William Kentridge

Went to a lecture given by the South African artist William Kentridge at Cooper Union's Great Hall last night, took some notes. Here are a few Kentridge gems:

-Kentridge's own term for his rudimentary stop-motion animation technique is "Stone Age Filmmaking."

-Kentridge is attempting to make work that reminds us "what it is we do when we see."

-"An artist talking about philosophy is like a drunk going on and on about a theory."

-The concept of mistranslation: things that get lost lost as images are transferred and shared...it's about the gaps, the things that go wrong...our memory.

-Goal: to make an image that is elusive of rational explanation.

-"Like connoisseurship, both forensics and psychoanalysis rely on the details as the key to solve problems."

-"Masks actually do not work as expected: instead of focusing on the mask, we focus on the movements of the body around the mask."

-"Holding onto possibilities even if they can't or won't seem to be is what gives us hope in the world."

-"It's not fair for artists to blame bad work on theory that came first."

Learning Curve

So I've been told that the quality of my scans is poor, and that the scans are not doing justice to the actual drawings...poorly representing them and all that. I have also noticed this myself...but, for now, my focus is on pumping out these drawings, and my hope is that my scanning skills will improve as I go. Hopefully I will have a bit of a chance this Sunday to put a little more time and love into the technological side of this Daily Drawing Project, and I'll jump up really high on that scanning learning curve! We can only hope...
It's nice to have a project.

Oldie but Goodie

Well, now that I've figured out how to use the scanner function on my Epson NX400 (so easy! I had just never tried before), there is no stopping me, kids. I'm going scan-crazy. Now if only I had Photoshop on my laptop...
This image is a gouache drawing I did in early 2006, from a series based on words I grabbed out of Margaret Atwood's The Tent.

Going crazy, time to sketch...

I think it's just been too long since I've put pen or pencil to sketch paper or bristol board or rag paper or...anything! So, until I de-crazify, I think some sketching is in order. No agenda intended. Here's the first two minutes of my efforts (the 80s music station is playing in the background in the other room).

Parsons rally

Today I took an hour off from work to participate in a rally at the New School University. (I took many photos of the rally on my cell phone, but I still have not acquired the necessary cable to connect my phone to my computer...so, no photos for the blog yet, unfortunately.)

I earned my MFA in Visual Arts at Parsons, a division of the New School, five years ago. This year has seen much upheaval at Parsons. The new chairperson, Coco Fusco, is extremely unpopular with the faculty, who feel greatly disrespected and often ignored by Ms. Fusco. Unrest in the department reached a climax just before Spring Break, when 12 faculty members, some who had been teaching at Parsons as many as 34 years, received notification via email that they would not be teaching their classes in the coming semester. The fact that this email was sent from Ms. Fusco did not help the situation.

I don't mean to put all the blame on Coco Fusco here. For all I know she is just a mouthpiece for the administration. The bigger targets seem to be New School President Bob Kerrey and the Parsons Dean and Provost, who seem to be on a mission to completely change the nature of the Fine Arts department by morphing it into a design and business oriented program. Parsons faculty, students, and alumni fear that, ultimately, an object-making curriculum, and the physical graduate studio spaces that go with it, will be done away with.

Part-time faculty Peter Drake (with whom I had a year-long course in my second year at Parsons) and Laurence Hegarty have spearheaded a lot of the faculty resistance effort. Their actions have been covered by several news sources, including the New York Times:

Parsons Faculty is Cut Amid Protests by Artists

The Parsons faculty has been having trouble with the New School administration ever since they first organized and secured a hard-won union for adjunct faculty (the lifeblood of most New School departments). See this 2004 Village Voice article as reference:

New School's Labor War

The hurdles these faculty have had to deal with seem extremely ridiculous when one considers that the New School was founded in the middle of the last century quite specifically as a liberal, progressive institution.

So, I've written emails to the New School administration as a concerned Parsons alumna, and I went to the rally outside the main administration building today.

The rally was energized, and also peaceful. Police put up barricades to control the flow of pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk around the rally, but there were zero altercations. Faculty and students just wanted their voices to be heard. I was so glad to be there, surrounded by my former classmates and teachers, among many others (the organizers estimated the turnout to be around 300+). Even in these troubling times at the New School, I found myself proud to be an alumna, because being a graduate of the Fine Arts program meant I was affiliated with that entire creative community - and today I was reminded how powerful it can feel to be a member of a community. I felt revved up, and inspired to create more.

I want to thank the organizers of the rally today for a wonderful event - I hope that today's rally, and continued action, leads to greater transparency in the New School administration and greater communication with the Parsons faculty.

art school = waste of time?

I used to spend more time than I do now wondering whether my years as a graduate art student were a creative and financial waste of time. But once in a while I read something that gets those thoughts stirring in my head again.

I completed my MFA in Fine Arts in 2004, and I'm currently looking forward to paying off the loans I took out for this degree for the next 25 years or so. (Hm, hopefully not that long...c'mon lotto! Big money! No whammies!)

In the couple years after I graduated, as I slowly accepted the fact that loan repayment was to be my new constant companion, I doubted many times whether the financial investment was worth it. I rarely make (visual) art now, and I have no desire to teach art at a college level (this was the goal of many of my classmates, as the MFA is the terminal degree in the field and required for nearly any teaching position). I could not afford even to work in a (generally not monetarily awesome) field related to visual art, as it was crucial that I start making significant money immediately to pay back Uncle Sam.

Well, I'd had such thoughts clear from my head for some time, but they were just reactivated tonight by an article by Dave Hickey in the March 2009 issue of Art in America: "Revision Number Six: Addictions." (Note: I do not understand the meaning of this title - perhaps if I'd been reading Art in America regularly I'd know what the heck this title is all about?) (Also note: I've always enjoyed Dave Hickey's writing - I think he has an intelligent unique voice, and he doesn't apologize for going against the grain once in a while).

Anyhoo...in this article, Hickey argues that no school program can create an artist (you either are one or you're not) and that school can in fact damage artists.
These are arguments that I've heard, and contemplated, before. I believe there's some truth to these arguments.

On the other hand, I can also readily see some benefits of art school. The most glaring benefit, in my mind, is the opportunity to build a professional network. You could be an amazing artist, but if you don't know other artists or know people who can help get your work seen by others, what's the point?
Building a community of colleagues is also important, I think, as an emotional support system during the periods of self doubt that plague absolutely every artist I know.

It is because of the benefits of building a community of fellow artists that I am contemplating returning to school for an MFA in creative writing...but that's a topic for another post...

Cartooning is a beautiful art form.

Last Friday I went to a joint talk by Chris Ware and Marjane Satrapi, moderated by Françoise Mouly (New Yorker art director, wife of Art Spiegelman, etc). The talk was a free event of N.Y.U.'s Festival of New French Writing. I regret that I could not attend so many of the Festival's talks, but I am so glad I was able to catch this one at least.

I first started to become aware of Ware (har har) in 2002, when he was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial for Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth. I was blown away by the incredible detail, and at the same time simplicity, evident in his work. The sheer number of hours that must've gone into production of this book-length comic (graphic novel?)...it was the only kind of artwork that seemed to not only engage me but give me the urge to run home and work on something myself. I love art with that effect.

As much as I find myself more and more interested in comics as an art form, I was still not aware of Satrapi, until Friday night. This despite the fact that the movie version of her book Persepolis had been nominated for an Oscar. (Certain parts of my pop culture knowledge simply have big gaping holes - I've come to accept this).

Anyway...I just wanted to say thank you to NYU for bringing Satrapi to my attention through this joint lecture series. It was such a treat to watch both her and Ware talk about their work. They're both excellent artists who work in the same genre but in totally different styles, and it was amazing to see comics taken so seriously by two such different personalities. Satrapi was full of energy and endlessly quotable, and Ware was, like the characters in his comics, endlessly apologizing for existing. Totally fascinating.

books on writing

I have been writing a LOT recently (really, I have - just not on this blog).
I am having a blast discovering my apparent passion for writing, and I am also reading more than ever, devouring books.

One thing I've noticed is that there are tons of books out there ABOUT writing: books about finding your voice, books about honing your craft, books about getting published. I started to think that absolutely everyone must want to be a writer, for there to be so many books out there on the subject of writing.

But then I thought: perhaps it makes sense that there are so many books on writing. After all, writers write, and one area that all writers have some level of knowledge about is...writing. So perhaps many authors feel inclined to pen a book on their craft.
There are plenty of books out there about pursuing art, music, etc...but books on writing outnumber them all.
Naturally - if you are a writer, you write...if you are an artist or musician, maybe you write, and maybe you don't, but the pool of authors for books in those fields must be considerably smaller than it is for writing.

This post officially wins the award for most frequent use of the word writing.

Late Bloomers

I've been in a bit of a creative funk lately. Creative block, maybe? Creative hiatus? Creative laziness?

In any case, I haven't been making things like I've wanted to (this includes music, writing, art, etc), and I've been worried that I'm spinning my wheels yet again, succumbing to the mild depression that has reared its head in my life ever since high school.

Today I got a nice creative kick in the butt by having tea with one of my ex-professors-turned-friends. Just getting out of the house and talking to someone who has taught me about art and who still believes in my ability to do something significant was pretty inspiring.

So I went right out and purchased myself a mic stand, which I've been meaning to do for months, went home and recorded rough demos of two songs I wrote in August. It's amazing how much easier my life feels all of a sudden with a cheap $40 boom microphone stand.
Sometimes, you just gotta spend a few bucks and do something simple to get the ball rolling.
I now feel like I am prepared to record new ideas anytime they come to me, which is very liberating.

And just to seal my improved outlook this evening...I received the latest issue of New Yorker magazine in my mailbox today, and in the issue was an article called "Late Bloomers (Why do we equate genius with precocity?)," which I just finished reading.

Malcolm Gladwell, the article's author, presents a theory on creative people that was developed by David Galenson, an economist at the University of Chicago. Galenson had come to the conclusion, through his research, that creative people can be divided into two types:
1) prodigies, who produce their best work early in their career and tend to be "conceptual"
2) late bloomers, who are "experimental" and produce their best work only after years and maybe decades of work

Anyhoo... it was liberating to read this article, and somehow made me feel a bit less like I've been flailing around for the past ten years, somehow wasting my time.
I have a lot of work to do, creatively, but I feel hopeful, which is an important step towards moving forward.
I highly recommend the article.

I have a new life motto...

...and it is:

"If you don't have to work tomorrow, then fuck with your neurons."

(My previous life motto, for those keeping track, was "Get the fuck over yourself." It seems I have a penchant for including the word "fuck" in my life mottos. Sorry, Mom.)

Anyhoo...

I realize my new life motto could be interpreted in any number of ways, depending on one's preferred method of fucking with one's neurons. In my case, this evening, I preferred an entirely wholesome, nerdy, intellectual approach to my motto.

I got it into my head, during a brief phone call with my dear buddy Beth, that it would be a good idea to whip out some of the art criticism I haven't glanced at since grad school, to give it another go. My brain is a bit out of practice, art-criticism-apprehension-wise, and I thought it might be illuminating to revisit some stuff I haven't thought about in years, to see if my accumulated experience since grad school has provided me with new and/or improved methods of understanding (others') ideas.

I was a bit scared to open up the cobwebs of my art brain, but then I thought, "Hey, fuck it. I have the day off tomorrow...and I can choose to stay up late trying to understand cryptic art critical text all I wanna. Yeah!"
Party. Fucking with my neurons.

Hence, my new life motto.

And I *did* go through some old photocopied handouts from grad school for my possible reading pleasure, and I settled on "Grids" by Rosalind Krauss, from her collection of essays The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths.

Yep.

It was a tiny bit of a struggle to get through the entire text, but I tried not to let small moments of incomprehension stop me from plowing through til the end. I was helped along by a glass of red wine. Fuck those neurons.

One day late

I have had computer trouble at home, and so I have not been keeping up with posts as I'd like...

But I do want to write a little post acknowledging the passing of another September 11, even if the post is a day late.

(By the way, my sister wrote a very thoughtful 9/11 piece on her own blog. Please note - the Catherine she refers to in her posts is not myself but my 2 1/2 year-old niece).

So, last year, I think partly because I was in the middle of some life changes, September 11 hit me a little harder than usual. In 2001, I watched the towers burn and fall from my rooftop in Park Slope, Brooklyn. In 2007, I found myself thinking about the changes in my life over those past six years, and I had an urge to call the people I loved, just to say "I love you." I was thankful that I had a few people on that list.

This year, the date September 11 did not affect my day or my feelings too much, though I did start my day by listening to some memorial coverage on WNYC.
At the end of the day, though, I did have a moment of reflection. Last evening the weather was beautiful, just the hint of a cool Fall night, so I snuck up onto my roof to enjoy the air. I had totally forgotten about the Twin Towers of Light, which I could clearly see from my rooftop, shooting out the bottom of the Manhattan island. Those light towers might just be my favorite public art of all time. They're beautiful and simple and perfect, and I was glad to have that moment to stand on my roof alone, to take a pause to remember.

Regarding my sister's second query...

Dana Gioia, chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts, was on my local NPR station, WNYC, today. I thought the interview by Brian Lehrer was pretty interesting. You can find the interview halfway down this page and listen to it online.

Live Through This

My friend Sabrina Chapadjiev has been working her butt off for at least the past year getting this amazing book together, and it's finally done. I went to one of the reading release parties here in New York a few days ago, and the presentations by contributors Cristy C. Road, Nicole Blackman, Fly, Silas Howard, and Bonfire Madigan Shive were just amazing. Do yourself a favor and check this out:
Live Through This: On Creativity and Self-Destruction.

Here is a quote from the back of the book jacket (which, by the way, includes endorsements by Janeane Garofalo, Lydia Lunch, and Sara Quin of Tegan and Sara, among others):
"...(Live Through This) is a collection of original stories, essays, artwork and photography. It explores the use of art to survive abuse, incest, madness and depression, and the often deep-seated impulse toward self-destruction including cutting, eating disorders and addiction..."

Full list of contributors: Nan Goldin, Patricia Smith, bell hooks, Eileen Myles, Inga M. Muscio, Diane DiMassa, Fly, Cristy C. Road, Annie Sprinkle, Elizabeth Stephens, Nicole Blackman, Stephanie Howell, Daphne Gottlieb, Carolyn Gage, Carol Queen, Anonymous, Kate Bornstein, Silas Howard, Toni Blackman, and Bonfire Madigan Shive.

I am so proud of my friend and so thankful she has put this amazing book out into the world.

art + fashion

It had been quite some time since I'd splurged on a copy of the Sunday New York Times. As the price of the paper has steadily risen ($4.00 for Sunday alone!), I've become a regular online reader.

But there ain't nothing like a leisurely day off with the Sunday paper spread before me, so I decided to splurge yesterday and buy myself a copy. Also, the magazine section was taking the art world as its focus this week, and this intrigued me.

Ah, the "art world." It's like people who are involved with art live on a different planet...hmmm...

So there was one photo spread in the magazine called Hang Time with which I have some beef. It features nine young art handlers (in their 20s and 30s, I think) who install work in New York galleries and museums, including the New Museum, Matthew Marks Gallery, and John Connelly Presents. All of these real-life "models" are dressed in work clothes - if work clothes mean things like $2,245 Prada jumpsuits. Ummm...

Some of these art handlers are artists themselves, not too far out of art school, working as art handlers to pay the bills (some of which surely include hefty art school student loans, I am guessing). Can they afford these clothes? Do they work in these clothes? Even lounge around in these clothes? Doubtful, I'd say.

I know that a big dose of fashion's appeal is its fantasy aspect - the promise of a better life through better clothes - but I think that this particular fashion spread is perpetuating some myths about what it's really like for many folks in the "art world." I am sure plenty of folks in the land of art can afford these clothes, but it sure ain't the guys doing all the grunt work.

(Update: found a nice little interview on the New York Times online that expanded the story nicely).

art?

I rarely enjoy discussing art much anymore. I rarely go to see art much anymore. My art viewing excursions have waxed and waned since I went to art school...mostly they've waned. Yes, I blame art school.

Perhaps I just didn't have the temperament for it, perhaps somewhere inside myself I hate art just a little bit, but, in any case, so much discussion of art and meaning for two straight years in intimate settings with a limited number of people left me running and screaming when the whole thing was over.

Today, however, I broke my art avoidance habit and went to see some work in the galleries of Chelsea. I generally dislike Chelsea (so far away from the train, so much bad, overpriced art), but sometimes I stumble upon a show there that leaves me with food for thought and makes the trip worthwhile. Plus, I found out that one of my favorite professors from school, Nayland Blake, had a solo show up that would be closing on March 8, 2008. So I made my way to the western edge of Manhattan...

Nayland's show made me miss my regular studio visits with him. He was one person at my school with whom I never tired of discussing art. This is probably because Nayland believes that other sources of inspiration (music, writing, etc) are just as if not more important to the creation of new work than other visual art is. He was also suspicious, I remember, of the usefulness of a formal art education. I respected that, even though I was going into massive debt receiving my own formal art education.

I only visited galleries on West 24th Street today - there's so much jammed into that one block between 10th and 11th Avenues that continuing on to other streets ends up overloading me with too much visual data.

I'm glad I went to Chelsea today. More often, recently, I find myself having the urge to start drawing again (I've all but given up making artwork in favor of writing and music in the last couple years). Perhaps, with baby steps like the one I made today in visiting a few galleries, art and I can become friends again.

The Gift

I am happily in the middle of reading several books right now. In one book in particular, I am making extremely slow progress. This is because I come across a thought every few pages that gets me contemplating my approach to my own creative pursuits. The book I am referring to is the 25th anniversary edition of The Gift by Lewis Hyde.

I knew nothing about this book or its cult following when I bought it. I was simply shopping for a gift certificate Christmas present in my local independent bookstore in December when, as usual, I found myself drawn to the table of new paperbacks. It is very difficult for me to resist the urge to buy a book in a good bookstore. For this reason, Strand bookstore in New York is a dangerously tempting place for me to enter.

I think it's too early in my reading of The Gift to give a thorough review of it, so for now I will say that I am intermittently enjoying it greatly and will provide a link to some other folks' thoughts on the book:
Re-Gifting by Dwight Garner in the New York Times Online

Why did I pick up this book and buy it, with no prior knowledge of its existence? I couldn't resist the praise on its cover, including Margaret Atwood's assessment that The Gift is "The best book I know of for talented but unacknowledged creators. A masterpiece."

(p.s.: My apologies for the lack of proper italics in this post - I am having difficulties with my Safari browser.)