know art. they make it. they live it.
envious people have a hard time knowing what art is. an envious person spends their time in anger and fear, not learning.
a person becomes a leader by leading. not by making a knock-off of the jacket the leader wears. maybe kitsch is a physical manifestation of a NOW NOW NOW quick-fix culture?
it is an object that wants YOU to believe it has value. and kitsch is conscious of this. it is conscious of its own desires, shame, and motivations. it actively seeks to be perceived as The-Something-Else it admires.
this is not an effect of poverty itself. it is the effect of making being poor a blemish, a crime, something to be ashamed of... and the people who have become complicit with this outlook.
if people were not ashamed of poverty and did not try to hide it...
if people were not ashamed of the struggle they face...
??????
what would kitsch be then?
all this is preliminary. i'm just thinking out loud. this is such an interesting topic and i can't wait to see where johannes goes with this.
the language of kitsch is quite compelling and i think it can be harnessed to create tremendous works of art, and maybe even a new language.
i went to leave a comment but my comment got so big i decided to just stick it here. :)
-----
mmmmmmm... Greenberg. i have issues with Greenberg.
a lot of his theories are based in class/social systems/beliefs: those who can afford leisure, those who have time to become educated about art vs. those who don't. and he is quite blatant in his theories that poor people are stupid because they can't afford to become un-stupid: they're too busy working and scrubbing and scrimping.
i have deep, angry issues with Greenberg.
and so, based on his theories of Art: rich people have art. poor people have kitsch.
did poetry fall in to the hands of The Poor? did Poverty impoverish poetry? did The Poor infect it with their "bad taste" and lack of education? is it "fraudulent" to be poor? or... is it the social pressures to HIDE poverty that make one's actions (poetry) appear "fraudulent"? is it "evil" to be poor? and therefore, Evil to express poverty? or, by way of lack of access, to function within/expose a language of impoverishment? dirt offends. that's why The Angel of the House never did any cleaning. women are expected to be "pure" and not offensive. and so she had some other Poor Woman to do the cleaning for her, touch the dirt, finger the grime. status in direct connection with one's proximity to dirt. to cleaning. to scrubbing floors.
and so i really like kitsch described as an "ineradicable residue" - dirt that cannot be removed. a grime that does not go away. a stained language. or the language of The Stain.
there are only two choices then: to ignore it (which has been the case) or to reckon with it (war or acceptance).
but, since the era when Greenberg was shoving all this out in to the world, the middle-class has become the biggest class in America. they create(d) a space between the extremes of rich and poor. but... a person of The Middle Class does not ever want to be mistaken for "Poor". if anything, a person of The Middle Class would love to be perceived as "Rich". and so i wonder... is kitsch, now, a sort of keeping-up-with-the-jones's value system? is it a new breed of disdain for The Poor? that we are soooooo taken in and harnessed by the appearance of wealth (not necessarily actual wealth, just the appearance of it) that people who have the means to emulate wealth, do? or at least attempt to? is kitsch a Faux Elite?
if so, would kitsch, then, be an object produced that, through simulating the appearance of wealth, actually makes Greed concrete?
is kitsch, in essence, a representation of envy?
and therefore: shame.
an object or language that feels bad about itself? an object or language that refuses to accept itself as is, and wants to be perceived as something else? a play of pretend? a conscious action of trying to "trick" the sight and perceptions of others? a "poser"?
sight is the most easily tricked of all the senses: if you look like you have money, people will think that you actually do have money. kitsch understands this but somehow manages to miss the mark. there is the "ineradicable residue" of self-loathing (an acceptance of the ideology that "Poor" is a crime) on the surface. it is, somehow, an anti-reality. it doesn't understand The Myth of Photographic Truth.
Bertolt Brecht said, "realism is not what real things are like, but what things are really like"
i have to read that statement out loud most of the time to get it. but once i catch what he's saying, it makes such wonderful sense that it is the only way for me to describe my personal experience of what Kitsch "is". it does not attempt to describe things as they actually are. it describes its own desire to be something it isn't but hopes to be mistaken for. it is Frailty made visible. it is Inferiority-Complex made visible. it announces its complicity with regimes of wealth, power, and desire. it agrees that individual human value can be determined through the appearance of wealth. and, at this stage in the game, the actuality of Poor and the appearance of Poor (in its extremes) line up and therefore have an authenticity that kitsch will never have.
the Language of the Stain has honesty in it. art can be made with such humble materials. it can transcend its physical components. kitsch does not have the power of transcendence because it attempts to mirror what it sees to be art, not what art actually is.
Greenberg had it wrong. poor people are able to see and know art. they make it. they live it.
envious people have a hard time knowing what art is. an envious person spends their time in anger and fear, not learning.
a person becomes a leader by leading. not by making a knock-off of the jacket the leader wears. maybe kitsch is a physical manifestation of a NOW NOW NOW quick-fix culture?
it is an object that wants YOU to believe it has value. and kitsch is conscious of this. it is conscious of its own desires, shame, and motivations. it actively seeks to be perceived as The-Something-Else it admires.
this is not an effect of poverty itself. it is the effect of making being poor a blemish, a crime, something to be ashamed of... and the people who have become complicit with this outlook.
if people were not ashamed of poverty and did not try to hide it...
if people were not ashamed of the struggle they face...
??????
what would kitsch be then?
all this is preliminary. i'm just thinking out loud. this is such an interesting topic and i can't wait to see where johannes goes with this.
the language of kitsch is quite compelling and i think it can be harnessed to create tremendous works of art, and maybe even a new language.
Aug 24, 2010
the regular fears
my internet connection has been failing off and on for the past week and half and has become totally unreliable. i called customer service and they let me know our modem is bad and so a man is coming out today to check it out and hopefully give us a new one. the upside to this is that yesterday after posting about kate's book, my internet was down all day- effectively hog tying me and keeping me from deleting the post... which i sorta wanted to do and was in a panic all day long, waiting for my phone to ring, and going over and over in my head fear-driven conversations and how to explain the difference between art and life, how to use one to inform the other, and that creative license and honesty are an imperative of our times, etc etc etc. ha!
and then i started thinking about lady gaga. yep. she is a recent fascination of mine. and i thought how a lot of people in this country seem to think she's the spawn of Satan and, looking at her work, listening to her songs, and paying attention to her message of self-acceptance and self-love... i really have no clue where these attacks on her are coming from. it's one thing not to like her work, a totally other to label her as "poison for the minds of our children". and i thought: here's this 24 years old girl that has somehow managed to acquire enough strength and stamina to endure such a massive onslaught of hatred and malice, and here i am, a 29 year old girl, fretting about a "review" i wrote about a book i love and posted on my personal blog. a blog which doesn't get a ton of traffic anyway. at least i don't think it does- i disabled the tracker on it months and months and months ago.
but there it is- the thing every person needs to overcome if they expect to be a writer (in the public sense of the word): getting beyond the fear that you will anger or embarrass your family, and speak from a site of truth and strength. let come what may. this is a very very VERY hard thing to do. very.
i love my family. of course i want them to be proud of me, the work i do, and the person i am. we've been through a lot of shit together and have come out on the other side with a deeper understanding of what it is to be resilient, capable, and how to truly practice forgiveness. still, there are some stories that need to be told. they need to be told because silence seems to have (strangely) become the dominant mode of our era. these stories we have need to be shared. and when i stumble across a piece of writing that i am able to see my own life story in, i feel such a huge comfort. i become stronger. i become more confident, more able to not only stand up for the rights of others, but also for my own. i also become more able to forgive, to see the other side. silence prevents forgiveness.
and so, i must find a way to let my words and work keep their wings. i must find a way to shake off fear, run right through it, and just keep digging digging digging. it is a strange world and a strange life and our stories have such value, such power, such music in them. i want to be strong enough to let that fact sit on high and not apologize for the life i have lived and the life i have found as a result.
and then i started thinking about lady gaga. yep. she is a recent fascination of mine. and i thought how a lot of people in this country seem to think she's the spawn of Satan and, looking at her work, listening to her songs, and paying attention to her message of self-acceptance and self-love... i really have no clue where these attacks on her are coming from. it's one thing not to like her work, a totally other to label her as "poison for the minds of our children". and i thought: here's this 24 years old girl that has somehow managed to acquire enough strength and stamina to endure such a massive onslaught of hatred and malice, and here i am, a 29 year old girl, fretting about a "review" i wrote about a book i love and posted on my personal blog. a blog which doesn't get a ton of traffic anyway. at least i don't think it does- i disabled the tracker on it months and months and months ago.
but there it is- the thing every person needs to overcome if they expect to be a writer (in the public sense of the word): getting beyond the fear that you will anger or embarrass your family, and speak from a site of truth and strength. let come what may. this is a very very VERY hard thing to do. very.
i love my family. of course i want them to be proud of me, the work i do, and the person i am. we've been through a lot of shit together and have come out on the other side with a deeper understanding of what it is to be resilient, capable, and how to truly practice forgiveness. still, there are some stories that need to be told. they need to be told because silence seems to have (strangely) become the dominant mode of our era. these stories we have need to be shared. and when i stumble across a piece of writing that i am able to see my own life story in, i feel such a huge comfort. i become stronger. i become more confident, more able to not only stand up for the rights of others, but also for my own. i also become more able to forgive, to see the other side. silence prevents forgiveness.
and so, i must find a way to let my words and work keep their wings. i must find a way to shake off fear, run right through it, and just keep digging digging digging. it is a strange world and a strange life and our stories have such value, such power, such music in them. i want to be strong enough to let that fact sit on high and not apologize for the life i have lived and the life i have found as a result.
Aug 22, 2010
2 things
it would behove me (and every artist on the planet) to remember:
"The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time."
~John Stuart Mill
and
we have fallen to a strange era, it seems, where politicking has replaced integrity. the affiliation, the cord between names is king.
silence quickly follows.
if artists don't risk being laughed at, shunned, who will? if artists don't speak frankly about injustices, large and small, who will? if artists don't stick to their guns, who will? who will inspire others to investigate this world, unearth the abandoned ethics, search for meaning, create meaning, give us all a reason to fight, and believe that life isn't pointless? if artists can't be brave, who can be?
since the time of the renaissance, it has ceased to be in the job description for an artist to do what they are told. we work for no king other than King Art itself.
i've said it once and i'll say it again because I need to hear it and maybe other artists do to:
integrity is NOT a rear-guard notion.
"The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time."
~John Stuart Mill
and
we have fallen to a strange era, it seems, where politicking has replaced integrity. the affiliation, the cord between names is king.
silence quickly follows.
if artists don't risk being laughed at, shunned, who will? if artists don't speak frankly about injustices, large and small, who will? if artists don't stick to their guns, who will? who will inspire others to investigate this world, unearth the abandoned ethics, search for meaning, create meaning, give us all a reason to fight, and believe that life isn't pointless? if artists can't be brave, who can be?
since the time of the renaissance, it has ceased to be in the job description for an artist to do what they are told. we work for no king other than King Art itself.
i've said it once and i'll say it again because I need to hear it and maybe other artists do to:
integrity is NOT a rear-guard notion.
self
last week was a weird week. a weird week rife with weird feelings and weird dreams and weird weird weird.
i filed away the drawings that have returned to me and that was weird. i left them out for a few days when i first brought them home, wrapped up in plastic sheets, gleaming, lying on their backs. a big oil painting and a fence in a frame are leaning against my bookcase. weird weird weird. to see this work again... some of which i haven't seen in the flesh in a year. weird to have it in my hands. and, that big distance of time sweeps something out of eyes and i can look at them as if i didn't make them... as if it isn't my work. and i can see how good and true they are. but it's a weird, slightly sick feeling to have them here: like i'm a bad mama who failed at finding them their new, perfect home. filing them away in one of the many huge portfolios here at home was a sad moment. i took my time about it, looked at each one, loved each one, slid them in with their sisters and clicked off the light.
weird.
but it's alright. i'm in one of those "transitional" phases and i need time with the work. time to sit with them and see them all rounded up together. see the line they draw. the lineage, the path. see the direction they point. it's no good to rush work out of the house. it really isn't. it's all anxiety and fear and perfectionism and that is definitely definitely definitely bad for an art practice. definitely. i've learned it the hard way.
the lesson isn't a fun one but it is bitterly, beautifully necessary: the value of patience and dedication and not getting in the horrible pattern of RUSH RUSH RUSH. the result is such a terrible loneliness. such a terrible wandering in the dark. such a terrible blinding wind. this time last year i sat in this exact same spot and wondered (in a very painful way) who the hell i am as an artist and as a person. i believed that these titles should be separate, individual, split. and now, a year later, i know there is no way to separate these things. like Popeye, "i am what i am and that's all that i am". and i've chosen to embrace that. i've chosen to let myself flourish and flounder and flail and fail if i need to. especially in the Beckett sense of the word:
FAIL BETTER.
i filed away the drawings that have returned to me and that was weird. i left them out for a few days when i first brought them home, wrapped up in plastic sheets, gleaming, lying on their backs. a big oil painting and a fence in a frame are leaning against my bookcase. weird weird weird. to see this work again... some of which i haven't seen in the flesh in a year. weird to have it in my hands. and, that big distance of time sweeps something out of eyes and i can look at them as if i didn't make them... as if it isn't my work. and i can see how good and true they are. but it's a weird, slightly sick feeling to have them here: like i'm a bad mama who failed at finding them their new, perfect home. filing them away in one of the many huge portfolios here at home was a sad moment. i took my time about it, looked at each one, loved each one, slid them in with their sisters and clicked off the light.
weird.
but it's alright. i'm in one of those "transitional" phases and i need time with the work. time to sit with them and see them all rounded up together. see the line they draw. the lineage, the path. see the direction they point. it's no good to rush work out of the house. it really isn't. it's all anxiety and fear and perfectionism and that is definitely definitely definitely bad for an art practice. definitely. i've learned it the hard way.
the lesson isn't a fun one but it is bitterly, beautifully necessary: the value of patience and dedication and not getting in the horrible pattern of RUSH RUSH RUSH. the result is such a terrible loneliness. such a terrible wandering in the dark. such a terrible blinding wind. this time last year i sat in this exact same spot and wondered (in a very painful way) who the hell i am as an artist and as a person. i believed that these titles should be separate, individual, split. and now, a year later, i know there is no way to separate these things. like Popeye, "i am what i am and that's all that i am". and i've chosen to embrace that. i've chosen to let myself flourish and flounder and flail and fail if i need to. especially in the Beckett sense of the word:
FAIL BETTER.
Aug 16, 2010
HUG
yesterday i spent my time crinkling up large sheets of white paper and dunking them scrunching them in a big yellow jug full of warm water with a squirt of silver paint in it. i made shimmering wrinkly paper, a new background to play upon, we'll see, we'll see. and when i was done i knocked the yellow jug over and its top and handle broke cleanly off. this is the yellow jug my mother gave me. i didn't throw it away. i plan on buying super glue or some kind of epoxy to put it back together again. i will keep the jug and let it have its history, let its cracks show, put the fracture on display. shall i do the same with myself? am i already? the thought of it makes me smile- waving scars, eager pink flags, a call to gaze at the broken places, girls who fall down but not apart. and i stumble across you, one by one, and i say your books and poems and pictures are FORTS. i will jump on your bed with you and hide underneath with you too. i will write love letters, fold them up like an airplane, sail them down the hall to your hands. it is a long practice of mine. i did this for my mother. GO TO YOUR ROOM for doing something stupid and i would sit in the doorway of my bedroom and write her a love letter, fold it up, make an airplane of it, sail it in to the living room, and wait to be called out to collect my new hug. she still has a few saved inside her big trunk.
this is the metaphor maybe that hugs all my work.
this is the metaphor maybe that hugs all my work.
Aug 15, 2010
EXACTLY!!!!!!
stumbled across this piece by Keri Smith, part of her Artist's Survival Kit project. wonderful! wonderful!! wonderful!!!
signify
the little icon i use as my "picture" here - the severed rope of braided hair - is my hair hung on a lonesome nail. i chopped it off three and a half years ago.
i caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror the other day. my old self. the self i know. the self i remember and feel lonely for. slender from The Almighty Jog, not skinny. and my hair, already grown long and wild with curls again. a fast growth. a fast return. perhaps my hair missed me too. :)
and what a happy glimpse it was. a moment of safety. security. something true. i am returning to myself- ideas i had been discouraged away from, fallen beliefs, poems. they sweep in like dust, like glitter, like hair across the eyes. it is a welcome warmth. a deep quilt full of ink stains and promise.
i know the face in the mirror again. i know the direction of the eyes. i know the lines at the edge of the smile.
i've been crocheting again. making new banners. messages. preparing for winter when i can use my body as a billboard. i will don the signs and signifiers. a quiet(er) performance. a true performance. drape my form in the ideas and modes i cling to. use the structure of skeleton and muscle as if it were a gallery wall. it seems honest. it seems necessary.
and as i twist the yarn through my fingers, over the hook, i return to my previous wide-open definition of ART. i return to the deep knowledge that a painting is no more important than a quilt or poem or necklace. it is all ART. the differences between are just a preference of form. a way to capture the signifiers, harness them, bend them to desire and need.
it is a cold day here. a day for doing the laundry and then returning to bed with my coffee and crochet hook. a day for a quiet(er) happiness.
i caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror the other day. my old self. the self i know. the self i remember and feel lonely for. slender from The Almighty Jog, not skinny. and my hair, already grown long and wild with curls again. a fast growth. a fast return. perhaps my hair missed me too. :)
and what a happy glimpse it was. a moment of safety. security. something true. i am returning to myself- ideas i had been discouraged away from, fallen beliefs, poems. they sweep in like dust, like glitter, like hair across the eyes. it is a welcome warmth. a deep quilt full of ink stains and promise.
i know the face in the mirror again. i know the direction of the eyes. i know the lines at the edge of the smile.
i've been crocheting again. making new banners. messages. preparing for winter when i can use my body as a billboard. i will don the signs and signifiers. a quiet(er) performance. a true performance. drape my form in the ideas and modes i cling to. use the structure of skeleton and muscle as if it were a gallery wall. it seems honest. it seems necessary.
and as i twist the yarn through my fingers, over the hook, i return to my previous wide-open definition of ART. i return to the deep knowledge that a painting is no more important than a quilt or poem or necklace. it is all ART. the differences between are just a preference of form. a way to capture the signifiers, harness them, bend them to desire and need.
it is a cold day here. a day for doing the laundry and then returning to bed with my coffee and crochet hook. a day for a quiet(er) happiness.
Aug 13, 2010
this road
i ran out of my delicious hazelnut and walked down to the market to buy more. on the way, i saw a hand painted sign in the window of a boarded up (papered up? sheets of white butcher paper on the inside of the windows) storefront that read closed for renovations in quite a lovely, humble, careful script. the letters were a dusty red on a flat white background. it looked like whoever painted it really took their time- no drips, no sloppy edges with the brush. and it reminded me of margaret kilgallen's work- her fascination with the signs people make for their small business, hand-made cultures, the beauty that follows actions of necessity. and i stopped to look at the sign again on my way back home. it's very simple but something in it spoke very loudly to me about my own life and struggle and pursuits at the moment.
closed for renovation.
i guess that's how i feel right now.
especially about oil painting. as a mode, it just seems so final, so serious, so declarative. and i'm not trying to make any declarations whatsoever in my work right now. i'm searching, hunting, excavating, mapping. and these modes are curious, exploratory. definitely not FINAL. not ABSOLUTE. and oil painting feels like that to me right now. maybe it's the history of oil painting flooding over? maybe it's the grand authority of oil? a confrontation with expectation? maybe maybe maybe...
but pencil, paper... their common attributes. humble, easy to access, the materials of map making. these things call me. they encourage me. i reach for these materials and it feels right. it feels authentic and honest. the right tool for the job.
i'm at a new beginning in life in a whole lot of ways.
i am on my own right now in a whole lot of ways.
simultaneously scary and exciting.
but freedom isn't an easy thing and it doesn't quickly line up with "happiness". there is struggle in those fiesty veins. and more and more i think that the work we make decides for us what type of artists we are, what type of life, what type of "career", what type of happiness we come to. my only choice in the matter is to hold on to the things i value and to stand with my ethics when the world breathes its confusion in my face. the only choice i have is to not crumble, to keep digging, to keep running, one day at a time, 15 minutes at a time, further and further down the harrowing highway.
i worry too much about things that are totally out of my control. a common human frailty, for sure. and i'm really trying to release myself from that shit right now. i'm trying very hard to trust The Work, trust The Process, trust The Materials, trust The Impulse. i've been carrying around one of my many Kiki Smith books again for days and days. again and again, i turn to her because she trusts her own work. she doesn't second guess the impulse. she just goes. and i have paired that book with Sylvia Plath's Ariel. they are laying together right now on the floor next to me. two bibles. two hymnals. two treasures. two books of hope and persistence. gems.
i see the mortality that surrounds us. how short, how small a day is.
i want my outsides to mirror my insides. i do not want to "live one way and pray another". i want my expressions to be as honest as possible. i want to whittle away at whatever hypocrisy exists in me.
and so i excavate. i writhe. i push the dirt aside.
i am trying to ignore fear.
i trust the pencil's scratch so completely. i trust it like i trust poetry. i trust it like a mother. i climb in to bed with my papers and all my blankets smell like graphite dust. they smell beautiful. my intimate "renovations".
maybe i'll make my own hand-painted sign? hang it on the wall in the living room. or maybe in the big window.
closed for renovation.
i guess that's how i feel right now.
especially about oil painting. as a mode, it just seems so final, so serious, so declarative. and i'm not trying to make any declarations whatsoever in my work right now. i'm searching, hunting, excavating, mapping. and these modes are curious, exploratory. definitely not FINAL. not ABSOLUTE. and oil painting feels like that to me right now. maybe it's the history of oil painting flooding over? maybe it's the grand authority of oil? a confrontation with expectation? maybe maybe maybe...
but pencil, paper... their common attributes. humble, easy to access, the materials of map making. these things call me. they encourage me. i reach for these materials and it feels right. it feels authentic and honest. the right tool for the job.
i'm at a new beginning in life in a whole lot of ways.
i am on my own right now in a whole lot of ways.
simultaneously scary and exciting.
but freedom isn't an easy thing and it doesn't quickly line up with "happiness". there is struggle in those fiesty veins. and more and more i think that the work we make decides for us what type of artists we are, what type of life, what type of "career", what type of happiness we come to. my only choice in the matter is to hold on to the things i value and to stand with my ethics when the world breathes its confusion in my face. the only choice i have is to not crumble, to keep digging, to keep running, one day at a time, 15 minutes at a time, further and further down the harrowing highway.
i worry too much about things that are totally out of my control. a common human frailty, for sure. and i'm really trying to release myself from that shit right now. i'm trying very hard to trust The Work, trust The Process, trust The Materials, trust The Impulse. i've been carrying around one of my many Kiki Smith books again for days and days. again and again, i turn to her because she trusts her own work. she doesn't second guess the impulse. she just goes. and i have paired that book with Sylvia Plath's Ariel. they are laying together right now on the floor next to me. two bibles. two hymnals. two treasures. two books of hope and persistence. gems.
i see the mortality that surrounds us. how short, how small a day is.
i want my outsides to mirror my insides. i do not want to "live one way and pray another". i want my expressions to be as honest as possible. i want to whittle away at whatever hypocrisy exists in me.
and so i excavate. i writhe. i push the dirt aside.
i am trying to ignore fear.
i trust the pencil's scratch so completely. i trust it like i trust poetry. i trust it like a mother. i climb in to bed with my papers and all my blankets smell like graphite dust. they smell beautiful. my intimate "renovations".
maybe i'll make my own hand-painted sign? hang it on the wall in the living room. or maybe in the big window.
Aug 10, 2010
need
still thinking of Kusama- her "Art Medicine". art as cure. art as protection. art as health. art as talisman, amulet, proof of life, act of sadness, act of sanity, a savior, a quest, a means of survival, a means of investigation, of knowing, of coming to terms, a reckoning, a decision, a question.
art as breath. a voice. a call. a need.
food. shelter. water.
art as a basic necessity.
humans make meaning because they need it.
food. shelter. water.
beauty? clarity? direction?
something honest. something basic. something irrefutable.
today i am making wreaths. an ouroborus made of moths. a way of making a prayer. an attempt toward understanding. maybe protection. maybe just an act of simple honesty.
humans make meaning (art) because they need it.
art as breath. a voice. a call. a need.
food. shelter. water.
art as a basic necessity.
humans make meaning because they need it.
food. shelter. water.
beauty? clarity? direction?
something honest. something basic. something irrefutable.
today i am making wreaths. an ouroborus made of moths. a way of making a prayer. an attempt toward understanding. maybe protection. maybe just an act of simple honesty.
humans make meaning (art) because they need it.
Jul 28, 2010
the facts
i've been a good girl since last october when the diagnosis came. resisted the urge to go online and freak myself out by reading the research available about pancreatic cancer.
but i've stopped being a good girl. it's a member of my immediate family. i am reading it. i know what the statistics are.
relatives have been calling, getting in touch through Facebook, reaching out to me and my siblings.
based on what i've read, surviving this since october is, itself, a miracle.
i am so grateful for that.
and also, for as hard and painful and scary as this whole thing is, i'm grateful for being forced to look at mortality close-up, in a new way- a way that is biological, not theoretical. it's easy to expound upon the horrors of the world from a safe distance. theories show their holes when you get up-close and personal. the importance of love and hope starts to shimmer. the shimmer builds in to a beautiful shine. we begin to twinkle in our moments together. we begin to feel thankful. certain histories finally find a resting place.
other histories don't. beasts i thought had been conquered, or at least put in to a deep, unbreakable hibernation, have come slinking out of their caves. the beasts awaken. writhe. scream. blood in their mouths and caked to the claw.
i feel lost some days. i spend a lot of time feeling afraid of the world but, somehow, still loving it. somehow, still wanting to help. somehow, not sarcastic. still... this weighty fear. fear that i will make the wrong decision, the wrong turn, waste my time, waste the time of others, and staring with my gaping O of a mouth at how horribly short Time is.
all i can think some days is hurry hurry, get the paintings out so she can see them. so she can see i accomplished something. so she can be proud of me.
there are lots of mornings when i want to ignore the alarm clock. i hear it and think what's the fucking point? plenty of mornings where i wake up feeling so stunted and small, just like a little girl. floundering and frail and just so bent up by fear. the dark. no night-light. no angels. no open door. there are mornings i wake up crying.
i reach for my notebook. i reach for my pencils. i make drawings.
the amazing/odd thing about it, is that i'm doing the best work i've ever done. at least that's the way it looks to my eye. somehow this fear has armed me with an unexpected drive to push the work further, go deeper, take chances, be brave in a way i hadn't yet learned to do.
there is a lot of anger in it. there is a lot of sadness. but i think there's also a lot of hope.
it's the hope that lives in these pieces that are the most important part. it is the portion of the work that i am most proud of. it is the site i try to lay down in. i live so far away from her.
since the beginning it seems, our little family has been a magnet for tragedy. i know we're not exceptional in that. tragedy is not as rare as people like to believe it is. nevertheless, the division and splintering and unfixable things that have resulted are really hard to look at some days.
the divorce. the swimming accident. my father. ambulances. hospitals. halo bolted to skull. poverty. ugliness. abuses. falling in with a bad crowd. bad mean boyfriend. scary situations. and then the work of repairing one's mind, one's broken heart, one's dream of life. and now cancer. now chemo.
these are the things i'm writing about in The Letter- the 9,000 words that have been typed out and are morphing in to something else. i have no clue what yet but it just keeps on pouring pouring pouring on days when i'm strong enough to be a vehicle for it.
this is the well that all the new work is rising from.
and the new work brings me closer to the kind of artist i want to be. the kind of human i want to be. to find a way to create some sort of beneficial, hopeful thing out of all this. but it also leads me away from certain ideas, certain places. it has to. it's unavoidable. the lineage has become clearer.
it's time to take certain risks.
it's scary and sad and overwhelming, but it's also a very positive action. ask any baby bird about the terror of the free fall when they are first urged out of the nest. that's the stage i'm in. it is a necessary stage.
because if i say i mean it and i say i believe in the power and worth of art and i say art saves lives, then i am charged to follow a particular road. a road that has all sorts of barricades across it and all sorts of pitfalls and potholes, a road that has no caution signs, a road that will be dark and lonely at times. but i must follow it. i must. i have to try to be brave. and so i cut away my safety net, in spite of all the things that are going on within my family... or maybe because of them. maybe it is because i see how short and uncertain a single life is. how full of opportunity, how full of chance, how full of the inexplicable...
i've asked to be released from my contract. the gallery agrees it is time. it is sad for both of us even though it is best for both of us. we've been building toward this moment for a year. it's time for this baby bird to jump. it's good to have support in this. it's good to find myself in the position to take a good hard look at my work and the kind of artist i am. this is an opportunity for me to get very specific about my goals as an artist, to work and struggle as hard as i can. i'm lucky to have so much encouragement from the people in my life. i'm lucky for the open door that remains. i'm lucky to have the friendship and support i've received. i'm very lucky.
and mostly, lucky to have art in my life. this outlet. this desire to make maps out of all these things. maps and poems and portraits. documents of hope. documents of desire. documents of my passage through this world. i am not joking when i say ART SAVES LIVES. it does. it has saved mine, over and over again, since the very beginning. and i am blessed.
i am very very very blessed.
but i've stopped being a good girl. it's a member of my immediate family. i am reading it. i know what the statistics are.
relatives have been calling, getting in touch through Facebook, reaching out to me and my siblings.
based on what i've read, surviving this since october is, itself, a miracle.
i am so grateful for that.
and also, for as hard and painful and scary as this whole thing is, i'm grateful for being forced to look at mortality close-up, in a new way- a way that is biological, not theoretical. it's easy to expound upon the horrors of the world from a safe distance. theories show their holes when you get up-close and personal. the importance of love and hope starts to shimmer. the shimmer builds in to a beautiful shine. we begin to twinkle in our moments together. we begin to feel thankful. certain histories finally find a resting place.
other histories don't. beasts i thought had been conquered, or at least put in to a deep, unbreakable hibernation, have come slinking out of their caves. the beasts awaken. writhe. scream. blood in their mouths and caked to the claw.
i feel lost some days. i spend a lot of time feeling afraid of the world but, somehow, still loving it. somehow, still wanting to help. somehow, not sarcastic. still... this weighty fear. fear that i will make the wrong decision, the wrong turn, waste my time, waste the time of others, and staring with my gaping O of a mouth at how horribly short Time is.
all i can think some days is hurry hurry, get the paintings out so she can see them. so she can see i accomplished something. so she can be proud of me.
there are lots of mornings when i want to ignore the alarm clock. i hear it and think what's the fucking point? plenty of mornings where i wake up feeling so stunted and small, just like a little girl. floundering and frail and just so bent up by fear. the dark. no night-light. no angels. no open door. there are mornings i wake up crying.
i reach for my notebook. i reach for my pencils. i make drawings.
the amazing/odd thing about it, is that i'm doing the best work i've ever done. at least that's the way it looks to my eye. somehow this fear has armed me with an unexpected drive to push the work further, go deeper, take chances, be brave in a way i hadn't yet learned to do.
there is a lot of anger in it. there is a lot of sadness. but i think there's also a lot of hope.
it's the hope that lives in these pieces that are the most important part. it is the portion of the work that i am most proud of. it is the site i try to lay down in. i live so far away from her.
since the beginning it seems, our little family has been a magnet for tragedy. i know we're not exceptional in that. tragedy is not as rare as people like to believe it is. nevertheless, the division and splintering and unfixable things that have resulted are really hard to look at some days.
the divorce. the swimming accident. my father. ambulances. hospitals. halo bolted to skull. poverty. ugliness. abuses. falling in with a bad crowd. bad mean boyfriend. scary situations. and then the work of repairing one's mind, one's broken heart, one's dream of life. and now cancer. now chemo.
these are the things i'm writing about in The Letter- the 9,000 words that have been typed out and are morphing in to something else. i have no clue what yet but it just keeps on pouring pouring pouring on days when i'm strong enough to be a vehicle for it.
this is the well that all the new work is rising from.
and the new work brings me closer to the kind of artist i want to be. the kind of human i want to be. to find a way to create some sort of beneficial, hopeful thing out of all this. but it also leads me away from certain ideas, certain places. it has to. it's unavoidable. the lineage has become clearer.
it's time to take certain risks.
it's scary and sad and overwhelming, but it's also a very positive action. ask any baby bird about the terror of the free fall when they are first urged out of the nest. that's the stage i'm in. it is a necessary stage.
because if i say i mean it and i say i believe in the power and worth of art and i say art saves lives, then i am charged to follow a particular road. a road that has all sorts of barricades across it and all sorts of pitfalls and potholes, a road that has no caution signs, a road that will be dark and lonely at times. but i must follow it. i must. i have to try to be brave. and so i cut away my safety net, in spite of all the things that are going on within my family... or maybe because of them. maybe it is because i see how short and uncertain a single life is. how full of opportunity, how full of chance, how full of the inexplicable...
i've asked to be released from my contract. the gallery agrees it is time. it is sad for both of us even though it is best for both of us. we've been building toward this moment for a year. it's time for this baby bird to jump. it's good to have support in this. it's good to find myself in the position to take a good hard look at my work and the kind of artist i am. this is an opportunity for me to get very specific about my goals as an artist, to work and struggle as hard as i can. i'm lucky to have so much encouragement from the people in my life. i'm lucky for the open door that remains. i'm lucky to have the friendship and support i've received. i'm very lucky.
and mostly, lucky to have art in my life. this outlet. this desire to make maps out of all these things. maps and poems and portraits. documents of hope. documents of desire. documents of my passage through this world. i am not joking when i say ART SAVES LIVES. it does. it has saved mine, over and over again, since the very beginning. and i am blessed.
i am very very very blessed.
Jul 27, 2010
dear ariana reines,
for what it's worth, i really like what you're about. i saw a person talk some shit to you online in the comments section at Everyday Genius. i like the way you handled that. i liked it as much as i like your work and your blog, which is VERY MUCH. there's just something about what you do that gives me a lot of hope and i'm really appreciative of that. it makes me want to be more courageous and more attentive to ethics.
i like how you tell the truth. i like the words you use. i like your eyeglasses.
i like that you know you don't owe anybody anything and so all the work you make has a Gift function. i especially like that you MEAN IT- this art thing. again, it gives me a lot of hope.
thank you.
angela
for what it's worth, i really like what you're about. i saw a person talk some shit to you online in the comments section at Everyday Genius. i like the way you handled that. i liked it as much as i like your work and your blog, which is VERY MUCH. there's just something about what you do that gives me a lot of hope and i'm really appreciative of that. it makes me want to be more courageous and more attentive to ethics.
i like how you tell the truth. i like the words you use. i like your eyeglasses.
i like that you know you don't owe anybody anything and so all the work you make has a Gift function. i especially like that you MEAN IT- this art thing. again, it gives me a lot of hope.
thank you.
angela
Jul 23, 2010
yes please!
"I am for an art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself."
-Claes Oldenburg
-Claes Oldenburg
Jul 16, 2010
process process process
i am deep inside the documentation end of things and will be locked up taking pictures the entire weekend. whhhoooooweeeeee! i did not realize i had this much work to photograph! most of it is on paper, tucked away in one of my many portfolios that are all over the house, hidden behind the paintings that are leaning against the walls. and as i go through each portfolio and pull the work out, i see how strongly rooted my entire practice is in the act of drawing/writing.
maybe drawing and writing are similar in more ways than simply being on paper? i think so. definitely so.
there's an intimacy in both practices. a very deep degree of Search and Explore. paper, being a common and humble material, fosters an amazing level of privacy. and that privacy, as an experience, encourages a ton of bravery. paper is easy to hide. easy to lock away. and i think the diaristic attribute of that is something so valuable and courageous that, as i go through all this work, i bounce back and forth between opposing shudders of elation and embarrassment. ha! but embarrassment in a good way- a necessary exposure. work that does not pull it's punch and risks humiliation in order to go all the way. and that makes me feel great.
it helps me to see the all the work together. how, in spite of extreme shifts in stylistic approaches, all the work is rooted in the same concepts. whether it be oil on canvas or shoe prints on paper, it all comes up from the same well. it all grows in The Blackland and i think each piece lends itself to every other piece in a very nourishing, substantiating way. a very very VERY interesting conversation ensures when all this work is allowed to rub elbows with one another, for sure.
here's some "diary pages". the more i look at this sector of my practice, the more i like it and the more i want to lean deeper in to it. none of this work is titled yet and i'm not sure what i'll do with it. maybe nothing. maybe everything.
the 2nd one down has been following me around for 2 years now and, originally, i thought of it as some sort of sign for myself. i had it hanging in my studio and it would fall off the wall and i walked all over it a few times because i didn't think of it as art. but i guess getting a few pale shoe prints on it added something to the piece, gave it a new layer of meaning along with the dirt. :) i like it.
the 3rd piece was originally an art poster i got in the mail promoting an exhibition that i quickly redacted.
and the first piece was finished just yesterday. a mono-print of silver blowing leaves that i wrote all over. is it a drawing or a poem or a diary page? having those kinds of questions come up is exactly why i like it and why i like ART in general.
maybe drawing and writing are similar in more ways than simply being on paper? i think so. definitely so.
there's an intimacy in both practices. a very deep degree of Search and Explore. paper, being a common and humble material, fosters an amazing level of privacy. and that privacy, as an experience, encourages a ton of bravery. paper is easy to hide. easy to lock away. and i think the diaristic attribute of that is something so valuable and courageous that, as i go through all this work, i bounce back and forth between opposing shudders of elation and embarrassment. ha! but embarrassment in a good way- a necessary exposure. work that does not pull it's punch and risks humiliation in order to go all the way. and that makes me feel great.
it helps me to see the all the work together. how, in spite of extreme shifts in stylistic approaches, all the work is rooted in the same concepts. whether it be oil on canvas or shoe prints on paper, it all comes up from the same well. it all grows in The Blackland and i think each piece lends itself to every other piece in a very nourishing, substantiating way. a very very VERY interesting conversation ensures when all this work is allowed to rub elbows with one another, for sure.
here's some "diary pages". the more i look at this sector of my practice, the more i like it and the more i want to lean deeper in to it. none of this work is titled yet and i'm not sure what i'll do with it. maybe nothing. maybe everything.
the 2nd one down has been following me around for 2 years now and, originally, i thought of it as some sort of sign for myself. i had it hanging in my studio and it would fall off the wall and i walked all over it a few times because i didn't think of it as art. but i guess getting a few pale shoe prints on it added something to the piece, gave it a new layer of meaning along with the dirt. :) i like it.
the 3rd piece was originally an art poster i got in the mail promoting an exhibition that i quickly redacted.
and the first piece was finished just yesterday. a mono-print of silver blowing leaves that i wrote all over. is it a drawing or a poem or a diary page? having those kinds of questions come up is exactly why i like it and why i like ART in general.
Jun 25, 2010
thinking thinking thinking
last night, after an all-day painting session and a little bit of writing at the end, i started thinking about Sylvia Plath. actually, i had thought about her, off and on, all day. about The Bell Jar- what it is. i mean, in terms of genre. it's autobiographical. it's a novel. it is listed as "fiction".
and i started thinking about tags and terms and how every label has a drawback. and it seems like, in spite of their popularity (or because of it), the tag "memoir" or "autobiography" draws a lot of angst from the literary community. it is accused of being "easy" and "lazy". and i think that's really sad and very strange. it presumes that documenting real events, injecting the emotions and fears and anxieties of the time, is an easy task. it also assumes that a person's life has been picturesque, that the problems they faced were no big deal. it's very minimizing. and that's without saying anything about a writer's skill: the dedication required to wrap the reader up in your own history and let them live it as you lived it. the honesty that that requires. and bravery. the whole process is an act of overcoming humiliation. and doing so with beautiful words. or ugly words. whatever is necessary, craft is employed.
but nevertheless, the assumption that memoir and creative non-fiction are some how easier than other forms of writing. i say, skill is skill. and so i wonder... is that why The Bell Jar is in the fiction department? yes, names have been changed to "protect the innocent", but if that's really the only difference between your history and your story, is that a big enough change to call it fiction? i'm sure this is a question that gets wrestled with a lot.
and so i got out of bed and got my copy of The Bell Jar (it's always out on the shelf, not tucked in a row) so i could remind myself how the story begins.
first-person narrative. personal emotional response to an impending execution of criminals. and then the narrator gives us her name. that's the shift. that's what makes it fiction. the name has been changed. and i'm sure certain details have been left out... which assures that other details are (intentionally or not) magnified, brought to the fore-front, drawn more clearly. bias is embraced. and maybe that's the big difference too. The Bell Jar tells a story from one person's perspective and that perspective is embraced with totality. it is not compromised by the charge to explain the emotions or decisions of the other characters. it does not worry itself with ideas of "fair". it tells one story, not all stories, and it does not get sheepish about it.
and that brings up a question i've had for awhile. issues of fairness in art... especially writing.
it's common knowledge that writers end up angering their families. they are accused of not being "fair" to their families within the work. but our families are the first sphere in which we hear the dreadful truth, "Life isn't fair"... so why then is a work of art expected to be? religion, politics, finance, popularity, body issues, disorders of every shape and size and mode: all unfair. and so art should harness this unfairness as well. it is authentic to do so. and honest. or rather, ideas of attempting fairness should be left behind. is this what great writers know?
we know that when The Bell Jar was first published, it was published under a pseudonym. we know that this was done as an attempt to protect Sylvia Plath's mother, save her from mortification and judgement. but those are her own fears talking- the mother's. because i never felt judgemental toward the mother in the story. and granted it all took place in a different era where decorum was expected and dirty laundry was not aired and secrets, even the slightest and smallest, were kept. what a horror to end up having a writer in the family!
all this to say is i am unsure of what specifically divides fiction from creative non-fiction. because creative non-fiction is not the same thing as journalism- a mode of writing where the real names are used and the facts line up and the chronology of events is clear. and a journalist is usually recording someone else's fact and figures, not their own. they have a critical distance between them self and the life they describe. when telling one's own story, that critical distance is gone. it is obliterated. and maybe that's what makes The Bell Jar such a wonderful read- the diary quality of it.
there are so many famous, deeply loved diaries that have been published. and loved for the skill of the writing! the nuance that rises to the surface when censorship and intention fall away... when the audience is gone. some say Sylvia Plath's Journals are her best work. and they'd be just as interesting and compelling even if she wasn't also a "real" writer because the journals themselves are "real" writing. such craft and lyric and fierce desire to pin down a life in words. to make a map. to know something of the self. and diaries are totally biased. one perspective, one story, one idiosyncratic arrangement of fears and hopes and fuck-ups and achievements and struggles.
anyway. i've lost my own question. or answered it.
it's interesting though- these tags we use to describe a literary work. and when someone wants to call a spade and spade and get away with it, ANONYMOUS gets employed. or a pen-name. because we don't want to hurt our families. because we don't want to be "cruel" or "selfish". we want to be fair because the world isn't. and these are wonderful ethical concerns that i think are really important to wrestle with and so i'm glad i'm wrestling with them now, trying to clarify and expand my ideas about what are can be. and be made with. and i think there's a big difference between being honest and being a victim, and it comes down to intention. is there an intention of blame?
to my eye, there is no blame in The Bell Jar. there is the honest addition of self-blame within it - a true portrait of inner turmoil - but still not falling in to sentimentality or romanticising pain or seeking some sort of excuse. it is a crushingly beautiful example of the difference between accuracy and honesty. and i think that when a work focuses on achieving honesty, it falls outside all these useful tags (when wondering what shelf something is found on) and just swims in the big pool of Art.
and i started thinking about tags and terms and how every label has a drawback. and it seems like, in spite of their popularity (or because of it), the tag "memoir" or "autobiography" draws a lot of angst from the literary community. it is accused of being "easy" and "lazy". and i think that's really sad and very strange. it presumes that documenting real events, injecting the emotions and fears and anxieties of the time, is an easy task. it also assumes that a person's life has been picturesque, that the problems they faced were no big deal. it's very minimizing. and that's without saying anything about a writer's skill: the dedication required to wrap the reader up in your own history and let them live it as you lived it. the honesty that that requires. and bravery. the whole process is an act of overcoming humiliation. and doing so with beautiful words. or ugly words. whatever is necessary, craft is employed.
but nevertheless, the assumption that memoir and creative non-fiction are some how easier than other forms of writing. i say, skill is skill. and so i wonder... is that why The Bell Jar is in the fiction department? yes, names have been changed to "protect the innocent", but if that's really the only difference between your history and your story, is that a big enough change to call it fiction? i'm sure this is a question that gets wrestled with a lot.
and so i got out of bed and got my copy of The Bell Jar (it's always out on the shelf, not tucked in a row) so i could remind myself how the story begins.
first-person narrative. personal emotional response to an impending execution of criminals. and then the narrator gives us her name. that's the shift. that's what makes it fiction. the name has been changed. and i'm sure certain details have been left out... which assures that other details are (intentionally or not) magnified, brought to the fore-front, drawn more clearly. bias is embraced. and maybe that's the big difference too. The Bell Jar tells a story from one person's perspective and that perspective is embraced with totality. it is not compromised by the charge to explain the emotions or decisions of the other characters. it does not worry itself with ideas of "fair". it tells one story, not all stories, and it does not get sheepish about it.
and that brings up a question i've had for awhile. issues of fairness in art... especially writing.
it's common knowledge that writers end up angering their families. they are accused of not being "fair" to their families within the work. but our families are the first sphere in which we hear the dreadful truth, "Life isn't fair"... so why then is a work of art expected to be? religion, politics, finance, popularity, body issues, disorders of every shape and size and mode: all unfair. and so art should harness this unfairness as well. it is authentic to do so. and honest. or rather, ideas of attempting fairness should be left behind. is this what great writers know?
we know that when The Bell Jar was first published, it was published under a pseudonym. we know that this was done as an attempt to protect Sylvia Plath's mother, save her from mortification and judgement. but those are her own fears talking- the mother's. because i never felt judgemental toward the mother in the story. and granted it all took place in a different era where decorum was expected and dirty laundry was not aired and secrets, even the slightest and smallest, were kept. what a horror to end up having a writer in the family!
all this to say is i am unsure of what specifically divides fiction from creative non-fiction. because creative non-fiction is not the same thing as journalism- a mode of writing where the real names are used and the facts line up and the chronology of events is clear. and a journalist is usually recording someone else's fact and figures, not their own. they have a critical distance between them self and the life they describe. when telling one's own story, that critical distance is gone. it is obliterated. and maybe that's what makes The Bell Jar such a wonderful read- the diary quality of it.
there are so many famous, deeply loved diaries that have been published. and loved for the skill of the writing! the nuance that rises to the surface when censorship and intention fall away... when the audience is gone. some say Sylvia Plath's Journals are her best work. and they'd be just as interesting and compelling even if she wasn't also a "real" writer because the journals themselves are "real" writing. such craft and lyric and fierce desire to pin down a life in words. to make a map. to know something of the self. and diaries are totally biased. one perspective, one story, one idiosyncratic arrangement of fears and hopes and fuck-ups and achievements and struggles.
anyway. i've lost my own question. or answered it.
it's interesting though- these tags we use to describe a literary work. and when someone wants to call a spade and spade and get away with it, ANONYMOUS gets employed. or a pen-name. because we don't want to hurt our families. because we don't want to be "cruel" or "selfish". we want to be fair because the world isn't. and these are wonderful ethical concerns that i think are really important to wrestle with and so i'm glad i'm wrestling with them now, trying to clarify and expand my ideas about what are can be. and be made with. and i think there's a big difference between being honest and being a victim, and it comes down to intention. is there an intention of blame?
to my eye, there is no blame in The Bell Jar. there is the honest addition of self-blame within it - a true portrait of inner turmoil - but still not falling in to sentimentality or romanticising pain or seeking some sort of excuse. it is a crushingly beautiful example of the difference between accuracy and honesty. and i think that when a work focuses on achieving honesty, it falls outside all these useful tags (when wondering what shelf something is found on) and just swims in the big pool of Art.
Jun 11, 2010
love
kiki smith is the artist i go to most when i need a hug, comfort to continue. she is a mother for me, and has been since the very first time i saw her work. the loud astonishment that flooded in while i sat in a quiet, dusty aisle at the library- amazement. and the quick "permission" that came to speak about your own life, your own perceptions of what it is to be female, to be conflicted about the world, your own needs and desires.
yesterday, i carried a book of her work around with me- the catalogue for HER MEMORY. and all this morning too. back and forth between coffee and the spider and then flipping through her images: tattooed women with heart shapes and birds and lightning bolts, paper mache light bulbs, wreaths made from hand carved rubber stamps of child-like leaves, coffins, and chairs with wobbly legs. huge collaged prints, all in black and white, attacthed sheets of paper so that the image occupies an irregular ground. the crinkliness of the work, the scratchy lines, dried flowers, flowers leaning toward death.
there are images in her work that feel so familiar to me. flowers and windows, especially. two images i used to repeat myself with all the time but that i haven't really worked with in years now until recently. a few months ago they started popping back up in the work. roses again. all in black and white and silver. and i keep my book of redoute's prints near. and i remember how, when i was little, i'd flip through books in our humble bookcase looking for pictures and i'd come across pressed flowers- the passage of my mother. actions of preserving some small joy. some small beauty.
i've been thinking about my childhood a lot for the passed several months. little memories of books and drawings and picking flowers, bringing home stray cats, hiding in bushes so no one would hear me sing, making sure to be outside when the first star appeared so i could get my wish...
and my love for paper, for laying down marks with ink or graphite has roots in these things. the common nature of it. humble. adorable. easy. within reach. the substrate for secrets- diaries and hidden poems, snippets of songs, notes passed in class, letters that were never sent, letters that were never meant to be sent. paper is a signifier of The Personal- private thoughts and actions. and lately, i've been thinking of the drawings (all the work, really) as a form of writing. the diary aspect of these images. the collection/excavation of memory. hope, fear, need, desire, love, hate, recuperation, reckoning.
and at the back of the book, gone unnoticed until last night, there are two poems she wrote. and this knowledge - kiki smith cares about poetry enough to write it - overwhelmed me with such a sense of gladness and confidence:
Landing
when the bird flew in and without
apprehension she could say yes
dreams in corners out of range sitting at
the kitchen table when you came in and
spoke there had been a chance and she saw
for a moment
all pressed and close and then it dissipated
you could just sit there and the bird could
come in and you could succumb maybe she
hesitated when called
how do you feel when the bird touched
some birds touch anyone some girls are
shared
holy holy night she had her back turned
stomach to bed the rays came in first
she didn't have a first inclination that the
bird had been there but the song lingered
she waited the flutter passed but still she
had been touched
old habits are slow ones and she is not a
quitter not sitting waiting for the bird's
breath scratching pecking she goes
excavating into the shadows touching dark.
-Kiki Smith
i experience this poem as such a huge hug. and also a call to action. or maybe, more specifically, a call to confidence...
i am okay with the fact that i need to roll around in the shadows for awhile. i need to reach in to the dark stuff and leave my hand in long enough to know its shape by feel alone. collect the little glittering bits of childhood, of those unsent letters, and make wreaths of my own. press them like mama's flowers. hide them in books. let them scratch and scratch and give them a window of their own.
(this is a weird, but good, artist statement maybe?)
yesterday, i carried a book of her work around with me- the catalogue for HER MEMORY. and all this morning too. back and forth between coffee and the spider and then flipping through her images: tattooed women with heart shapes and birds and lightning bolts, paper mache light bulbs, wreaths made from hand carved rubber stamps of child-like leaves, coffins, and chairs with wobbly legs. huge collaged prints, all in black and white, attacthed sheets of paper so that the image occupies an irregular ground. the crinkliness of the work, the scratchy lines, dried flowers, flowers leaning toward death.
there are images in her work that feel so familiar to me. flowers and windows, especially. two images i used to repeat myself with all the time but that i haven't really worked with in years now until recently. a few months ago they started popping back up in the work. roses again. all in black and white and silver. and i keep my book of redoute's prints near. and i remember how, when i was little, i'd flip through books in our humble bookcase looking for pictures and i'd come across pressed flowers- the passage of my mother. actions of preserving some small joy. some small beauty.
i've been thinking about my childhood a lot for the passed several months. little memories of books and drawings and picking flowers, bringing home stray cats, hiding in bushes so no one would hear me sing, making sure to be outside when the first star appeared so i could get my wish...
and my love for paper, for laying down marks with ink or graphite has roots in these things. the common nature of it. humble. adorable. easy. within reach. the substrate for secrets- diaries and hidden poems, snippets of songs, notes passed in class, letters that were never sent, letters that were never meant to be sent. paper is a signifier of The Personal- private thoughts and actions. and lately, i've been thinking of the drawings (all the work, really) as a form of writing. the diary aspect of these images. the collection/excavation of memory. hope, fear, need, desire, love, hate, recuperation, reckoning.
and at the back of the book, gone unnoticed until last night, there are two poems she wrote. and this knowledge - kiki smith cares about poetry enough to write it - overwhelmed me with such a sense of gladness and confidence:
Landing
when the bird flew in and without
apprehension she could say yes
dreams in corners out of range sitting at
the kitchen table when you came in and
spoke there had been a chance and she saw
for a moment
all pressed and close and then it dissipated
you could just sit there and the bird could
come in and you could succumb maybe she
hesitated when called
how do you feel when the bird touched
some birds touch anyone some girls are
shared
holy holy night she had her back turned
stomach to bed the rays came in first
she didn't have a first inclination that the
bird had been there but the song lingered
she waited the flutter passed but still she
had been touched
old habits are slow ones and she is not a
quitter not sitting waiting for the bird's
breath scratching pecking she goes
excavating into the shadows touching dark.
-Kiki Smith
i experience this poem as such a huge hug. and also a call to action. or maybe, more specifically, a call to confidence...
i am okay with the fact that i need to roll around in the shadows for awhile. i need to reach in to the dark stuff and leave my hand in long enough to know its shape by feel alone. collect the little glittering bits of childhood, of those unsent letters, and make wreaths of my own. press them like mama's flowers. hide them in books. let them scratch and scratch and give them a window of their own.
(this is a weird, but good, artist statement maybe?)
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