Impinging Against an Array of Very Thin Tines
If I could just
touch her wrist, without
her grabbing my hand. Mama
bends backwards,
tweaking the lawn chair, gripping
the arms. She says the stars are twitchy
sequins on a black velvet ballgown.
Mama wishes on a sequin:
“ .”
I don’t ask.
Mama has a name
she won’t use.
The fat man that used to live here,
he really gave it to her.
Made her cook Steak-umms and watch
his T.V. One night, when he flips
through the channels, Mama
whispers, “ .”
He took the dog, left
with his names still on her.
Mama’s new man
has a red beard,
wears a black hat,
won’t change his underwear. He says: “Shut up,
I don’t get dirty from sitting in a chair all day.”
Mama can’t sleep. She says
stars crumble down at night, leaves
all those twitchy sequins on her.
Mama gives me her old jewelry box
lined in black velvet and lint. It winds up
in the back, the coil releasing
hesitant pings.
Lisa Strier 2009: poetry for packet 4
Call + Response: questions played forward from previous packets, advisor comments are italicized.
From packet 1:
“It is our contention that questions treating the definition of art no longer function for artists as vehicles for debating their ambitions for and with art, and other questions need to be formed to facilitate this work. Procedural definitions of art and prototype theories of art, in their greater complexity come closer to adequate social description, but lose the potential to work as a vehicle for debating issues of the value and function of art. The definitional question [‘What is art?’] is a machine that no longer works as a vehicle for artists attempting to hone their ambitions for and with artworks, but may now operate to mark the limits artists can go within the category of art. It no longer identifies organizing principles (other questions are needed for that), but might be useful to identify and police art’s farthest edges and boundaries. If disciplines are characterized by questions, is art [practice] characterized by questions, and if so which questions? And is art practice a discipline?” (Smith, C. and Reilly, L. (2007), ‘What work does the artwork do? A question for art’ Journal of Visual Art Practice 6: 1, pp. 5–12, doi: 10.1386/jvap.6.1 5/2)
I wonder, why would we want to police art's farthest edges?
I agree the word ‘police’ is difficult to apply in this context: regulate, administer, or control(origin— in the sense “public order”: from Latin politia ‘policy, government’). I typically choose different words: qualify, quantify, critique, determine… As a professional in the arts (I am making that distinction) I believe I should be able to tell when some art is better than others. Because, I can’t just watch; there are commitments to be made and cultural consequences matter.
Through research and readings while teaching, pursuing this degree and making art with the perspective of age, I have become more aware and sensitive to the concerns and arguments of high culture / low culture, accessibility, appropriation, class, race, gender.
The opportunity to make art has expanded in some places and not others. “Elite” cultures protect their domain by escalating the level of “difficulty” required from serious art; the upshot is anybody can make art that nobody understands. If you factor in contemporary arguments that certain kinds of understanding are culturally exclusive, then anybody can make art that nobody has a right to understand. Now, I sound contentious- but with a whiff of frustration with mediocrity; it’s become more acceptable to be ‘fair’ than to make judgments of good art or bad art or what art is. I interpret “the farthest edges and boundaries”, not as a reference to innovation or interdisciplines, but as something more like the popular trends of scrapbooking and altered art as well as those opaque works of art that nobody can understand.
Handknit sweaters demonstrate the human impulse to create art as much as opera does… I’m much more interested in looking at ways that everyday people make art of their lives all the time, not just at the opera house or in the gallery. The desire to create scrapbooks and handknit sweaters should not be devalued or ignored. I believe in creativity in all of its manifestations and preach it constantly. Recently, I attended a class for volunteers at my crisis intervention center. The woman standing next to me, having discovered I’m an artist, rubbed her arm against mine, asking for my creativity to rub off on her. She doesn’t think she’s creative in any way; I advocated, but did not convince her. She preferred the mojo to the process and practice. I get that; I buy lottery tickets. I also recognized the moments and stories I tell myself about what I am NOT; it’s easier to identify these limitations rather than re-imagine myself in unknown possibilities. Making art is my way into the re-imagined, sneak past those boundaries and find myself in unexpected spaces.
For me, there is more to work for beyond my impulse to create art. I am more privileged than many and less than some. This is humbling, motivating me to utilize the advantages of education and resources when I’m making art. For whatever purpose we come to the arts, each of us expects different things in different measures. The quality of an art object/experience is relative to the quantity of what it delivers: give me the most substance, for the most people and serve the most intricate communities, for the longest time.
We struggle with the value of art: philosophically, metaphysically and economically. Have you been to the W.A.G.E site? http://www.wageforwork.com/wage.html Often, I feel as if I’m making art in a vacuum. You know the dynamics of the work=product, industrialized values. In a heartbeat, I’d give up my retail job and teaching graphic design (I would rather teach other forms of artmaking) if I could make a sustainable income from my artwork. The art world is going through it’s own version of the Great Recession. In the marketplace, one work sells for 5,10,100 times the price of another and we don’t know why, and I think we should. Dave Hickey posed the well-timed questions we should be asking: How long will I remember this and how well? How long will others remember it? Does it work better than the empty space before it was situated there? Is this work better than everything and, if so, how long will I love it? How much do I think about it? How much would I miss it? How often does it surprise me? How many words can I write about it? Is this work better than works similarly priced? How much would I sell it for? What would I trade it for? How much could I sell it for? How many people agree with me? Who are they? How complex are the constellation of objects in which it resides? How deep is the historical resonance? How much does it mean and how much does that matter?
How do you anticipate a future you haven’t experienced? That's a powerful question. You wrote that this segues into a project you're working on about gender-based violence. Could you say a little more about that?
The question came to me sideways; I was reading an article about Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s version of the Black Swan Theory as it related to the economic meltdown. From Wikipedia:
The theory was described by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book The Black Swan. Taleb regards almost all major scientific discoveries, historical events, and artistic accomplishments as "black swans" — undirected and unpredicted. He gives the rise of the Internet, the personal computer, World War I, and the September 11, 2001 attacks as examples of Black Swan events.
The term Black Swan comes from the assumption that 'All swans are white'. In that context, a black swan was a metaphor for something that could not exist. The 18th Century discovery of black swans in Australia metamorphosed the term to connote that the perceived impossibility actually came to pass. The main idea in Taleb's book is not to try to predict Black Swan events, but to build robustness to the negative ones, while being able to exploit positive ones. Taleb contends that banks and trading firms are very vulnerable to hazardous Black Swan events and are exposed to losses beyond that predicted by their defective models.
Based on the author's criteria:
The event is a surprise.
The event has a major impact.
After the fact, it is usually the case that the event is rationalized by hindsight, as if it was expected to occur.
Taleb's black swan is different from the earlier (philosophical) versions of the problem as it concerns a phenomenon with specific empirical/statistical properties which he calls "the fourth quadrant". One problem, labeled the ludic fallacy by Taleb, is the belief that the unstructured randomness found in life resembles the structured randomness found in games. This stems from the assumption that the unexpected can be predicted by extrapolating from variations in statistics based on past observations, especially when these statistics are assumed to represent samples from a bell curve. These concerns are often highly relevant to financial markets, where major players use value at risk models (VAR).
Gender-based violence is a catchall phrase I dislike because it has become an abstracted placeholder that distances us from the atrocities, as well as ignoring sexual assault against boys and men. The segue occurred when I connected the abstraction of statistics to crimes against women; we don’t comprehend the meaning of the data, the context, the realities of the actual people represented by numbers, formulas, and equations. At some point this semester, I came across the photography of Chris Jordan: http://www.chrisjordan.com/ and his TED video: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/chris_jordan_pictures_some_shocking_stats.html which also oozed into this current project.
I'm interested in the process by which you considered gifting your work, and then chose not to give it away.
Despite the enthusiastic response to my artwork, nothing sold. My Mother wanted to buy one—I don’t even know which one—but I would not allow the transaction. She prefaced the offer with “wanting to start the ball rolling” - a monkey see-monkey do sales tactic. Every piece I put in the show was coming back to me and this felt pathetic and claustrophobic. I wanted the art to go out into the world and have its own purpose. I was ready to make new work without the constant persistence of these objects in every available space of my home. Had the gallery director been there with me that day, I probably would have given him the one he wanted. I thought of leaving it, but that felt like a lonely deal. I drove the 20 miles home in silence, feeling silenced. Giving them away, would extend the art into the world. And allow me to keep hiding from the business of art: the marketing, advertising, dealing, pricing that I am so ignorant of. I kept them all, for now, because I believe they have value and can’t give up on my imagined life as an income producing artist. Some of them, I am in love with and can’t seem to let them go.
I'm curious whether women might see this work differently than men; and whether women survivors of sexual assault might relate to it differently than other women.
Having a vagina and all its accessoried implications leads me believe that men would experience this work differently. Conversely, I would see penis-works through my vagina goggles! Empathy, compassion and shared experience of pain and suffering are available to all of us through different means. However, if I do this work as well as I hope to, I believe women survivors of sexual assault could connect their personal experiences to it. Not everyone is ready or willing to open those places up.
Do you listen to music as you work?
Music is not always part of my studio rituals- like putting on my painting clothes is. Sometimes yes, and sometimes no, there is no observable condition for it. There are many times I just need quiet space. And there are times, when music or talk shows are on and I’m so in the zone, I don’t even recognize the sense of it. I was listening to Philip Glass and his contemporaries last packet. Thanks for sharing your music- I checked it out and enjoyed it. This series of paintings, I was listening to Larry Coryell, Paco De Lucia, and Eckart Tolle on Oprah’s Soul Series.
Lauren Berlant's concept of "intimate public" is very interesting. Are you convinced by her book to take mass-mediated women's culture seriously? What does that mean, and what are the gains of taking women's culture seriously? How do you think this book might relate to or influence your own perspective on feminism?
Before I read her book and visited her blog: http://supervalentthought.com/, I was convinced by my own experiences with relating to women. The course I teach on the history of Graphic Design pinpoints the label of the “public sphere” around WW I, and the corresponding ability to manipulate the public through mass media for political, social, and capital gains. Oprah is a force that is undeniable. Soap Operas. Women’s magazines. Movies. If you get a chance, watch Now Voyager (1942) on YouTube. Reality TV. Chick Lit.
But, have you noticed the role of women in sitcoms and commercials? Just as disturbing is the portrayal of men in them. I hear many women in the course of a day seeking solace in their mutual complaints without considering a redirect of their power to make it different. It’s called bitching, for a reason. Considering the number of women in the world’s population and the limited influence of change we effect, I take mass mediation very seriously. My feminism is based on awareness and social justice for everyone, including women. My activism is through my volunteer work and my art work.
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