I’ve been reading this book club blog called “The Next Chapter” since the beginning of June.  They have been reading “Wreck This journal” by Keri Smith.  In this book, people are given instructions on each page on different ways to Wreck the Journal.  I’ve been enjoying looking at the progress of peoples journals.  Some at this stage in the game (they are on week 7) have a really glorious patina and in their destruction have become works of art on their own.  Since, I have a thing for journals, I purchased this book with the intention of playing along.

My work/career path right now is SO SERIOUS.  It takes a lot to give myself permission to just screw around in the studio.  So not only does it feel strange to be so awful to this book (some of the things they suggest you do is smear pages with dirt, chew on the pages, etc.), but it also feels strange to share things that I’ve done to this book, because my efforts aren’t… serious.

I’ve moved into my new studio this past week.  This is my first day off from work, teaching, or moving since the beginning of June.  I’ve been keeping a mental sketchbook of what I want to work on this past month and a half.  After a month an a half of not physically working on my art, I have a huge list.

When I walked into my studio this morning, ready to get to work, I of course, felt totally overwhelmed.  I noticed this book on my desk and decided to crack this book open today and started dabbling through the pages.

I worked on the book for about an hour.  I found myself feeling limited, which surprised me.  This book tells you what to do on each page, and I kept finding myself thinking, “But I want to do this instead” or “I’ll start with this ‘instruction’ but then I’ll embellish it”.

While working I was reminded of a practice that I used to do in my studio:  The first thing I would do after walking into my studio, would be to pull out a piece of paper and just mindlessly watercolor for a half hour.  By the time I felt done with it, I would have a new idea, or a struggle with a current project would seem more clear.  Sometime this process would help me remember what I was working on the day before, or would help me make a decision to get some new work started.  The act of getting my hand moving made the transition from home to work easier.

The thing I like about what is happening with this book is I’m not creating art pieces.  When I’m working on watercolors, I still have a dialog in my head about whether or not what I’m working on will be any good.  I’m still judging.  With this book I found myself trying to solve problems with the tasks presented to me, and looking for new avenues, with but had no intention of making an “art piece”.

Here is some of the pages I wanted to share today:

I started with this page, where it asks you to drip something on the page and then fold the book in half and make a print.  I poured coffee, india ink and speed ball ink on the page and got this:

Since this book is not designed to hold that much ink, it bled through about 4-5 pages.  Actually the pattern on the back looks pretty cool:

I then decided to cut through multiple pages:

And then I took all the scraps and scotch taped them to the front page of the book, which actually gave me an idea for a book project I’ve been wanting to work on:

I’ll keep working on this throughout the week/weekend.  Maybe I’ll be able to take some of the explorations in this book an apply it to my regular studio practice.

“Sometimes the reflection is far more impressive than the thing being reflected.” -from Limits of Control by Jim Jarmusch

There is a common device I use in my installations: I place a found object (beat-up furniture, scrap wood, old typewriter) in a space and draw attention to its shadow or reflection. I usually make the shadow out of something that looks like it could just be a product of light, having no substance, but upon further inspection it is made from solid material. This is often thick black house paint, collaged materials painted black, or my favorite, black pleather contact paper. The contact paper is especially meaningful to me because it is not only representing a representation of an object (the shadow cast by a chair for example), but being pleather, it is also by nature a representation of leather. How meta! (I joke, but really.)

I don’t know if my obsession with shadows comes out my art school training, which for the past 20 years has placed great emphasis on the importance of negative space, or if it comes from my obsession with film noir, German expressionism, and live theater? Probably a little of both. Negative space is a formal issue that makes the artist consider the space around a subject as equally important as the subject itself. To me the negative space or cast shadow often becomes the subject. Dramatic film and theater are stylistic choices that bring an element of danger, despair, humor, and self-consciousness to its viewers. Perhaps daily goings on are just less interesting to me than what is reflected when I shine a light on them.

Everyday I walk down Pine Street past the bars, past the dog park. I cross over the roaring highway and the first thing I see is a beacon of this very topic: It is the side of the historic Paramount Theatre looking like it was suddenly separated from it’s family, a strange gray cement wall with fire escape and evenly placed windows from top to bottom. Below each window is a perfectly made organic soot mark which I assume is caused by the rain, but looks like it was theatrically and intentionally placed there. It looks like a model for a building rather than a building itself. There’s something artificial about it and now that I’ve had this thought I can’t look at it without thinking it’s part of a very elaborate Seattle stage set, welcoming me into work each morning. Though the architecture is lovely and old, I’m more interested in what it has become for me in my imagination. The building will never just be itself; it will always resemble itself and serve as a symbol for my daily morning walks.

I always search for the seams and the dark underbelly of people and things. I’m moved by contrast and conflict. In spite of the fact that I will never be able to get away from formal issues like negative space, I can emphasize cast shadows and their distorted abstract qualities. This way I will be able to satisfy my obsession with drawing and painting issues that have been so rigorously drilled into me while communicating something emotional, psychological, and humorous.

A couple weeks ago I went to see Siri Hustvedt read from her new book Sorrows of An American a layered novel written from the view point of Erik Davidsen, a psychiatrist who lives in New York City. In the book Erik and his sister Inga return to Minnesota after the death of their father and discover a note from an unknown woman in his belongings. Ideas of past, identity, and secrets are explored while Erik and Inga uncover their father’s life through his memoirs and ephemera.

Some elements of this novel have been extracted directly from her own experience. Other elements of the story are outside of her own experience, most notably the profession and gender of her main character.

In her talk she spoke of the extensive level of research she undertook in order to bring authenticity to the profession of her main character. She studied and took the New York psychology licensing exam until she was able to pass, read passages of her book to the New York Psychology Board, and began to teach a writing workshop at a mental hospital.

When a member of the audience asked what her next book would be about, and she responded that the next novel will most likely be told from a woman’s point of view. She mentioned that since it takes her about 5 years to write a novel and her last two have been from the point of view of a male main character, she has essentially spent the last 10 years as a man.

I know that playing a role, or inventing a character is common practice for writers, actors, and some visual and performance artists. I also know that we all have different reasons to go about creating the way that we do. When I think of this practice and how it would benefit the writer, I believe it would allow you to the opportunity to view your experience in a mirror, rather than through a camera.

I’m curious to know, for those of you that make work that embodies a reality outside of your waking experience, what is that like and what has it taught you that self-portraiture or auto-biography is unable to?

In the book, “Mysteries of the Rectangle” by Siri Hustvedt she describes the experience of looking at the Vermeer painting Woman with a Pearl Necklace: “The more I looked at it, the more it overwhelmed me with a feeling of fullness and mystery. I knew what I was looking at, and yet I didn’t know.” I believe what she was enchanted by in this work, and what we all see in a piece of art that captures us, is the quality of search. Or, to rephrase, when looking at a piece of work we can see that the artist has wrestled, grappled, twisted, blotted out, sanded, sawed, scraped, and blasted a piece of work, either in the work itself or in preliminary studies, in order to achieve their objective. This is a visual display of the mind at work. When we see evidence of it in a piece of art, it draws us in and holds us in its gaze.

I recently read the article A Critic At Large, where Morgan Mies speaks about how looking at and/or critiquing art has changed. Previously a critic, patron or voyeur could come to a piece of work equipped with the information they needed in order to fully understand it. This information could be the story of the Annunciation, or how an Emperor or King of a certain era/country wished to be perceived by their public, or how the colors red, blue and yellow harmonize in a rectangle on a two dimensional surface. This article argues that today’s artists are no longer making work from a collective narrative or objective, rather “The artists are often working in their own heads and they don’t feel much compulsion to translate.”

Because of this, it would seem that contemporary work relies heavily on the need for the audience to come to a piece of work with patience and an open mind. It would also seem to be imperative that all contemporary work embody the quality of search in order to elicit some staying power with an impatient public.

Krishnamurti has a lovely quote on the act of observation: “Clarity can exist only when there is freedom to observe, when one is capable of looking, observing watching. That is only possible when there is complete, total freedom, otherwise there is always distortion in our observation.”

It is interesting to think that if one somehow becomes free from the mental constraints of our day to day life, we might have the patience to see art, but would we still have the ability to make it?

I have not destroyed any of my journals, but I have destroyed many of the extensive plans I’ve made in some of these journals. Plans that were a quick fix for a happier future away from the life I was leading at the time. Some of these include:

Opening a vintage shop

Traveling through Thailand for several months

Studying abroad in China

Then India

Then Budapest

Becoming a fashion designer

Becoming a writer

Becoming a photographer

Moving to New York

The important thing I’ve taken out of making (and subsequently destroying) all these plans is my desire not to settle for a life that excludes creativity or adventure.

At present I am living in San Francisco and outside of my day job of managing two coffee shops, planning probably the most challenging endeavors to date: a long duration art performance piece based on Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills. I will be chronicling my piece, Unstills, at the website www.unstills.wordpress.com and will also be writing some pieces about it for My Destroyed Journals.