i'm taxing my whole family

Cassandra Barney came a gave a lecture in my Business Practices for Artists Class. She said several things that impressed me. She was articulate and smart. Savvy, even. But one thing she said stuck out in a major way. She said, "My schedule affects everyone around me. If I’m over booked, it taxes my whole family.”

 I almost laughed out loud because Tuesday night half of my family was at my side helping me cut out hexagons, punch holes, and tie them together. We tied over 500 hexagons. This installation project is much bigger than I had anticipated (and I'm blaming in on Typewriter Grandma's sister who is busy-as-a-bee--pun intended--finding more progenitors) and I think I've brought on a case of The Worries among my family members. (Sorry guys).

I'm confident I can finish (or, we can finish...) and I'm hoping it will be as powerful as it is time-intensive.

Fingers crossed.

in progress

i've got over a dozen paintings in progress. it feels good and it's nice to think that i'm making progress, but at the same time, mikey's plea to "just finish a piece!" is ringing increasingly loud in my ear.

here are photos of some of the "in progress" paintings.

i was critiqued in class today and it went really well. they felt (as do i) that so far my installation is more successful on several layers, but i'm working on getting my paintings up to speed. they need some tlc.

after i went straight to my studio and a kid from my class came in a little while later. he told me he "appreciated hearing the dialogue on my work" because before he thought i was "painting for the marriott"

i asked him, "the marriott?"

"yeah, like hotel art"

and then he meandered off and i wanted to throw my paint brush at his head.

still inspired

Mmmm

Some more yummy images...

image credit

Monogold by Yves Klein

currently inspired by...

the installations by Chris Burden:

Reason for the Neutron Bomb, 1979

All the Submarines, 1987

the sculpture of Jackie Winsor:

Bound Grid, 1971-72

the scultpure of Ibram Lassaw:

Kwannon, 1952

the sculpture and installation work of Eva Hesse:

Sans II, 1968

the sculpture and installation work of Louise Nevelson:

Sky Cathedral's Presence I, 1959-62

Untitled, 1961

the collages and paintings of Robert Rauschenberg:

Mother of God, ca. 1950

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.

pound it

after a few critiques and a meeting with a professor i think that what i need most of all is just to create. i need to make stuff, whatever stuff comes to mind. i think this will help me in a variety of ways. the problem that i face is that i'm often driven by a "vision" of what i want a piece to look like before i begin. this gives me direction as i work. but i feel a little bit like i'll be creating in a vacuum without this sort of foreknowledge of what my piece will look like.

i think collaging was good for me for that reason. it's hard to conceptualize what it will look like, but it gradually takes shape as you continue to piece it together.

i don't think i'm going to give up chairs completely. and i've started really focusing on patterns as a way to describe "the stuff between." i think they do bring a form to ordinances, sacred connections, connections that are so significant that they tie into our personal salvation.

today at the university forum the president of the united states catholic cardinals spoke, francis cardinal george. before he spoke a faculty member lead the congregation in a prayer--catholic style. before praying she explained why they feel it is important to pray together and how it ties into their theology about salvation. she said something to the effect that, "although we believe we are all loved and known individually, we believe that we will be saved as a community." i liked that idea of connection, of one affecting another in an indirect yet direct way. though i don't know my ancestors directly or personally, their salvation affects mine.

there is something interconnected with saving ordinances. i thought much about this as i was sealed to my husband and pondered how i am now sealed to him and his family, as well as my family. i visualized a complicated web of connections that bound all of us together. it's as if everyone will be bound and together, humanity will be saved through the connections that we have to eachother.

so i'm going to make. i'm going to spend one month (until the end of march) just creating whatever comes to mind (while i think about my ideas and ponder on the universe). i'm excited to do this and see what will come of it.

maybe nothing.

and if so, i'll pick up at the end of march and keep making until i make a break through. but i'm going to back off of my ideas, try to not contrive my work, but let it come out of more organic processes. i've been pounding my head too hard.

it needs a rest.