Sabbatical

Yes, it’s true. I will stop posting here until I finish my Masters. I am required to post at an another blog more formally and I have chosen to set up a blog to communicate with my supervisor. Something like a virtual drop into my studio sort of thing.
Ta ta!

Visual Thinking

One collage from my scrapbook this past July:

What I Saw in July

While I saw the most amazing people on my travels by foot and by bus to and from the campus on Granville Island, I also made a point to visit galleries.

My first trek was to the Vancouver Art Gallery. (Apparently John Lithgow was standing behind me. He left and then the VAG ticket woman nearly peed her pants telling me about it. And unless you count the back of his head, I didn’t see him.) Top billing by the gallery went to a show called The Modern Woman with drawing by Degas, Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec, but I especially wanted to see Kerry James Marshall’s paintings, and I was surprised along the way by Fiona Tan. In The Modern Woman there were a couple of standout drawings, but for the most part the exhibit felt dry. The layout of the exhibit generated more dialogue for me than the actual works, since the only way to exit was to either turn around and walk back through the entire exhibit or to exit through the gift shop.

Marshall’s large scale perfectly kitschy paintings pulled me in with colour and glitter, but the themes of the works are disturbing (memorializing the dead). The contrast works well. (Mental note taken: use grommets to hang large works.) Fiona Tan’s video works really engaged me as well. Checking the notes I made at the exhibit a month later, I can see that I did not make nearly enough. “White devel.” Did I write that in the darkened video space? My feeling as I left is that Tan’s work is also about the construct of whiteness.

Other shows seen (and not necessarily understood) were Jamelie Hassan’s At the Far edge of Words at the Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery (the class went). The opening of Drawn (a multi venue drawing exhibition) at the Pendulum Gallery. Following weeks I visited the Drawn exhibition components at the Jennifer Kostiuk Gallery and the Elliot Louis Gallery. Each of the three venues offered up some very succinct comments on what drawing is and what it can be. Finally the Charles H. Scott Gallery on the campus opened a painting exhibition by Mina Totino, which appeared to be a dialogue with Susan Rothenberg and Barnett Newman.

Up To Now

Late April 2010 and I do not remember if there were April showers or not. I do recall that I met a new group of co-students online for the first time. Our individual responses to our first readings were posted within our class forum open for all of us to see. I was feeling wholly intimidated.

A ferry trip to Vancouver on the July long weekend kicked off the first summer intensive at ECU, which promised to be just that, intense. Unpacking my bags at my gracious friend’s home (she didn’t charge me anything) I felt a little like I must have when I was a kid going to school for the first day. What to wear, what to wear?

It turned out that I had nothing to fear as most everyone confessed to the same fears (although many are far more accomplished than I am). The month went by far too quickly. Aside from all the great conversation with fellow students we were treated to talks given by Germaine Koh, Althea Thauberger, Randy Lee Cutler, Folke Kobberling and Martin Kaltwasser (visited the site where they are building a giant dozer near the former Olympic Village), Thomas Riedelsheimer, and a dual-video-link with John Cussans in the UK (we really are digital). Our studios were given by Ken Lum (brilliant), and the team of Sabine Bitter and Helmut Weber (doubly brilliant). Chris Jones is leading our thesis class.

Two papers down, mentors and a supervisor to choose yet, a few books purchased (from my working bibliography), organizing research into neat little compartments (I’m sure some wind will blow in messing it all up), as well as trying to find some space to work in my overflowing into the hallway 10×10 foot studio.

New Chapter in the Book

I have not posted lately. Mainly because I was wrapping up work for my BFA and trying to take a month off before my MAA began. The month off I was still writing a report for the Dean and prepping a binder for the upcoming class rep – lord help them. The grad shows went well and my work will be in a upcoming show in Vancouver shortly. I’ll keep you posted.

I did manage to get two window blinds sewn and a batch of cookies baked.

My studies have resumed and ernestly. More reading and more writing, but as I go along I hope to post the odd update.

The first class is online, about the artist as a researcher, and is being facilitated by Chris Jones (no web site).

You People

Have you ever been called “you people”?

During a recent meeting I was chairing, a person was discussing some aspect of history and referred to the bulk of the people in the room as “you people”. I think I detected disgust.

Current Explorations

On the wall in my studio right now are three paintings. Each 42 by 52 inches. My aim is to use up every last bit of acrylic paint that I have collected over the past 4 years of school. A sort of homage to my BFA.

These are completely different than anything I have yet done. Aside from the obvious tree theme ( I took the photo last year up near Paradise Meadows), which is an unintentional similarity, I have taken inspiration from Kim Dorland’s work. I have only seen one photo, plus an interview with him on Arts & Minds, but I recalled the thick paints and thought that might be an appropriate response to my box of paint.

A little while later…

Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value

Another interesting point that has been brought up in recent conversations is the idea that those in developing nations need not be paid as much as we in developed nations.

At first blush this seems like it might work since the argument being made is that in some countries things just don’t cost as much.

True enough, but I still have a problem with this thinking.  My household income allows me and my family to have access to good healthcare, including top-notch dentistry, more than enough clothing, healthy food (plus junk if I wanted it – which is actually going to do us all in yet) a comfortable bed in a home for a family (not three families) that protects me from the elements, a car (or two) and the gas to put in it, and access to public education with cheap rates for college afterwards.

If the income of $500 a year, or $1200 a year, or whatever, nets the worker those kinds of benefits then I would agree that it is enough pay. Otherwise not.

No Choice & Responsibility

During the seminar today about the exhibition Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent a classmate discussed his own perception of how it might feel to be living within another culture that is not one’s own. My classmate is aboriginal. He pointed out, and rightly so, that he felt a resistance because he was living within a culture that was imposed on him. “We [his people] don’t have a choice,” he said.

Let me state emphatically that in no way do I condone what was done here in Canada to the aboriginal peoples. Nor do I think that they are being treated with respect as a general rule today.

I did want to add other ideas to the notion of having a culture imposed on oneself, aside from, or in addition to the idea he was stating.

I am a human being. I did not ask to be born, nor did I ask to be born female, nor any of the other things that I have no control over. They are matters of my biology and my geography. I could have been born into the untouchables caste in India, into the royal house of Japan’s emperor, or as a male in Timbuktu. I came into the world sliding out of my mother’s belly all slimy, bloody, and wrinkly just like every other human being on the planet (except for c-section babies of course).

As I grow and am raised by parents I did not choose, I am enculturated, just as he is by his parents. I do not choose the enculturation. It is imposed on me.

I had no choice.

It is a fantasy to think that I have some way to the past of my ancestors. Where they lived in tribes (because they actually did), tied to the cycles of the raw earth, with their bloody rituals, their ways, and beliefs that were infused with the mystery of this vast creation.

I could argue that parts of my humanity have been denied me by ideas and ways that were foreign to mine. Conquerors came with their unfamiliar methods and changed my people (is there a nation on earth – in time or place – that this does not apply to?), drawing us into this madness that has become 2010.

Where my responsibility as a human being lies, is in finding ways (I screw up a lot) to make peace with and love people in the position that I am – privileged as it is, at this moment, in this place because it is there that I/we will find my/our humanity.

As an aside: did you know that still 5 billion people do not have access to a computer and that most of those people are poor and/or female?

The Big Blip

Currently, I am enrolled in an Art History class called Art Now. During our discussion this week we talked about the impact of the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, especially on artists.

A fellow student actually said that she didn’t think the effect of the wall going down was global at all. She thought it was like a “blip”.

Sometimes I don’t know how to react to statements like this. It is amazingly myopic and makes me feel sad. The best I can do is to take it as a reminder to keep my own peripheral vision as wide as possible.

Just Sayin’

Painting is becoming problematic.

Maria Hupfield

Thursday, I had the opportunity to go to an art talk given by Maria Hupfield. Hupfield has a diverse practice that includes performance and photography. I especially appreciated the work she did called My Evil Twin (as discussed on her profile at ECUAD). The set up, though seemingly simple at first, brings the viewer to a place where they are asked to consider two things. One being the way in which we view images and ideas – through what lenses do we choose to look, and the other being the degree to which we are removed from the “real”. First, the photographer has stepped in between us and the “event” followed by the process of the image making, resulting in a two dimensional representation, covered with glass and set in a gallery. This representation is then filtered further through the sweet little lenses of the bird-house spy-glasses. I enjoyed the whole idea and it’s presentation – well … viewing it as a projected representation, sometimes through a bird house lens, of a represenation.

After the talk several students were treated to an on campus studio visit. It was encouraging to hear her fresh take on our work. As students we benefit from the discernment of instructors who know our work and our persons, but fresh eyes and insights can make for better work. Provided the student can hear, of course. All in all, I had a great and valuable time.

See More: www.ecuad.ca, mariahupfield.com
Images: images.google.ca

Carriage Painting

The current state of one of three current paintings based on old photographs.

48×48 inches, acrylic.

Exercise

Feeling frustrated I turned around my current projects and did this oil study from some shoes that have appeared in an installation last year.

19×22 inches (I think) , on canvas.

There is Hope

I have checked out of the school library, for the third time, Carte Blanche V.2 Painting (2008). I love this book. I have already posted something from this book once before and have another great quote from it that gives me great hope for my career as an artist, which is fast approaching. – gulp -

From the essay The Shape is in a Trance by Clint Roenisch, “But now, no single group of artists truly reigns, no single critic can erase a career, no single curator can hold that much sway and no single dealer can claim to have the only relevant stable.”

Manifestations of Oppression

During my research of the art team of Robbins and Becher I found an article that is reposted to their website by Andy Grundberg, titled Global Breach: The Photos of Andrea Robbins and Max Becher. Originally it was published in Art on Paper (May – June 2002 VOL. 6, NO. 5).

What was interesting was Grundberg’s quote by critic Benjamin Buchloh where he says “Every detail of the colonialist architecture now appears as a manifestation of historical oppression . . . “

If we evaluate colonial architecture in this way, and I am not saying that we shouldn’t, we should be evaluating everything else in this way. What people’s were robbed to fund certain cathedrals in Europe? What land was abused to give me a $4.00 hamburger? What people were exploited to build my computer? Whose land was taken where my house sits?

Talk at the CVAG

Yesterday I gave a talk at the CVAG titled Art I Don’t Like. I thought it went really well with some great opinions and discussion.

If you don’t know this about me yet, I often roll conversations around in my head for a while and come up with new ideas etc. sometimes much later.

For example, I showed Yves Klein’s work, Anthropometry from 1960, where Klein had nude (I would argue not naked – see Berger’s Ways of Seeing) women cover themselves in paint (International Klein Blue, IKB). Then under his direction they used their bodies to apply paint to the support. I brought up the point that Klein did not use males and females, but only females. That he was a man directing women, and that he used “living paintbrushes” so that he could “stay clean”. Those were the reasons that I did “not like” the work. The issue, I think, is that this work talks about male control over the female. I do not like it because it offends me.

Someone brought up that times were different then, which is absolutely true. I think they were saying that the work was something they could appreciate, find meaning in, engage with, and/or like because times were different.

Where my thoughts go is to look for other examples that add to this discussion. I wonder if works that are racist, produced at a time when it was acceptable, are also works that we should continue to appreciate, find meaning in, engage with, and/or like. Or rather should we critique (harshly if necessary) and consider them while being sensitive to the fact that they are highly offensive to those depicted stereotypically or negatively.

If I Was You

The past four years of critiquing and having my work subjected to critique has been an interesting experience. In some ways I will be thankful it is over (since some people wouldn’t recognize how to give an honest comment if it bit them in the ass). On the other hand,  I will miss the interaction and instant feedback.

One thing I have never appreciated is the comment or remark that is worded something like, “I would like to see it in blue”. Or, “I would rather see the background filled with…”. It comes in various forms. These kind of comments puzzle me. My immediate thought on hearing them is that the person should go ahead and make it that way for themselves.

As an example, last week our Art History (Art Now) instructor presented the work of Kimsooja via an Art:21 video produced by PBS. To Breathe / Respirar (2006) at the Palacio de Cristal, Parque del Retiro in Madrid was stunning. During the discussion following the video clip one student puzzled me by saying, “I wish her breathing was more meditative.”

Whaaat?

See more of Kimsooja’s work: www.kimsooja.com

- The – Last Semester

This term -my final term- I am enrolled in Painting, GEVA, and an Art History.  Of the four instructors I have this term, three two are searchable: Stephanie Aitken, Sara Vipond, and Megan Wilson. Aitken (co-teaching) and Vipond I have had before, but Wilson is new.

EDIT Jan 6: So during class I find out that Megan Wilson is not the same Megan Wilson as my instructor. Everyone enjoyed looking up her work though!

What is notable about this is that all my instructors are female. I am not sure how I feel about this. While I am all for women having the same opportunities and pay as men, I think it is unfortunate that there will not be a balanced perspective. The same thing occurs in my classes. Of a dozen students two or three might be male.

Fresh Year, Fresh Look

Once again, I have revamped my web site.

See more at: www.joycelindemulder.com