Interpretation - Translation

In February I'll be off to Goddard College for the fourth of five semesters of graduate studies.   I have, as many artists have, found my way  - circuitously - to the theoretical meat of my art practice.  Identity theory, communication theory, and the idea of translating expression between disciplines all figure into my work.  This coming semester I'm really interested in delving back into the whole area of translation -- if I create a work in one discipline, what does that work become in another discipline?  And how do the theoretical constructs that form the foundation of the original work figure into translated versions of the work?  Are the theoretical strands the most important part of the work?  Is the translator the only thread that remains intact between the works?  Or is it possible that viewers/experiencers of the works would find the unifying stories on their own - without benefit of explanation offered by the creator of the work(s).

The first time I started working, in depth, with translation was with four poems by Sylvia Plath.  I created four short classical music movements that express my understanding of Plath's works.  I then worked with a choreographer to create four dance works to accompany the music works.  I found the whole process fascinating and challenging.  And I found that the theoretical and academic pathways inherent in the project are calling to me again.  So, in the coming semester I plan to work on a project similar in many ways.  The original work I am creating is a conceptual visual art piece.  From that I will then create musical work.  My hope is to have the opportunity to create in the third discipline - movement.

So - that's it for now.  Ready to work!

Peace!

The Vocation of the Artist by Deborah J. Haynes

If you are an artist, read The Vocation of the Artist by Deborah J. Haynes.  I don't care if you're an activist-artist, a cartoonist, an any-sort-of artist.  Get the book.  And read it.

We are compelled to create.  But what, exactly, are our responsibilities - - what is the job description for the amoebic job we call 'artist'?  Haynes, in this compelling volume, explores this very question.  She delves into the ways in which artists are activists, critics, mystics.  She doesn't necessarily delve into questions of studio-as-business and artist-as-political-motivator.  None the less, this is a must-read.

Oh, and the woman who wrote the book happens to seem like a pretty cool person.  That doesn't hurt either.

Get The Vocation of the Artist at Amazon.com!

Artists to Watch

During the course of this semester (I am a graduate student in Goddard College's Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts program), I had the marvelous opportunity to converse, via e-mail and phone, with two artists I think every contemporary art student should just take a look at:  C.D. Kirven and Spencer J. Harrison.  Totally different artists, but both members of the LGBTQ community, and both exploring the interesections of identity, popular culture, art, and politics.  Both are activists in their own right.  Both are amazing examples of what could be called the new art spirit - the participation of the artist in the world.  The artist taking on the responsibility of submitting for the world's review the commentary and ideas that bubble up out of their art practices and the substance of their lives.

At any rate - take a look!  You won't be sorry.

Artist. Critic.

I am working my way through my third semester of graduate school.  Pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts.  My advisor, Rachael VanFossen, suggested, after a conversation in which I mightily employed my trusty soapbox, that I begin working on a manifesto.  I took her advice, and began what has turned into a draft for future use.

During the construction of the second half of the essay I have stumbled back across a book I found invaluable the first time I read it.  It's The Vocation of the Artist by Deborah Haynes.  Ms. Haynes, who was kind enough to communicate with me via e-mail and send a copy of another of her books, makes many critically important points in Vocation.  Artists, she says, are responsible for turning a critical eye toward their own and others' artwork.  But, she goes on to say, criticism, isn't necessarily the negative, biting, angry sort of commentary often associated with the word.  It's analysis.  It's exploration, and philosophical pondering.  It's close examination.

Artists are responsible, I believe, for advancing the whole of Art.  For reaching out to the world around them, their audience, their fellow artists, fellow academics and intellectuals, and finding out what is going on in that world.  They are responsible, then, for observing, analyzing, and commenting.  If we care about the world of art, and about the World, really, then we artists are going to pick back up where we seem to have left off, long about the advent of the Superstar Artist in the 1960s, quit trying to turn ourselves into the Kardashians and Hiltons of the creative universe - seeking only notoriety - and instead seek to build on the body of knowledge the artworld offer.  Seek to better our minds, our techniques, our practices.  Seek to get our heads out of the Reality toilet bowl and into the world of thought, analysis, critical commentary.

Hm.  Looks like I've got some work to do.  Ok -- putting away the soap box now.

I Am What I Am....But What Am I?

My theoretical work in graduate school is centered in the disciplines of communication, sociology and art.  But within those, I'm specifically interested in identity.  It seems many of my colleagues are too.  I don't think that's any sort of coincidence.  I think it's partially a result of a societal lack of clear identity - - and the abundance of commercialism that causes us to become more and more diluted as individuals - - and the need we, as artists, have to dig, dig, dig, ever deeper beneath the surface to find out what it is that makes this world, and the creatures in (on?) it tick.

At any rate, today I went to get my motorcycle inspected.  I stood in the bay at the biker shop/bar/breakfast spot/mechanic and looked at the umpteen million nudie posters on the wall.  I stood there, in my biker jacket, knowing I had to get the inspection so I could get back home to do grad school work  before going to get the kids from school.

Biker
Student
Mother

We all engage in so many different performances of identity.  We are all walking bundles of theory.  We are all artists.  Do we realize it?  No.  Do we all care?  No.  Should we?  Probably not.But for those of us who do, this life is a never-ending, fascinating exploration.

Peace, y'all.

Rolling Right Along...

Graduate school is thoroughly enjoyable.  And totally frustrating, at times.  Right now we're near the end of the semester and that old feeling of 'crap -- the finish line is right there and my legs are KILLING me' is setting in.  But, things have to get done, so I'm doing them.  Here are some of the new visual works I've come up with this semester.   There's much more to the work that's been done, but at least you can see some of the braingook that's come outta my skullmeat this semester!

What Really Matters....

Alright - it's true - in academia you are often asked to pick some tiny, dust-filled corner of your brain, search out some seriously obscure topic of interest you find hidden in that corner of your brain, and research the living fool out of it.  That's great and all, but I am seriously questioning my entire art practice as a result of the one tiny (albeit GIGANTIC) topic I thought I'd focus on - - Gender Studies.  EEEEEEK!!!  I have begun delving, and - like many things I've looked into in my life - I've realized that there is SO MUCH MORE TO LIFE than who someone decides to practice gymnastics with.  There's SO MUCH MORE TO LIFE than whether you wear gender-appropriate (appropriate to whom, I might ask....) clothing or drive the right car or wear the right shoes, or whatever.  In fact, I know that there have been serious gender struggles, serious struggles for people whose sexual orientation has been other-than-mainstream, and I know that women have been shoved underground in all sorts of ways.  But I'm here to tell you that somehow, all of that (in spite of the fact that I have certainly managed to do the 'typical' thing along the way - motherhood - staying home.....and have also done atypical things...) is beginning to falter in its importance to me personally.  What's becoming much more important to me is how I am going to take what has been a very solitary art practice, focused on very personal things, and turn it into connective tissue - fibrous reality that serves a good greater than the practice itself (and me...). 

This is the central question I'm focused on.  Social connectivity of art.  It's funny - - because personal issues really are important to me - - but I'm realizing that what's most important, really, in my life, are the people I love.  How can I create artwork that isn't trite, but which serves to explore connection?  That serves to connect?  Don't know at this point - but stand by.  Perhaps I'll figure something out.