Thursday, October 29, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Artist Statement
Through my work I interrogate the “I”; within and outside of language, with my limitations, potential, barriers. I shuffle furniture within, let dust settle, play/draw with that dust, sweep it up out of sight (seemingly), and shuffle some more, always unsettling.
Dialogue starts the process, whether with theory or individuals. I ask the other, “What do you need? What is essential to you?” and reflect upon my own needs, desires. I look. I see the marks on the wall, the previous hand’s spackle, the gritted tape applied in such and such a gesture. I see the evergreen, the bursting of its bark as it fills more and more of his form. I see my reflection, my shadow, at times attached to my daughter’s hand, at moments without. I observe others’ creative process; in frustration, gentleness, peacefulness, rage-fullness, purposeful. I discuss this process, with professors, friends, artists, mothers, children, lover, Montessori teachers, the women working the cash register, every day.
In current work, Body Form, I move, photographing the movement, printing it in its stillness on paper, cutting out the silhouette, (finding my boundary), a representation of me in paper doll cutout. I cut ‘me’ out, in order to give myself more space, in any space. This does not work, as the gesture is forced. But the cutting “me” out works on many levels; I use the negative image. For now, I fill the form with what feels more like me than the superficial image. I play. I sense I need to break the silhouette, blur my boundary, my form not just to reform but to metamorphose. I am and continue to be in process.
Dialogue starts the process, whether with theory or individuals. I ask the other, “What do you need? What is essential to you?” and reflect upon my own needs, desires. I look. I see the marks on the wall, the previous hand’s spackle, the gritted tape applied in such and such a gesture. I see the evergreen, the bursting of its bark as it fills more and more of his form. I see my reflection, my shadow, at times attached to my daughter’s hand, at moments without. I observe others’ creative process; in frustration, gentleness, peacefulness, rage-fullness, purposeful. I discuss this process, with professors, friends, artists, mothers, children, lover, Montessori teachers, the women working the cash register, every day.
In current work, Body Form, I move, photographing the movement, printing it in its stillness on paper, cutting out the silhouette, (finding my boundary), a representation of me in paper doll cutout. I cut ‘me’ out, in order to give myself more space, in any space. This does not work, as the gesture is forced. But the cutting “me” out works on many levels; I use the negative image. For now, I fill the form with what feels more like me than the superficial image. I play. I sense I need to break the silhouette, blur my boundary, my form not just to reform but to metamorphose. I am and continue to be in process.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Done/Beginning
(with the physical)
HCG levels are at -2.
(emotional... will post tomorrow)
There is an importance in texture and color representing my insides.
HCG levels are at -2.
(emotional... will post tomorrow)
There is an importance in texture and color representing my insides.
Artist statement rough draft
There is a lot here, and many concepts that need to be consolidated, but this is what I have been working on:
My work is about facilitating contemplative spaces within the context of everyday life.
I am interested in revealing a common thread between meditative practice and everyday actions.
Working with repetition as an aspect of meditative practice, collaborating with other artists to question ideas of authorship, and illuminating the presence of absence to speak about tragedy and loss, have been predominant choices in my work. From paintings that refer to fragile layers of the human psyche, to using Morse code to translate text into highly ornamental installations, I am interested in re-thinking notions of the Everyday as it exists in relation to spirituality.
Employing a wide array of media allows me to investigate this relationship in different ways. It is my intention to work with the delicate nature of human relationships, and the transient nature of human existence. This inquiry is made visible by a painting; participating in a public cleaning performance may bring more awareness to those aspects of human nature which we tend to overlook.
As an example, the beaded installations I create, or Conscious Objects, are three-dimensional drawings that can also be worn. They are Morse code translations of poems and texts that highlight repetitive daily activities typically associated with domestic work. The nature of the chosen texts is reflected in each piece’s construction – cyclical, at times arduous – to underscore the interconnection between meditation and daily life.
This is also reflected in my paintings and performance work. I work together with another artist, and created an ongoing project called “Meaning Cleaning”, which performs public cleanings as a way to take responsibility for shared environments, cleanse spaces of past experiences, and also to play with social codes and notions of what is acceptable public behavior. Our actions attempt to activate spaces by taking responsibility for a common ground and a shared history; our focus as artists is the space that is created to allow for more natural communication of passersby. Although we work on the foundation beneath our feet, it is the dynamic that is created that reminds us of our interconnection.
Through experiences of travel, I have been able to process more extensively how my work can comment on, embrace, and transform the inherited stains of the past. Being outside of known structures has afforded me the space to become more aware to a greater scope of human suffering. The fundamental elements of Meaning Cleaning were literally laid out on the studio floor at a residency in Tuscany, Italy: my task of keeping a communal area clean quickly became my artwork and subsequently helped me remove the separation in my mind between art and everyday life. In a cultural exchange workshop in Cape Town, South Africa, I was able to recognize my own marginal ways of thinking and reflect on the choice to transform personal trauma into a more universal compassion against the inequalities of human justice. Drawing from personal experience, I attempt to confront and transform my own notions of perceived vulnerability with grace, beauty, dignity, and compassion.
My work is about facilitating contemplative spaces within the context of everyday life.
I am interested in revealing a common thread between meditative practice and everyday actions.
Working with repetition as an aspect of meditative practice, collaborating with other artists to question ideas of authorship, and illuminating the presence of absence to speak about tragedy and loss, have been predominant choices in my work. From paintings that refer to fragile layers of the human psyche, to using Morse code to translate text into highly ornamental installations, I am interested in re-thinking notions of the Everyday as it exists in relation to spirituality.
Employing a wide array of media allows me to investigate this relationship in different ways. It is my intention to work with the delicate nature of human relationships, and the transient nature of human existence. This inquiry is made visible by a painting; participating in a public cleaning performance may bring more awareness to those aspects of human nature which we tend to overlook.
As an example, the beaded installations I create, or Conscious Objects, are three-dimensional drawings that can also be worn. They are Morse code translations of poems and texts that highlight repetitive daily activities typically associated with domestic work. The nature of the chosen texts is reflected in each piece’s construction – cyclical, at times arduous – to underscore the interconnection between meditation and daily life.
This is also reflected in my paintings and performance work. I work together with another artist, and created an ongoing project called “Meaning Cleaning”, which performs public cleanings as a way to take responsibility for shared environments, cleanse spaces of past experiences, and also to play with social codes and notions of what is acceptable public behavior. Our actions attempt to activate spaces by taking responsibility for a common ground and a shared history; our focus as artists is the space that is created to allow for more natural communication of passersby. Although we work on the foundation beneath our feet, it is the dynamic that is created that reminds us of our interconnection.
Through experiences of travel, I have been able to process more extensively how my work can comment on, embrace, and transform the inherited stains of the past. Being outside of known structures has afforded me the space to become more aware to a greater scope of human suffering. The fundamental elements of Meaning Cleaning were literally laid out on the studio floor at a residency in Tuscany, Italy: my task of keeping a communal area clean quickly became my artwork and subsequently helped me remove the separation in my mind between art and everyday life. In a cultural exchange workshop in Cape Town, South Africa, I was able to recognize my own marginal ways of thinking and reflect on the choice to transform personal trauma into a more universal compassion against the inequalities of human justice. Drawing from personal experience, I attempt to confront and transform my own notions of perceived vulnerability with grace, beauty, dignity, and compassion.
September/October work
I am getting my work shot later on today.
Thought I would post them here in progress/process:
Alter/Altar
Oil on Canvas
5' x 6'
I walked by this alter every morning on the way to studio. It was in a precarious state of falling over, but was still standing. I think this resembles one's own mental and physical state from time to time...
Little Bits of Domesticity
Oil on Canvas
5'x 6'
This larger work is based on a collage I did in 2005. Everything thrown up in the air, suspended, existing in the same space
Mothers and Daugthers
Oil on Canvas
44" x 42" each panel
This is the first painting I started when I got back from the Spiritual course this summer.
As I get older, I begin to think of the changing nature of my relationship with my mother. Will I become a parent and make the same choices? This piece begins to reveal the fragility of perceived vulnerability.
West Side piers
Oil on Canvas
32" x 48"
The piers on the west side of Manhattan burned down in the summer of 1977, but have never been removed completely. This is a sketch to work with the memory of destruction, the presence of absence, and a change of perspective (literal and metaphoric)
Sky sketch
Oil on paper
18" x 24"
Painting sketch for potential new (but old) series: daily meditation as sky painting. We'll see...
Thought I would post them here in progress/process:
Alter/Altar
Oil on Canvas
5' x 6'
I walked by this alter every morning on the way to studio. It was in a precarious state of falling over, but was still standing. I think this resembles one's own mental and physical state from time to time...
Little Bits of Domesticity
Oil on Canvas
5'x 6'
This larger work is based on a collage I did in 2005. Everything thrown up in the air, suspended, existing in the same space
Mothers and Daugthers
Oil on Canvas
44" x 42" each panel
This is the first painting I started when I got back from the Spiritual course this summer.
As I get older, I begin to think of the changing nature of my relationship with my mother. Will I become a parent and make the same choices? This piece begins to reveal the fragility of perceived vulnerability.
West Side piers
Oil on Canvas
32" x 48"
The piers on the west side of Manhattan burned down in the summer of 1977, but have never been removed completely. This is a sketch to work with the memory of destruction, the presence of absence, and a change of perspective (literal and metaphoric)
Sky sketch
Oil on paper
18" x 24"
Painting sketch for potential new (but old) series: daily meditation as sky painting. We'll see...
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
(a) If revolution - in other words, the radical transformation of society- cannot have as its goal and end either faster growth or a mere change of political personnel, it can only have as its goal and end the transformation of daily life.
(b) As has already been established on many occasions, this implies not zero growth or reduced growth, but different growth - that is to say, qualitative development, and hence a greater complexity, not a simplification, of social relations.
(c) This equally implies a different way of living, extending to the creation of a new social space, a different social time; the creation of a different mode of existence of social relations and different situations, liberated from models that reproduce the existing order.
(d) This also assumes a different form of thought, to be defined later. Let me say straight away: to be defined while taking account of the negative. The project is thus not to know or recognize daily life, in order to accept or affirm it as such in the name of positive knowledge, but on the contrary, to create it by controlling its ambiguity. Thus the project no longer consists in unfolding daily life to disclose what is concealed in it (first version of the Critique); or in an effort to transcend it (second version), but in a metamorphosis through action and works - hence through thought, poetry, love. Once we have obtained knowledge of it and defined it, we must leave it without hesitation before the risk we face: the risk of involvement. Daily life is simultaneously the arena and the total stake.
Excerpt taken from Henri Lefebvre's Conclusion of the 3rd volume of Critique of Everyday Life
(b) As has already been established on many occasions, this implies not zero growth or reduced growth, but different growth - that is to say, qualitative development, and hence a greater complexity, not a simplification, of social relations.
(c) This equally implies a different way of living, extending to the creation of a new social space, a different social time; the creation of a different mode of existence of social relations and different situations, liberated from models that reproduce the existing order.
(d) This also assumes a different form of thought, to be defined later. Let me say straight away: to be defined while taking account of the negative. The project is thus not to know or recognize daily life, in order to accept or affirm it as such in the name of positive knowledge, but on the contrary, to create it by controlling its ambiguity. Thus the project no longer consists in unfolding daily life to disclose what is concealed in it (first version of the Critique); or in an effort to transcend it (second version), but in a metamorphosis through action and works - hence through thought, poetry, love. Once we have obtained knowledge of it and defined it, we must leave it without hesitation before the risk we face: the risk of involvement. Daily life is simultaneously the arena and the total stake.
Excerpt taken from Henri Lefebvre's Conclusion of the 3rd volume of Critique of Everyday Life
Monday, October 5, 2009
October
Thinking of you, Tereza, and also my thoughts surround the transient nature of life.
I sit on an aero bed, in another temporary apartment, before launching into the world for the day - to transport my paintings and begin work on new ones today. This new environment is nice and quiet - we're in Jackson Heights until we leave for the Bay Area in two weeks.
I'll post some images of works in progress shortly.
My thoughts to you
x
A
I sit on an aero bed, in another temporary apartment, before launching into the world for the day - to transport my paintings and begin work on new ones today. This new environment is nice and quiet - we're in Jackson Heights until we leave for the Bay Area in two weeks.
I'll post some images of works in progress shortly.
My thoughts to you
x
A
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Not the right medium for this piece. The work reflects and is intertwined with the process. It is within this process that this series needs to exist, right now. (I can see down the line painting the series but this is not what the work is about currently). The work is about surrendering and at the same time finding strength. The medium is the juxtaposition between the strength in/of the body and the complete surrender to its being institutionalized (hospitalized). I need to play a lot and process the past few months.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
project
· Main Entry: 1mo·bile
Thinking of the toy on top of the hospital bed. Making a mobile, balancing my paper form (body) with other people’s bodies, animals, plants, objects. The work is in the movement through the interaction of air/atmosphere/context- being mobile.
· Pronunciation: \ˈmō-bəl, -ˌbī-əl also -ˌbēl\
· Function: adjective
· Etymology: Middle English mobyll, from Anglo-French moble, from Latin mobilis, from movēre to move
· Date: 15th century
1 : capable of moving or being moved : movable
2 a : changeable in appearance, mood, or purposeb : adaptable, versatile
3 : migratory
· migratory; "a restless mobile society"; "the nomadic habits of the Bedouins"; "believed the profession of a peregrine typist would have a happy ...
· moving or capable of moving readily (especially from place to place); "a mobile missile system"; "the tongue is...the most mobile articulator"
· a river in southwestern Alabama; flows into Mobile Bay
· having transportation available
· capable of changing quickly from one state or condition to another; "a highly mobile face"
· sculpture suspended in midair whose delicately balanced parts can be set in motion by air currents
· fluid: affording change (especially in social status); "Britain is not a truly fluid society"; "upwardly mobile"
Tending to travel and relocate frequently: a restless, mobile society.
mobile
adj. moveable, portable, flowing freely; changing quickly, changeable; of services provided from a vehicle n. decorative structure made with delicate objects that are strung in balance on rods and are sensitive to the breeze or light touch; decorative structure made of plastic toys that is hung over a crib as an amusement for babies;
Thinking of the toy on top of the hospital bed. Making a mobile, balancing my paper form (body) with other people’s bodies, animals, plants, objects. The work is in the movement through the interaction of air/atmosphere/context- being mobile.
· Pronunciation: \ˈmō-bəl, -ˌbī-əl also -ˌbēl\
· Function: adjective
· Etymology: Middle English mobyll, from Anglo-French moble, from Latin mobilis, from movēre to move
· Date: 15th century
1 : capable of moving or being moved : movable
2 a : changeable in appearance, mood, or purpose
3 : migratory
· migratory; "a restless mobile society"; "the nomadic habits of the Bedouins"; "believed the profession of a peregrine typist would have a happy ...
· moving or capable of moving readily (especially from place to place); "a mobile missile system"; "the tongue is...the most mobile articulator"
· a river in southwestern Alabama; flows into Mobile Bay
· having transportation available
· capable of changing quickly from one state or condition to another; "a highly mobile face"
· sculpture suspended in midair whose delicately balanced parts can be set in motion by air currents
· fluid: affording change (especially in social status); "Britain is not a truly fluid society"; "upwardly mobile"
Tending to travel and relocate frequently: a restless, mobile society.
mobile
adj. moveable, portable, flowing freely; changing quickly, changeable; of services provided from a vehicle n. decorative structure made with delicate objects that are strung in balance on rods and are sensitive to the breeze or light touch; decorative structure made of plastic toys that is hung over a crib as an amusement for babies;
Monday, September 14, 2009
thinking about the blue of distance
desire and distance
"We treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to acquire it rather than on the nature and the sensation of desire, though often it is the distance between us and the object of desire that fills the space in between with the blue of longing. I wonder sometimes whether with a slight adjustment of perspective it could be cherished as a sensation on its own terms, since it is inherent to the human condition as blue is to distance? If you can look across the distance without wanting to close it up, if you can own your longing in the same way that you own the beauty of that blue that can never be possessed? For something of this longing will, like the blue of distance, only be relocated, not assuaged, by acquisition and arrival, just as the mountains cease to be blue when you arrive among them and the blue instead tints the next beyond. Somewhere in this is the mystery of why tragedies are more beautiful than comedies and why we take a huge pleasure in the sadness of certain songs and stories. Something is always far away.
The mystic Simone Weil wrote to a friend on another continent, "Let us love this distance, which is thoroughly woven with friendship, since those who do not love each other are not separated." For Weil, love is the atmosphere that fills and colors the distance between herself and her friend. Even when that friend arrives on the doorstep, something remains impossibly remote: when you step forward to embrace them your arms are wrapped around mystery, around the unknowable, around that which cannot be possessed. The far seeps in even to the nearest. After all we hardly know our own depth."
(from Rebecca Solnit's, A Field Guide to Getting Lost)
"We treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to acquire it rather than on the nature and the sensation of desire, though often it is the distance between us and the object of desire that fills the space in between with the blue of longing. I wonder sometimes whether with a slight adjustment of perspective it could be cherished as a sensation on its own terms, since it is inherent to the human condition as blue is to distance? If you can look across the distance without wanting to close it up, if you can own your longing in the same way that you own the beauty of that blue that can never be possessed? For something of this longing will, like the blue of distance, only be relocated, not assuaged, by acquisition and arrival, just as the mountains cease to be blue when you arrive among them and the blue instead tints the next beyond. Somewhere in this is the mystery of why tragedies are more beautiful than comedies and why we take a huge pleasure in the sadness of certain songs and stories. Something is always far away.
The mystic Simone Weil wrote to a friend on another continent, "Let us love this distance, which is thoroughly woven with friendship, since those who do not love each other are not separated." For Weil, love is the atmosphere that fills and colors the distance between herself and her friend. Even when that friend arrives on the doorstep, something remains impossibly remote: when you step forward to embrace them your arms are wrapped around mystery, around the unknowable, around that which cannot be possessed. The far seeps in even to the nearest. After all we hardly know our own depth."
(from Rebecca Solnit's, A Field Guide to Getting Lost)
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
This month has been so much about the body within. Representing it outwardly, I both did not have the energy for and the tools at the time. (For example, I was not remembering the camera on the way to the ER.)
Words became the platform, however, recently, I have managed a few videos and stills- it is a growing need and doable now that I feel better. Coming soon...
Words became the platform, however, recently, I have managed a few videos and stills- it is a growing need and doable now that I feel better. Coming soon...
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
more moving pictures
Hi Tereza,
Have you been able to think in pictures during this time in your life?
It may help you re-pair - and communicate in new ways with yourself and with others.
Recently, I have heard that the hand is the seismograph for the soul -
x
Have you been able to think in pictures during this time in your life?
It may help you re-pair - and communicate in new ways with yourself and with others.
Recently, I have heard that the hand is the seismograph for the soul -
x
lunch
Honey/sesame covered cashews
Crackers (2)
½ cup of pear sauce
Pieces of olive bread dipped in hummus
Renew tea
Stick of good chocolate
End right before fullness
Drink more tea
Invite kitten to lap
Crackers (2)
½ cup of pear sauce
Pieces of olive bread dipped in hummus
Renew tea
Stick of good chocolate
End right before fullness
Drink more tea
Invite kitten to lap
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