A moment of blinding realization. Sitting on the water's edge, the sky was grey and the tides low. It was maybe 3 degrees out and I sat huddled on a big boulder. Over the valley I could see the sun spreading slowly as the clouds behind me parted. When the light reached and warmed me, I turned behind to see the brilliant sun breaking through the heavy purple clouds. Up above me, flying over me and over the valley was an eagle. A real, live eagle. In that moment it came to me. All this life, all of human consciousness - we are witnesses.
Does a tree fall in the woods if no one's there to hear it? Of course it does. We put value however on the witnessed account. Our eyes, our senses, our cognizance - what we do best is tell stories. As an artist, I am a medium through which my cumulative life experiences are sorted, weighed and re-stated through pigment and form.
So that eagle could fly over that valley every day as might be the case, but its significance to you who read this and I who experienced it, is framed by my single afternoon's reflection. That changes things. We can be such self important animals. I've found that life is richer and more worthwhile when I understand myself as part of a large, moving tapestry of creative experience. My eyes and my hands are no more significant than any other, but what is unique to me is my narrative, that is, my position in the tapestry - my literal point of view.
My senses are the windows through which all the world around me is contextualized. So as people, we are many points of reference and many re-imaginations of the same earth and our space within it.
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Monday, November 7, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Ugly
I want the freedom to be ugly.
Social expectation, misogynistic bosses and generations of mothers echo in my mind.
From my mother - brush your hair, clean your shoes, dress properly or what will the various men in your life think of you?
From Men - Look pretty or I won’t give you the time of day. Wear high heels, be charming to me and laugh coquettishly at my stupid sexist jokes or I will simply cease to see you.
From Society - Look pretty, dress pretty, buy more, make yourself up - it doesn’t matter who you are, provided that you’re trendy.
I look at women my age and how trapped we are in trend, conformity and social expectation. Consumerism meets patriarchal advertising campaigns and we think we are making individual decisions about how we present ourselves to the world, when in fact we are playing a game - falling into a scheme - often to our financial ruin.
How do I push past pretty? How can I step over into the sublime with my work? I feel like i skim the surface of pretty and hardly reach into the grotesque which is often the most beautiful to me. As a woman, how do i reach ugly, without my instinct to beautify it? How do you reach into crazy when I have built a world around crazy - I have corseted its miscreant strands and pasted down its wildness with a thick layer of beeswax. That step is difficult. It’s terrifying.
But my work is too safe. It’s like there’s 2 artists inside of me. The one who is instinctual and terrifying and then her sister who follows close behind neatening edges and mopping up muddy footprints. How do I get miss bliss to take a hike for a little while so i can get some work done?
Social expectation, misogynistic bosses and generations of mothers echo in my mind.
From my mother - brush your hair, clean your shoes, dress properly or what will the various men in your life think of you?
From Men - Look pretty or I won’t give you the time of day. Wear high heels, be charming to me and laugh coquettishly at my stupid sexist jokes or I will simply cease to see you.
From Society - Look pretty, dress pretty, buy more, make yourself up - it doesn’t matter who you are, provided that you’re trendy.
I look at women my age and how trapped we are in trend, conformity and social expectation. Consumerism meets patriarchal advertising campaigns and we think we are making individual decisions about how we present ourselves to the world, when in fact we are playing a game - falling into a scheme - often to our financial ruin.
How do I push past pretty? How can I step over into the sublime with my work? I feel like i skim the surface of pretty and hardly reach into the grotesque which is often the most beautiful to me. As a woman, how do i reach ugly, without my instinct to beautify it? How do you reach into crazy when I have built a world around crazy - I have corseted its miscreant strands and pasted down its wildness with a thick layer of beeswax. That step is difficult. It’s terrifying.
But my work is too safe. It’s like there’s 2 artists inside of me. The one who is instinctual and terrifying and then her sister who follows close behind neatening edges and mopping up muddy footprints. How do I get miss bliss to take a hike for a little while so i can get some work done?
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