individual v. community

Where have I been?

Making a bunch of studies, most of which I'm not happy with, and generally feeling discouraged about what I'm doing. The last month of my studio practice can be summarized by unrealized goals.

But.

Already this week I'm feeling more encouraged about what is going on. I'm still plugging away on a few paintings. Patterns have taken over my life. But I'm also exploring other mediums--I have started working on an installation with thousands of wax hexagons, began research for an audio (maybe video?) piece, and am continuing to refine my ideas.

I feel constantly inspired. I feels like everything relates to my ideas about connection and ancestry; the weightiness of being connected to humanity through a family.

I'm taking a contemporary literature class. After two days I already love it. In fact, when I left class today I was sad that I had to wait until Monday to attend again. It's that good. Seriously. Our professor is inspiring and brilliant. A girl turned to me the first day and said she had her class last semester and now wants to be our professor she grows up. Now I feel the same way.

We read an essay about universalism, how post-moderns view the ideal of universality or absolute truth as hard to swallow. I'm right there with them to some degree. Aside from beliefs that are directly tied to my religion, I find very few things that have a sense of universal truth. Regardless, this is a tangent...

The essay talked about how we as American's can't fully understand African literature even if we speak the language, know the history etc (and vice versa). It mentioned a story about a girl who was born into a family that worked as servants/slaves/maids to the French (imperialists, but that's my word). The family she worked for moved to France, so logically, she went with them as their hired help. She found herself disenfranchised by two cultures, she wasn't African, she wasn't French. Eventually she committed suicide to release herself from the slavery her family helped to perpetuate by essentially enslaving themselves.

The American sees this as a tragedy because she ended her life. Yes. True. But this is only part of the problem. To the culture in which the story was written, she has only temporarily released herself. She has trapped her ancestors, broken the cycle of life, and, if she is an only child, she has ended the family lineage. She has, in short, committed a terrible abomination, and the African reading is horrified by what she has done. the religious overtone relating to ancestral worship is completely missed by the Western reader.

After reading this essay I realized that my work is in part about this. We are connected in a community. The modern American society so much emphasizes the individual, the freedom of choice. But what it overlooks is the consequences on family, on community, on ancestry and lineage. We are connected deeply. Our choices affect those before and after us.

There are ideas about individual verses community at play in my head.

photo concepts--they constituted my universe

I spent more time photographing yesterday. I took some thumbnails I've been working out and then set up the still life. I think I've figured out how I want to attempt the painting of Ellen, Hortense and Helene. I already know the title of the piece. It's going to be, "They Constituted My Universe."

 

sketches

from left to right: Ellen, Hortense, Helene

I gathered things that I thought could represent these women or stories I've heard of them. I think the chair on the left looks like Ellen. Hortense was a church historian, so her chair has books like Jesus the Christ, Articles of Faith, the Book of Mormon . . . anything I could find that was old-looking and church related. Helene was a musician and my mom actually has her sheet music (the green books under her chair). I think they are the most beautiful music anthologies I've ever seen. You can't see it here, but they are tied closed with a green ribbon. I choose oranges to signify their settling in California as well as thoughts relating to "by their fruits ye shall know them" or "fruit of their loins" things like that.

 

I included a lantern (that actually came from my great-grandparents farm in Oregon on my other side) in some of the photos. I imagined Eliza R. Snow leading Ellen to the endowment house by the light of a lantern the night she got married.

these women i can seem to get enough of

Ellen Lundberg Goddard

Hortense Christine Goddard Ottinger

Helene Ottinger Crawley

Helene, Peter and Micky

Peter, Helene, Micky, Emerson (and Pal the Dog)

Ellen Lundberg Goddard

I have been working on researching three of my ancestors for an upcoming group show in March. Their names are Ellen Lundberg Goddard, Hortense Christine Goddard Ottinger, and Helene Ottinger Crawley. Helene's son, Peter, is my grandfather. My grandfather says, "Those women constituted my universe, and I was the center of their universe. I mean, those ladies raised me."

The three of them lived under one roof most of their life. Grandpa Pete told me a small vignette that he says typifies each of them.

He said at dinner one night his father told a joke, not a bad joke, but one that had a "slightly earthy component." Helene, his shy wife, blushed, Hortense, the most pious of the group, frowned, and Ellen, resident ham, fell on the floor laughing.

I have become fascinated by these women and their lives. It makes me feel so connected to the legacy of women I am connected to.

I did most of my research yesterday on Ellen's life. She was married at age 19 in 1882. At the dead of night on the seventh of April she was summoned by Eliza R. Snow and taken to the endowment house to be married to Joseph Goddard. He was 20 years her senior and she was his second wife. The two married, but immediately went their separate ways as this was at the height of what Mormon history deems, “The Raid”—a period of time following the 1878 Supreme Court decision that declared polygamy was not protected under the Constitution—where polygamists were rounded up and put in jail. The Goddards were forced to lead a life of secrecy. Ellen took up residence in Salt Lake City under an assumed name, "Ray.” She was visited periodically by her husband who spent much of his time in hiding. She had three children, Frederick, Hortense, and Percival.

I am captivated by her story. I think of the woman grandpa describes, one of spunk and humor. Grandpa said she was "the best salesperson of the group" (at one point she sold chocolates Hortense made to make ends meet in the mid 1900s). She seems fun-loving. And yet look at her history! She was married at 19 in the middle of the night to a man who was almost 40 years old. She lived under a fake name. She raised three kids basically on her own.

Did her personality come out of her hardships? Did it take a woman of humor and spontaneity to take courage and marry this man so young and so secretly? Why did she marry him? Did she know him and love him before? Was she aware of the life she would lead because of her choice to marry a man in hiding?

And yet, she emerged from her youth as someone who seems to have unbeatable spirits. Maybe a little wild? From the stories of her life she seems to have emerged full of joy and laughter.

She amazes me. I want to know her. And I hope that through making a painting about her, and by reading as much as I can about her life I can.