Save The Date

March 10, 5-7pm opening reception for my solo show at Fermilab. 

Also on that day, from 12-1pm I will be giving a lecture about my work.

Things have been busy and chaotic this month with moving, holidays, travel and sickness and I am very ready for life to settle back into a routine. I am finishing up a move into a new apartment which is very exciting as my new space for my studio (a section of the bonus large dining room) will be warm and have an abundance of natural light! Pictures to come soon (as soon as I can find the camera cord the is lost somewhere in the boxes). 

I have not been painting as my studio is packed up in boxes, but I have sent off two grant applications and just finished my application for Skowhegan. In some ways I feel like I'm sending these things off into an abyss, without any expectations. I think that's really the way to approach submissions: be thoughtful in your submissions and try for everything you have an interest in and don't expect any of them. That way you aren't let down and anything you are accepted for is a bonus!

Portrait of the Day

From CerealArt:
















"Breakfast of Champion" by Hank Willis Thomas and Ryan Alexiev, poster available here.

First snow

Last night Chicago had it's first snow, at least the first snow that stuck. A lot of people seem to really like the seasonal changes and are excited by snow. I might enjoy it too if I could afford to turn on the heat so that I can't see my breath inside my apartment. That will soon change though as I'm likely moving into a new apartment with heat included in the rent.

I've been working on continuing to submit: I've made one more submission to a gallery, one contest entry, and one grant application.

I've also started a new piece which I will have to add a picture of my progress later as I've loaned out my camera. I've been saving this larger canvas for a new piece and for a long time hadn't decided on what I wanted to use it for. I have this one shot that I took of someone I used in the double portrait series that has been begging to be put on that canvas. So I started it - it's much larger than the size I've been doing the rest of the portraits in so we'll see what it's like to be painting them bigger.

This week I will have very little time for the studio - it's the show week of the Chorus that I work for so I will be running around fixing costumes and making all those last minute props.

Seven Days in the Art World

I've recently picked up "Seven Days in the Art World" by Sarah Thornton - I've been looking forward to reading this for a while and finally was able to get it from the library. So far I've read the Intro and the chapters on The Auction and The Crit. I found the one about the Crit fascinating as I love the idea behind critiques however, in actuality find them questionable valuable.

A bit of the chapter discusses different perspectives on a critique- what is useful, what is not; some teachers of MFA programs use a crit to dig deep into the work and challenge the artist to defend themselves, their work and their ideas. Others use it for the artist to listen to what their audience/peers say about the work by not being able to respond. This also challenges the audience to really look at the work/text and as Mary Kelly says, it teaches them to read the work. "Ask yourself 'is this in the text or is this what I am bringing to it?'"

The chapter also delicately addresses the validity of MFA programs and the unfortunate hopes of the students for a ticket to success by receiving an MFA.

Here are a few things I've picked out. From the Introduction:

"Art is about experimenting and ideas, but it is also about excellence and exclusion."

From The Crit chapter: Legitimators of an Art Career:

MFA (better if from a top-ranking school)
Awards/residencies
Representation by a primary dealer
Features in art magazines
Inclusion in prestigious private collections
Museum validation in the form of solo or group shows, international exposure at well-attended biennials
Appreciation signaled by strong resale interest at auction

People often ask me what I hope to do with my art, especially people not involved in creative careers. I think people want to know if I hope to sell everything I make, or get it hung in a coffee shop, or if I make it for my own personal expression and don't care what happens to the actual artwork. I usually say I want to be a successful artist and to feel accomplished in my field, but what that looks like could be many things. I think the things listed above from "Seven Days" and describing them as "legitimators" is exactly what's in my head when I'm thinking about being successful and receiving some sort of recognition.

I think artists (especially young artists straight out of an MFA program) want recognition, but don't want to admit it. Or they think the are entitled to it and dismiss those that don't give it to them. I haven't met very many that will work for that recognition, but rather want to be discovered as brilliant rather than putting the work in towards being accomplished.

The chapter quotes Paul Schimmel, chief curator of the MCA Los Angeles: "Talent is a double edged sword. What you are given is not really yours. What you work at, what you struggle for, what you have to take command of, that often makes very good art."

One last point that I thought was interesting from this chapter was the discussion of the word creativity. Thornton's conversations with students at CalArts reflected their disgust with the word. They called it a "lovey-dovey cliche". Thornton then goes on to muse "Perhaps creativity is not on the agenda at art school because being creative is tacitly considered the unteachable core of being an artist?" I wonder if the students want to reject discussion about creativity for fear it would be revealed that they aren't creative.

Submissions

Last night I began a process that I've been putting off for years. (Has it really been that long?!) After working this past year on my most recent series, spending hours combing the internet for galleries and curators that look credible, and lots of time procrastinating, I have started submitting my work.

About 4 years ago, I had completed at least a dozen or so pieces in another series I was working on, my "Ornament and Silence" series, and started submitting it to galleries for representation. I had dozens of packets put together in all different formats, trying to find the most professional and eyecatching combination of letterhead, business card, and CD label designs tucked in the most appropriate folder of printouts, cover letter and a resume which I probably re-formatted a zillion times to get the perfect level of clarity of information and aesthetic appeal.

After all this work and wasted paper, I really only submitted to five galleries, none of which accepted my work. I realized later that it was probably largely due to the work I was submitting which reduced in scale from 8 foot canvases to a 3 inch printout ended up looking like a fabric swatch. Something was lost in translation and I can see why the work was dismissed.

So I decided I needed to make new work, something that would be easier to understand through a small image on a screen or printout. I had also wanted to do this series of double portraits after playing with portraiture via an alternative monoprint technique. (See my "Corrugated" series).

Also part of the procrastination is that as a starving artist, I don't have much (any) money for submitting to juried shows (a waste of time anyway, in my opinion) and certainly no money to ship my work to anywhere, even if there is an interest in showing it. I have no money to pay for new panels or canvases to get started on my next series, so I'm stuck in this limbo phase, waiting for something to happen, but can't do anything to make it happen, and even if it did, couldn't follow through.

At least that's how it feels sometimes. I think the submission process is actually very fun. While for the most part I have only been rejected, except for the occasional juried show in Nebraska, the process of anticipating a response is exciting. Even if you receive a rejection, it feels like a notch on the belt and you can add that letter or email to your shoebox of rejections. The more rejection letters you pile up, the bigger the acheivement will feel when you finally get accepted. At least that's how I imagine it in my head.

So far, I've sent in 1 submission and 2 inquiries.