allisonhop

"In the course of many centuries a few labour saving devices have been introduced into the mental kitchen alcohol, coffee, tobacco, Benzedrine, etc. - but these are very crude, constantly breaking down, and liable to injure the cook. Literary composition in the twentieth century A.D. is pretty much what it was in the twentieth century B.C. : nearly everything has still to be done by hand." W.H. Auden (quote from Essay "The Mental Image" reprinted in Harpers 12/07)

I often feel like a crazy person because I want to do things by hand. It is so time consuming! It could be called manual labor! I am supposed to belong to the thinking classes. God forbid I get my hands dirty!

Our famly just got a new puppy, an 8 month old Pug. Taking care of him day to day reminds me of the having a new baby. He needs constant attention. He needs to be cuddled, played with and contantly watched to make sure he isn't peeing on the furniture. Like a human child he needs to be "socialized." This can only be done moment to moment, in person, in relationship with this actual little pug. It can't be done by computer. None of the gizmos that babystore or petstores are so stocked with really help much in the end...like the short cuts that Auden mentions in his essay (alcohol, coffee, tobacco,, etc) they are merely crude devises that distract for a moment or two but don't actually do the work for you.

What is the work?
As an artist the work is creating works of art, whatever the hell that might mean.
As a parent it is raising your kids in such a way that they have the best chance to reach their potential and become decent human beings (just as murky a concept as trying to pin down what a work of art might be.)

I found this essay by Auden deeply reassuring. Art can only be made by hand - whether it is poetry, a vase, a cake. The style in contemporary art is to just come up with an idea (a concept!) and out source the work. This is the style in contemporary life. But there is a certain baseline of existence that can't be outsourced. It is a shifting murky baseline these days as we learn to outsource even basic life functions in the ICU.

So what is making art? Today I feel it is creating a relationship with the heart of existence that can't be outsourced. It is clearing away the illusion that the heart of life can be made any other way then by hand.

Art reviews:
Della Robia at the Morgan Library (Along with Van Gogh/Bernard Exhibit)
These Madonna & Child Ceramic Reliefs make me want to cry.
They are so perfect. They absolutely glow! Everything about them so extraordinary. The technical perfection, the crazy overwhelming beauty of each face. The elegant use of white and blue. The calm, confident, use of empty space. It is is a big step for me to be able to make anything out of clay after seeing this work.

The Van Gogh/Bernard Exhibit
The exhibit at the Morgan displays letters between Van Gogh and Bernard. Paintings, from both artists are displayed together with the letters. The visitor can read translated experts from the letters. This is a wonderful exhibit that brings to life the work process. The correspondence between the two artists brings them both into the room and grounds the work. Both of these painters have been canonized and it can be hard to see their work without seeing the ghosts of tacky replications. The Morgan exhibit is intimate and low key. I really enjoyed seeing the paintings in this setting. I was very touched by the sincerity of the letters. Van Gogh, in particular, writes with such force about the the fundamental importance of what he is doing.
The letters are in themselves beautiful art-objects. These written documents t have a lot of soul. They have a beautiful "hand-made" tactile quality that brings the artists into the room in a way no "printed email" ever could.

Borrowed Light Performance:
I felt the muscial interpretations of the shaker Hymms were extraordinary. The singers showed incredible technical mastery of the material, without seeming
"pretentious" or "arty." The singers were simple and precise in their movements and their singing. The musical performance felt both contemporary and yet true to the materials historical roots.

I have a special place in my heart for extremists, like the Shakers but the Finnish Dancers did not "ring true."
I did not connect with the dance, either on it's own merits, or as an exploration of the Shaker Experience.
I am not someone who feels that art needs to be "historically acurate." It didn't particularly bother me that the women were wearing bright lipstick and seductive black lace lingerie...something that is as far from the Shaker aesthetic as humanely imaginable!
However there was no such light note in the actual dance performance. It was all angst, anguish, darkness, and way too much stomping! The dancers certainly threw their whole hearts and bodies in the choreography. I know this was in an attempt to explore the dymanic of Shaker's spiritual experience, but for me, it did not succeed in bringing the Shakers to life.
I did not feel the "spirit." I felt the choreography fully expressed the angst at being stuck in the human body. However it never got to the other side of anguish. Maybe for this choreographer there is no other side? For me the the singing brought to life a far more nuanced vision of the aspirations of Shaker culture then the dancing did.
The lighting and set design were excellent. They were dramatic, stark and supported the performance without calling attention to themselves - very intune with the shaker aesthetic.

Statement for Project Three:
Maudlin Girl

Multimedia Piece of Everyday Object
(The sad girl is the everyday object)
Description:
Ceramic relief sculpture of girl inside broken frame. The piece is wrapped and held together by scraps of silk with needles and embroidery thread.

Artist Statement
In this piece I am working through my own fear of expressing emotion in art and modeling the human form.

I am working through my fear of art as self-expression for sad girls who are romanticizing their pain and making it ornamental. It is a sort of aversion therapy - sort of like snake handling for the snake-o-phobe.

This piece is informed by my simultaneous attraction and revultion to the romanticization of the depressed, female figure.

It is also coming out of my life experience as a romantic depressive who is raising two melodramatic angished teenage girls. Basically - there is a lot of free floating angst in my life right now.

The girl is inside a broken frame. This is also an obvious, one could even say, "cheap" metaphor about "breaking the frame."
The girls is "too much" for the frame - her saddness is overflowing.
Traditional representational art is so worn out that it is broken.
And yet for me, what else is there really?
This is where I live.
Broken and cliche as it may be there is no place like home.

The silk and embroidery thread represents female "art-making" as an attempt to hold it all together.

Influences:
Della Robbia (white figure on blue background relief sculpture)
Mucha posters
Alice in Wonderland Illustrations
Pre-rafaelite work of Dante & Christina Rossetti