Experience Music Project

reading about sexuality and space

the whole space was unreadable from any given perspective

both cement as well as wood flowed

the experience within produced similar, curvilinear flow

In the last four hours I just applied to the Bemis Center for a residency in 2011.
Heard about it last night at around 11pm.
I love following through on things like this.
We board for New York on Monday.
Dinner tonight with workshoppers in Oakland
x

impermanence

( arranged sticks in winter sun)

Memory

Last night I saw a documentary about Los Diaparacidos - the Argentinian generation who the government "disappeared" in 1977-1978. More than 30,000 people died, have never been found. Thrown out of planes, shot at close range, tortured. Erased. It was a difficult film to sit through, but I am glad I went.

A few minutes before the film began, I got a call from my mother telling me that another of our relatives, Elizabeth, had just died. This news came a week after she told me her cousin Dallas died of stomach cancer.

It was interesting timing - the news of this new death, and the film I was about to see.
I was thankful the lights in the theatre began to lower so I wouldn't have to talk about anything at that moment.

There has always been a lot of death in my life.
I began thinking about how I could express my experiences with it in my work.
I have had this thought for years now, and never knew how to begin.
What medium?
What images?
Why would I want to unravel the past?
And again "What is the stain of memory?"

During the film, my thoughts went to the Argentinian artist who painted the portraits of the disaparacidos with water on a cement sidewalk on a hot day. As soon as the portrait had been painted, the sun had evaporated the water. Countless faces were painted, and erased.

Erasure.
Memory
Carrying on
Enduring
Forgetting
Remembrance.

I thought about how the passage of sun over paper weathers it; how "archival" is so important in most aspects of fine art.
But what if the traces of sunlight over a page does exactly what it is intended to do - to fade, to stain, to remove...?
I thought about tracing light over a surface of a painting since last summer, but now it's evolved into more of a concise desire.

My cousin Dennis died in the World Trade Center.
Lisa Steinberg died when I was 11.
AIDS started to kill people in Chelsea and the Village when I was 7. No one knew what it was, or what was happening.
The first AIDS quilt was only one piece in Central Park on the Great Lawn. I walked around the whole thing with my mother and remember how quiet the park felt that day.
Today there are thousands of quilts of equal size all around the world. It could never be in one piece in one place again.

Etan has still never been found.
Nixmary Brown died a few years ago.
Schlomeit.
Wil Sudo
Maribel Garcia
Roxanna Rose Mennella.
died of unnatural causes, or by their own hand. The frequency of deaths in my life increased in high school - the class before mine was cursed: 5 deaths in 4 years. Fiona Pechukas and I rode the train together often after school. I skipped the turnstile when I went to her funeral in Brooklyn.
Uncle John
Uncle Richard
Grandpa Joe
Aunt Marie
Uncle Frank
My father's father Athanasious died when I was 13.
Many people died on Sept. 11. I saw their faces on "missing person" posters on chain link fences all over the city.
100,000 people just died or are waiting to die in Haiti.

New Orleans.
Iraq
Iran

I found a way to begin to communicate all I have to say about this - about death.
Not just how death has affected my life, but how to begin to expand it outward - to include my story in a more universal story.

A friend just pointed out that the painting at the top of this post was my angle of the twin towers when they fell.
She was right, and when I heard that I almost started to cry because I did not realize that before today. But it is true.

applications, applications, applications

I've been applying for the past two months, one each week.

Repetitive, continuous.

New Hampshire, Hartford, Calgary, Colorado, and state colleges all around Washington.

It is like sowing seeds, but not nearly as freeing. Each packet takes sheets and sheets of paper to prepare. Each application just different enough from the other that they all need individual attention.

I always say to myself- just this last one...and then the next and the next, until hopefully at least one will bloom?

Art wise it is the same- a thousand ideas. Starting each one and seeing what germinates...

new space

A new day a new space to live in.
This week.
I am anxious; there is a knot in my stomach, and am feeling very desperate - like time is fleeting
and I'm not

getting

anything

done.

I'm broke
and have nooo direction anymore.
It has been like this since August, and yet somehow just now
is when I am feeling my most insecure.
Is this when something magical is supposed to happen?

Not sure what my artwork is about
Not sure what I represent

The sun is still shining
and with everything I have in my life
I still feel alone.
It is very quiet out and I am alone.

I'm not thinking ahead
I am not thinking behind
I am observing the fading daylight in the East Bay
and looking at the Camilia tree.

moving day

I'm moving studios and cities today - from Santa Cruz to Oakland.
It's the last leg of my California adventure before heading back to New York.
There is a lot of work to do this week, which means I'll have an income.
Relief.
I rolled the paintings
Packed up the beads
Swept
Washed and dried the sheets and towels
Vacuumed
Cleaned all the plates
Put back all the tea
cleaned out the closet
washed the windows
fluffed the pillows
put back the table
inspected the cabinets
dusted the lamp shade
replaced the toilet paper
turned off the thermostat
signed my painting
lit white sage on the mantel

Rosenclaire's exhibition

Exciting!
http://www.goodman-gallery.com

studio shots - in progress

One of the reasons I'm in Santa Cruz for the month is to work on a painting commission for a friend and patron.
The painting is of an Acacia tree - this is the progress shot, underpainting mostly.


The rest are my own sketches and thoughts.
It's really interesting to be painting again - i hope to find some more cohesion as I keep working.
There seems to be a common thread of working with notions of domesticity, a sense of place and home.

questions from Vermont

Outside play

Inside installation

Another answer

Partner got job in New York starting ... soon ?
We may be moving upstate.
Or staying in Brooklyn.
Or moving to SF temporarily.
Or to Santa Cruz.

Thinking about intention
expectation
being in the present moment
danger of identification
compassion towards myself.
I'm not pregnant.

Open Engagement no-go

Another rejection:

Dear Angela,

This year Open Engagement received nearly 300 proposals and we spent nearly two weeks thoroughly reviewing all of them. The selection committee greatly enjoyed these submissions and truly wishes that it were possible to include all of them but to do so would simply exceed our capacity. The committee was forced to make tough decisions and were unable to accommodate many esteemed and valued colleagues.
Unfortunately this year we are unable to accommodate your submission. We strongly encourage you to apply again next year. Part of the spirit of Open Engagement is being able to create an event where we can take care of all of our participants; part of that includes housing, meals, and transportation once in Portland. With that said the number of individuals we can accept is very small and we are unable to take on many proposals that we would have loved to include in this conference.
Thank you very much for your time and for sharing your work with us.
All our very best,
The Open Engagement planning committee

--
***************************
Open Engagement
Making Things
Making Things Better
Making Things Worse

May 15-17, 2010
Portland, OR

The Marks We Make

I thought the description of the current exhibition at the Goodman Gallery in Cape Town to be interesting:

‘The Marks We Make’ seeks to explore notions of mark-making as expressions of territory, violence, memory and/or play. The show will look at ways in which marks are used to claim territory, and to assert ownership, as well as the violence that often accompanies such markings. It could also look at the marks that are left behind – both physically and psychically – and the role that marks play in our personal and collective memories. Additionally, drawings often form part of a larger creative process, in which the drawing acts to inform the final work, but simultaneously exists as a work in its own right. This process is often quicker, freer, less constrained, and thus perhaps moving into the realm of play.

Meditation as Action as Drawing as Performance

Meditation action - sitting on top of Rosenclaire's "Soapboxes" in front of the South African National Gallery, Cape Town South Africa. Beading the phrase "not to speak is to speak, not to act is to act". Glass beads, silk thread.

Action in collaboration with "Strengths and Convictions" exhibition, commemorating the lives of the four South African Nobel Peace Prize laureates. November 30, 2009. Duration: 1 hour

Rest of Alphabet

cleaning hair and dust off the bathroom floor

cleaning the windowsill

clearing the crumbs from breakfast

collecting crumbs from lunch

collecting lint off darks

leftover ginger bread crumbs and sawdust

picking up a quote on scrap paper

picking up what sticks from the carpet and polishing the table

reusing a torn tea bag

rubbing dust off the stove vent

sweeping dust off the shower door

sweeping studio/garage floor

trimming dress threads and lint

wiping chalkboard dust and flour

wiping dust off the dryer

wiping dust off the fan

Open Engagement revised

draft:

To/From Mothering Alphabet project is two-fold. One to present a new alphabet, made up of 26 symbols correlating to 26 mothering sounds from labor. Each symbol would be installed in an intimate nook around the city of Portland. A correlating map would be handed out for pedestrians to walk the city as a journey down the birth canal, along the way experiencing sounds of natural labor.

The choice for particular sounds of mother in labor are; to bring the intimate space of birth into a public setting, to have a woman’s experience be heard/have a platform and to invent a new language using maternal sounds as a basis of communication. At the end of the journey the public/participant will have the option to project/exhale/moan/shout/cry their sound upon an open public space, perhaps over the Willamette River. Their sound will be recorded, continuing to build on this language.

What I am thinking about for Open Engagement

An Other Alphabet- To/From Mothering Alphabet

Performance, Presentation- Teaching the sounds of the mothering alphabet
I pick up one symbol at a time, project it through an overhead projector onto the opposite side of the installation space onto a white screen. I pronounce one letter at a time, asking the class to repeat after me. Each letter/symbol represents a sound from labor.

Meditation as Action as Drawing as Performance

November 30, 2009
Meditation as Action as Drawing as Performance
Performance on Rosenclaire's Soapboxes, in front of the South African National Gallery, in collaboration with its current exhibition Strengths and Convictions, which honors the four South African Noble Peace Prize winners.

Meditation performance creating the piece "Not To Speak Is To Speak, Not To Act Is To Act".
The intention behind the Morse code pieces has transformed from simply presenting them to performance work that incorporates the process as integral to the final object created.

This is to reveal the common threads between meditation and everyday actions.

Performance stills

video stills
Meditation performance (Meditation as Action as Drawing as Performance)
November 30, 2009
Performed on Rosenclaire's Soapboxes
South African National Gallery
Cape Town

work in progress: Open Engagement

Please let me know what you think - is it clear?
Would love some help
x

Open Engagement statement draft

For the upcoming Open Engagement, slated for May 2010, artist Angela Rose Voulgarelis proposes an interactive performance piece entitled Airing Dirty Laundry that aims to facilitate communication in new and unexpected ways.

An actual laundry line will be drawn in a public place, in front of which the artist will spend a portion of each day sitting and embroidering texts onto bed sheets – which she intends to then hang from the line at the end of each day.

Next to the artist will be a transparent ballot box, ballot cards, and pencils – this will be to exchange and collaborate with the public. Passersby will be asked to fill out the cards with the pencils provided and place them in the box. The texts from the cards will be what the artist will then embroider onto the sheets; the pencils will be offered as the exchange.

The choice to perform an everyday action in public rather than in private is in and of itself a way to intervene in space: it interrupts ideas of ‘acceptable’ civic behavior. To combine it with the playful yet thought-provoking notion of “airing dirty laundry” also aims to encourage people to share stories and life experiences they would ordinarily keep to themselves. This will, in turn, bring to light what we as a community tend to neglect: our own interconnection. Through the meditative repetition of an everyday activity, it is the intention of the artist to transform the notions of personal suffering into more universal empathy.

It would be a pleasure to perform Airing Dirty Laundry at the Open Engagement event this May 2010.

Thank you in advance for the consideration.

Insomnia

Ciao darling,
Just arrived back from Cape Town.
Insomnia has set in.
Working on Portland statement and application now.
x

HAPPY NEW DECADE

May your decade be filled with love, love from everyone around you.
May your dreams be fulfilled.
May you find delight in all that you do.
And enjoy a peaceful mind.

See you in May...

Children Speak their RIghts

South African children summarize their rights for the twentieth anniversary of the Convention of the Rights of The Child



Shot and edited by Eva Gilliam for Unicef South Africa

seeing dust

the particles we all are.

What do we define as waste? When did this definition begin? Did consumerism accelerate/generate it? What do we throw away and why?

I am seeing the waste as potential art. I love seeing dust in this way. It is like seeing the particles through the sun's rays for the first time and believing its magic.