This month’s post unlike the previous month’s posting only covers 28 days, the approximate length of a lunar month, and the number of panels in each movement of the self portrait I am currently working on. Images and text documenting its process [to date] are found in Gallery Five.
This past month has seen me sticking closer to home and studio, a physical state of ‘localness’ corresponding to a similar mental state, spending much of my time with an even more inward focus than usual writing the first draft of my MFA thesis paper. I took a more experimental approach to writing than previously. It was very challenging, taking three times longer as would be typical to write a similar number of words on the same subject in a conventional manner. Yet I really enjoyed the process.
Throughout I continued to work on the paintings in my studio, state of dryness/workability allowing. Fortunately (?) the paints I am currently working with are at the slowest end of the drying spectrum leaving more space/time to focus on the writing. No time did I feel I was being pulled away from the studio to write; signifying for me that the writing has integrated itself into my studio practice in a position equivalent to object making. This was one of my objectives and I am pleased to have met it.
In the studio, alongside Sonata, I have been continually working on smaller works which are helping me explore ideas parallel to the larger works. I have been documenting photographically, however I have decided at this time not to post images in order to keep the focus on Sonata.
I want to mention a few instances of decimation of my work this month.
Last June I was asked to be a part of an exhibition at the University of Rhode Island Providence Campus this month loosely organized around the topic of the issues local [Rhode Island/Massachusetts] women artists are addressing in their work. I decided to exhibit Motherboard and Sonata: Allegro (Das Ding Ansicht). I have updated both galleries to include documentation of the installation of each painting.
In addition to that exhibition, two local, long established, artist-run co-op galleries organized non-juried, open call exhibitions on the theme of portraiture/self portraiture/artists confronting the concept of personal identity in the 21st century…’selfie’ shows, as one co-op referred to their exhibit... ideas I’ve been working with these past months. Although I have no interest in becoming directly involved in or a member of either co-op, both have been around for decades and have done much in sustaining the local art scene and artists, and I occasionally exhibit in their open call shows as a means of supporting their work. I did anticipate that much of the work would be more figurative/representational than the work I sent [similar to work in this sketchbook from last spring]. The works were very abstract, with no recognizable human features beyond ‘flesh’. Needless, I was surprised to receive a call from the co-op whose call read closest to my own questions concerning self-portraiture...right down to iPhone generated ‘selfie’ photos. The artist responsible for installing the exhibit had decided my work did not fit his vision of ‘self portraiture’. The co-op asked if they could keep the work for the next show on nudity, titled ‘Clothing Optional!’. I declined, that is not what the work is about. I was not surprised to see the contents of the exhibition when I went to retrieve my work--big painted canvases of faces,. I found the whole experience quite humorous, in part because I was in the middle of writing my thesis with much about Duchamp...and here I was being ‘mutted’. It re-affirmed why I’m exploring the ideas surrounding identity/portraiture/self portraiture in this manner. Oh well, Rrose Selavy!
Looking ahead, in the coming month I plan to ‘finish’ the current stage of Sonata: Adagio (an sich). After de-installing Sonata:Allegro (Das Ding Ansicht) I continue with it into its next stage. More writing is in store editing/tuning the final draft of my thesis paper. I plan to re-configure the galleries on this website making space for the final months of documentation of the MFA work. Crit group Skype sessions are scheduled. In early April I have travel plans on the calendar to NYC/Philadelphia; including a visit the Frick Collection to view the Van Dyck exhibit, [watching Marcia Pointon’s lecture April 6 Why Portraiture? as a live webcast], seeing what The Met has done to the Breuer building, and visiting the PMA. I will also continue looking ahead to the coming months; numerous application deadlines are on the calendar, plans to be made for the summer, Berlin and the many things setting in formation to follow.
