Saturday, May 31, 2014

list of questions (Tom Friedman from R&C's Just Form in Content)

making my way through one question at a time

trying to slow down and see possibilities within

Mother/Father
Source
I come
my mind
beats like
a restless
drum
from You
I flow
back to You
I go
teach me
what to
forget
& know.

Conrad Levasseur

Friday, May 30, 2014

Dear Sally Mann

http://sallymann.com/

I want to thank you for the inspiration from both your Family Pictures, specifically how you integrated your parenting with your art practice, something thousands of parents are struggling with currently. I also want to thank you for all your work in What Remains.

I watched my grandfather dying last year, including disturbing scenes from the hospital in the last month of his life. What Remains? is a vital question especially for Americans. That question alone rules so much our everyday life and how we live it.

Thanks for setting the precedent and paving the way for an alternate way of living!

Sincerely,

Tereza

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou died today.
Isn't it amazing that one can affect so many others through one's work?
Melancholy mixed with awe.
Makes me want to change everything and really start living.

The NPR article is here
xo

projects one and two

Project one

“He won”- and determined not to let it happen again.

223 terracotta (masks)

Communicating without features

Letting both chance as well as precision guide

(Clay surface rubbed with lead)

Inspiration Faces by Sally Mann

and Boltanski quote- 'I began to work as an artist when I began to be an adult, when I understood that my childhood was finished, and was dead. I think we all have somebody who is dead inside of us. A dead child. I remember the Little Christian that is dead inside me.

Sally Mann quote “At the heart of “What Remains” is the question of decay and, I suppose if you get right down to it that’s at the heart of any portrait as well, not just Dorian Gray’s. Perhaps the instinct to make a portrait is based on an effort to preserve a human, physical moment that, with the next 30th of a second after the shutter clicks shut, has already faded, changed and, bluntly, decomposed…”

Terracotta masks- gender neutral masks/angels to help in the afterlife of Anitra?

Taken from 2 molds-those of my father and mother

Terracotta army- for emperor- found in a tomb for help in the afterlife

Dismantling gender wars

And inspired by making 223 girls/women reappear

Project two

Delicate penis play/spiral study

“Unstick yourself”

And again “He won”- and determined not to let it happen again.

(research patriarchy and its origins)

Experiment with gauze- any material in spiral formation

Review Tom Friedman’s list in relation to these object

Friday, May 23, 2014

time to speak, connections of the day

"Her brother won."

A seesaw balanced perfectly still

Humanity in Goya

"You don't have to be in chains..."

CNN Headline by Knight

Suspect in three girl's disappearance

(multiplied seventy five times)

223

Castro suicide in prison

reminds me of Anitra's portraits of inmates and the tender care she painted them in.

Monday, May 19, 2014

Worlds Of Wonder

I forgot to add, this is the exhibition I'm in next month. It's called Worlds Of Wonder, curated by Ian Berry. At the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz.

Curated by Ian Berry

June 21–November 9, 2014
Alice and Horace Chandler and North Galleries

Opening reception: Saturday, June 21, 5–7 pm

Worlds of Wonder, the 2014 edition of the annual Hudson Valley Artists exhibition, is curated by Ian Berry, Dayton Director of the Tang Museum at Skidmore College. To what extent do science and nature, architecture, design, and history weave in and out of contemporary art making? How do artists bring together disparate elements into a singular work, or a cluster of related images or objects? Focusing on the laboratory-like  environment of the artist studio and the exploration and curiosity that is at the heart of many artistic practices, this exhibition will create its own space for discovery in unexpected places while highlighting new art from the region, paying homage to the cabinets of wonder that were precursors to museum collections.

The participating artists are: Fern T. Apfel, Gabe Brown, Loren Eiferman, Adriana Farmiga, Holly Hughes, Kay Kenny, Mison Kim, Mike McGregor, Reuben Moore, Douglas Navarra, Stephen Niccolls, Caitlin Parker, Sean Sullivan, Judy Thomas, Linda Stillman, and Angela Voulgarelis.

The Hudson Valley Artists exhibition is open to all emerging and mid-career artists with a permanent mailing address and active art practice in Columbia, Dutchess, Greene, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster, and Westchester counties who have not had a major one-person museum exhibition and who do not have an exclusive contract with a commercial gallery. Students are not eligible. This is the sixth year that the Hudson Valley Artists Annual Purchase Award of $3,000 will be used to acquire one or more artworks from the exhibition for the museum's permanent collection. This Purchase Award is made possible through the Alice and Horace Chandler Art Acquisition Fund.

thinking

Thinking about how to speak, what I want to say
how to write
what atmosphere to write with
what I'm actually doing
I've always done the same thing

looking at Eva Hesse - she defied description or categorization.
Agnes Martin too.
And Mona Hatoum gets to go whatever she wants, and it's stunning and shocking and cruel and cutting.

Feminism
Minimalism
Conceptual art
Repetition
Daily life
Our interpretation of Heaven and Earth - both illusions, both reflecting themselves through us
Anger and Stillness
Anger and Anger
Stillness and Stillness
Personal biography
Intuition
I want to read all the time

It's time to begin again

Dearest Tereza,
Thank you for the invitation - I gladly accept to participate in the virtual residency.
I am sorry I have been away for seemingly so long.
I've felt shy.
I haven't felt like I've had much to offer, other than being a bit of voyeur.

I've felt tongue-tied, image-tied, and mentally paralyzed.
What I think, I can't say
What I say, I don't really mean
What I think I want to make, doesn't appear
I don't recognize what I'm doing.
There are infinite options, which tend to leave me with nowhere to go.
Or so I think.

The simple task of starting does, at times, overwhelm me.
I can help others sorting our their problemi, but have a lot of trouble asking for help with mine.
I'll ask you here, after I post some images of recent work.

I'm getting stage-fright. I have an upcoming show at a (local) University. It's not a big deal in the general sense, but it's a big deal for me. I feel supported by family, also in the general sense, but still feel like I'm being indulgent by working on the piece during "work hours" (day time). The partner and I have taken on too much domestic stuff, and we're finishing up a year-long renovation -which we tackled with a budget that no one could work with, and pulled out a miracle. He gets mad when things don't "finish" or "wrap up" in a timely way. I agree, but feel so scattered when I'm forced into a process that heralds product over process. It becomes overwhelming. I don't feel like I can ask for time. I feel selfish. I'm working on a piece that addresses that. That's another story. I want to contribute to a more peaceful co-existence.

Your residency seems like such a lovely invitation.
Thank you for that -
xo
Angela

notes from the early morning dark

Virtual Residency Invitation- Attend the residency with me through virtual means for the month of June.

I invite you to make a mark daily that represents you as a (m)other/artist- any art on the theme of birth and death is appropriate. In relation to another

-By invitation only

In a moment of a break

A (seeming) interruption

There is room to contemplate

What one is actually doing and why

(Is that the right mark for that time.)

A child, a fly, a ghost, a sound (any unknown entity)

Comes precisely to shake up our (societal) ground and reevaluates all our doing

I have become (through parenting, eating, through relating with mom, our cat, spouse, grandmother, friend) a more focused practitioner of my art.

I love listening to my family breathe early in the morning, their rhythm synchronized. (the unspoken communication.)

Virtual Residency

-for artists with children (and others in relation)

Goal: How: to parent and keep artist-self intact

To break gender roles

Anything is possible

Set up a space/studio where coexistence is possible

Understand Montessori’s “Absorbent Mind” set up a prepared environment

(respect every being large and small)

Don’t label “child” or even “Jonas, Ali, Oomy, Violet, Alessanro, Zaphyr-lily..."

Let them show you who they are without the label (Observe)

They are extraordinary,

We are extraordinary.

Create the mark you need in the moment you have.

We don’t have time, lucky for us, time does not (have to) exist

A moment here and there- a recipe for creation

Be aware of breath

(know that what you need, you already have!)

Give yourself a gift of supplies

Give yourself a gift of time (both are already with you)

(arrange for a loved one- there are many folks who adore your child already- to care for your child throughout the day. Spouses are ideal as they get the benefit of a more intimate relationship with offspring.)

Communicate your mark, sound, color to others

(Baby,child is invited to be anyone they need to be throughout your residency.)

I want to blow this notion of “peace and quiet” to smithereens. The baby wants peace and quiet to rest, the child wants peace and quiet to read. The lack of peace and quiet are not created by the child. (He/she may have to scream over societal

noise to be heard once in a while.)

It is in the child’s response to a chaotic/unstructured/unnatural environment, that does not fit their natural parameters.

Throw the laundry into the air,

See where it lands!

It is important to set and understand parameters (like a Montessori environment, with child in mind,) So that one is then allowed to move/dance freely.)

Clear yourself a space

Ask yourself what baggage do you bring to this space?

Respect your process

With (parenting/any) interruptions

That your situation brings

Friday, May 16, 2014

reading from today and a month ago

Cast Hexagram:

56 - Fifty-Six

Lu / The Wanderer

Fire on the Mountain, catastrophic to man, a passing annoyance to the Mountain:
The Superior Person waits for wisdom and clarity before exacting Justice, then lets no protest sway him.

Find satisfaction in small gains.
To move constantly forward is good fortune to a Wanderer.

SITUATION ANALYSIS:

You are a stranger to this situation.
It is your attraction to the exotic that has led you here, but you will move on to a new vista when this one has lost its mystique.
Because much of this environment is foreign to you, you must exercise only the best judgement.
You don't know the custom here, and it's too easy to cross a line you don't know is there.
Because you are the foreigner in this setting, you have no history to acquit you.
Watch, listen, study, contemplate, then step lightly but decisively on.

Hexagram Fifty-Six/Line Three:

The traveler causes a fire that burns down the inn.
He loses the trust of his servant and traveling companions.

Danger.

Hexagram Fifty-Six/Line Five:

The traveler kills a pheasant with his first shot.
For the price of one arrow, he has bought himself praise and high office.

Hexagram Fifty-Six/Line Four:

Taking shelter in an abandoned cabin, the traveler finds his stolen belongings beside a razor-sharp axe.
What should be delight freezes to dread.

Hexagram Fifty-Six/Line One:

A traveler with petty complaints and too many demands soon wears out his welcome.

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Novelty Soap

In response to being the first artist/child dyad at the VSC residency in 38 years I carved my mother's "Novelty Soaps" into portraits inspired by Mary Kelly. Participants were asked to wash their hands in exchange for a dialogue/images about their process of erasure.