The Square Book

fallen

know

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metro

The exchange sketch books started as an exercise in 'letting go' of the preciousness of the personal book object, testing our individual ideas about ownership, loss, taboo, market value and personal voice.
We invite collaboration, response, transgression, violation, folding and cutting within a respectful space. The participating artists are attracted to the intent of building artist community through the conversation and narrative that arise from the relationships of images, forms, textures
collected, drawn sewn and imposed, presented in an evocative object.

Salt Marshes Mud Flats November 2007

5.5" x 8.5" each

These are studies of the salt marshes along the Northeast section of the rail road line that goes up along the Southern coast of Connecticut and Rhode Island. It is the single saving grace of a very long, deadly dull train ride to Boston. I discovered it just after 9/11. The airports were shut down at that time, and I had taken this train to visit my son who was then studying physics at MIT. It has a number of stretches of mud flats and salt marsh that I have since sketched many times.

I first saw the potential of working with flat beds of marshes back in 1980 while spending some time on Cape Cod. I was captivated by the long, warm light in the fall, the dark Payne's grey of the sky, superb with the glow of the cranberry marshes in the evening light.

To me , there is no better time to sketch the tidal basins than late in the day after a soaking rain. If there is a break in the clouds, just as the sun is ready to set, it is as if it was laid out in brilliant warm light just for me. The water can be a clear as glass, a mirror of light against the soft grasses or the dark horizon.

These sketches were done as the light was fading in the early evening, the sun was setting as we sped through the stretch of ochre grasses with small patches of red sumac and cuts of the water. This idea of me trying to sketch and paint some slice of a view while moving 65 mph is sort of not really possible, but sometimes there is something impressed on the page that captures a specific moment of seeing in a particular light, and that is what painting is. Pushing water and pigment around until it begins to say, this is the land, this is the water, this is confusing.

I often work this way when I am travelling as a passenger by bus, car or rail. The flickering frames of landscape, broken by telephone poles or trees, feels very cinematic. There is a shift in my relationship to what is possible, in the way of the glimpse of something, rather than the long period of viewing that is also part of my studio practice. It is a great exercise in letting go.

As I get older, it is easier for me to see the repeating cycles of creative work from the figure to the land, and back to the figure, combining short sketches and long hours. The interplay of my measured perception over prolonged viewing or repeated short periods of viewing is connected to my ideas of how I experience something. Sometimes, I think I see the thing in a flash, in an instant, and sometimes, it emerges over a long period of viewing and whining and just plain hard long hours of painting or modeling the figure.

There is the simple organic relationship of parts, or the gesture? Obviously there is the political charge of the figures, and the complete lack of figures in the landscape...

My mind and studio practice is very fluid. The analytic and intuitive impulses flow so quickly and easily that breaking the process into meta cognitive shifting of the gears, is more or less something I more easily see when I am not really capable of working at a high level of creativity. I sometimes work when I don't feel particularly inspired or energetic. At this slower pace, I can more easily see the rituals, the breaks, the tricks I use to re-engage the space. I have often produced solid work out of the space of discipline, though not necessarily inspired work. I accept the fallow time as a time to reflect and give the rich productive times a long lead. Any one who has worked with me in studio situations, will attest to the charge of unbroken hours of work, sleepless nights and early mornings. If I am engaged in something, it does wake me up in the middle of the night.

Accumulation

I have been going through the stuff that I have gathered around me over the years, trying to make decisions about what to keep, what to toss. Through this, I have found many collections of objects, envelopes of cancelled stamps, postcards... letters... and art work form thirty years. There are three classes of stuff:1. the things that I have selected or gathered in a conscious way, collecting, sorting, displaying 2. the bodies of work that I have produced around various central ideas 3. things that have fallen into my space and have lingered, pasted to the layers of other more important things, like bills, papers from school... garbage

This third class of objects seems to have laziness, indecisiveness or mental instability at the core. When I come home from work, I am too tired to SEE what is important and what is just garbage. I have a GOOD day once in a while, when I can go through a box of mail, papers from my teaching and dig into the work for Goddard. It is somewhat over whelming. There seems to be no end of it.
Recognising what is important is a large part of my art practice. I can see patterns arise from numbers of things.
The comfort I find in collecting and sorting is a way of ordering my section of the world. In this way, there is an order, a class of ideas and a variety of forms, the accumulation of a number of things coming together to form the relationship of things. Usually, my work is done in series of hundreds of things, drawings and models of eggs, shells, heads, figures. To me there is a sense that in quantifying objects, there is a point where the one is lost and the many becomes the one... How this comforts me, I am not sure. I notice that I have a break point whereI lose interest in the relationships of objects or people in the numbers. One, a couple, a few, a small groups, I am able to make up stories about various numbers of people, but at some point, the crowd story has a much different quality, it becomes a mob, a demonstration, something very abstract. In meditation, this is a welcome experience, but during a demonstartion or a march, it can be quite frightening.

Visual Thinking Assignment

Following an introduction to the history of sacred geometry and shown examples of Mandala forms in nature and representations in various cultures, the students are given a worksheet to complete an inventory of the words they use to describe themselves.

The students are initially asked to represent their identity in language and then asked to locate images from that represent the words. Listing the words in four quadrants of experience, physical, emotional, spiritual and intellectual characteristics, they are then asked to project these words of individual identity and expand them into relationships of family, local and global communities.

Berringer Lexicon

Whenever I attempt to go through a box in my studio, I find lists of words. This practice of lists began to appear on interior covers of books from my undergraduate reading. This habit of noting words and phrases while reading persists invarious forms throughout my life. Some words: equality, parity, fair, same, equal, quid pro quo, appear on the same scrap of paper, indicating a fleeting, yet obsessive need to discriminate the subtleties of meaning in a word set.

In practice, these groups ofwords come enter my studio work. I spend so much time alone working that a jumble of words can influence my perception of space as well as the resonance of an image.

The whereness, or time place of words and objects has always held meaning as a mutable thing, something that could easily change in an unexpected or arbitrary way.

the illusive nature of word/object meaning

Inter dependent yet not entirely dependent on the context of time, space, the specificity of words used within the dictionary hierarchy of use, the meaning of words, diluted by custom or use, seem to have a trajectory independent of current lexicon. The wikipedia phenomena is further deomonstration of the elusive nature of meaning wherever it falls in the equation of sign, signal, signifier.

So here is the list so far.

partita, reefing, fishing for minnows, return to life, conjuring, a place apart, signs, sounding, empty set, ordered field, breakaway, a twitch upon the thread, distant lands, wall relief, cut from the cloth, elements of change, passing, plotted points, sky sign, moving on, news from home, hellas, toward home, allegheny ridge, arbitrary constants, from fire, tantalus, caveat, savage tribes pursue their games, red shift, more proof, conjuring, accelerated motion, bounded sequence, eloquent field, odd function, steady state, fluctuating field, parting, keeping still, roma, meridian, morning coat, paper piece, shale, soleil, morning light, ariadne, portal, courante, journey east, gathering storm, marina, ariel, io, dream sequence, song bird, potpourri, passing through, passing, night song, light of venice, bird of paradise, atom of that infinite space, fly fishing, within the limit, recollection, soft synapse, conversation piece, a series of false starts, sorbet, winnowing, back to basics, beryl, copse, chaff, dancing in the wind, driving behind trucks, awakening, colorado spinner, soft at dawn, conventional signs, glimpse of forgotten dreams, aggregate, delicate balance, softly in dreams, a piece of jade, passage, melon, flotsam, bronze age, within the limit, dreams of sleeping innocence, becoming mirth, passing through, night fishing, echo, maiden voyage, passageway, celebration, corridor, entry, impasse, journey, totem, out of silence, sea shadow, point of crossing, tablet, blue mist, tag along, parting in dreams, dream image, shell, hidden rites, out of silence, casseopeia, lake at the foot of the mountain, clotho, free variable, threshold, paper piece, lure, turning point, cantus, catching golden carp, shaman, eustace, the shrimp and the anemone, brazier, after strange gods, unknown depth, moki robe, silence and tear, ritual and the chase, passage to xanthus, byzantia, corfu, medea, procession, bell at dawn, snake catcher, rain prism, sun drop, wanderer, aquarelle, rain dancer, l’oiseau, papillon, hebrides, paper fan, morning song, rain outside, kites in the sky, celebration, in transit, departure, nexus, driving behind trucks, flotsam, solstice, street totem, pace of change, hidden rites, unfinished game, far cry, razor reef, marina, panoply, last look, evening fan, miranda, whisper, bleeding sky, distant shore, sandstone impression, maple sugar, first frost, autumn light, last look, coming back, paper shades, breaking through, retreat, quiet reflection, parting, distance, argos, sky high, water mark, allegro non troppo, cantabile, conteza, masque, brandy, aire, vestige, paper plinth, napery fragment, barbican, vestige, echo, corsair, passé partout, related parts, paper partita, paper lattice, a solemn fugue, tweeter, related parts, chiri kimono to be worn at dawn, largo from vivaldi’s concerto in d minor opus 525, paper raiment for late morning, children of the game, wind fencing, beryl, baby’s dance, aquamarine, lullaby, fandango, birth/rebirth, ribbing, battens, gift of light, landscape allegory, farrago, mousse, between dog and wolf, sleepless nights, regalia, distant sound of flute and harp, rose quartz, soft oat dawn, time and the hour, elegy, polydore, bandalino, markings, palinurus, time line, arion, chamber, en passant, dig, signs, markings, run to ground, moon tide, toward knowing, samos, resting in, from fire, no dominion, in dwelling, grain in the stone, foundation, canto, time and tide, interlude, orestes, presage, madrigal, witness, stele, karras, last chance, signs of rain, ozymandius, passing, andromeda, paredros, palisade, tracks, that which region, mariner, no strange land, andromache, house of silence, what about blue, surface to air, iron and silk, vanadinate, easement, stargazer, yellow cord, raj, shifting fields, ritual and the chase, after long years, out catching snakes, shadow of vesuvius, venetian glass, measure for measure, signs of life, a world away, mixed message, sotto voce, portia, beyond the reef, divining, fascinator, astraea, stargazer, perseus, cassandra, atropos, making plans, crucible, morning coat, after strange gods, roma, out of silence, amaranthe, fox fire, alluvial strata, balancing act, spinner, left behind, moment in rest, sybil, red sails, tawny port, between two dogs, distant lands, a message so sent, break away, sounding, secrets of the sea, odd lot, rime, odd function, a dream of fish, moon mirror, firm foundation, news from home, easement, muse, elements of change, wall relief, partita, time line, time and tide, ephemera, tracery, urbino, foundation, conversation, designation, in three parts, three rivers, within the sky, on point, kinship, wash in, soft space, netuna, ostia, marina antica, pacare, poesia, favored circumstance, recit, ariel, tropism, measure of space, in the balance, within the sky, porta marina, caberia, ostia, foundation, charter, trastevere, rain dance, wanderer, divertissement, tag along, accelerated motion, the sea obscure, bounded sequence, pavan, galliard, manon, poco a poco, resting in, of empires lost, storm sign, foundation, and the sea, milos, gigue, allman, gavotte, bourree, correctness, soft harmony, straight on, traveler, mistral, the dream the journey, arbitrary constants, the sky above the sea below, from far, remainder, collected together, moment in rest, legacy, safe to sea, yellow jack, on one, at the edge, markings, cyclamen, elemental nature, citrone, fragment, fourth chamber, unaccustomed path, new conditions arising, shift in the field, familiar aspect, difficulties along the way, series of false starts, blue space sky, red banner blue, fresh trout, impulse, point of charge, blue topaz, between tides, dream journals.

documentation

I decided to make a directory of my work. At first, I thought I should have someone do this for me. After gathering the slides from 1983-1993, I realized this would not be practical. Also, I stopped photo documentation of my work after my retrospective in 2000. And, the idea of an incomplete archive seemed like a Pandora's box of what I have not done.

During my first semester, I did do a complete inventory of the work in my studio and began laying a ground for marketing the work I had not sold. This pile above represents the work that was sold.

I am very over whelmed just by the weight of these notebooks and boxes. So I have decided to approach the reclaiming of my work in a more literary way, by taking the titles of the work and compiling a running list of the words, phrases and ideas that have been in my work. This is my way of sitting with the work of twenty five years, acknowledging what I have been been influenced by and archiving my journey as a studio artist.

My maggot. I acknowledge that this idea came from someone else, though inadvertently. My husband rarely commented on my actual art work, but one time when he noticed a list of titles lying around from some invoice, he remarked that my titles are a work in themselves.

Finding Berringer update

periodically I google my name with the word auction to see if any thing has come up recently. I have tracked down three auction houses here in DC and Bethesda and one in Boston who have handled pieces of mine in the last ten years and now I have way to ask them for any auction records to track the provenance of my work. I was also surprised to see some illustrations I had done in the early 70's selling on Ebay as rare lithographs and etchings... very odd. There was a decor group in Ohio selling a suite of pieces I had co-published with my New York Dealer.
I try to see the humor in this process, but for the most part it is still a thing that brings up some feelings of regret. Better that the work just evaporate than to keep popping up after thirty years.

the one and the many

I have begun expanding the piece with five additional panels for the opening of the faculty exhibition this evening. So far no one seems to see the connection between all the dead washed up egg sacks and the environment. The number of sacks is excessive and would not occur under normal conditions.
This work comes at a time when the supreme court has begun to align itself with the corporate agenda of oil production. The amount of punitive damages in the Exon Valdis case has already been cut ion half and there is every expectation that the new court will expunge the entire amount, opening the possibility of future financial immunity for large corporations in environmental cases. There is always the possibility that no one is aware of this case as it has evolved since the initial outrage. Most of the work that I do has a kind of allure, the beauty of the luminous surface of the water color process. It is maybe too subtle to see that this work is about ravaging shellfish, fishing out entire species, killing off huge populations as a collateral event to the systematic fishing of another species. I relate these killing fields across the psychological landscape of war. The idea of quantification in the numbers of the dead has been of interest to me for a long time. I am interested in how numbers are processed whenever an invasive species leaves piles of countable death.

Exchange Sketchbooks

Up to six of the collaborative sketchbooks will be exhibited in the Honan Allston Branch of the Boston Public Library. I t has been a nerve wracking process for me. Submitting six books that represent hundreds of hours of work by several artists over a period of a year and a half, uninsured venue, weighing the conundrum of how to list the artists, whether to just list everyone and leave the provenance unclear, or to put specific artists with each book. To try to make it easier to keep track of the books, i gave them titles from the interior pages, but that was a unilateral decision made in haste at the next to the last moment when I realized that if it is difficult for me to keep them straight, how could the curator explain which had gotten in? In the end Ronni said they would all go in, so I sent all six. It was interesting to me that the more the books became part of another intent, that is, to share them with the outer world, all these concerns came up about preciousness, loss creative property... as I lost control of them, handing the box to the postal clerk, I actually asked her if she thought the address was clear. The less control I had, the more solid they became. What if they were lost/ What if someone just stole all of them? or only Jessica's? Now they are supposed to be in Boston and I can check the delivery online.

pages from hidden agenda

fishing for minnows from the back of a whale

tonight at seven

the puzzle

otherwise elsewhere engaged

not without notice

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

extravagant objects in the curiosity shop

the allure of the extravagant object... long after it's use has passed into forgetfulness, the ritual lost in a rush for the next great idea...

... useful things, tools, totems, or maybe something with a charge of its own?

When I was in the Arizona desert, I saw strange little regularly shaped nuggets lying in the sand. I picked them up.

It is against the law to collect pottery shards or arrowheads, but these were just oddly formed rocks. They had form, they were 'whole' unto themselves. It turns out that those rocks were also valued and collected by Native American Shamans, and for the same reason. They stood apart from the forms man made, they were of the desert, and so they had a pull, a strange attraction... power.

Coprolite, fossilized rodent scat, which accounts for the perfectly formed round, piled effect.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Faulkner

"...frustrated Tchaikovsky, spread thin, over stale white bread"... have to wonder how you get from a mob burning down the local jail to Luxembourg Garden, tap tap tap.... and how is he ever going to wrap up this mess? A segue into a lengthy portrayal of race and class in a potent recounting of evil doing, a reckless evening's fun that slides into murder...To me it is something worse than reactive violence when death comes as an extension of social carelessness, opportunism or mindless mob justice. I read this book because it resonated along the lines of Von Trier's films Mandelay and Dogtown, where Grace's presence has a disturbing effect on the local population. In Dogtown, a sort of Our Town, the inhabitants start off happily enough and then gradually go 'off' like bad cheese. In Faulkner's piece, Sanctuary, the pervasive presence of social decay, the smell of death and very bad things are present from beginning to end. In both pieces, there is distance in the telling. The tone barely changes as the narrator describes the sheer dress or a bloodied corn cob. The voice seems to float over the images of rape in Mandelay and Dogtown. I hardly care about the girl. A bad thing happened, yet, it seemed that the process of getting there was more intriguing that the act itself. Both are rescued by Daddy and the characters seem to do just as well as they had before they were so ill used, so I wonder what the point was? Both girls were inserted by men into communities of lower social status. Both were held against their will and taken down, and both emerged, protected in some way by their wealth. What does it mean?

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

possum update

tricky little creatures. They would probably be lovable if it weren't for those scritchy little claws , vampire eyes and oooh.. that tail.
After days of wrestling with the possum dilemma, I decided to 'deal' with it myself. A runner by nature, avoiding responsibility whenever and wherever possible, this was a big deal for me. Armed with a sinus infection, gloves, a scoop, and very large 5mil garbage bag and a fine breezy morning, I went out to finally face what ever was waiting in the garbage bin.
It had been full a week of avoidance behavior and even as I moved to look into the bin, I was not sure I was up to this. I imagined the smell of death and placed that particular dread over there, somewhere else over by the shrubbery.
I moved slowly toward the bin, deciding to take in the visual situation in on an "as needed" basis. And I realized that I was looking at the surface, a litter of shredded paper refuse, the detritus of the street trash collected in front of my home.
NO possum!

At least not visible. I jostled the bin slightly trying to assess the expected weight to volume of dried paper refuse plus one dead possum. I decided that the mass indicated either that the possum was all dried up or gone. I was slightly less creeped out by the prospect of a dessicated creature.
I took a breath. I think I had been holding my breath because the rush of air was a shock. I engineered a few steps of transferring the garbage so that I would not actually have to touch anything but realized at some point the possum was indeed gone.

Studies for the big sky book

Pages from the Exchange Sketchbook project

Click on the link to see the pages

Lost and found

We lost another book. This happens. The project intent to create work that is instant ephemera is tested when a sketch book is actually lost.

For the period of time when it eludes us, it becomes more solid, its value escalates. The flavor of its pages ripen into an unquenched thirst. I imagine its pages more luminous, the longer it is gone the more it falls into myth.
In the remembrance of something no longer available, you can not test the idea of it. You don't have that reality check of the object to bring what is imagined lost back to what is in reality, the thing itself.
When I found my first 3" shark tooth, it seemed huge. I had been collecting for a while and had some decent 2" and a lot of 1" teeth, many smaller ones with a great variety of design.. but the big teeth seemed to exist only in shops, where they could be bought, but then they would lack the journey of discovery and collecting in the field that is part of what makes the finding so much more than an object.

The afternoon was sunny, a fall day, when the light is long and warm. I had walked quite a long way when I felt the wind change. the clouds seem to come from nowhere, it was time to head back. Climbing over cliff sediment, I made my way through tangles trees that had toppled over the cliffs above. They lay across the small path of sand at the waters edge,their leaves in the bay and their roots still clinging to the yellow clay from the top of the cliff. Yellow ochre against the steel gray methane smelling sediments rising straight up at the waters edge. Covered with fine iron rust carried from above, the cliffs are a thing of great beauty and light, shimmering with water and the fading afternoon light.
I scrambled over the clay sediment, the tide was incoming and the sloping surface was now slippery. I was soaking wet and it had begun to rain. I was on my hands and knees trying to cross this area below the cliff.
It had been a great day, but the weather changes quickly on the bay and the water was getting light and starting to jump with the change in the wind direction. A storm was coming.
I was a little nervous, the water was very warm but the wind was very cold. I decided to stay n the warm water as long as possible. 45 minutes. It takes 45 minutes for hypothermia to set it. I was about two hours from the beach house. My imagination was about to take me off to a place of death tangled in roots eaten by crabs, when I felt this slice across the palm of my hand. Damn, I thought, some nasty shell. When I saw the cut, I knew it was not a shell. I felt back to the spot where I felt the sting of salt, and there was this edge, emerging from the hard black clay, it took me a few minutes to dig it out using a turtle bone, but there it was. A pristine tooth. I looked at it in the fading light, it seemed smaller now that it was in my hand. I put it deep into my pocket. As I worked my way up the beach, the rain was harder the rising tide had covered the beach and I had to slog my way home. The excitement of finding the tooth had filled me with a kind of warmth. I walked faster, surer and occasionally felt down into my pocket to make sure the tooth was still there. It felt large again in my pocket. I slipped, I feel, I felt for it again, still there.
When I reached the beach house the kids barely noticed. They were eating pizza and playing a board game with their dad. I showed the boys the tooth, they loved it, it seemed huge they wanted to hold it. In their small hands, the tooth seemed larger still. When their dad saw it, he said, what's the big deal. It seemed to shrink as his lack of interest in the tooth began to sharpen into focusing on a criticism of my having spent so much time collecting and only finding one. I put the tooth in my pocket where it hid from all this valuing and measuring. I wrapped it in a paper towel and put it in a white porcelain box shaped like a walnut. And there it stayed for fifteen years.
I recently opened the box. Over the years more objects had accumulated. Things that go into the curiosity cabinet. I had a lot of distance from the finding these things, but alone, going through them now, they still have the pull of objects that become more solid when you lose them or when they are desired by someone.

These objects stand up in their right space and can be checked from time to time. The distortion of desire or loss still hovers. I can have a panic until I find the ax head or spear point, but as long as the object is available, it is a measure against the imagined lure of the unattainable, the lack or the obsessive fear of loss.

The good news is that I cleaned two rooms trying to find the lost sketchbook, and though I did not find the book, Jessica did. She had also cleaned. I asked her if the sketchbook was as special as we remembered when we thought it was lost? She said no, and giggled a bit. The joke was understood. And it was just the one page that we both had become attached to that we really missed. And there, it actually is a really nice passage.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Possum Blues

It seems like a small step in life management, but I have been trying to make sure I get my garbage out in time for collection every Tuesday and Friday. Last week I found a baby possum in one of the bins. I tipped it over and ran into the house in an (un)characteristic panic.

I am not sure why they scare the heck out of me. Maybe it is because my brother dragged me out of bed one night to see one he had shot with a cross bow. Those little red eyes, looking up at me as the thing passed to possum heaven. At least that was what I told myself. And one time, I found one in the pool, very stiff, very dead, eyes closed. And once I trapped one and let it go. As I total up the possum related events in my life, I decide it is just that they are sort of creepy. And the eye contact thing is sort of creepy.

So last Thursday afternoon, I came home ready to put some garbage out, but when I looked into the bin, the possum was back, only now, his eyes seemed crusted and dried up. I freaked. I had killed accidentally killed the baby possum!

My mind raced to make up some narrative, how I must have I set the bin upright and the little possum had returned and climbed in, couldn't get out and had died of the heat .. etc, etc..

Spiritually, it was on me and I was lathering up a lot of guilt around this.

But moreover, I now had a potentially disturbing, I mean totally disturbing, disposal problem. As I continued pondering the Karmic implications, I tried to think of people who might be willing to fish this dead possum out and bury it... maybe a viking funeral?? sky burial? I also thought of leaving it there to see how long it would take the beetles to...never mind, that's from watching CSI.

Today I returned from the Post Office and I thought I might/would check it out the bin again. I had missed the pick up on Friday and tomorrow is the next one. I was feeling hostage to this immovable, dead creature. Maybe if I just slide the bin out to the curb as is, the garbage men will take pity on me and toss him in the truck..? I also wanted to check out the odor situation...another factor influencing the choice of the person and or persons as yet unsolicited and unknown who might eventually help me out..

And damn.. either there are two possums, or the other was wasn't actually dead, or a second possum is eating the dead possum.. in any case, what ever.. I tipped the can over so that the red eyed guy, regardless of what else is happening in that bin, could escape... if he felt like it...

I really can't take this kind of pressure much longer.

In this new narrative development, I have conjured a slightly less guilty feeling , I mean well, what are the moral implications of accidentally killing a possum, any way ? If one of his own kind has come to eat him... that seems very cold... does that change my part in the death?Devora would maybe suggest that my actions have no relationship to the subsequent action of the possible cannibal possum and she would be right about that.

If I imagined the dead possum part, then I really need to get some rest, and probably stop watching The War.

At the very least, I am going to get some new lids for my garbage cans.

detail of the egg sacks

This is a detail fromt he egg sack study. By the way, if you want to see the images larger, just click on them and they will be easier to see. I could probably go in and fuss these up a bit more, but I like to leave some parts under developed. When I look at the pile and to try to whip them into shape for a painting, I find myself surrendering to the insanity of imposing on the sweet chaos of a pile of sea weed, stones, sacks... and try to focus on their conditional delivery by a wave for a moment of seeing, to be suddenly swept away again at any moment. I wanted to capture something of

Skate Egg Sacs

Skate Egg Sacks 26" x 80", four panels each 26" x 20" watercolor

Viewing and painting piles of stuff that washes up on the beach where I grew up has become a way for me to reduce the importance of the subject matter and focus on sorting and joining the repetitive shapes. Staring into the pile of black shapes recreates Psyche's Labor for me. I give my time to this task in the same spirit as I enter any repetitive task that seems overwhelming, seeing the one and the many, the things that separate, the things that join, the big picture and the small, distinct edges and blurs. I began this series with Morandi in mind, using the repeated viewing of shells, first in sheet and then later in book form. This work has such an element of time in it, with very distinct levels of seeing. My hope was to recreate a surface that would take the viewer in and out of the picture plane as if re-focusing with a camera.

The images themselves seem to remind me of the water shots in Medea by Von Trier. Maybe this is an homage to veils of light. I have arranged them arbitrarily in a row, I had thought of a quilted look, cutting them up into squares and pushing them around. There is an axis in each one, though not pronounced, that hints at my preoccupation with time movement.

I may be putting these in the faculty show for school.. but maybe I will scan them and cut them up more. I will experiment with moving them around first.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Full moon

Last night the moon 's light was so bright, I woke up at 1 am. I couldn't get back to sleep so warmed up some milk and took some Advil and made a necklace, finally after an hour or so, i was tired and went back to sleep. I had some pretty silly dreams about people asking me to do all these thing that were somehow keeping me form actually getting any thing done. I couldn't remember what I thought I was supposed to be doing and just when I was about to remember, the alarm went off. I toyed with the idea of sleeping until the last possible moment and then just rush into teach, but I just couldn't do that. I had power points to prepare and tests to correct... and papers to sort out. So, at 6 am I stood in the stream of super hot shower water and waited till I woke. By the time I got to school it was seven am, time to check all the things that needed done, set up the video and PowerPoint for my first lecture and look through all the emails. The lectures went fairly well and the watercolor class was fine until one of my students took off with my car keys by mistake. Luckily, he discovered them and came back, but for about 20 minutes, I was at the edge of a wreck, not sure if he had them or whether they were just out of sight, so I began dumping my purse and checking all the places they might be. It never occurred to me when I took this job that everything could unhinge around my losing my keys, especially since I lose them all the time.. This was my last set of house and car keys, so I guess I better make some copies. I am pretty tired, but I can sleep in tomorrow!

Art/Healing/Social Justice

engagement... distance.. Art.. mediated. ..

I am a math person, I read the dictionary. I have six English Dictionaries littering my desk at home. I have three English-German, two French, one Chinese... two Latin... One Spanish and one Italian.

I have a thing about trying to figure out what people mean when they use the words they chose to convey meaning. It is amazingly confusing. Beyond the slack sentence structure, the disregard for the many, sometimes significant blurring of the use of a word over time, the habit of appropriating a word to press into a new meaning the is the introduction of words like bling and wikipedia, where you can just go in and add or change a definition.. MY GOSH!

In Iceland, they have a board of linguistic something (unpronounceable in Icelandic and incomprehensible in the US) that assesses new words that arise in the media or technology and searches to find an Icelandic word arrangement using existing Icelandic to convey the meaning of this new idea. Never the less, words creep into the spoken language and while someone is spitting contorting their soft palette in the oldest intact living language, you hear words like CD, IPOD ... but I respect the intent.

I was told this in 1971 and there is a chance that they have given up by now. It is my earliest conscious memory of the arbitrary nature of language. I thought it was a solidly fixed kind of thing. Born in 1950, I was aware of the expanding base of scientific knowledge that would require a new word, like the periodic table, and made up cultural expressions that worked their way into the dictionaries if they withstood the test of time and use, but i never thought I would have trouble understanding words that have been in use for hundreds of years.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Finding Berringer Update

My practicum, Finding Berringer is still on.. A woman who grew up with my work in her home now has it in her own home, travelling from Central Pennsylvania to LA. Interestingly, it is from illustration work I did in the 70's for a decor type production.

Hearing from this nice woman revived a time of leaving college abruptly, with septicemia from a quickie, not yet legal in NJ, abortion of a pregnancy from a date rape, the beginning of a period of great lying to my parents about my college status, the 12 ceu's that cranked into my GPA as '0', (not that I knew what that meant in those days...) and a time of seeking some way to 'not live at home with my parents.

I was working the graveyard shift at the Silver Bell Diner in Belmar NJ. From 10 pm -6 am, I waited tables, smoked three packs of cigarettes and drank coffee.That winter was particularly cold, gas prices were impossible and I had 30 pounds to lose. I had decided to take the tests for OTC Air Force and had scored way off their charts. My math skills made it possible to quickly calculate the exact number of bullets that could be fired through a propeller in a specified time, how to calculate the angle of descent of a missile fired from a jet at a particular height, moving at a specified speed.. and my aptitude for code breaking was quite high. They were anxious to have women officers come in at that time and had promised me... everything a girl could want, including the opportunity to marry an Air Force Officer! wow ! how could resist! I had other plans, I wanted to work in film production, learn to make training films... duh?

But, I would first have to pass the officer's physical and go through basic. Not eating became my full time occupation. I had to get down to 135 before the physical. If you know me ..I weigh 185 now, so picture me at 135, arriving for the physical and 3 hours of written testing only at the end to be told I was 3 pounds over. and had "flunked" the physical ..big red CHECK across the front page.

I was bummed out. I started taking courses for a degree in medical technology using the small amount of money I earned from waitressing. Anatomy and physiology, organic and inorganic chem.. and I began to look for jobs in the classified. I saw an ad that said "artists wanted'.. This was something I had NEVER seen.. and haven't seen since, so I called and went right over for the interview.

It was a commercial lithography workshop where they were printing for international artists, producing editions of fine art limited prints and posters. I was hired on the basis of work I had done in high school. When I said that I had studied printing in college they said, "That's ok, we can use you anyway."

Nothing seemed to be a straight path. I had been accepted to take a professional certificate course in Printmaking at a college in England, and even though I would incur no expenses (full scholarship) my parents would not sign my visa application. I thought that working in a commercial printing studio would give me a lot of practical printing experience I did not realize that this choice would remove me from two things that would haunt me.. academia and the legitimate art world. I did not know that yet. I was happy to be "not a waitress." I had dreams of eventually getting to Tamarind or being able to work with Ken Tyler.. I had met Gene Baro as an undergrad. If I had access to presses, I could eventually produce a portfolio to get a job in his workshop.


I began learning the process of hand color separation work to assist artists from all over the world who flew in for a couple of weeks I worked with Sarah Churchill, Mr Blackwell ( the best dressed list guy), did chromo work for Peter Max, some Dali signed plates... I worked with some terrific studio artists who were around my age, and I met someone who was to become a life long friend. We were all aware of the compromise of our talent, but relieved to not be in the war, or not waitressing.

Eventually, I was allowed to design a couple of lines of wall or poster art. I did work for children's rooms, and a 'line' of florals, barns.. what ever I was asked to do. This ended abruptly as a result of a "fraudulent tax shelter" investigation.

My choice to work at this publishing company would have far reaching, long term staining effect on my future options. It would expose my work and name to SEC scrutiny, powerful pressure from the IRS to come clean and admit that I signed papers misrepresenting the projected value of my work.. I found out that the white midsize car that followed me was the car of choice for investigators and that the click I heard on my phone was a tapping device.

I had grown up in NJ, worked in restaurants during a time when money laundering was the main reason to have a fast paced seasonal restaurant. A time before credit cards, money flying around, no one keeping track of how many lobsters came and went, how much liquor... everyone was paid cash, no one reported tips... acceptable levels of crime. I saw too much of it. I learned how to say"not that I know of" and mean it. I learned to recognize my role of silent witness as
presumed compliance. I learned to not see.

By this time I was living in Boston and finding my way back to the abstract work I had started as an undergrad. In the mean time, I had actually gotten a degree (not in fine art exactly) from my college, married and was about to be divorced from a brilliant investment banker who was becoming one of the boys.

When I left Boston, I had certification in commercial photography, printing, layout, composing and press operation, certification in paralegal studies for general litigation, real estate, corporate and family law.. had worked as an HVAC engineer and had learned triple entry bookkeeping. I had learned how investment houses dump stock on clients and how they reward their brokers. I had a phone number to hire someone to firebomb my car for the insurance. ( I would have to leave in in Chelsea overnight)

I was beginning to sell my abstract monoprints through dealers who really wanted me to distance myself from the commercial work, become a born again art virgin, unsullied by the world of hucksters, charlatans... I was about to be embraced by museum curators, collectors and the market value system and I had to be cleaned up. I also needed to earn some money to be able to buy a bigger press, move my studio to DC etc. I began working with a publisher from Philadelphia. I earned enough money from that association to buy the 48" x 84" press and move to a larger space. This work was viewed with skepticism by people promoting my 'other' work in the Art World, but as long as it stayed controlled it was OK. The pattern of splitting what was considered commercial work and real work was getting annoying. I always did the best work I could do in the situation. Often, the compromises for a commissioned piece in the legitimate art land seemed more a violation because it often involved reducing what I would get paid for the work. As the gap between my growing commercial income closed in on the 'original' work, I became less patient with the jabs at my 'sell-out' publishing work.

Having witnessed acceptable levels of crime in every job I had ever had, I thought it was unfair to hold artists to such a high level of accountability. We are children of dreams and spirit, aren't we?

So, for this woman, she enjoys the memory of growing up with these lyrical prints from her childhood.
For me, it raises a spectre of expectation and imbalance in my role as an artist. It was the beginning of my examination of my role in the creation of work. The act of externalizing something in an external form has many faces..
1. the part where I create, the act itself, the process
2. the form the work takes
3. the venue by which it is delivered to the public
4. My accountability or responsibilty ending or continuing on as a steward

Long ago, I gave up the naming of my work as art, I cringe when I am asked to name it. For me to call it art, presumes that there is some authority that I can rely on to claim my market value or anchor my personal intent in some harbor of knowing. That I leave to the critics, the curators, the whistful legitimizing agencies of market value.. the academic bottomfeeders who appropriate creative property for their own legitimizing agency. This has nothing to do with my making of images or art. The public has nothing to do with the impulse to create order through making someting outside of my self. And finally, once I chose the venue of delivering the work, my role becomes that of the witness to acceptable levels of distortion, appropriation, usery, and maybe even crime.

I walk this walk every day. Teaching from textbooks that cost $90 because of the reproduction copyright fees of market value... I have more respect for someone who sits with their work pinned to a storm fence. I have no tolerance for self promoters seeking to ride the wave of creativity on the back of the art they then supplant with simulacre.

What happens when we call something art? Does it shine the brighter if you are assembling clothepins in a sheltered workshop if it is called art? Does it create distance or community to call some activity art? Setting something distinct, apart from the main and then roping it in for therapy or building community? Isn't this just some very big veil of importance imposed on another quite different activity all together?

Thursday, September 20, 2007

The Sketchbook Exchange

Last year I became involved in an extensive sketch book swapping endeavor. Built on an idea of instant ephemera, artists give up the property, ideas of preciousness, market value and embrace trespass, violation and loss. It is an opportunity to observe your personal relationship to the object as you give up control in an intended way. We give up control at many stages of producing, exhibiting and selling our work, sometimes without having any level of experience of this type of loss. Having lost many of my paintings through commercial venues, it is interesting to do it as a conscious exercise. Here are some sample pages from two ongoing projects.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Photo ID for teaching

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Saturday

Spent Friday running errands and making food trays for the opening. By the time people began to arrive I was exhausted. The antibiotic for lime disease makes me sort of ill and I am at the edge of a headache most of the time. I didn't make it to the opening for the Paper Show. I was not up to the drive to the art center and I felt like I was deserting the few people who did show up. So much work. At the end of the day it doesn't add up to much. The work is great and the show is great and hopefully Tom will get some fabulous installation shots and we can just post a decent virtual show.



Phil was released fro Mt St Auburns, and they changed his diagnosis to Typhoid Fever... which is sort of less bad than e-coli, but all the labs are not in yet and he will have to stay up there in case something else shows up... and then followup blood work as an out patient. I think he was relieved to be in his own bed again.



I am still trying to get caught up with the paperwork for the lecture classes. Tomorrow I go to visit Chuck and see his new work for the portrait show. Lunch and conversation with friends. A nice break for me.

My packet response was really very thorough and pressed for some answers that just aren't there for me, but important to address. I am trying out all these community roles and it is like dipping into some new flavor of ice cream. Sure it is OK but I still like my studio life better. I never missed the company of people for thirty years, so it is a distraction, engaging, but very off from my established creative routine. I miss the rhythm of studio work... teaching is just so far from what I like doing.

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