Full Moon, Why Didst Thee So Unsettle Me?!

 

From anxiety to insight and frustration to experimentation and ah-hah discoveries, this past week has been packed with irritations (I backed my car out of the garage on Friday, full moon day, whacked my driver’s side mirror hard enough to break the glass), fresh perspectives on self-trust and inner guidance (thanks to Leslie Avon Miller’s skillful coaching in the Finding Your Authentic Voice class, still in progress), erratic highs and lows (my work is exciting, my work is worm food) – not at all the typical pre-full moon week I love. Usually I’m yahooing and yee-hawing like a cowgirl riding at full gallop on strong currents of creative energy.

Not THIS full moon. Donna Watson from the wonderful blog Layers  recommended checking out Eric Maisel’s class on creative anxiety. Resources for handling the creative process gracefully are a must for artists, so I signed up for it.

Pages 11: Crumpled, 48” x 48”, mixed media on stretched canvas.

Meanwhile, studio work continued with some worthwhile sample making, experimentation for new works and doing some editing on  Pages 11: Crumpled, which is nearly complete.  

Acknowledging that I have strong and yet objective internal voice that can help evaluate works-in-progress is a major step for me and one that has been strengthened in great part by participating in Leslie Avon Miller’s “Finding Your Authentic Voice” class, which is generating many deep insights.

The full moon seemed to spur questions about new directions in my work, whether to deconstruct language imagery more, down to the gestural shapes and forms of letters, or to give the viewer something more tangible – perhaps take writings that inspire me, like Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, and imbue my surfaces with those lofty, inspiring ideas, not fully legible but able to be discerned in part.

I seem to be swaying back and forth, back and forth about whether to explore language imagery as a conveyor of ideas and meaning in a visual way or to pursue it as a series of beautiful gestural marks in their own right that don’t need to convey meaning to be appreciated. Or whether the two directions can juxtapose and work together.

Maybe this is the crux of the question that has been chafing inside me and heated up by intensity of full moon energy.

Are these two directions a dialogue, one that my work wants to investigate together,  a crossroads at which I need to make a choice or a new-way path, leading me  into something altogether unexpected and new?

Unsettling moon, yes, but one that is propelling me towards new realizations and new growth. By the time the full moon returns, may I have made great strides in developing these ideas into new works.

Sweet, Sweet Harmony

Yesterday and today I got to spend full, uninterrupted days in my studio. I can’t remember how long it’s been since I’ve had that luxury.

The energy in the space has felt “off” for at least a month. I was so excited to paint the charcoal wall and add the storage area, but suddenly the space didn’t generate the flow of creative energy that I have become accustomed to as soon as I walked in the door. The “gallery” feeling still hung in the air. Something was indeed amiss.

So first, I took down all the work in the room still hanging, except for my one “gallery corner”, and got it ready for storage.

Every  surface in the entire space was piled with “stuff” – sure doesn’t look inviting, does it?

So I put on calming, meditative music, took some deep, cleansing breaths and decided to slowly restore harmony to my kingdom. Gradually I could feel a shift inside, could seem to focus on where I want to store various items, what’s important to keep close at hand and what can be stored away in a container in the back. My mental confusion cleared and suddenly my studio felt the way it always has, a pleasure and delight to be in, a place of quiet focus, satisfying experimentation and making.

I’m revising and mounting several Pages pieces at the moment for my May exhibition, which now has a name: “Off the Page: Reinventing Alphabets”

The idea for this work is a crumpled page mounted on a stretched canvas frame.  The first view gives you a clearer view of the dimensionality. Yesterday I tacked it down to consider whether it needs any further adjusting. I’m letting it rest as it is for a few days and then will return and decide whether it will stay this way or get revised.

Here’s the front view of Pages 9: Crumpled, 48” x48”.

A third work is ready to be mounted on the frame that I applied composition gold leaf to yesterday and then aged today with acrylic paint.

The third piece is an ochre ground that will be rippled and attached to the canvas, so it too will be dimensional.

By the time I left today, the studio felt much more ordered and harmonious. It will be a pleasure to return and continue working there on Tuesday.

Insights and Ideas

Last year around this time I participated in  one of Leslie Avon Miller’s online coaching classes, called “Refresh Your Creative Practice” and amazing insights sprang from these sessions about my creative purpose and direction. A week ago I started this new year’s offering, “Finding Your Authentic Voice”,  already aware of how stimulating Leslie’s classes are and how they inspire my growth as an artist. This statement and image are from her blog:

Our first assignment  was to develop a metaphor for our authentic creative self through a partnered visualization with another member of the group. My metaphor is already inspiring  new ideas:

I am the alchemist who transforms life experience into artistic gold.

I am slowly easing back into studio work and productivity again after lots of organizational work and am revisiting some of the work that was in my exhibition last summer and revising its presentation.

Here is a 48” x 48” substrate with composition gold leaf applied and then worked back into to age with various acrylic paints. It’s absolutely lovely as it is and I may choose to create several more of these and complete them as mixed media/paintings.

I created the gold-leafed stretched canvas substrate with the idea of mounting this dimensional piece to it. I think it will work – won’t know until I finish hand tacking this to the canvas surface, which is a  time consuming task that I haven’t yet started. I’m also working on a third piece like this one but on an ochre ground with white and variegated gray letterforms and some hand stitching.

I meet tomorrow with three jurors and the director of Rochester Contemporary Art Center to coordinate the jurying for the Northeast Regional Juried Contemporary Fiber Exhibition, an idea that I initiated and have worked very hard to make happen for Surface Design Association members. With 100 entries and nearly 300 works to consider, the response has been gratifying and exciting.

By next week the organizational side of my life will quiet down for a bit and I’ll be able to work at least three full days in my studio again – looking forward to it.

Staking My Claim to 2011

It’s My Year of Celebrating Artistic Accomplishments! You’ll see this image of me in my studio on my newly redesigned website, soon to be completed.  

 It’s My Year of Celebrating Artistic Community! We had an amazing two-day, 60th birthday celebration at our Arena Art Group’s 60/20: Art in Motion event at Rochester Contemporary Art Center on January 13 & 14.  Between 400-500 people attended – a great turnout  for snowy Rochester in the middle of January in the midst of a streak of single digit temperatures!

Our group’s electronic experts turned the interior of the Rochester Contemporary Art Center gallery space into a virtual exhibition, with a multitude of projections that some of us began interacting with while cameras recorded our moving-people-art. 

The beautiful art works flashing on the walls to specially chosen music spanned the 60-year history and membership of this contemporary regional art group. The people who attended loved the event. What a grand celebration to launch an exciting artistic year ahead

 

It’s my Year of Ease and Flow!

Each year I select a theme. Last year’s theme of “connection” led to wonderful new associations in my art community and excellent exposure for my work. It helped me connect more deeply to the ideas that generate my art and to the directions I’d like to take it next.

This year I am envisioning everything I desire unfolding easily and harmoniously – a wonderful flow of adventures,  accomplishments and new art projects that will flower with the same intuitive ease as buds opening and blooming.

And we’ve only just started 2011…

Hail-to-the-Old-Made-New, the Tried-and-True, the To-Be-Continued and Yet-to Be-Discovered: Part III

Kai Chan

Kai Chan, born 1940, China.

How can Canada and United States be so close geographically and somehow manage NOT to share their artist treasures internationally?? This post will introduce you, as I was three weeks ago, to Kai Chan, a Toronto-based artist also known for his sculptural jewelry and interior, exhibition and theatre design. His sculptural works utilizing everyday materials are being featured currently in an exhibition at the Textile Museum of Canada. Other exhibits of his work recently ended at Varley Art Gallery Markham and David Kaye Gallery

Mirage, 2007, silk thread, nail, 178 x 229 x2 cm. Chan explores the three dimensional qualities of thread in his fiber constructions.  

                                                                                                                                 Kai Chan, G, 2004, 211 x 442 x 4 cm, toothpick, straw, wood chip, watercolor, thread, nail.

Kai Chan, G, detail, 2004. Chan uses a jewelry drill on each toothpick to allow him to string them on lengths of thread.

The catalogue that accompanies the exhibition notes, “The toothpicks hang together like items on a list, like notes on a musical scale. The shape of the toothpick is like a brushstroke, one end being broader than the other.” (from Kai Chan, catalogue for “Rainbow Lakes”, an exhibition in 2001 at the Art Gallery of Mississauga).

Since I am beginning this year contemplating new innovations for my own work, Chan’s explorations of simple materials and processes in the works that reference language marks, list-making and scrolls are informing my own deliberations.

Hail-to-the-Old-Made-New,the Tried-and-True, the To-Be-Continued and Yet-to-Be-Discovered: Part II

The recent trip to Toronto introduced me to two Canadian artists whose work I had not seen nor read about before, Betty Goodwin and Kai Chan. Here’s an introduction to Goodwin.

Betty Goodwin

Betty Goodwin, born in Montreal, 1923 – 2008. She passed away three weeks after the death of her husband Martin, to whom she had been married for over 60 years.

Betty Goodwin’s work appeared at AGO in the “At Work” exhibit along with Eva Hesse and Agnes Martin. Goodwin, who passed away in 2008, had an extensive collection of sketchbooks and notebooks, which have been donated to the museum along with 200 of the artist’s works. Approximately 100 sketchbooks, carefully opened and placed under glass, were on view during the exhibition.

These were the focal point of her exhibition. Only four of her actual pieces graced the walls of the gallery. It seems that Betty carried her sketchbooks with her constantly, jotting down ideas and insights over the entire span of her 50+ year career as a working artist.

While I looked forward to savoring Agnes’ works and Eva’s test pieces more closely, the introduction to Betty’s work and ideas was an unexpected surprise. I had never heard of her before.

Born and raised in Montreal, Goodwin’s body of work included printmaking, paintings and drawings, sculpture, installation and mixed media works. She was primarily a self-taught artist.

An accompanying video interview with the artist was part of the exhibition and provided a wonderful background on both her life and the inspirations for her subject matter.

Betty Goodwin, “Parceled Vest One” and “Tarpaulin Two”

Many of Goodwin’s most famous works involved depictions of cloth and textiles – including her celebrated Vest and Tarpaulin series – that although discarded objects, still feel hauntingly human. During this time she printed vests, gloves, shirts, gloves and parcels.

A later series, Swimmers, focuses on drawn and painted figures that appear to be lifelessly adrift or drowning. In the video interview, Goodwin explained that her husband nearly drowned along the Greek coast during a vacation there. Even though he was saved by a passerby who heard her screaming for help on shore, the traumatic experience drew her to paint a compelling series.

One of Goodwin’s large scale “Swimmers”, worked on numerous pieces of overlapped and attached  pieces of paper.

Please visit http://www.artseditor.com/html/features/0209_goodwin.shtml

or

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/864577--betty-goodwin-the-great

for more in-depth articles about Betty Goodwin’s work or purchase The Art of Betty Goodwin at amazon.com.

Next: Kai Chan

Hail to the Old-Made-New, the Tried-and-True, the To-Be-C0ntinued and Yet-To-Be-Discovered: Part One

What better way to close out 2010 than to enjoy a post-Christmas jaunt to Toronto? We headed out December 27 – a pleasant four-hour drive --  and spent three nights and four wonderful days absorbing culture and excellent food.

I visited the Art Gallery of Ontario for the first time since it was renovated (by architect Frank Gehry) and spent most of a day there absorbing two exhibits, “The Shape of Anxiety: Henry Moore in the 1930’s” and “At Work: Betty Goodwin Work Notes, Eva Hesse Studiowork, Agnes Martin Work Ethic”. A partial view of the front of the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Accompanying documentary videos brought these artists to life and provided great insights into their processes, studio practices and personal philosophies as makers.

The “AT WORK” exhibition featured Agnes Martin’s “The Islands”, a monumental series of 12 paintings on loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art, which were accompanied by pieces from the AGO’s permanent collection. 

AGNES MARTIN

This was the first time in many years that I had the opportunity to view such a large number of pieces of Agnes’ work together and to appreciate the subtle shifts from piece to piece.

I have great respect for Martin, for her philosophy as much as for her work. She left NYC at the peak of her career, built a house with her own hands on the northern New Mexican desert and spent the rest of her life painting each and every day in solitude.  I consider her a great role model for both her devoted work ethic and for the deep listening to her internal compass that guided her art making and life choices.

EVA HESSE

Eva Hesse dazzles the imagination with her stellar productivity and accomplishments over the brief span of her life. Eva was born into a Jewish family in Hamburg, Germany in 1936 and emigrated with her family to New York City to flee the Nazis in 1939. Her mother committed suicide when she was 10 years old.

Eva died of brain cancer at the age of 34, but in the decade-plus that she did produce work, she was highly productive; her passion for exploration with latex, fiberglass and plastics is evidenced in both the “test pieces” and larger-scale sculptural works that were exhibited at AGO.

My interest in Eva and her work began when I read an except of a letter sent to her by Sol Lewitt, who was a close friend of hers. Let me conclude this post by including the entire text of it here. As artists, I’m sure we can relate to the sentiments and concerns that it addresses.

Dear Eva,

It will be almost a month since you wrote to me and you have possibly forgotten your state of mind (I doubt it though). You seem the same as always, and being you, hate every minute of it. Don’t! Learn to say “Fuck You” to the world once in a while. You have every right to. Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, grasping, confusing, itchin, scratching, mumbling, bumbling, grumbling, humbling, stumbling, numbling, rumbling, gambling, tumbling, scumbling, scrambling, hitching, hatching, bitching, moaning, groaning, honing, boning, horse-shitting, hair-splitting, nit-picking, piss-trickling, nose sticking, ass-gouging, eyeball-poking, finger-pointing, alleyway-sneaking, long waiting, small stepping, evil-eyeing, back-scratching, searching, perching, besmirching, grinding, grinding, grinding away at yourself. Stop it and just DO!

From your description, and from what I know of your previous work and you [sic] ability; the work you are doing sounds very good “Drawing-clean-clear but crazy like machines, larger and bolder… real nonsense.” That sounds fine, wonderful – real nonsense. Do more. More nonsensical, more crazy, more machines, more breasts, penises, cunts, whatever – make them abound with nonsense. Try and tickle something inside you, your “weird humor.” You belong in the most secret part of you. Don’t worry about cool, make your own uncool. Make your own, your own world. If you fear, make it work for you – draw & paint your fear and anxiety. And stop worrying about big, deep things such as “to decide on a purpose and way of life, a consistant [sic] approach to even some impossible end or even an imagined end” You must practice being stupid, dumb, unthinking, empty. Then you will be able to DO!

I have much confidence in you and even though you are tormenting yourself, the work you do is very good. Try to do some BAD work – the worst you can think of and see what happens but mainly relax and let everything go to hell – you are not responsible for the world – you are only responsible for your work – so DO IT. And don’t think that your work has to conform to any preconceived form, idea or flavor. It can be anything you want it to be. But if life would be easier for you if you stopped working – then stop. Don’t punish yourself. However, I think that it is so deeply engrained in you that it would be easier to DO!

It seems I do understand your attitude somewhat, anyway, because I go through a similar process every so often. I have an “Agonizing Reappraisal” of my work and change everything as much as possible = and hate everything I’ve done, and try to do something entirely different and better. Maybe that kind of process is necessary to me, pushing me on and on. The feeling that I can do better than that shit I just did. Maybe you need your agony to accomplish what you do. And maybe it goads you on to do better. But it is very painful I know. It would be better if you had the confidence just to do the stuff and not even think about it. Can’t you leave the “world” and “ART” alone and also quit fondling your ego. I know that you (or anyone) can only work so much and the rest of the time you are left with your thoughts. But when you work or before your work you have to empty you [sic] mind and concentrate on what you are doing. After you do something it is done and that’s that. After a while you can see some are better than others but also you can see what direction you are going. I’m sure you know all that. You also must know that you don’t have to justify your work – not even to yourself. Well, you know I admire your work greatly and can’t understand why you are so bothered by it. But you can see the next ones and I can’t. You also must believe in your ability. I think you do. So try the most outrageous things you can – shock yourself. You have at your power the ability to do anything.

I would like to see your work and will have to be content to wait until Aug or Sept. I have seen photos of some of Tom’s new things at Lucy’s. They are impressive – especially the ones with the more rigorous form: the simpler ones. I guess he’ll send some more later on. Let me know how the shows are going and that kind of stuff.

My work has changed since you left and it is much better. I will be having a show May 4 -9 at the Daniels Gallery 17 E 64yh St (where Emmerich was), I wish you could be there. Much love to you both.

Sol

What better inspiration to kick off the New Year?!?

Next: Betty Goodwin