--Home --Series--History--Designs--Poetry--Statement--Meaning--
(Both the artist and the statement are evolving!)
See "final thoughts", especially the attached freewrites.
It felt like both of these comments should go under the Artist's Statement, rather than the "Meaning" section:
Accessible Art: After each service (so far), I get several comments from people about liking the banner and really liking the poetry.
I am thinking about the accessibility of art. Our cultural is (despite scads of images bombarding us each day) primarily a verbal one. Words seem to communicate more clearly than do images. I'm not surprised, then, that people are responding more positively to the poetry than the images.
Several people have said to me, "There must be a story behind that banner..." and I think: "Well, other than the scripture one, no, there isn't." I read the scripture and certain images appeared in my head. I translated them into words and used those words to search through stock photos. Once I collected possible photos, I rearranged designs in my head and in the software I use. This project is a fusion of words and images.
An artist-type asked me if I approached this project in any certain way because of the audience. I wanted to use representational images (rather than abstract ones) because I wanted the art to invite people in, rather than scare them away. I see representational art as meat and potatoes...comfort food. Abstract art is like some oddly spiced food. First you have to be adventurous enough to try it and, even then, it may just be too weird to want to eat.
I don't eat meat and potatoes very often and I don't own much (any?) representational art. But that's me. It's not your average Minnesotan.
If I want my art to have an audience, I think I need to cook to their tastes as I'm able. For me, that will mean blending words with images and working more representationally than I would if I didn't want an audience. This is a new realization for me.
Encouraging the young ones...I wish. Yet another teenaged girl told me how much she likes what I'm doing. I don't like the way I respond to these young ones. I would like to be engaging and encouraging, but (so far) I haven't been. Part of it is my natural (unnatural?) shyness. Most of it is my fear about encouraging romantic young women. "For the poet I know...before the world does," an English teacher once wrote when she gave me the gift of a blank book. I believed that. I thought I would be famous.
But the arts, in general, are not valued in our culture. When they raised my studio rent to "market rates," Wendy responded, "But artists don't have a market!" I get angry about how devalued my talents are in our culture. I often wish I had it in me to be a computer programmer, so I could make money and receive accolades.
But it ain't who I am.I am reading some books about the disability rights movement. One describes what it means to be oppressed and outlines the way minorities internalize low valuations of their worth. I suspect I've done that with my artistic talents: internalized cultural messages that the arts are an unimportant luxury and artists self-indulgent dabblers.
Sounds like I need a liberation movement.
Yikes, but is it art? I've been struggling with what I fear will be people's perception that I just cut and pasted stock photos together to make these graphics. It's sort of a correct perception, after all. I've been wandering the apartment mumbling, "It's art if I say it's art." (Something I learned at the Walker Art Center.)
When I'm working, it sure feels like art. I'm taking images and adjusting them, creating composition, adjusting light and shadow...everything I do with paint, but using images and the computer. It's the audience's response I fear...I want them to appreciate what I've done, not dismiss it. Ego. Ego. Ego.
It started with a dissatisfaction with the way "the art world" seems to work: I sit in my studio and make art, take slides of it, submit the slides to shows, get rejected or accepted. If I get accepted, I get to see people see the art at an opening and then people I don't know and don't see (who are odd enough to go to art shows) file past it.
I want my art to be part of every day experience. I want to see people see it. I want people to be a part of the creation of it--which is the part of art that I value most.
So I had a vision: find a space that is part of peoples' lives and ask them if I can put some art into it for some occasion or other. My first stop: the church. Why?
I asked Dick Nichols, pastor of Hazel Park United Church of Christ, if I could "do something with art in the sanctuary during Lent." He, brave soul that he is, said yes.
In thinking about the project, I've been aware of a wish to involve other people in the process of its creation. But how to do that?
I've decided to invite various folks to become part of a "virtual design community." I'm not sure what this means. I envision:
We'll see how (or if) this works.
Core members of the community include my advisors:
Ralph Jenson: beloved spouse and advisor on things computer, technical, mechanical
Wendy Lane: my art mentor as part of the Women's Art Registry of Minnesota mentor program and design advisor.
Dick Nichols: pastor of Hazel Park UCC and advisor on what I can and can't do in the church, congregational reaction and/or involvement, and theological issues.