Macdowell Colony second post
Friday, December 5, 2014
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Thursday, May 8, 2014
What would my art look like if I had more of a Life. Confessions of a housebound artist. or How to find your Joy and change your vision.
What would my work look like if I left the house more. I am very house bound as I am raising two children and working from home and doing my art practice from a studio at home. I sometimes even use parts of our domestic landscape to make works. Mostly I use parts of other peoples homes that get sent to my home. Conversation with a friend who told me that they were going on a month long residency abroad made me wonder what would my work look like if I was not always at home. My friend replied oh that's easy you would just find those same motifs out in the world.
This was not really what I waned to hear, for a moment I had this vision that perhaps my practice was just so miserable because I am trapped and unable to work at long stretches of time without interruption. Instead I was being told that the heavy nature of my work was somehow integral to my vision. Sounds logical put that way but I was not happy. I resolved to get out of the house and use a material from outside the house in my next piece, my vision can be other than this. The thing I stumbled upon that spoke to me was a horses yoke. This is a kind or horse harness that was used before the industrial revolution to plough the fields using horses. Bizarrely as with so much of my work it starts with my Jamaican grandmother's home. She had plough horses with yolks and farmers on her table mats and a lot of that kind of nostalgic olde England imagery in her home. But this was a result as the yolk was definitely an outside thing and it smelled musty and of horse a smell I like so this was at least positive.....
When I looked at the curvature and the shape I realized I knew I wanted to deconstruct this and I knew what I wanted to reconstruct it as.
I was so disheartened to see that I had an extended metaphor for indentured labour and was again looking at work and the division human animal object.I had not been able to resist the notion of thinking of this a a kind of a furnished room and used fabrics from old chairs. Moreover the yoke is a kind of outside room a work room for the horse it encloses the horse in all sides as surely as an actual wall would although the horse has open country all around it and could easily overpower the one man that is controlling the plough. The raggedy worn vagina that resulted was a shock and really deeply upsetting I declined to show this work to anyone for weeks. A friend suggested it is really OK to show and I set about making the other 5 that felt moved to make. As a part of this challenge to get out of the house find my joy and change my vision I started working with horses. Normally a horse would cross 14 km of terrain a day. Many horses are moved just an hour or so a day for a tiny fraction of that distance. The rest of the time they spend in a box looking out. I was right back where I started. I know there are some aspect to this work that will push the rest of my practice further perhaps even into joy. I think the last work has an aspect of joy. This work lies on the floor and has a different feel from the others although it is made of the same materials.
Someone said in order to change all things you need only to change one thing. Perhaps that has happened here, and perhaps that is a key thought to keep in mind for changing your vision.
This was not really what I waned to hear, for a moment I had this vision that perhaps my practice was just so miserable because I am trapped and unable to work at long stretches of time without interruption. Instead I was being told that the heavy nature of my work was somehow integral to my vision. Sounds logical put that way but I was not happy. I resolved to get out of the house and use a material from outside the house in my next piece, my vision can be other than this. The thing I stumbled upon that spoke to me was a horses yoke. This is a kind or horse harness that was used before the industrial revolution to plough the fields using horses. Bizarrely as with so much of my work it starts with my Jamaican grandmother's home. She had plough horses with yolks and farmers on her table mats and a lot of that kind of nostalgic olde England imagery in her home. But this was a result as the yolk was definitely an outside thing and it smelled musty and of horse a smell I like so this was at least positive.....
When I looked at the curvature and the shape I realized I knew I wanted to deconstruct this and I knew what I wanted to reconstruct it as.
I was so disheartened to see that I had an extended metaphor for indentured labour and was again looking at work and the division human animal object.I had not been able to resist the notion of thinking of this a a kind of a furnished room and used fabrics from old chairs. Moreover the yoke is a kind of outside room a work room for the horse it encloses the horse in all sides as surely as an actual wall would although the horse has open country all around it and could easily overpower the one man that is controlling the plough. The raggedy worn vagina that resulted was a shock and really deeply upsetting I declined to show this work to anyone for weeks. A friend suggested it is really OK to show and I set about making the other 5 that felt moved to make. As a part of this challenge to get out of the house find my joy and change my vision I started working with horses. Normally a horse would cross 14 km of terrain a day. Many horses are moved just an hour or so a day for a tiny fraction of that distance. The rest of the time they spend in a box looking out. I was right back where I started. I know there are some aspect to this work that will push the rest of my practice further perhaps even into joy. I think the last work has an aspect of joy. This work lies on the floor and has a different feel from the others although it is made of the same materials.
Someone said in order to change all things you need only to change one thing. Perhaps that has happened here, and perhaps that is a key thought to keep in mind for changing your vision.
How to manifest new materials for your practice though friendship. or on making new speech acts or amplifying the unsaid.
Last week I visited a very talented artist , El Loko. He has mentored me before I even started on my MFA. He says less and listens and asks more and this has been very helpful. Entering his different studios in Köln has always been amazing and nothing short of inspirational. For about a year now he has been offering to give me some materials for my work.
I have not yet started painting using these pigments my last work is this:
I am really looking forward to creating some work with the pigments that El Loko has given me I do not think that I will be able to use them without thinking about his practice so I am interested to see what will emerge. Actually it will be a big jump for me in my practice to mix my own pigments. The "Absence Series" was actually predicated on using pre ordained given colours. It also used the language of public signs another given structure to speak about absences in the black community. I chose to use these given symbols and given colours because there is the assumption that they are universal symbols and colors ones that are beyond language and culture. Absence in the black community is culturally and socially situated and requires it's own symbols and colors but exists in a world in which it is mostly articulated in the language and symbols of other more politically dominant cultures. El Loko's massive vision situates himself in a universial language beyond race. Politically this is huge and I feel totally dwarfed by his works. My favorite was this piece which I would buy if I could, probably because it is a reworking of an existing symbol for Channel, this is rare as he is actually always creating new and original symbols each one unique and not repeated in any other works. Part of that work can be seen on the left of this image.
Right now I prefer sculpture using found objects. I do not feel that I can be given raw clay or raw pigment to make something that is at the behest of me, such an act is not true to the way I experience the world. I feel very comfortable with remaking what is articulating what is already there but goes unsaid. The joy in El Loko's work makes me want to do otherwise. I look forward to seeing him again when he can fit me into his busy schedule.
This is something he does for a lot of friends it is a very generous act. We all have some things in our studios that we could let go of, these materials might be a turning point for another artist but are lying idle in your studio. Why not take the courage to ask an artist friend if there is something they don't need. Why not offer something in your studio to someone else?
Right now I prefer sculpture using found objects. I do not feel that I can be given raw clay or raw pigment to make something that is at the behest of me, such an act is not true to the way I experience the world. I feel very comfortable with remaking what is articulating what is already there but goes unsaid. The joy in El Loko's work makes me want to do otherwise. I look forward to seeing him again when he can fit me into his busy schedule.
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