Spirituality and Synthesis

I have always viewed my thesis project as the culmination of my undergraduate experience. The most important things I have discovered as a Rutgers student, besides becoming an art student, are my eclectic spirituality and my involvement in the local Ar nDraiocht Fein Druid grove, the Grove of the Other Gods. This group and my continually evolving world view have been my support all through college, while practicing art has been a way of exploring these new ideas. So, my thesis will be about synthesis: the synthesis of my art and spirituality; the synthesis of elder symbols and my personal iconography; the synthesis of the painted image with other media; the synthesis of ideas, customs, and gods from various cultures into my personal world view.

The first of these syntheses I wish to explain is my personal world view, which has a pluralist philosophy. This is explained by the founder of Ar nDraiocht Fein, Isaac Bonewits, in his book Real Energy. Bonewits describes his ideas of dueling paradigms; dualism, polarism, and pluralism. Dualism, the worldview of Christianity and science, categorizes the world into two halves with a brick wall between them: true/false, right/wrong, good/evil. Polarism, the view of Tao, seeks to balance everything with its opposite. Pluralism, the view of ancient and modern Paganism, accepts that the world is, “ complex and multifaceted, with simple answers being treated only as shorthand for complicated issues,” (Bonewits, 10). Instead of trying to force things into artificial, man-made categories, I can say, “Huh, that's interesting, lets see how it fits in with everything else I've learned,”Bonewits, 11). Into my personal worldview, I have fit spiritual entities and ideas from Celtic, Norse, Greek, Native American, and Hindu cultures. The symbols that come with these cultural elements have also worked their way into my life and my art.

I have blended the symbols and language of the cultures I am interested in with my symbols and those of ADF Druidry. My mental library includes animal symbolism, geometric signs and diagrams, language, and text. By text I mean different writing systems such as Ogham (Celtic writing) Runes (Norse), Hieroglyphs (Egyptian), Greek, and Sanskrit (Hindu). In past works, my strongest and most reoccurring icon has been the horse, which spans many different cultures and represents may different things including fertility, status, physical power, freedom, sovereignty, travel, speed, and even death. To me, it is a messenger and guide from the spiritual realms. I would like to create a more definite language for the rest of my symbols to use in my thesis paintings and possible prints. This will take a great deal of introspection, possibly to the level of Matthew Mullican, who is obsessed with categorizing and defining his levels of reality, and the objects in them. However, I do not feel as though my symbolism should be fixed, but fluid and flexible. That goes for media as well as images.

My personal visual language extends beyond painted images and symbols and into the materials I use. My interest in representative materials came from the German artist Joseph Beuys as well as ancient ritual tools and African art. Beuys had his own history and mythology of being rescued by natives after a plane crash, and the materials he used thereafter related back to that story. His works almost always included fat and/or felt, which the natives had wrapped him in to keep him warm. For example, his installation “The Pack” included a group of sleds emerging from a Volkswagen bus, each carrying, “felt for warmth, fat for nourishment, and a flashlight to find the way,” (Fineberg, 235). In the past, I have experimented with putting wire, tin foil, sewing, beadwork, and paper onto the canvas. I will continue experimenting with new materials such as stained glass, mirrors, and “proper” embroidery. I would like to try and assign them loose meanings, and synthesize as many of them as will work into a cohesive whole. The mixed media I would like to investigate will also play with the physical planes of the canvas. Some materials will be behind the canvas, with holes cut to reveal them. Some materials will be fused into the canvas, some on the surface, and some in front. The synthesis of very different materials is a parallel to my synthesis of ideas and symbols. The levels in which they reside on the canvas may reflect introspection, levels of consciousness, or even a gateway between the physical and spiritual realms. If it is the latter, one side of the canvas may be the physical realm, and the other side the spiritual, and the canvas or hole in the canvas the gate.

But what should I write about with this visual language? I choose its main source. I would like to create work about my experiences in Grove of the other Gods. While I am not a medium, I would like to think that as an artist, I play a similar role. Hilma af Klint, one of the first abstract painters, was a spiritualist medium who ran her own séance group called “The Five”. During their sessions, Klint would take notes and sketches, then would later transfer these messages from the spirits onto canvas. I would like to do something similar with Grove of the Other Gods' rituals; translate the messages we get. The most recent ritual was Samhain (Halloween, October 31st). The next two before the spring exhibition are Yule (Winter Solstice December 21st), and Imbolc (Candle mass for Catholics, February 2^nd). All of these elements will be synthesized into my painting to produce a coherent, and probably over-the-top whole. I will use an invented visual language of symbols and materials to convey my experiences in Druidic ritual.

Annotated Bibliography

Bain, George. Celtic Art, The Methods of Construction. New York, NY: Dover

Publications Inc., 1973.

This book gives instructions on the construction of Celtic knot work and lettering. This will be useful as I may include some Celt inspired stylization in my paintings.

Ben, Wallace. "Navajo Sand Paintings". Penfield Gallery of Indian Arts. 08 November

2009 .

This is a very brief article on Navajo sand painting, outlining several very important points about their meaning and use.

Bonewits, Isaac. Bonewits’s Essential Guide to Druidism. New York, NY: Citadel Press,

2006.

Bonewits’s Essential Guide to Druidism is a complete history of Druidry, from what is known from ancient times to Druids in the present day. It also includes current customs, holidays, and rituals from various Druid organizations. These holidays, beliefs, rituals, and magical practices provide the essential theme and subject matter of my work.

Bonewits, Isaac, and Phaedra Bonewits. Real Energy. Franklin Lakes, NJ: New Page

Books, 2007.

Real Energy by Isaac and Phaedra Bonewits expounds and unites both scientific and mystic theories and applications of energy. The book was written under the eyes of physicists Dr. York Dobyns of the “Physics Police” and Dr. Bill Seligman.

Damh the Bard. "The Hills They Are Hollow.". Caer Bryn Music, 2003.

Damh the Bard is a Druid musician and storyteller. This particular song is about some of the more beautiful (and fanciful) aspects of the path. Also, has the line "Some people don't understand when I say, these are the things I believe," which could not be more true.

De Zegher, Catherine, Hendel Teicher, and et al. 3 X Abstraction: New Methods

of Drawing by Hilma af Klint, Emma Kunz, and Agnes Martin. New Haven, CT:

Yale University press, 2005.

Hilma af Klint was a Swedish painter and spiritual medium. These two practices were inseparably linked. During meetings of her spiritualist séance group, “The Five”, in which she was leader and medium, she took notes and sketches, messages from the spirits that later became her paintings. I have included this book from an exhibition of the same title, because I feel that I play a similar role in my own work. I am interested in the artist as a vessel. Many of my paintings are a direct reaction to the Druid rituals I attend. I include my new knowledge and messages from the kindred (ancestors, nature spirits, and deities) from each ritual into its corresponding piece.

Ellison, Robert Lee. The Solitary Druid, Walking the Path of Wisdom and Spirit. New York, NY: Citadel Press, 2005.

Both Isaac Bonewits and Rev. Robert Lee (Skip) Ellison write on the subject of modern Druidry. Whereas Bonewits’s work is an historical documentary, the tone of Ellison’s book is more instructional. Because of this, the two books compliment each other.

Fineberg, Jonathan. Art Since 1940, Strategies of Being. 2nd. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000. Print.

Jonathan Fineberg’s book is a detailed record of major artists and movements from the Abstract Expressionists up to the present day. It includes several artists whose work is influential to mine, including Jackson Pollock, Joseph Beuys, Lee Mullican, Max Ernst, Rene Magritte, and Matthew Barney.

Gardner, Helen. Art Through the Ages. 12th. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2005.

Gardner’s Art through the Ages is a major chronicle of art history. The specific chapters under examination for this project include information about the art of ancient cultures around the globe and early medieval European art. I am interested in how these ancient cultures used their art object during religious ceremonies, not just as art in and of itself, but also as important tools and offerings.

Kandinsky, Wassily, and M.T.H. Sadler. Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications Inc., 1977.

My main interest in this work is in Kandinsky’s theory of how colors produce a dual reaction in people, in both the aesthetic and spiritual levels.

Annotated Images

The White Horse of Uffington

The white horse of Uffington is one of many chalk figures found carved into the hills of the British Isles. They are a few of the remaining ancient Celtic monuments.

Navajo creating a sand painting

Navajo sand paintings were originally meant to be done as temporary pieces for specific rituals. The Navajo word for these works literally means, “place where the gods come and go,”(Ben, 1). They were meat to be invitations to the spirits, to be destroyed after the ritual was over. Today, however, to preserve their culture, the Navajo are making permanent ones, but changing the patterns somewhat so that their ritual secrets are not revealed.

“Horse Startled by a Lion” by George Stubbs

This painting represents the level of realism I aim for when rendering animals (most of the time). The horse in this painting also shows strong emotion and energy.

“How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hair”, by Joseph Beuys

This performance was generally about how useless it is to explain art, and how it should appeal directly to the irrational side of our minds. In it he covers himself in certain materials for no other reason than their personal meaning to him. Each represents part of the message he is trying to convey. For example, he had two of these materials tied to his shoes, steel to represent hard reason, and felt to represent spiritual warmth.

“The Pack” by Joseph Beuys

This installation by Beuys was about survival. Each of the 20 sleds emerging from the Volkswagen bus carries felt for warmth, fat for nutrition, and a flashlight to find the way. (Fineberg, 235). Each material had a specific meaning which conveyed the overall truth of the piece.

“Canyon” by Robert Rauschenberg

The surface of “Canyon” has many layers of images on it. I am interested in how Rauschenberg juxtaposed paint over newspaper and family photographs, and his exploration of space in front of the canvas by the bird, and below the canvas, by the pillow.

From the series S.U.W./Swan, by Hilma af Klint

This painting was derived from one of Klint’s séance sessions with her group, The Five. I am intrigued by her (or her spirit guide’s) use of animal imagery in the midst of a great deal of abstraction.

“Group 10, Altar builder No 1” by Hilma af Klint

This is another painting from Klint’s séance notebooks. This time, the image is completely geometric with an emphasis on expressive colors.

“Untitled 2009” “Untitled” 2008 and “Untitled 2007” by Jack Parra

These automatic drawings by Jack Parra were done as ritual offering to Brighid, the Celtic goddess of inspiration, during our Imbolc rituals of the last three years. This is a similar process to what Hilma af Klint does, and what I would like to do in the upcoming rituals.

Artist Statement

Kerry Mairie Scott

“Where the Spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art”

–Leonardo da Vinci

My spirit is in my work. I treat each painting as a religious experience. My step-by-step approach is the ritual, a planned celebration of an ideal. The subject matter must be important to me and clearly stated. Why hold a ritual if I do not know or care what it is about? My spirituality is expressed not only in process and subject, but also in materials. My views on nature and the spirit realm are eclectic. I borrow bits and pieces from different cultures and religions and combine them into a harmony that helps me to understand and interpret the world. So, to parallel that, my paintings are often done with mixed media; oil, acrylic, spray paint, thread, beads, and wire put together into a cohesive whole. I am interested in both the physical properties of these materials and that which they represent in my world. Therefore, I have to manipulate them with my own hands to be between the media and the expression. I am the mediator, negotiator, synchronizer, and originator. I am the gate.

Let the gates be open.

Relevant: Reflection Reformation Revival: Rethinking Contemporary Native American Art

The Relevant show on display at the Natham Cumings Foundation is comprised of American Indian artists of different tribal lineages who are living in New York City. The aim of this show is to update and advance the viewers' ideas on contemporary Native American art and dispel the stereotypes. This is accomplished by dividing the exhibition into three sections, hece the title "Reflection, Reformation, Revival".
Reflection: This first section features painters Mercedes Bell and Pena Bonita, and sculptor Diane Schenandoah. These three artists feature the traditional myths and symbolic themes of their respective tribes in such a way that they may be reexamined and better understood by an outsider's eyes.
Reformation: This next section features painters Yakita Starr Fields and Jason Martinez, videographer Jeffrey Gibson, and photographer/printmaker Jason Lujan. Their work expresses mainstream society's effect on traditional culture and vice versa, using more cotemporary processes such as video and photography.
Revival: The third and final part of the exhibition displays work by painters Vernon B. Bigman and Mario Martinez, Sculptor Jude Norris, and an installation/scultpture by Lorenzo Clayton and Jacob Burckhardt.
The curation of this exhibition is confusing. Instead of a gallery setting, the Relevant show is displayed in the Nathan Cummings Foundation's office building, which unfortunately chips away at its relevance. Even though the pieces are in groups by room and are clearly labelled, they are scattered about with bookcases and smaller offices in between. Te busy atmosphere and background noise of people at work reduce some of the work, especially the traditional Reflection pieces, to an almost decorative status. In addition, the distinct order in wich the show is supposed to be viewed is skewed, so that most of the Revval work is in the forum where a guest first walks in, and Reflection is further down the hall. The curation fits around the venue, but an office is no place for this show.

On a personal note, I loved the work in this show. It is deep in the subject of identity and its conflicts and harmonies with mass culture, and it deserves a gallery setting where more people may see it. I chose this exhibition because of its themes of identity. Most of my work, not just my thesis, deals with my identity as a NeoPagan Druid, an extreme minority in a predominately Christian nation. I wanted to see how these artists expressed their beliefs and values without "illustrating" them in a stereotypical manner.

Grad Schools

These are 5 Grad schools (and one Doctorate program) that I am interested in. Rather than just using/selling art to polist my own ego, I want to use it to help troubled kids as an art therapist. Here are my top picks :

Marywood University
Master's in Art Therapy
Scranton, PA

Drexel University:HahnmannCreative Arts in Therapy Program
Master's in Art Therapy
Philadelphia, PA

Drexel University College of Nursing and Health Professions
Doctorate in Art Therapy
Philadelphia, PA

Seton Hill University
Division of Visual and Performing Arts
Master's Art Therapy
Greensburg, PA

Pratt Institute School of Art and Design
Master's in Creatice Therapy
brookville, NY

School of Visual Arts
Master's in Art Therapy
New York, NY

MFA Thesis

The MFA thesis show features some new additions to the familiar set up of the Mason Gross Gallery. The hanging walls in the main room of the gallery compliment Kristin Malkin's wall sculptures well. It enabled the viewer to look through the holes in the parallel wooden planks.
Some of the other artists had very interesting installations. Guena's amorphous life forms crept up and down the walls and floated around the viewer on wire that allowed them to rotate and be viewed from all sides. Erin Schoonebeek's paintings and prints were arranged above and below each other, with some on the floor where the floor meets the wall, which seemed a bit haphazard to me. By far the most elaborate installation belonged to Erin Dunn, with a floral environment and video, tapestry, and paintings that extended off the canvas and onto the wall of the gallery. I really think this piece should have had the room to itself, because it completely overshadowed the quieter and more plain pieces it shared the room with. It took me a long time standing in the room to even notice that there was other work in there.

Blocks of Color

The Blocks of Color: American Woodcuts from the 1890's to the present exhibition at the Zimmerli museum is curated in a more or less chronological order of techniques and movements set into definitive, subdivided corridors that guide the viewer through the timeline. In the first half of the exhibition, the two rooms are color-coded to the specific movements and techniques they exhibit; blue for the era of strong Japanese influence, and yellow for the white-line technique and the growth of abstraction in America. From there the show becomes more ecclectic and the color coding disappears as more and more movements emerge simultaneously and incorporate the medium. The ecclecticism of styles put together in this retrospective gives an awe-inspiring view of all the many different uses the same simple process can have.

I chose this exhibition for the Karen Kunc pieces displayed right next the the show's entrance. Her use of color and movement invoke a spiritual experience, an effect which I also seek to produce in my own work.

Chapter 3

* "In the 1980's, when people started to feel uncomfortable with the word avante-garde, they adopted the euphemism 'cutting edge'. Now, with emergent art, anticipation of market potential replaces vanguard experiment. And a model in which individuals surface haphazardly overthrows a linear history in which leaders advance movements." Everyone wants to be the leader now!

*"There are no prices or red dots on the wall. Such an overt gesture at commerce is considered tacky." Well duh

* "When gallerists are confident about demand for an artist's work, they wouldn't dream of surrendering it to the first comer or highest bidder. They compile a list of interested parties so they can place the work in the most prodigious home."

* Roald Dahl rocks.

* "You can't use money as an index of quality. That is a fallacy. That will drive you crazy!" I agree.

*I don't completely understand why artists avoid art fairs like the plague. I like to talk to people, and see where my work is going to go. Even when I am just selling my handmade jewelry, I'm almost a bit disappointed when one of my helpers sells something while I'm away from the table. At a picnic I went to, I saw a girl wearing a necklace that had been sold at a previous event while I had been absent. I went to talk to her and learned that the piece meant a lot to her and she wore it every day. Hearing these things help me remember why I make them in the first place, and I have a very similar attitude toward my paintings. My attitude toward art is very sentimental, but I don't view that as a bad thing, that's just how I am, It's not something that's going to change very quickly.

*"Its like a free jazz concert in here, with a drunken monkey working the mixing board." You mean like Rutgers? >__< (kidding)

Chapter 6

Just some things I jotted as I read this chapter...
* Wow, expensive statue

*"Murakami's desire to help his assistants launch their own careers is unusual. Many artists loathe losing good helpand, more important, the appearance of creative isolation is central to their credability."

*Japanese Pop art? "I used to assume that they didn't have anything substantial to offer and that their main goal was to surround themselves with fame and fortune...But Takashi's got bigger ambitions. His works are not just superficial icons. His use of parody and nonsense give a critical edge to all that spectacle and branding."

* "Unlike Warhol's Factory, where, in the words of Caroline A. Jones, women were expected to work hard for no pay, suffer beautifully, and tell all..." God what an asshole. I think Andy Warhol said, "I think everybody should like everybody" because noone liked him(as a person)..."six of the seven artists whose independent careers are promoted by Kaikai Kiki are female." Rock.

* "...he had no power to communicate in words. That is why I twist to the painting." I chose art as a way to express myself because I have far less talent with the written and spoken word. I think many feel the same way. It becomes a problem when asked to explain ourselves. That's why I made the painting or print or drawing or doodle. I'm explaining myself.

* "If I just loom at one project, then immediately get the feeling it boring." ADD much :)

* It's like video game. They have frustration with my high expectations, so when they get my 'yes' for their work, they feel they've won a level." That's awesome. My boyfriend does the same thing with his birthdays. He doesn't age, he levels up.

*"An artist is a necromancer." Can we raise Da Vinci?

*" Hiropon, figures Kanye West would like that.

* All the money and success an artist could want and he lives like a homeless person. Very married to his work. My Dad's got a work ethic like that. If he didn't have my brothers and I, it would be his life.

Josiah McElheny

Josiah McElheny's show in the Andrea Rosen Gallery featured paid homage to building and household design through the use of exacting glass reproductions and drawings. The show occupied the large main room on the gallery's first floor, which gave the five pieces, arranged one on each of the four walls and one in the center, plenty of room to breath. This spacious curation added to the artist's attitude of minimally-adorned domestic modernism.

Nature as Artifice

Aperture Galley's Nature as Artifice:New Dutch Landscape in Photography and Video Art includes eighteen artists and their individual views on the urban Dutch landscape. The exhibition was set up in a large ring around an enclosed space containing a time-lapse video. Moving around the ring I encountered brightly lit nocturnal skylines and highways, patches of farmland, pollution, and power lines. I noticed several reoccurring themes, time for example. a couple of artists included film and photographs of a specific area and how it changed over a set period. One artist recorded the growth and decay of park plants over the course of one year, while another artist photographed destruction, decay and re-growth in an urban neighborhood. Humans are not above nature. We are part of it. We just have bigger anthills.
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Side note, I absolutely loved the time-lapse photograph of the park. It's just one of those awesome things that most people are too busy to take note of. It happens around them and in front of them so slowly that the fast paced modern world forgets about it, until we have to rake leaves or shovel snow.

Barthelemy Toguo,

Toguo's show in the Robert Miller Gallery contained large watercolor paintings, photos, an installation, and a video, all grouped into the smaller rooms according to their mediums. The paintings had a technical play of freedom and control; the outlines of the figures were crisp and clean, while within the outlines the artist worked very wet and let the medium blotch and swirl and do what the water wanted. I found the images to be simultaneously playful and sinister; cartoonish creatures with vines coming from each orifice, like a disease. The installation in the back behind a thin veil hinted at secrecy and shamefulness, while the horny nuns and priests added humor. However, there was a sense of carelessness in all the pieces from small details like pencil guidelines showing from under the watercolor. Not sure if that was intentional or laziness.

Seven Days in the Art World. Chapter 2

Thoughts as I am reading this book...

* "Crits can also be painful rituals that resemble cross-examinations in which artists are forced to rationalize their work and defend themselves from a flurry of half-baked opinions that leave them feeling torn apart." Yeah that about covers it.

* Everyone who came to the crit brought some sort of activity,or pet, or pillows. How long is this crit going to be? Is everyone seriously going to be that bored? Aren't they supposed to be focusing on the work, rather than their crafts? Sort of hints at the student's relationships to each other in a critique. They are talking about one person's work, but ultimately the only ideas they care about are their own.

* "Why come to grad school? It's about paying a lot of money so you can change. Whatever you thought about how to make art is dismantled. You wobble. You don't make any sense at all. That's why you're here." Wow, good thing I've never given grad school a thought, at least not an MFA. Not really what I want.

*Haha. No one wants to define an artist. No one wants to give a definite answer and piss off someone else, or the art world is so convoluted,varied, and conceptual that no one fracking knows. Damn you Duchamp!

* "The work you do as an artist is really play, but it is play in the most serious sense. Like when a two year old discovers how to make a tower out of blocks. It is no halfhearted thing. You are materializing-taking something from the inside and putting it out into the world so you can be relieved of it."Leslie Dick. You know I think I really like this woman. This statement rings of truth and diplomacy.

*Interesting question. Should you know the artists intent before you look at a work? Read about it? ask the artist? or just take out of the piece what you see?

Many times, unless the meaning is incredibly obvious, I have no ability to pull meaning from art, especially if it's an abstract painting. If the meaning isn't shoved down the viewer's throat, I don't get it. I try to make points in my own work as clear as possible, and get comments back that its hammered. I guess I'm just not subtle.

*Holy crap how long is this crit????? This is kind of epic.

* "To get the most out of your crit you have to have a mysterious blend of complete commitment to your decisions and total openness to reconsider everything. There's no point in being too brazen."

* "MFA stands for yet another Mother-Fucking Artist" lol. crap what does BFA stand for then?

*Interesting how you can't be sure if the crit is meant to be a crit or just another of his teacher's performance pieces. He really doesn't contribute to the conversation like you think a teacher would...

An artist I adore

This is a painting by Helen Nelson-Reed, who I've had the privelidge of meeting. She works in watercolors. The mages are normally very busy with some truly beautiful color interactions.

Mabbon/ Fall Equinox 2009

Some freeform writing of a recent experience. Streaming zero punctuation style for a "text" painting. Going to swap writing between English and Runes so noone really gets what it says, enigmatic. Also going to mix up order a bit in the composition. Some of the words will be sewn. I actually can't wait to get started on this one.

Gather in the park to praise the sun and spirits of the earth welcome Earth Mother north south east west center well tree fire Gatekeeper LET THE GATES BE OPEN Welcome Muse Ancestors Nature Spirits Deities Welcome Sunmarch into the trees into the woods Up the hill up up up life all around noisy pause thistles smell good climb steep steeper almost there made it tired rest look around amazing view see New brunswick from Princeton on the ground there are seven orange and black beatles eating a shrew crawing over around into it the beatles are summer the shrew is the dark the light is not ready to die after equinox its still warm it eats away at the fall Its Indian Summer SUNWHEEL Hoola hoop with a web of yellow and orange ribbons in the middle get ready to roll it On your mark get set GO Chase it down pick it up keep it rolling keep up with the others running running galloping jumping TOO FAST Going to trip almost fall roll sunwheel down down down ground leveling slowing down falling behind everyone bottom of the hill Pond Stop Rest Stretch gather together again Thank Sun Deities Nature Spirits Ancestors Muse Gatekeeper Earthmother LET THE GATES BE CLOSED

A Bucket of Blood

I quite forgot we had to post about this...

Bucket of blood is a psychological thriller much akin to the original Wickerman with Christopher Lee. While most of the film in and of itself was more creepy than scary, it allows the viewer to think much more than recent horror movies. The film itself, about a young man so desperate to be an artist that he sinks to unthinkable lows to produce work, comments about people who take art too seriously, and for the wrong reasons. The "artist" in the film was after attention. He wanted to be an artist to gain respect and fame, not wishing to be a "nobody" for the rest of his life. His willingness to commit horrible crimes to achieve his goals criticizes artists who go to far in their attempts to shock, such as starving a dog or exploiting people they (the artist) supposedly care about.

Noooo!!! I'm diseased!!!!!

Yup. Fever, runny nose, cough, and I really sore throat, and it got really bad in the span one one night. This has just screwed everything up. My parents flipped and don't want me to go to the viewing or the funeral for my Uncle b/c they don't want me infecting the rest of the family. I don't want to get my classmates ill either.
I think I have the best friends in the history of friends. Andrew and Lindsey dropped everything this afternoon to bring me chicken soup and medicine. Camile is putting up my work for today's critique in silkscreen so that people don't think Im missing class because I didnt finish my project. I did! In fact thats what I was doing late last night when I started feeling awful. I finished my prints, went over everything with denatured alcohol to try and kill my germs, and went home. Could not get up this morning and having a hard time talking, I sound like the world's worst smoker. Steven took awesome notes and recorded the lecture for me for our Intro to Contemporary Art class this morning, which I was dreading missing b/c it is such an in-depth course. And my boyfriend still wants to come see me this weekend and be my nurse and errand-boy, which is incredibly sweet but not very smart. He's already used all of his sick time at work this year, and I dont want him to get in trouble.
Back to bed.

Robert Melee

Wow. Where do I begin with this guy. In terms of his work, my reactions were somewhat bipolar. I enjoyed the small installations relating to the home. Nostalgia combined with neuroticism and some great humor. I have an Italian Grandmother, plastic slip covers are HILARIOUS. I very much enjoyed the marbled paintings and the craftiness of his work. However, the films were inexcusable. Freud is merely a start. The films were completely sick. He described them as bonding time between him and his mother, but it really didn't seem like that to me. He said that he maybe didn't get too much attention as a child, these films to seem like more of a way of getting back at his mother. She seemed to me, besides being an incredibly patient trooper, to be a bit of an alcoholic, and someone lacking self-respect. Melee's ability to get her to do anything he wanted after plying her with alcohol really makes this look like exploitation. If he had any actual respect for her he wouldn't be having her do these things. I wanted to scream and run out of the room when he made her down that huge bottle of beer, since my Uncle Bob died of alcohol poisoning. For the second half of the video, in which she peed in the bottle, I refused to even watch. I looked at my notebook and didn't look up until the next video. I completely deny that as art. The videos unrelated to his mother, like the model screwing the watermelon, just looked like gay porn to me. It didn't help that Melee really didn't explain it much, outside of how he got the model. That story threw some doubt on his character as well, since the model's only condition was that Melee not show his (the model's) face in the film, and Melee lied and did it anyway. He really seems to have no respect for anyone. I'm going to be completely blunt here. What a selfish dick. Guy's got issues.

Alex Bag

I enjoyed the movie very much, I even watched it twice. It was illuminating to watch the art student Bag grow and mature over the course of her eight semesters, along with the humorous dreams paired with each semester that further expressed her feelings for that period of time. The film made me reflect back to my own experiences over my college career, even though my views and experiences didn't quite match up with hers. In her early years she was fully concentrated on her artwork and didn't want to bother learning anything outside of it. She had a stubborn, superior attitude, and looked down on the art students outside the BFA program who actually wanted art-related jobs they could make a living off of. In the beginning she was completely self-centered and not quite living in the real world. Over time, she really grew and realized that she had to learn new things in order for her art to grow, and that making money is not as trivial a thing as first thought. The summer when she "Worked her ass off at the most horrible jobs and had no money" was a huge reality check. By the end of the film she made some realizations that made her a wiser person; that there isn't one person who knows everything, that just because she didn't agree with a professor didn't make her stupid. She graduated a little bitter, but independent and free-thinking. The only part of the film I didn't understand was the ending. Tears and Morrissey. Grow up and move on.

New Museum Visit

May I just reiterate that I despise New York City? My group got a bit lost on Friday which resulted in an abbreviated visit to the New Museum. I have a problem with the tendons in my left foot, so after much hiking I was in quite a lot of pain when we reached the museum. However, I was there for several hours and made it to two of the three shows.

My first stop was the Emory Douglas show. Despite being very uncomfortable (and not only because of my foot) I spent quite a bit of time there. These loud, bombastic, violent, graphic, and unapologetic images were completely targeted toward grabbing the people's attention and expounding upon the goals of the Black Panthers. The strong political content of the work, combined with its curation and the documentary-style video, gave the impression of a history museum rather than an art show. I learned quite a lot of things about the Black Panthers that I didn't learn in school, but very little about the work in and of itself. There was also a great quantity of work displayed with all the same themes, which, while I was raised to be "colorblind" was quite overwhelming and disconcerting. The style and content really have't changed over the years either, I noticed several prints from 2008 that were just as violent as the ones from the civil rights movement which made me ask "Seriously? Is the situation in this country REALLY still that bad?"

David Goldblatt's show, even with the large scale of its photographs, was slightly underwhelming after Douglas' propogandic style. The photos were large but quiet and still, and showed an impressive amount of detail. Even thought the political content was still very much evident, it was more possible to appreciate the thoughtful composition than in Douglas' work. Still, two floors of these large photos was a bit too much, the message was clear after the first few. As upsetting as the plight of the people under the apartheid was, you can only look at so many photographs of barren wasteland and run down buildings, though I did enjoy the jail installation on the staircase.

I regret that at this point I really needed to get home off my foot and did not stay to see the final show, which looked to be much more playful. I may go back and see that bit next time I'm in the city, I think I'd enjoy that one a lot more.

Stick together, nomatter what, because you never know what may happen.

My Mom called me last night, after I got back from NYC. My Uncle Bob is dead. We're not sure how yet, but they think alcohol poisoning. My cousin Adam is arranging everything. He said he wants to have the viewing Wednesday afternoon/evening. I wasn't very close with my Uncle at all, but I am with Adam and he needs all of us right now. He doesn't have any brothers or sisters, and we haven't seen or heard from his Mom since we were little.
Things are a really bit mess right now. Bob was in charge of my Granny's will, which was never really sorted out properly b/c he didn't want to give things up. Her estate was to go to him and my Uncle Dave, and the rest of the money was supposed to be split between my Mom and her other two brothers and sister. Somehow Bob switched things around so that everything was included in "the estate" Long story short, everyone was really mad at him, and even my cousin Adam moved out. Their relationship was destroyed. Now this happened. We were upset, but no one wanted him dead, and Adam never got the chance to make up with him. Their last conversation was the fight when Adam moved out. I can't even imagine how he's feeling right now, and I'm not sure what to say to him other than I'll be there if he needs me. Everything else sounds shallow and forced when I think about it.

Wonderful thing t come back to after my first trip into NYC in awhile. That city is fukking cursed. Something awful happens every time I go.

*We will never forget*
*May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live"

Lets Begin

So, Ive never really kept a blog before, or really kept a livejournal, or even a real diary, so this is new. However, I've been told by many, many people that writing down w/e is bothering me or just my daily thoughts wll keep me focused and help me feel better. Its about time I listened, I'm pretty stubborn, its a Taurus thing.

Getting right to it, I've been in a prolonged state of confusion for the last 2 years at least. Just dont really get this post-modernist stuff, you know? I feel like everyone else gets it, and I just have a complete mental block. With most of the new art that we look at, I completely dont get it until someone explains what it's about. I paint because I like whatever my subject is, and I like the actions of painting, drawing, printmaking, making jewelry, do I really need more reasons than that to be an artist? I love to make things, and making money on it every once in awhile is a plus.

I'm really not out to take the Gallery scene by storm. I hate NYC. I mean really hate it, for many reasons. One of them being the rape and murder of a friend in Central Park. I feel dirty every time I go to the city. It's a dirty, loud, confusing trap. Give me quiet. Trees. Rivers. Animals. I can at least understand them, their intentions are honest and normally obvious. People aren't like that. I try to be. I'm not subtle. I'll say exactly what is on my mind. Some people seem not to like that about me. Blunt. A little like Luna Lovegood i guess, except I'm not a complete space cadet.

Really no form to this post, just putting out some of the things in my head. They need not be read if you don't want, but they're the reason why this blog is private except for you two.

*May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live.*