Maternity and artistry

"This blending of personal and professional selves underscores her argument against feminism and maternity being mutually exclusive..."

Until I was on the Go bus from Mississauga to Toronto after visiting a friend from Europe the other night, I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to describe Andrea Liss’ Feminist Art and the Maternal (2009, University of Minnesota Press). My writer’s block was unblocked by the jocular expressions of my friend’s nine-month-old son and by feeling his tiny fingers clutching my toes. I figured the usefulness of the book for me would be in the examples of artwork, since my work revolves around baby clothing and socialization, but Liss’s style of writing is what really stood out for me, as a model for academic/personal blog writing.

Liss’ unique writing style involves the interspersion of personal memories throughout the text. She recalls meeting an artist at a conference, for example, which segues to a memory of being away from her feverish infant son to attend the same conference. In a blog, this degree of self-disclosure would be unsurprising. In a scholarly book, it is surprising, and beyond that, it is refreshing. The separation of personal and professional selves in the academic world is possible, but it’s an illusion and not necessarily a helpful one. I realize that the notion of the personal being political is hardly novel, but I haven’t seen a book with this approach before so I was quite taken by it. Her assessment of artwork is still authoritative and well written, even if the reader is privy to details of her personal life. Especially in a book about mothering, why shouldn’t Liss include an entire chapter about the impact of her breast cancer on her relationship with her son? And why should a writer’s outlet for sentiment be restricted to a dedication page at the front of the book?

This blending of personal and professional selves underscores her argument against feminism and maternity being mutually exclusive, if one views feminism as not exclusively personal. Though unstated, it is clear she also feels maternity and artistry aren’t mutually exclusive. I remember watching an interview with Olga Korper in a gender studies class I took for pleasure at Nipissing University, in which the gallery director noted the challenges that motherhood places on studio output. Liss’ myriad examples of mothers making art provides a positive counterargument. Maybe the issue is quality and not quantity, because the work these women are making wouldn’t exist without their experience of being a parent. At any rate, Liss describes interesting examples of art from the 1970s onwards which range from documentary (women capturing the minutiae of their children’s development) to therapeutic (mothers working through the untimely death of their children). I like that she opens her book with an account of her student’s performance, evidence that she doesn’t restrict her roster of artists to the ‘usual suspects.’ This inclusivity strikes me as suitably feminist, although I am left wondering, is anyone focusing on artworks by men about the joys of parenting, assuming they exist?

Book cover added in 2020 via fair use/dealing. Source: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/feminist-art-and-the-maternal

Boxing Gloves & Bustiers

"...video has become a mirror to a lot of artists." ~ Kate Gilmore

On Wednesday, the dentist asked me if I wanted to stick around for a root canal or book a later appointment. "Hmm," I thought. "Should I get my first root canal spontaneously or catch the next train downtown to see an exhibition curated by a colleague from SUNY Purchase?" The choice was simple: I was on the 3:58 train to Grand Central. It seemed that the cosmos was chastising me though: the first scene I watched in one of 14 videos made by women in Soho20's Boxing Gloves and Bustiers featured a large tooth used as a key.

Curator Kate Gilmore, who works on the same campus as me, was kind enough to agree to an interview. Here's what she had to say about the show.

Q-The title Boxing Gloves & Bustiers prepares the viewer for a show that is both girly and grrrly, if you will. Do you see the title as referring to a spectrum that a single woman might inhabit, to alter egos, or to something else entirely?

A-I actually did not come up with this title. It was a title that was already picked and I juried the show from a large group of people who sent in videos. That said, my impression is that this was a show about women who were very comfortable being women--both in terms of reflecting a stereotype of female sexuality as well as reflecting a non-stereotypical assumption of female sexuality.

Q-Artists like Ronnie Cramer and Jody Wood redefine our notions of acceptable female behavior with with their physically aggressive female protagonists. Cramer profiles a very dedicated female wrestler and Wood attacks women in public spaces in what feels like a spoof. What has the reaction been to works like these in the exhibition?

A-I think all the works in the exhibition have received great reactions, but I haven't been around on a daily basis to give you the detailed responses. I do, however, feel that these pieces in particular reflect a strong aggressiveness in the female characters, allowing the audience to view an unexpected reality. Especially, the Ronnie Cramer piece because this is a documentary project where these actions are really taking place as opposed to planned and "acted."

Q-Anybody can be a star these days, with YouTube profiles and reality television shows. Do you think the performative element of video, where you feel as if the artist is performing for you alone, is more prominent now as a result? I'm thinking of works like the one in which Valerie Garlick sings 'I've got you under my skin' while scratching her sunburned arm until the flakes are thrust at the would-be viewer, and of Katarina Riesing's 'Duet', in which she lip synchs 'Don't go breakin' my heart' while remaining indifferent to the bloodbath she's participating in, with a the-show-must-go-on kind of perkiness.

A-I think video has become a mirror to a lot of artists. Artists are using video as a very self-reflective tool--an inexpensive, relatively easy, fast medium to get their messages across and to create new forms of self-portraiture. Video and the simple means to put it out in the world allows artists to have a more immediate reaction to their work. Is this a result of YouTube or reality television, I'm not sure, but I think the moving image and the creation of that in a relatively simple and fast way is very attractive to a lot of contemporary artists.

Q-I found a number of the works difficult to stomach, like Yi Hsin Tzeng's in which buckets of paint are poured over a woman's head (it reminded me of waterboarding) and the one in which a naked woman is strapped to the underside of a table and awkwardly attempts to crawl around a room. Did you find the process of vetting the submissions to be taxing in this way? I imagine that it could have been overwhelming.

A-I really enjoyed jurying the show. Sure, there was a lot of work to look at--some good, some bad, some difficult, some easy, but, as an artist myself, it is great to see all these people working in interesting ways and trying to function within this theme. I appreciate work that is "hard to stomach," if it makes sense, is well executed, and fully expresses the theme at hand.

Q-With so many artists making their videos available online, do you feel that the role of the curator has changed when putting together a show of video art?

A-Maybe. I am not a "curator" per se. I have done a couple of curatorial projects, but I, in no way feel that I can give you a full answer to this. That said, as an artist who works in video, watching videos online is a very different experience than seeing them in an exhibition--watching work on flatscreens, projected, in installations, etc. If a curator is just looking to the Internet to put together video exhibitions, we might have a serious problem on our hands!

Stopping to smell the roses

“…I encountered a work in the A.I.R. exhibition that snapped me out of making snap judgements.”

The best time to traverse the Brooklyn Bridge is immediately after a thunderstorm. The temperature plummets and few people are out strolling, so you can cross in record time. On Sunday, I walked two-and-a-half hours from the lower east side to D.U.M.B.O. via the bridge and back again, to check out the new A.I.R. Gallery exhibition. Curated by gallery director (and alumna from my workplace, Purchase College !) Kat Griefen, tART @ A.I.R. features a diverse array of works from the tART collective, ranging from formalist to feminist. I was disappointed to learn that this group of artists is pronounced ‘tee-art’ rather than what I had mistakenly assumed: ‘tart’. The latter would be so cheeky (and I must admit, I have the convergence of feminism and baked goods on my mind because I’m about to make a shadow box of fibre cupcake sculptures for a Canadian fundraiser).

Just as I enjoy walking briskly in the city, I tend to breeze through galleries. It might be the result of having worked at a commercial gallery and observing gallerists and collectors make quick, intuitive decisions. During this time period, I visited the Art Gallery of Ontario with my friend Melanie and was amazed by the amount of time she spent with each piece, carefully considering all aspects. It made me aware of how ruthless I was. The problem is, my ‘speed viewing’ has made me somewhat resistant to media that demands a set amount of the viewer’s time, like video art and sound art. Interestingly, I encountered a work in the A.I.R. exhibition that snapped me out of making snap judgements. It made me realize that maybe art doesn’t demand time from the viewer so much as it rewards the viewer for investing an adequate amount of time. I am cognizant of the hypocrisy in my behaviour, as I sometimes include subtle contradictions in my work* and hope that viewers will take the time to notice. I want my own audience to work hard. Shouldn’t I be expected to do the same?

The work in question is Hvalreki (2009) by Rebecca Loyche. Allow me to describe the work as I encountered it: I put on the headphones and watched black and white footage of a woman signing in ASL as an impassioned male voice, perhaps a politician, played in the background, dominating the sound of crowds. The silent woman juxtaposed against the booming male voice was very effective indeed, from a feminist perspective. Not familiar with the language, I wasn’t inclined to keep the headphones on for long, but as I was about to disengage, the voice switched over to an impassioned female voice. Was it an opponent of the man? A colleague? Suddenly my assumptions had to make room for new possibilities. The work couldn’t necessarily be reduced to a male-female power dynamic at the woman’s disadvantage, at least not in the way I had imagined. I became curious about the work so I looked up Rebecca Loyche. She did a residency in Iceland where she joined the Women’s Emergency Government group and was inspired by protests, some of which are related to a shortage of information, piquing my interest as a librarian. When I researched the Women’s Emergency Government group, I read about their use of a pink dress to drape a political statue. Lesson learned. Pink dresses are the mainstay of my artwork. Who knows what I’ve overlooked in the past that is not only interesting in its own right but that could contribute to my own development as an artist?

After I left A.I.R., I made it a personal goal to be more open-minded about art that takes time to view. So far so good: only three days later, I went to a show of video art curated by Kate Gilmore. Stay tuned for more about that exhibition.

*In my Aberration sculpture series, I depict an abstracted cocoon, made of baby clothing and fabric, at various points in time. They appear to grow from left to right as they increase in size. There are more elements of embroidery on the clothing replicated on the outer surface of fabric, so it’s like the babies are developing new features or at least their existing features are becoming enhanced. I like to include a few anachronisms for good measure…bits of embroidery that suggest a reversal of time from left to right. I’m not trying to be difficult. Rather, I am responding to the tension of not knowing whether the cocooned forms are breaking free or becoming further bound.

A stitch in time

“I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a panel discussion this much...”

This morning on the train, a woman complimented a friend on her blouse, which she explained had been custom made by a seamstress. “Oh!” her friend replied with delight. “I sew a lot of my own clothing!” It dawned on me that it has been years since I sewed my own clothing, even though I did it all the time in high school. Unlike my sister who followed patterns diligently and produced clothing that looked exactly like it should, I took liberties and reveled in the challenge of correcting my mistakes. There was something very satisfying about determining how all of the pieces fit together, and that’s probably where my interest in fibre sculpture really began. I made dresses with grommets, skirts with asymmetrical hems, and even a quilted skirt with a secret pouch to hide money in case I got pickpocketed at my first concert (Lollapalooza, if you’re wondering).

I learned to sew long before adolescence. My grandmother—or Grandma Saunders, as my sister and I called her—taught me to avoid sewing with a strand of thread longer than your arm, and my mother showed me how to sew on a steel machine attached to a clunky desk (from the era of televisions with wooden exteriors that resembled furniture). In high school, I befriended Joann Schelstraete, who is now a successful designer at Danier Leather but at the time she was still studying fashion design. Anyway, at some point shortly after she graduated, I think in my first year of university, we went to an exhibition about fashion at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, where there was a garment by a classmate of hers. It had lots of stitching, which I would call expressive rather than decorative. I can’t remember her name but I can tell you that a new world opened up to me when I saw it.

Wow, that turned out to be a longer reminiscence than I expected. Writing this has made me realize that I miss having different approaches to sewing, so I decided to sign up for a class (more on that in a moment). What I intended this blog post to focus on was last night’s panel discussion at Manhattan’s Center for Book Arts. Five artists discussed their work in the exhibition, Threads: Interweaving Textu[r]al Meaning, which was organized by Lois Morrison and Alex Campos.

After a dramatic introduction with thunder in the background, Iviva Olenick talked about her quirky journalistic embroideries that document her love life. I enjoyed her presentation so much that I signed up for her continuing education course this fall at the Pratt Institute, The Embroidered Art Journal: Embroidery as Narration and Illustration. (I have been meaning to take an embroidery class for several years so I am very excited, especially to find one with a focus on contemporary art). Next up was Jonathan Fetter-Vorm, whose lively discussion of the history of suturing—the focus of his screen printed book—was a real treat. Because I sew cocoon sculptures, I was pleased to learn that when an animal/organism ruptures from its constraints, it’s called a suture. And because my work is about clothing, the body and sewing, I also thought this observation was noteworthy: “[Through suturing,] we treat the fabric of our bodies with the same tools as we use to make the clothing we put on our bodies.” Following Jonathan’s talk was Meda and Veda Rives, twin sisters whose aptly named Mirror Image Press offers art that is as engaging as their identical twin-ness. Their largescale installations of handmade paper containing embedded thread evoke spiritual associations without being heavy-handed. Elise Wiener followed, captivating me with her realization, “Stitching in and of itself was beautiful,” which is evident in her undulating, colourful stitching on LPs from her youth. Her commitment to making a work of art each day for a year is inspiring. The night finished off with Tamar Stone, who stole my heart with her bed books. In these loose versions of books, each layer of the doll-sized bed sculptures—the blankets, sheets, pillows, and mattresses—contains embroidered stories about the lives of women based around beds, ranging from tales of midwifery to being locked in a bedroom for apparent insanity.

Thread is to me what paint is to painters. Hearing this panel made me think of something I wish I had addressed in an invited lecture on stitching as mark-making in a Sheridan College drawing class this past winter: there are so many reasons I use thread and not another medium, namely its ability to bind two things together, to be camouflaged through tiny stitches, to form an image through repeated stitches (i.e., embroidery), to create an expressive line by pooling, to create unexpected knotted masses, and to fray.

The show runs until September 12, 2009 and there will be a second panel discussion (featuring Patricia Dahlman, Tanya Hartman, Yoko Inoue, Vandana Jain, Heather Johnson and China Marks). I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a panel discussion this much, so I hope you will try to make it, especially since I’ll be out of town and won’t be able to see it myself.

To view images by the artists:
Iviva Olenick
Jonathan Fetter-Vorm
Meda and Veda Rives
Elise Wiener
Tamar Stone

Gallery 2.0

“The work we probably should have seen coming, that was only a matter of time, is Colleen Asper’s seven-by-nine-foot painted replica of the Google search engine page.”

Internet art, of all media, seems like it should be the ultimate authority on contemporary cyber culture. This medium, which operates under a variety of names like net.art, uses the Internet as the intended venue for exhibition, as opposed to works of art that are represented through online documentation as more of an afterthought. Because Internet art has been addressing issues of authenticity related to authorship and appropriation for a while now, I had not expected the non-Internet artworks in Image Search (on view until July 31 at Chelsea’s P·P·O·W Gallery) to strike me as particularly innovative. I was mistaken. The group exhibition, which is about life in the age of the Internet, is very smart. For example, two artists take up the issue of collaborative authorship (or more cynically put, contested authorship): Aids-3D paid an online service in China to produce a painting for the show, and Jason Lazarus similarly made arrangements online for a message to be spray painted on the Palestinian side of the West Bank, which has been documented with a photograph.

At the library, I am currently making lesson plans to encourage the responsible evaluation and use of online images, so the appropriation of images is of special interest to me. Two of my favourite works in Image Search relate to this topic. Christoph Draeger has taken an image from Google Images of the mushroom cloud in Nagasaki and made an enlarged version as a puzzle with all pieces painted a suitably grim black. Negative space is formed by removing pieces that fragment the image, alluding to pixelation and also to the destruction of nuclear war. Equally impressive is Conrad Ventur’s video of Dolly Parton singing, taken from an anonymous online space. Projected through a rotating crystal, it too is fragmented, resulting in an ethereal image that recalls the unfixed nature of the Internet. It is also reminiscent of the disco-era aesthetic of photographic images morphing into one another.

The work we probably should have seen coming, that was only a matter of time, is Colleen Asper’s seven-by-nine-foot painted replica of the Google search engine page. The scale, formerly reserved for history paintings, highlights the veneration of Google as the preferred source of knowledge. With the artist’s name wittily entered in the search box, it also serves as a reminder that Google is the ultimate validation of the self, at least if the results are plentiful and favourable. This is an example of appropriation that I will definitely be showing students in library instruction sessions because it taps into our visual culture so effectively. In our library instruction sessions, we m don’t skirt around the existence of Google: we use it as a point of reference, as a means of comparison, and even as a complement to the library’s resources available by subscription only. If I could curate any piece into our exhibition spaces, I think Asper’s painting would be my top choice, as a gesture towards today’s youth about the library being a place of co-existence. I think the student population would absolutely love the painting. To view it, double click on the image in the third row down here. Just don’t reset your screen, thinking that you have accidentally been redirected to Google.

Gearing up for my first performance

“The performance will be informed by my new understanding of space as a precious commodity in Manhattan. I’ll be counting on people infringing on my personal space so they are close enough to become part of the performance…”

Last week, I took the overnight bus from New York to Toronto and turned around immediately with my husband to renew my employment paperwork for the US and to add him to mine as a frequent visitor. Along the way, we saw graffiti that said “Read more!” repeatedly. The librarian in me smiled, while the rest of me ached for sleep. I’ve been too tired to heed the advice of the graffiti and get any reading done, but I have been plotting an unconventional way to encourage reading: weather permitting, I’ll be doing a performance this week that will prompt unwitting viewers to read my body. To inscribe words on my own body will surely prove as unsettling as being on the receiving end of a stranger's unsolicited, written comments about my body, but I feel it needs to be done to address the injustice of the latter incident (the details of which I won’t dwell on here), plus it’ll relate to my previous cocoon sculptures that address the phenomenon of text-based socialization through baby clothing.

Too tired to read, I’ve indulged in watching my DVD set of the television show, Felicity. The main character, a college freshman played by Keri Russell (who is now a real-life New Yorker) describes Manhattan as a blizzard in which she is but a snowflake. That line makes me think about the difficulty of capturing someone’s attention in New York. It would be a lot easier to do a performance in my hometown where there is less visual stimulation, but I think I’ve found the perfect place to do the performance in New York. It’s actually the same place where I got the idea for the performance, after seeing a woman wearing the same kind of clothing on which I want to comment. I’ve never done a performance; the closest I’ve come is modeling wearable art for photographic documentation. I’m not quite sure how I will gear myself up for it, but I will admit that I’m making this post to ensure accountability. I’ve stated that it will happen, so now I have to go through with it.

As I’m used to thinking of sculpture with a frontal focus, it will be very strange for me to become the sculpture in a sense and to be moving through space. A quotation by Louise Bourgeois that I saw on the week-end at the Dia:Beacon keeps going through my mind even though I can’t remember the continuation of it: “Space is an illusion.” While walking around the top floor of the stunning gallery to view her work, I believed she was right. Moving towards the bench where my husband sat, I perceived a stationary sculpture to be animated as he went in and out of my field of vision. Likewise, from different vantage points, the security guard was eclipsed by a hanging Bourgeois. But I also had a knee-jerk reaction to the suggestion that space is an illusion. “Oh really?” I thought. Having ample space is the difference between hitting your head on the paper towel dispenser and the doorknob in a puny Manhattan restaurant bathroom and not; it’s the difference between getting a parking space at 2 am and having to go to a parking garage and take a taxi back because your neighbourhood is too rough. (I will recall memories like these when I look at the photograph I just purchased by James Prez of graffiti that says ‘New York Fucking City’). The performance will be informed by my new understanding of space as a precious commodity in Manhattan. I’ll be counting on people infringing on my personal space so they are close enough to become part of the performance, to act as the conceptual completion to the act of assemblage.

I’m off to Pearl Paint to procure some materials for the performance. Stay tuned for photographs this week-end.

P.S. I was in fact foiled by the rain. Now I am just waiting for a time that is convenient for both me and my photographer-husband. P.P.S. This performance was not conducted ultimately.

Dear Sarah Jessica Parker...

"Cherry-picking from a group of earnest artists also potentially reinforces the myth of the reclusive artist who waits to be discovered".

Dear Sarah Jessica Parker,

Bravo didn’t happen to pass on my request for an interview, did they? Alas, I figured it was a long shot. My hope was to talk to you about the reality television show that is in the works, to be produced by your company, Pretty Matches. Unfortunately, I’m ineligible to try out for the casting call for American Artist this coming week-end at New York’s White Columns Gallery because I don’t have a schedule that coincides with the projected dates of filming. It’s a shame, because I thought it would be fun to say I tried out. Mind you, had I actually made the cut, I probably would have felt conflicted. Here’s why:

I’m not a fan of reality television shows, What Not to Wear notwithstanding, and maybe it’s because they just aren’t realistic. American Artist does offer a semblance of reality by involving real-world art professionals, who will critique the work of artists undergoing art-related challenges, and select a winner who gets a cash award, an exhibition, and a sponsored national tour. However, I have to wonder if it’s wise to fast-forward through the stages of development of up-and-coming artists. Having just read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers (Little, Brown and Co., 2008), in which he argues that 10,000 hours of practice leads to expertise (attributing the Beatles’ success in part to their grueling performance schedules in Hamburg), I feel like artists might be better served not having all eyes on them while they are still refining their style and technique. It will be interesting to see how the winner sustains his or her career.

Also veering away from reality is the prospect of having artists work outside their chosen media. I’m perplexed about what the value is in this, especially because I’m not convinced of its entertainment value. My husband works exclusively in photography, and I in fibre; if someone made us switch, I don’t think it would be the makings of a good show. It’s imperative for artists to push themselves, but that quality is generally innate for the ones who are likely to make it. Also, I fear that it sends out a damaging message about artists needing to be skilled in multiple media to be successful. Artists who fall into this category, like Michael Snow, are surely recognized for this, but there are plenty of artists who specialize in a single medium who aren’t valued any less because of it.

Cherry-picking from a group of earnest artists also potentially reinforces the myth of the reclusive artist who waits to be discovered. In reality, gallerists and curators have artists on their radar well before they become involved with them because the artists have put themselves out there and aren’t working in isolation. Maybe, ironically, that’s the one realistic element that will be offered up by the show: the artists who are brazen enough to respond to the casting call may have a good shot at getting ahead in the art world because they see the value of exposure. But the type of exposure could be critical. Will the winning artist be respected after the fact? Can a similar model work as, say, American Idol where artists have gone on to strike record deals?

Undoubtedly, American Artist will perpetuate the notion of the art star as well. The thing is, we already have art stars because of high profile art awards. The glamour that comes with those awards is called into question by Sarah Thornton’s Seven Days in the Art World (W.W. Norton, 2008) by revealing the mixture of melodrama and disappointment that surrounds Britain’s Turner Prize. Melodrama makes for good reality television, for sure, but it sounds like American Artist might be searching for art stars in a context where they already exist.