Alyson Stanfield, the Art Biz Coach, has come up with a new series of affirmations & they’re just what the doctor ordered for this weird economy. You don’t need to be an artist to appreciate. Just open to hearing a postive message about money and flow.
Here’s a pumpkin drawing I made in Pencil I at the Denver Botanic Gardens. (They’ve got an amazingly good botanical illustration program.) It’s satisfying to draw realistically from life. There’s something about it that feels magical. But this drawing doesn’t qualify as art to me. I need transformation. When a recognizable form shifts & becomes something new… that’s art.
Curious to learn more about how to respond and talk about art? Good news! John Borstel, co-author of Critical Response Process has a new blog & it’s off to a roaring start.
MacArthur award winning choreographer Liz Lerman of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange was in residency at the ATLAS building in Boulder last week. She and colleagues did two presentations. The first was a panel discussion about the making of Ferocious Beauty: Genome – a large scale multimedia performance integrating scientific concepts with sound, dance and video. The second was a mini-workshop in Critical Response Process – a prescribed method for eliciting constructive feedback about any creative endeavor (from choreography to cake!) I attended both.
As an artist, I think it’s important to develop the ability to judge one’s own work – at least somewhat. Unfortunately the self-assessment process is a sloooowwww one. I’m not always able to “see” my work right after I make it. It can take days, weeks, sometimes even months before strengths and weaknesses are clear to me. Outside feedback is a gift when I can get it. Alas, finding it is a hit or miss experience.
Liz Lerman has spent a lot of time thinking about how to talk about works in progress, judge them and give good feedback. She acknowledges it’s uncomfortable to both give & receive critical feedback and came up with the Critical Response Process to make things easier. (Aren’t you glad someone’s working on this!?!)
Here are a few impressions from the workshop:
• Feedback exists on a spectrum from nurturing to rigorous. We need to honor both ends of the spectrum to have balance.
• It can be hard for artists to hear feedback unless it’s unqualified praise.
• What makes something good?
1. The artist or performers are 100% committed to the project or performance
2. All performers know why they’re doing the performance
3. Something is revealed.
• When defensiveness starts, learning stops.
• It’s helpful to ask neutral questions where opinion isn’t embedded in the question. (This takes practice.)
• No detail is too small to notice.
• Personal reflections are OK.
• It’s important for the artist to have some control over the feedback session.
• Liz Lerman on competition – “When I see great art I’m ecstatic! To want that for a colleague is fantastic.”
I could go on, but a better way to find out more is to get your hands on a copy of Critical Response Process and try it with your friends.
In the meantime I’m curious to hear your thoughts about creative feedback. What’s worked for you & what hasn’t? How do you self-assess?
Ooh! There’s a new film out that I can hardly wait to see. It’s called Who Does She Think She Is? and it’s about work/life balance told through the stories of five women artists. I just spent the last half hour browsing the film’s site & blog and came away feeling inspired but also struck as the filmmakers’ experience – early rejections from big festivals followed by exhilarating success with independent screenings – reminds me of my own with Sister Bee. I think there’s pent up demand for this type of filmmaking – films by and about women made for broad audiences – that just isn’t being met.
Thanks to Alyson Stanfield and her wonderful ArtBizBlog for the heads up.
Here’s an intriguing story about the beguines – a medieval order of Catholic Sisters that may have represented “the world’s oldest women’s movement.”
A choice quote:
Unlike sisterhoods that required a life spent apart from society under vows of chastity, these Catholic women looked for holiness outside monastic norms. Although they lived and prayed together within an enclave, partly as a form of mutual protection… beguines were not confined to the cloister. Many ministered to the poor and sick outside their walls. Lifelong celibacy was not required either. They could leave the order and marry (but not return).
I took these photos on Saturday – a perfect spring weekend day if I’ve ever seen one. This sphinx moth hung around for a full half hour sucking up soapwort nectar. (Check out that proboscis!) This was an unusual sight. They’re more commonly seen at dusk. It’s interesting to me how a bird (the hummingbird) and an insect (the sphinx moth) can share such similar forms.
A few years ago I attended an artist’s talk at a painting show in Boulder. The artist was from New York and he painted thoughtful interiors – people sitting at tables, a woman on a bed, looking out a window – that sort of thing. They reminded me of mid-century American short stories. I liked them very much. But it’s what the artist said that stuck with me. He said he used to be an abstract painter but that after awhile he felt like he was repeating himself, repeating the same gesture, so he moved toward realism to keep things fresh.
This is something I think of often, especially during transition times when I’m starting a new body of work (as I am now). It begs the question “what is abstraction?†Is it painting based on the real? Or the imagination? Is it gesture? Paintings about paint? Painting about emotions? Paintings about composition or pattern?
To me the word “abstract†represents a continuum of painting ranging from the purely abstract (paintings about paint) to paintings that appear abstract but are actually inspired by looking at real things. I enjoy painting from both ends of the spectrum but believe my strongest work comes after sustained periods of looking out at the word, not looking in.
Looking north. Working on a new series of paintings about tree roots, quilt patterns. mushroom cultivation, honeycomb, pollen collection, stained glass windows and worm farming too. Somehow they’re all connected. I’m thinking about growth. The geometry of growth and wondering how living things are formed.
I spent the afternoon in my studio where I’m working on a large painting inspired by a historical quilt pattern. When I got home I popped into my office to check news & email. Lo & behold! Look what I found! A wonderful story in the NYTimes about a group of artists in the 1970′s and 80′s who made paintings inspired by… patterns. This is art that’s new to me and it’s fun to see. I hope you enjoy it too.
For the quick & entertaining version click on the slide show within the article. There are a handful of beautiful images there plus some interesting thoughts about art movements. What’s an art movement and why doesn’t art happen that way (borne of collective thought) anymore?
Hello dear readers! Just a quick note to let you know I’m thinking of you. I spent the last month and half getting caught up on office biz, resting, celebrating and preparing for 2008. For me this means lots of READING (hence all the recent posts about the news). I look forward to expanding my scope in January once the busyness of Christmas and New Year’s settles down.
So stay tuned for… more images! More observations about honeybees; new information about a long-term project I’m bursting to share; general reflections on animal behavior, botanical art, filmmaking and encaustic painting. All coming in 2008.
Here’s something gripping. It’s an NPR story about an Australia based art collective called SymbioticA. They make art from living tissue. The image above is a replica of a human ear made out of human skin cells. Wow and gross and how’d they do that? I’m repulsed and intrigued.
Is this ethical? I don’t know. Lots of questions though… What value does a cell have when separated from its parent organism? Is a cell an individual being? Does a cell have feelings? Can it feel pain? Do we have the right to boss cells around this way? Or are we simply guiding them toward a new way of being?
There’s been much talk this week about the future of reading, its decline and the migration of the written word from printed books to the internet.
Fear not, dear readers! There are grains of hope for fine artists in these stories. It’s true, the internet is rapidly displacing books as the dominantreceptacle for human ideas. But as it does books will blossom into handmade art objects as revered as paintings for their physical beauty.
Doubtful? Check this out… the recently renamed Maine Media Workshops just added a new program to their always relevant and evolving film and photography curriculum. Design and Book Arts. Hmm…
Check out these pumpkins. Aren’t they beautiful? I love looking at the green veins in the unripe one. They make me curious about how the pumpkin was made. And the universe too.
Here it is, dear readers “The Conversation.” This new encaustic painting is hanging at the Canyon Gallery in Boulder, Colorado at the Public Library as part of the Open Studios show.
When I started writing about painting titles my plan was to stop here with a story about “The Conversation.” But I’ve changed my mind. The power of abstract painting lies in its ability to inspire reverie, no? Which at its best is a highly personal, moving experience. I don’t want to pull you out of your own experience of this painting by saddling you with mine. So I’ll limit myself to sharing some background info. Stop reading here if you don’t want to know.
Painting titles usually pop unbidden while the painting’s being made, or soon after. This one was different. I felt stumped. I went back to the source for ideas – a memory of an afternoon spent photographing teasels. Gorgeous, spiny, weedy things. Teasel ideas started flowing. But nothing with the world teasel in it would do. Too literal. Too weasly.
But then something happened. I noticed I felt an emotional charge when I looked at the painting. This doesn’t happen equally for all paintings. And it’s a wonderful thing when it does. The charge had something to do with nostalgia. The process of forgetting and remembering again in a bittersweet way. Something about homesickness. And autumn too. I wanted a title that could hold all these ideas while still being specific. Titles based on the words nostalgia, remembering and forgetting felt too passive. I needed a story. Desperately. Back to the painting for more thinking. Stories arose (insert yours here). When I tripped on “The Conversation” it jangled. The choice was clear. Hope you like it too.
