CAAP: Submitted and Cultural Excavation

I dropped off my CAAP Grant application yesterday down at the Chicago Cultural Center. The deadline is on Monday and they won't announce the recipients until May so I've got some time to wait before I know anything. I've been saving this excellent orange bubble mailer for years so I'm glad to finally be using it.

A few years ago I was starting to make packages for submissions and stocked up on nice paper, folders, disc stickers and cool mailing envelopes. Then I stopped submitting and have been carrying around these bright blue and orange bubble mailers. I'm glad to finally put them to use.


I just received notice that a piece from my "Ornament and Silence" series was accepted into an upcoming show at the Chicago Art Department in Pilsen. The show is titled "Cultural Excavation" and is focused around the idea of using things from the past to inform your work.

I thought this series was perfect as the source materials come from various time periods, cultures and styles and come together to make something new yet evokes a sense of nostalgia.

The opening is Friday February 12, 6-9pm.

Business as usual.

This morning I've been perusing my pages and scraps of paper of lists and jots of research I've been doing of places that take submissions, competitions, curators and juried shows. I sent off a couple of email submissions, one to A Public Space magazine and one to the Not Just Another Pretty Face event at the Hyde Park Art Center.

I've also been submitting to a few registries and was just admitted into the Ohio Online Visual Artist Registry. I'm also included in the Irving Sandler Artist File. Then there are all the non-juried websites that I've been posting my work on which who knows how worthwhile they are. I have had a few hits to my website from them, so I guess it can't hurt. Some of these include:

Hydraulik Art
ArtReview
ARTslant

I have to sit in the dining room section of the dining room (the other half is my studio) to work on the computer (our wireless internet only works in this room and I haven't taken the time to fix it. One complicated moving set-up thing at a time). So I sit here and look at my studio space waiting to be worked in and feeling a little guilty that I'm not doing just that. I think focusing on sending out submissions and doing research, while not nearly as fun, is still what I should be focusing on now.

I may have mentioned, but moving really makes you think about making things, and then finding a place for them. I want to keep producing massive amounts of paintings, but then where do I store them? There are only so many walls in my apartment. So I really feel the need to push to get the work out into exhibitions and then off my hands into the homes of people that would like to look at them.

Panorama

Here is a picture of my new studio....sort of. Look at all that natural light!

Yesterday I dropped two submissions off in the mail. One submission to a gallery to be considered for exhibitions, and one to New American Paintings, Midwest Competition. Today on my to do list is to continue with my application grants.


I think I have the CAAP application very nearly complete and need to spend some more time on the IAC application. This morning I had someone reviewing what I have so far, but we were interrupted by the Chicago Revenue people putting a boot on their car...

Time in 3:00 + Artist Statement

Here it is...my final (I'm basically almost 99% for sure done) draft of my Artist Statement.

There’s something instinctually compelling about looking at other people. I think it has to do with the anonymity- it tricks us into feeling like we know something about them as we imagine who they are, why they dress the way they do and what they had for lunch that day.

It has been this notion that drew me to working with the human face through portraiture: the idea that just by looking at a face your imagination can be activated in a way that makes you feel connected to the subject.

With my most recent series, I posited the idea that a double portrait could provide viewers with a source for imagining their own narrative through the assumed interaction or relationship between the two people. In the paintings, the faces erupt from their stark white backgrounds to confront the viewer. Subtleties in moods, characters, and psychological states- a tilt of the head and a jut of the chin- all tell part of the story.

My goal was to encourage presumptions and subjective feelings, to promote personal interpretation and to avoid definitive statements. This openness for personal relation is a hope for a real engagement between people and the paintings, for each person to be able to tell a part of the story.

(In case you're thinking it, I have looked up the word "instinctually" but have not found it to be a real word. Is there a better word? Or is it creative and artistic to make up my own words when I can't think of another?)

I am still working on getting a Driver's license- I have to wait for my birth certificate to arrive in the mail so I can take another trip down to the DMV to be rejected.

To Do:
Mail Northeastern submission and New American Paintings submission
Finalize CAAP application
Work on IAC application

Playlist:
The Velvet Underground
Beth Orton
Madeleine Peyroux
Aimee Mann- Lost in Space
Lizzie West- Holy Road

I (do not!) heart DMV

Perhaps the second most challenging piece of my grant applications (the Artist Statement part being the most challenging) is getting an Illinois Driver's license. Since I'm applying for two grants that are for Chicago residents only, I have to prove that I live in the city by showing an ID with my current address.

I still have a New Mexico driver's license even though it's been 3 years since I lived there. I hate going to the DMV and resist it for as long as I can get away with. I know technically you are supposed to get a new license as soon as you move to a new state, but then they shouldn't make it so hard to get one.

Yesterday I went down the DMV to get my new license. I expected difficulty so I made sure to have everything I could possibly need in the correct format and just as they asked for. I even printed the list of acceptable documents to prove your identity off the Illinois DMV website and brought it with me. I had my four documents from the four categories but to no great suprise, they said they were unacceptable. Even though the website asked for an"Official High School Transcripts" as a proof of your date of birth, when I got there one person decided they wouldn't accept out of state transcripts. They wanted me to have gone to Chicago Public School.

What was frustrating about this is that two people said they thought it was fine, but when the guy helping me went to talk to his supervisor to check if he could use my transcript which had the name "Ginny" on it (he didn't believe me when I told him Ginny was short for Virginia- he thought I was trying to pull a fast one) he found out that "Ginny" wasn't a problem, but California transcripts are.

I expect to go back to the DMV once I receive a birth certificate and run into another problem and I expect this will happen at least 4 times. I expect this because this happens EVERY TIME I try to get a new license. That's why I avoid it all costs.

You'd think they'd want to just take my $30 and give me the license.

(photo from here)

Help from Kokoshka and Freud

In continuing my battle with the artist statement, I decided to grab one of my books and see how some other artists have written about portraiture. In The Grove Book of Art Writing’s section called “ The Human Clay: Humanity in Art”, there is a text written by Oskar Kokoshka- an artist whose name I recognize but I haven't really studied at all. Here are a few of his thoughts:



“What used to shock people in my portraits was that I tried to intuit from the face, from its play of expressions, and from gestures, the truth about a particular person, and to recreate in my own pictorial language the distillation of a living being that would survive in memory….In a face I look for the flash of the eye, the tiny shift of expression which betrays an inner movement...

I see creative art as a source, a spring, like Nature itself. I defend it as the constantly active, living material of thought.”






And from one of my favorite painters, Lucien Freud:

“A painter must think of everything he sees as being there entirely for his own use and pleasure…the aura given out by a person or object is as much a part of them as their flesh. The effect that they make in space is as bound up with them as might be their color or smell. The effect in space of two different individuals can be as different as the effect of a candle and an electric lightbulb…


A moment of complete happiness never occurs in the creation of a work of art. The promise of it is felt in the act of creation but disappears towards the completion of the work. For it is then that the painter realizes that it is only a picture he is painting. Until then he had almost dared to hope that the picture might spring to life. Were it not for this, the perfect painting might be painted, on the completion of which the painter could retire. It is this great insufficiency that drives him on. Thus the process of creation becomes necessary to the painter perhaps more than is the picture."

Artist Statement. Blegh.

I know a lot of artists dread writing their statement. I unfortunately have not been blessed with the ability to write a captivating Artist Statement. Having to write a statement about my work, artistic process, and concepts and to make it sound intelligent while being concise and intriguing (and maybe even a little witty) seems like an impossible task. Especially after 904 drafts. I feel like Grady Tripp in Wonder Boys: I just keep writing more and more and don't ever get closer to the end. (I even have an equally dirty, shaggy old lady sweater that I wear when I'm working!)

While other artists might dismiss the artist statement as irrelevant to their work and abilities, I do see the value in having a well written one. If written well, they can include viewers in some of the behind the scenes information and give a more comprehensive experience of the work. It could also make some foundation somewhere want to give me money.

So I'm continuing to work on my statement for various submissions to exhibitions and grant applications and am wishing I had some skill with the written word. And to think, I used to want to be a writer!

New Studio

My new studio space is almost all put together. It's one of the corners of the dining room and the opposite wall is almost completely windows. I am thrilled to actually have natural light! 

To Do:

collect Fermilab materials

CAAP grant application

Northeastern submission description

Submit to "Perceptions"

Tim Vermeulen at Packer Schopf

This Friday there will be a reception for the opening of my friend Tim Vermeulen's show at Packer Schopf Gallery. He will be showing his latest series of paintings which uses Moby Dick as a starting point for exploring personal narratives through his paintings.

From the PS Gallery website:

"Moby Dick, considered by many the "great American novel," is one of the strangest productions in the history of all the arts. This sprawling novel encompasses all of the contrasts of human experience: life/death, salvation/damnation, good/evil, man/nature, etc. From this tome, Vermeulen has selected a few iconic passages that carry a personal resonance. The images based on these passages are small, figurative, autobiographical narratives. The artist places himself within this narrative and sets the story in a contemporary context. The images refer to issues that may be personal, social, political, and/or religious, and the dramas may symbolize internal states, social conflicts, and past traumas. While the settings are often familiar, there are unsettling, disquieting circumstances that speak to the mysterious and contradictory nature of existence. Objects, settings, and human interactions carry symbols of the subconscious and collective memory."

I have been priveleged to see some of the work in progress and am thrilled to see the complete series this weekend. If you are in Chicago you should check it out. The show runs January 8 - February 13.

Already done:

Submitted images to "Perceptions" magazine

Submitted images for "Nostalgia" show at Chicago Art Department

Worked on IAC grant application

To do:

Fermilab materials

print out materials for Northeastern submission and burn CD 

CAAP grant

Last night I went to a workshop for the Community Arts Assistant Program grant that the city of Chicago awards. The deadline is January 25 so I should probably get to work on my application which seems somewhat lengthy. Probably most importantly I need to decide what I would use the money for- what's my project? For the Puffin Foundation grant I just apllied for, I outlined my next series of work and applied for the grant for my material costs.

For the CAAP grant, I could use it to pay for a consultant to help with marketing, or to pay to work with a "master artist" which I think would be great, if I knew any.

"I want to write because I have the urge to excell in one medium of translation and expression of life." - Sylvia Plath

Organizing

Every time I move, I am reminded of what a pain it is to move giant paintings and delicate art objects. This really makes me consider carefully what is worth making and how small I can make it, which may be responsible or may be limiting, I'm not sure. I can see that I need to keep making art but moving and storing becomes more and more challenging. I think the idea here is to start selling it.

Everything has been transfered from my old studio to the new studio but I have lots of organizing to do and I am continuing to get submissions together.

To do:

• Set up studio space - sort materials, set up lighting
• photograph phase one of new piece (Scott)
• Submission for New American Paintings
• Submission to Northeastern
• Gather materials for Fermilab exhibition
• get wood to frame final piece

Playlist:

NPR. My CD player is broken!