monday drawing and details

night time on the dock

ink drawings

ligntening strikes

ink, varnish, gesso on paper in the rain

johns favorite flower

details

Thinking about taking small details from watercolors done today and making them as large images in some way...maybe digital, a book form, use them as inspiration for installation piece... I notice as I go about making art that I am attracted to abstraction, I look for abstract shapes in the garden whether photographing, drawing or painting. But drawing and painting in more representational ways has really been wonderful, it has slowed me down and yet inspired me. Looking at things intensely is difficult but rewarding.

sunburn

Small watercolors...

drawing

passion

At this point I don't think passion is my subject matter, I think I am using gardens and the desire to garden to discuss the anxiety of transitory beauty and the control and lack of control we have over nature. Gardens have beauty and history, they speak of conscious and unconscious human interaction with nature. I have a deep respect for nature. Traditional native NZ mythology regarding nature combined with christian stories about the Garden of Eden as well as the gardening I did as a large part of my childhood have left me with a connection to gardens. I garden as a way to understand myself, as a way to connect with nature and to be amazed with what is out of my control, I garden to reaffirm my insignificance in the world and therefore to remind me of a greater truth- that there is something beyond humanity and humanities need to consume. I garden to realize that I am not always in control, or maybe ever! and that (even though societal norms may tell me otherwise) there is a pleasure in this lack of control, this relationship which shifts and changes daily. I think gardens symbolize for me a place that can still be fundamentally profound, I am moved (i.e. I feel connected to something greater than myself) every time I garden or am in a garden.

Gardens have become passive places where people go for enjoyment and do not seek anything beyond beholding beauty (though I have to believe that people seek gardening and gardens without realizing why and that it is the desire to understand their relationship to nature and the divine which drives them). Gardens are seen as places for human consumption and most people when in a garden do not consciously question nature or plants or their place within all that, yet somehow in gardens these questions do subconsciously arise. As Ronald Jones (from Deceits and Fantasies) says " I realized that if this elapsed content was suddenly brought forward, it would be magnified by it's intrusion on an audience secure that they had escaped the issues of the day by strolling within a refuge of passive pleasure that gardens have come to embody"

unruly garden

Been drawing all day, plants keep changing. Took some photographs as well. Trying to find some connection between how I feel about gardens, plants and my work. I want my drawing to be raw and yet then I feel like I lose what I am drawing, the delicacy of a flower. So it's something else. But have determined to draw all week and see what comes up from that.

Am reading a book on botany as well as trying to read a book on contemporary art movements, it's very dry and so I think I'll probably just look at the images and read about some of those that I feel inspired by. While trying to find another less boring book about contemporary art.

The garden is amazing right now, totally abandoned to wildness.

Also spent some time looking at images of Mondrians, his flower drawings and paintings are so gorgeous. he seems to reach that balance of immediate yet gentle. There is a feeling of love from them. Am going to try to get hold of a book that came out not long ago about his flower drawings and paintings...so I can see more images.

the botany of desire...notes

Passages from The Botany of Desire:

• The soles of our shoes interpose a protective barrier between us and the earth-pg 28
• Nietzsche paints Dionysus as a figure able to dissolve" all the rigid and hostile barriers" between nature and culture. Dionysian revelry melts Apollonian lines so that "alienated hostile or subjugated nature celebrates her recovery with her lost children-humans"-pg 37
• Dionysus brought wild plants into the house of cultivation, yet by his own untamed presence reminds people of the untamed nature on which that house always unsteadily rests-pg 38
• Plants are so unlike people that it is very difficult for us to appreciate their complexity and sophistication-xix
• Chemicals that some plants produce are designed to make creatures leave them alone. Yet other plants have the opposite effect-they are designed to draw creatures towards them
• Plants can't locomote and yet they have figured out ways to get themselves transported
• it has become much harder in the last century to tell where the garden leaves off and pure nature begins-xxii
• Thoreau-"In wildness is the preservation of the world"- pg 57
• Natural selection was bound to favor those amongst us who noticed flowers and had a gift for botanizing (as this gift meant that those people would be able to find fruit and seeds and plants produced from the flowers later). In time the moment of recognition would become pleasurable (in that it indicated the source of food) and the flower would become a symbol of beauty (for this reason)- pg 68
• I do wonder if it isn't significant that our experience of flower is so deeply drenched in our sense of time (in that it is the precursor to food). Maybe there's a good reason we find their fleetingness so piercing, can scarcely look at a flower without thinking ahead, whether in hope or regret-pg 68
• To make such statements about ones sophistication, about ones wealth has always been one of the reasons people plant gardens-pg 86
• We gazed further into the blossom of a flower and found something more, the crucible of beauty, if not art, and maybe even a glimpse into the meaning of life-pg 109
• Look into a flower-what do you see?-the contending energies of creation and dissolution, the spiring toward complex form and the pull from it.
• There is a contest between control and passion-as plain and poignant as it is in the beauty of a flower and it's rapid passing. Achievement of order against all odds and it's blithe abandonment. The perfection of art and the blind flux of nature-pg109
• For a while every season I do try to keep the whole thing under some semblance of control-but by the end of August I usually give up, let the garden go it's own way. By this point whats going on in the garden is no longer my doing-pg240
• Moving between the realms of the wild and the newly made. Dance of human and plant desire that has left neither the plants not the people unchanged.
• To shrink the sheer diversity of life is to shrink evolutions possibilities (the need to keep biodiversity and not genetically modify species to the point where evolution cannot play a hand)

raining

Just finished The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, a great read. He discusses; using the apple, the potato, the tulip and marijuana his theory of human and plant co-evolution. Throughout the book he comes to the conclusion that plants adapt to human desire and need but that they also use us to spread, become stronger, stay alive etc. The book is well written and enjoyable, with tales from history, his own life and recent and past scientifc and environmental facts. I particularly enjoyed both the apple and the tulip as the conclusions he drew in those chapter felt closest to my own experiences or thoughts. Pollan considers that nature (specifically plants) has dueling qualities of Apollo and Dionysis, control and wild, and that as humans we are drawn to both these qualities within the plant world. And that our relationship to the plant world is also Apolloesque and Dionyianesque in that we like to control plants but are also fascinated by their wild qualities. Nature it seems is always getting away from us. He discusses at length the ideas of beauty and various plants ability to create and develop beauty in the form of flowers, tastes and sensations. Also just read an article written by Jonathan Lethem called The Ecstasy of Influence: a Plagiarism which he wrote for Harpers Magazine. Here Lethem argues that we live in a world that cannot remove itself from influence and should instead embrace and be inspired by influences. He uses the examples of Music, Lyrics, Writing and Art talking especially about Bob Dylan and Modernism and their use of appropriated materials as an essential part of their work. With Modernism he suggests that plagiarism/appropriating is the essence of the work. He also disusses the idea of art being a gift and that the gift portion of art should not be commodified because this commodification removes the "art" from the art. "But if it is true that in the essential commerce of art a gift is carried by the work from the artist to his audience, if I am right to say that where there is no gift there is no art, then it may be possible to destroy a work of art by converting it into a pure commodity". A very good article worth reading in these times of trying to be "original" and with the presence of technology and easy access to a world of ideas and creativity. Just what is original and does it really matter were thoughts that came from this article? This article was particularly clever in that nearly the whole content he had plagiarized or quoted from other writings...an amusing little twist at the end.

on my way from misery to happiness today uhuh uhuh

A cabbage leaf hugging a sunflower stem

Spent some time drawing in the garden this morning, didn't work out all that well but it was good to get out there and do something physical. I feel like I have spent the last two weeks writing and sorting through ideas, all good stuff but I think I may be procrastinating a little from the actual art making (no surely not!) As I was drawing the flower was opening and turing in the sunshine...it was fascinating to watch, drawing it was a little frustrating...things aren't supposed to move when you're drawing them. The water melon flower (below) bloomed this morning and is already dead, how does a plant have a chance of being pollinated in such a short amount of time? (nevermind me needing to go back and take another photograph of it)

I have my art mentor, Duston Spear, a painter/drawer who works out of Bedford, NY. (www.duston.spear.name) Some of her work is very virgorous and energetic yet still maintaining a contemplative beauty. She works in a wide variety of media, sometimes using tar and oil on paper. I have set up a blog for just her and I, so instead of emailing her I shall put ideas and images onto a blog to which she can go to make comments when she has time. This way I don't feel like I am bugging her but also I can fulfill my need to just get things out of my head...before I forget or edit them out of existence (or drive myself crazy just having them in there) It turns out her mentor is Nancy Spero who I admire a lot. It's great to think you may be part of some line of artists discussing ideas.

1st residency

There were two main suggestions given during critiques of my work. These suggestions were:

• Determine the main concept(s) behind my work
• Determine and then develop my range of media.

These suggestions of course generated other ideas and suggestions. The list of these suggestions seemed extensive but on second (or twentieth) look can be synthesized into four main groups, with some “left-over” ideas, which will probably percolate along, maybe surface and become more useful or disappear.

• Suggestion Number One:

Use gardens as a metaphor to discuss the connected ideas of the need to possess, human lust and desire. Then look at what drives us to possess even though we know that what we desire and have to possess will decay and die. Study the garden and elements in the garden physically (by drawing, painting and photographing) as well as what gardens are as a human experience. Look at the garden as a place of pleasure or desire, as a place of emotional or psychological sustenance rather than as a place of physical sustenance. Look at gardening during history yet also spend a lot of time researching modern gardening and the modern persons need to garden (mainly because in our culture we don't have to garden for sustenance), Research the positive benefits of gardening and look at gardening for mental health in various locations-Prison and mental health institutions are two places to research.

• Suggestion Number Two:

If my work is about passionate ideas then it should appear physically more immediate or passionate. I should chose a mentor who works in media that seem to convey their ideas and then ask them how they chose that media and then spend the time with that mentor determining which media best suit my ideas. During the next semester experiment with different ways of using media, research artists that I have felt envious of or greatly admire and determine what it is about their work that is compelling. These artists include Richard Diebenkorn, Bill Viola, Joseph Cornell, Robert Rauschenburg, Cornelia Parker and Lim Young-Sim.

• Suggestion Number Three:

Think and research communication techniques as well as read about passion and what drives people. Make an index of the things that I must possess as a staring point. I should read "The Botany of Desire" by Michael Pollan, "The Ecstasy of Influence" by Harpers and "The Natural History of the Senses" by Diane Ackerman.

• Suggestion Number Four:

This suggestion seems closely related to Number Two but is in essence subtly different. Look at what draws a viewer to a work of art, what sends them for a moment or longer into another realm, what suspends their belief or makes them forget their present circumstances or place in time. What makes an artwork compelling, desirous or sensual? Make artwork that binds form and content together, artwork in which the theme and the process are intrinsically connected. To determine what the materials are that I shall work with I need to research other artists who have achieved the type of communication I wish for. When creating a series of work I need to ask whether I want it to be pretty, luscious, serene or passionate and then determine the content, materials and technique that will best convey these ideas. While I am making the artwork I need to question whether I am achieving the desired intent. Converse with my mentor about the intentions I have and use their and others response to my work as a gauge to whether I am achieving the intentions. As a side note to all this I shall also question the possibilities and impossibilities of communication through art. The Artists Intention-Production (techniques and materials chosen)-Interpretation. I shall ask whether the viewer’s interpretation is more, less or equal to my intention. In order to guide these ideas I shall look at books on Phenomenology, Conceptual Art, Process Art, Installation Art and Scatter Sculpture.

Group One formed a tight bond and determined to work together to support and push each other to achieve high goals. During the residency we went on several gallery visits and met often in smaller groups to discuss ideas and formulate ways of working together. These ideas included: Starting a yahoo group where we will post ideas, discuss problems and keep in touch. Sending postcards of our art to each other as response pieces, then bring all the postcards we have received to the next residency to review. Visit galleries together in small groups. Whenever possible get together during the semester to discuss work, critique and problem solve.

Both the graduate and visiting artist’s presentations were instructional. Some were impressive, some entertaining and some a good example of how not to present artistic ideas. Matthew Hosey was able to talk about his process as well as his influences so that the audience could further understand his abstract pieces. Daria Harvey gave an eloquent talk on the ideals that drive her artistic process. Though most of Eike Wintzer’s presentation was obtuse and frustrating, some comments he made at the very end gave better insight into his work, these comments were regarding his thoughts about not painting in series because to paint in series means that you grow and he was interested in not growing through a group of works. Jane Rainwater, Aaron Gosser and Denise Driscoll all explained the ideas, history and material processes behind their work extensively. Though their work differs greatly in content and form their ability to explain it left me feeling like I wanted to talk with them further about their ideas, view their work in real life and research artists they discussed. The visiting artist lectures were also instructional in many ways. Maureen Gallace’s presentation left me frustrated, though she was someone who because of her subject matter and technique I felt artistically connected to, her ability to express the ideas that drive her work left me feeling disconnected. Her lack of ability to answer questions or fully articulate her ideas left me feeling that her work lacked substance, which I doubt is the truth. Dike Blair gave a thorough explanation of his work, he covered technical aspects such as materials and changes he has made in order to accommodate certain problems he has encountered, for example making packing boxes part of his installation pieces because cost and keeping the pieces neat was becoming prohibitive to the work. Michael Newman’s presentation of Wall’s work was informative. Though some of the comments and questions from the audience regarding the fact that a viewer needs to know a lot about what influences Wall’s work in order to appreciate it on a visual level seemed valid it was also easy to see that Newman has a great admiration for Walls work and that he is ready and able to give the audience the information they may need in order to gain the most from viewing Wall’s work. Annu Mathew's discussion about her ideas was informative. The call-center pieces seemed more conceptually than visually interesting. The other photographs which she has taken throughout India were visually appealing.

• Things I learned from all the presentations:
• Know your work and theories well enough to talk about it instead of reading it
• Avoid as much as possible the diary approach to discussing your art
• Talk about the technical aspects of making your artwork
• Discuss theoretical or conceptual aspects of your work
• Try to locate yourself as an artist within the context of art making
• Do not show lots and lots of other artists work
• Be prepared to answer some difficult questions, so know your work inside and out, practice your presentation a lot and look at all you say objectively to see what questions may be asked

Critical Theory was entertaining as well as being a broad and interesting review of art making throughout time. The basic purpose of the course was to get all incoming students to a certain level of understanding of art through our culture while also starting to address some specific issues regarding art making and the ideas that have driven artists in the last 200 years. The class spent time discussing graduate and visiting artist presentations, AIB expectations regarding presentations and thesis papers which was helpful. The class ended on a frustrating note as we watched a thirty-minute clip of a Matthew Barney video and then had no time for discussion or review of the ideas presented. The choice to show this clip without time for discussion seemed confusing as the clip seemed to undo or go against theories that we had been discussing during the class, particularly those ideas of female representation and objectification, and it would have been helpful to discuss and challenge this piece in regards to these ideas.

My Elective seminar was video with Julia Scher and it was interesting, fun and also instructional. The class time was mostly used to talk through ideas, view examples of work and discuss technique and some theory- all based on the concept of location. I did not have a video camera to bring with me so instead I took many (maybe 1500) photographs of Fenway Community Gardens and planned to make them into a stop animation. Unfortunately there was not a lot of time to make or edit video footage. I have come away with some ideas of video's I would like to try to make and all the shots I took which I am trying to turn into stop motion format. During the final class we had time to take video in groups or alone. Mark Bolton and I joined up and made a short video in the gardens. Our ideas and skills worked well together and we plan on making more short video's during the semester and next residency with the aim that we will make a series of short video's around gardens, garden ornaments, the female form within gardens, with direct reference to art masterpieces of the past.

The food was great.

month by month play

July:

• secure mentor
• start dialogue with mentor about direction
• read contemporary art book to determine further study
• subscribe to two art magazines (contemporary art)
• start researching artists to determine some to study in more depth
• draw every day
• write summary of residency for advisor
• clean and organize studio
• journal/blog at least once a week
• visit at least one gallery in Boston
• plan specific body of work to be completed by next residency

August:

• read two books determined from reading list and research in July
• visit mentor in NY
• go to three exhibitions on NY (with or without mentor)
• draw every day
• start work on body of work to be completed by next residency
• write in journal/blog every week
• contact Advisor

September:

• visit mentor in NY with work created so far
• read two books determined by mentor and advisor
• go to two exhibitions in Boston
• write in blog/journal every week
• contact advisor

October:

• contact mentor
• read three books determined from list
• go to two exhibitions on Boston
• write in journal/blog
• draw every day
• work on body of work

November:

• start reading from crtical theory
• visit mentor
• go to three exhibitions on NY
• write in journal/blog every week
• draw every day
• work on body of work

December:

• complete reading for critical theory
• visit mentor final time
• visit galleries in Boston
• write in blog/journal every week
• draw every day
• collect together/organize work for residency
• write personal statement
• write ideas, reading lists etc for residency

suggestions

Suggestion from various sources about work practices to get me started and keep me going...

• visit a gallery once or twice a month-
• create a dialogue between my work and the exhibiting artist's work. questions to start this dialogue. what do they have to teach me? how well have they achieved their intentions?
• take a contemporary art history class
• take a mass art stop-animation class
• buy a fluid head tripod for stop animation
• create a reactive platform- interest in people reacting to situations and stimulus
• create a platform for my work (the platform includes ideas to hold fast to and ideas you would like to learn more about which develops into a personal practice. how is the platform created? materials. ideas. methods. vision. delivery. writing. reading. knowledge of other artists. critique. where are you coming from? what are you trying to solve?
• look at usc video productions
• look at ucla video productions
• draw each day
• maske something I don't like
• make something ugly
• think about why I need to keep everyone safe
• take the properties I am interested in and locate them somewhere else (not too sure what this means but hey!!)
• decide on skill sets you would like to obtain in the next two years
• find resources where you can acquire these skills
• make my work so enticing the viewer wants to eat it, hold it, insatiable desire for it
• create an index of things I have to have. almost makes me ill thinking about it
• make my work as edible looking as it is pictoral
• think about cultiavtion. garden-things being absurdly loved and cultivated even knowing that they will be lost.
• think about how to get the viewer to engage, pick it up, stroke it, smell it.
• make a statement and start from there.
• return to that statement often
• be media and idea specific
• find art theory, philosophical theory that supports my ideas yet pushes me forward
• look at my sense of anxiety and panic
• interrogate my work, ideas and motivations- each time I look at the work let ideas, thoughts surface - write these down
• look at my studio- how does it work.

all that jazz

Artists to look at...

elise wagner

peter erskine

donald Judd

richard serra

claus oldenberg

robert smithson

felix gonzalez-torres

rachel lackelwich

loren lingfield

kiki smith

doris selzado

maro ucellese

ellen landweber

onkawara

john virtue

helio oiticica

ligia clark

diana lynn thompson

dieter roth

lemont young

barry mcgee

phil frost

katherine scalla

james tiril

don flaven

louise bourgeous

enrique norton

laura baring-gould

el anatusui

john beech

robert campin

estella conwill-majozo

glen ligon

april seargent

paul mccarthy

diana thater

ronny horn

geteshu mutu

anne wilson

richard tuttle

katy noland

jessica stockholder

barry levie

neo rauch

sadie benning

mark von schlagel

butch anthony

joan webster-price

kack sanders

robert gay

Books to read... greenburg

richard louv

diane ackerman

anne dillard

robert morris

don di lillo (white noise)

harpers (the ecstasy of influence)

susan sontag (essay on longing)

lucy lippard (overlay)

vitamin P

chromphobia

rasuchenberg

cuspit

thomas mcevery (in the manner of addressing clouds)

sigmur polke

matt ritkill (hooked)

urban artists (beautiful losers)

jeff koons

dan graham

michael fried (art and objecthood)

jack burnam

alan kaprow(happenings and assemblage)

meru potty (phenomenolgy)

routledge (contemprary art)

ford-copppolla( the conversations as a film)

karl lesains

Also books on...

scatter sculpture, phenomenolgy, contemporary art

sunny and fair

Tuesday...feels like Sunday. Coming out of the residency is a little like time-travel! I feel like I went to a different world and now have popped back into this one and that I must hold on to the lessons I learned in that other world...though I fear that everyday "stuff" will maybe stop me from remembering or being able to engage with my art as I want. I've been in contact with someone who I hope will be my mentor. Duston Spears. Not sure whether this person is male or female, don't suppose it matters. His/Her work appears to me to have an immediacy and gritty quality that I would like to see in my own work, it's mostly painting/drawing and also books. They are not clean and precise, rather they are a little Joseph Beuys like, tar and oil on paper, seeping and organic in some way. I also like the ideas that are behind these works, there seems to be a passion and an urgency to say something...though the "topics" he/she discuses in the work is very different than my topics. I'm a little confused in my head about what the mentor is supposed to "do" for you, I think entering dialogue with any other working artist is a valuable undertaking but am I supposed to be learning skills or just being critiqued or all or none of the above? This is good though (I mean the being confused) as I really think that all art may be about finding what you want and how you engage and what level you want to take it to rather than always wondering what you should be doing, or how you should be interacting. So I think I shall just go with the whole process and see what comes of it. Anyway it's a day to be outside, sunny and truely beautiful. Big fireworks tonight with a pig roast...yes I live in New Hampshire (and yes the fireworks are all illegal and very very amazing) tonight will be one of those anthropological experiences...just watching the culture of NH/America/Indepence Day

July 2 2007

Ideas are pounding in my head...people, words, images all jumbled up together. Am going to take a few days to think things through but so far here are the thoughts. Make art involving the ideas of gardening, study history of gardening, gardening in our culture (probably will stick to gardening in Western culture because that is what I am connected to for the present), gardening used for therapy and the desire to garden through-out time. Am planning on reading and interviewing (especially my dad who gardens like a mad-man) My artmaking has to get more interesting, more tactile and immediate, though also more thorough and worked at. It feels hollow and a bit trite right now so am going to start by drawing every day, in the garden and in the studio. Will look at minimalism, conceptualism, installation, contemporary art and try to just bust out of my box a bit. Photo of my garden today...drunken monkey approach to gardening.