Liz Sweibel|Artist

2012-01-05T08:29:00.001-05:00

The flatness of last night's post troubles me; just as my work escapes flatness, I seem to be embodying it. Despite my self-cajoling, I'm struggling to summon enthusiasm for much of anything and instead am acting as if. It's more or less successful in that I'm meditating, running, in the studio, and accomplishing the necessities. The imposed structure of teaching may command my time and

2012-01-04T20:55:00.001-05:00

The semester finished before Thanksgiving, and once again the break has enabled me to get back to work. I'm making new sculpture for the first time since 2007, before the Troutman Street loft vacate. I'm using painted wire discards from 2007, which is a nice piece of continuity. Liz Sweibel, Untitled, 2011 Thread, wire, paint (It must be said: I gave it away last semester - gave too much

2011-10-16T12:05:00.000-04:00

Getting older - feeling older - is coming to feel like time is running out for me as an artist. The distance between my daily activity (mental, emotional, physical) and my vision for myself (rooted in history, not fantasy) feels so great that bridging it seems ever harder. Every day I push back against this thinking, with occasional breakthroughs, yet it's thick. For instance, this summer I

2011-09-24T09:18:00.000-04:00

It's been hard to come here to write, not just for the usual reasons, but because I've been trying to find a way to express my disappointment with the exhibit. It has to be said. The gallery was basically unprepared, noncommunicative, and uninvolved. It is a weak, uncurated show. I did the best I could with minimal direction, a space entirely wrong for my work, and scarce time, but am eager

Revealing the Ordinary

2011-08-30T20:59:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow I begin installing Revealing the Ordinary at Gallery Korea, amidst an enormous amount of busy-ness and tumult. Natural disasters (an earthquake and Hurricane Irene), a bathroom gut renovation, and the start of classes (I'm teaching five plus a seminar plus mentoring plus an administrative role plus ...) have fostered a dense environment where all my energy goes to meeting my essential

2011-08-09T19:12:00.000-04:00

Things are changing. I've had some meetings with curators recently, and the fallout is as it should be: new questions, old questions made new. For the first time, I'm working with literal imagery, and it's a whole new set of problems. Decisions need another kind of consideration. And it's fascinating to me that this is happening. Why, now, does working with anything but literal subject

2011-06-25T12:19:00.000-04:00

It's taken until my very last day out here for all the thinking, working, writing, worrying, reading, walking, looking, and the rest to congeal into the feeling I am going home refreshed. I'm not sure a vacation has ever taken so long to sink in; then again, I've never been crushed by the particular challenges that have been crushing me. (Or had to work so many hours teaching and editing while

2011-06-24T18:27:00.002-04:00

Office of George J. Stretch, Ocean Beach, Fire Island I'm wrapping up my time on Fire Island, ready to be going home. The weather has been gray and rainy more than not over the two weeks, and it's starting to take a toll on my mood. I'd rather be in Brooklyn at this point, back with my home and cats and Prospect Park, than with the beach a two-minute walk away, but not really available.

2011-06-22T19:54:00.000-04:00

The Ocean Beach Parking Lot I've been on Fire Island now for more than a week - the most incredible gift of time I could ask for. My intentions were for this to be a self-created residency; my applications were not accepted. The immersion of a residency isn't possible (so the word itself is a stretch), as I am teaching an on-line course and have other work that must be done, but the amount of

2011-05-28T09:30:00.000-04:00

I now take two-month breaks from this blog. I think about writing and wish my head were filled with the ideas and questions that take shape here, but my studio is still and I'm in a rut. My climbing-out strategies include a private writing exercise, so this blog waits. And judging from the struggle I'm in with myself, it could wait awhile. Then again, all it takes is one shift in one moment

2011-03-21T09:38:00.000-04:00

It has been a long while since I wrote, though I've been working in the studio as steadily as life allows. On February 25, news of a death came suddenly and opened an enormous, painful void that just knocked me down. He was a parental figure, a man who taught me about unconditional love and the nature of family and generosity. He made things possible for me - both tangible and dynamic - and

2011-01-31T08:37:00.000-05:00

The weather has kept me from running for more than a week, the longest break since I got my rhythm back. I can do the cold, but less so the snow, which is piled high, and, worse, the ice. I haven't even tried to find my car beneath it. I'm meditating spottily. What I'm doing with utter consistency is wrenching myself around in my own head so that my default position is what I'm not getting done

2011-01-17T18:48:00.001-05:00

I went for a gorgeous run in the park yesterday. I planned to go again today but prepping for the start of classes tomorrow ate my weekend whole, despite my intention to get my work done so I'd have studio time this weekend. Next weekend, definitely. The swan family is still intact, and the signets are still carrying some baby feathers on top. I don't know why this surprises me. I couldn't

2011-01-15T20:40:00.003-05:00

I've been keeping up with my applications, though admittedly my goals are modest. Working on a statement for the Saltonstall Colony, I actually had a kind of epiphany: a burst of understanding about how my work conflates (parallels? expands?) facets of my personality and pursuits. The bolt hit when I was trying to articulate the role of restraint in my work - and like a flash seeing it as an

2011-01-08T09:09:00.002-05:00

In continuing to set up my better studio I unearthed old family photographs that match the stories in preceding posts: my mother's last Thanksgiving in the park, the palm tree where she carved my father's initials after his death, more. It was heart-wrenching. I discovered a random, noteworthy measure of our priorities, for lack of a better word. Every morning I open the Animal Rescue site and

2011-01-01T18:41:00.001-05:00

I like January 1 ... the whole idea of a fresh start. Art biz coach (Alyson B. Stanfield) offers some good tips, most recently advising a year-end stock-taking of accomplishments and plans moving forward. I am expert at downplaying achievements and challenged to set goals, so am giving it a public whirl. Accomplishments in 2010: Attended the Selling Your Work Online workshop at NYFA in March,

2010-12-26T14:17:00.000-05:00

Two trajectories are defining my days – one pulling me forward to my work, and the other pulling me down and away. The first: I let go of rules I’d made about how to have a studio in my home and asked my brother to put up drywall over my (plaster) foyer walls. Such permissions sound simple in retrospect; this one took more than two years. And it closely followed December

2010-12-19T10:24:00.000-05:00

I took this photo of my mother at Hogback Mountain in Vermont in August 1982. I don't recall anything about the trip, but my family rented a great farmhouse in nearby Marlboro for three or four summers around 1970. Her expression seems to hold those memories and the painful two years since my father's death, as well as a sadness I always see in her eyes. When I wrote on the anniversary of her

Another Anniversary

2010-12-11T19:02:00.000-05:00

On May 28, the day before the 30th anniverary of my father's death, I wrote a post about him, and noted my intention to write about my mother. I'm a little embarassed to say that, until a little while ago, I was unaware that today is the 24th anniversary of her death. How I became aware is one of those mysteries of synchronicity. I went running this morning; the lake is starting to freeze.

2010-11-27T18:23:00.002-05:00

When I returned to the vellum-and-thread drawings today, I saw a note I made last time: same thing holds them together as tears them apart. In my Drawing Center portfolio, this got translated to vulnerability and strength seem to come from the same source. The two are not synonymous, but I think I thought they were at the time and must have been trying to transform the rawness of the first

2010-11-24T18:27:00.001-05:00

The leaves seemed to fall fast at Prospect Park. When I went running Sunday it was still quite leafy and colorful; three days later, most trees are almost bare. The swan family is still a unit; the four signets are almost full size, with only the top layer of wing feathers still brownish-gray. They wander farther and more independently. The day was colder, too, and windy, but clear and bright

Just Last Night

2010-11-07T08:17:00.003-05:00

Ann Waddell, Sacre Coeur Couple Ellen Eagle wrote me that she'd found the work of Ann Waddell and the students she teaches (in Beijing), and was so enthralled she wrote Ann a fan note; I, in turn, was so enthralled I wrote Ann a fan note. The photo above is from her blog, with the post: "Seeing couples has made me a little sad lately... It's good there are a number of things making me happy.

2010-11-06T15:27:00.004-04:00

The paper attachments that showed up on the drawings last week feel to me like building; they suggest gutters or shelves - something architectural that holds or catches and perhaps clogs. I'm piling small strips of paper in some of them. This series increasingly seems like studies for work to be constructed, which is new for me (as is being without a studio ... not a coincidence, I'm sure). In

Onward

2010-11-02T19:21:00.003-04:00

Smack Mellon has a one-year studio program I might not have applied for before the Governor's Island letdown, but some reserve of tenacity asserts itself, without my conscious help but with my gratitude. I selected work for my application to document the potential of time in a "real" studio, so five of the images were sculpture and installation pre-studio-loss in 2007 and the rest digital images

2010-10-25T16:44:00.001-04:00

Another aspect of decision-making is timeframe; I keep decisions close to me and don't get too far ahead. I don't trust myself to know what I'll want in the future, and fear getting trapped in something that's lost its appeal. I live more reactively, making decisions when they're in front of me, more or less. In art as in life: My work is a process of immediate decisions that responds to

2010-10-24T19:48:00.008-04:00

About seven years ago, I was asked how decisions were made in my family. I was leaving my marriage. Two clear memories crystallized the whole issue and I could say without hesitating that decisions seemed to me to be inconsistent, compulsive, unexplained, autocratic. I'm not a believer that kids should have an adult voice in all decisions or are entitled to know more than is appropriate for

2010-10-17T18:24:00.001-04:00

This has been the most focused, productive weekend I've had in s-o-o-o-o long. I'm alternately elated and weepy with relief and gratitude. The thread drawings are fresh. I don't know them. The opacity of the vellum adds a sculptural element, makes the work physical, and adds much possibility. The sewing and knotting slow me down. There's tension between control and letting go, front and

2010-10-16T14:57:00.001-04:00

Through the drawings, some things are starting to make sense. Until I moved to NYC in 2004, the work I was making was very slow and labor-intensive. I had the luxury of time and could engage really, really deeply in repeating a set of processes for as long as it took. Liz Sweibel, 1998, Threshold Liz Sweibel, 1998, Without I have much less time now, but still need that

2010-10-11T20:47:00.000-04:00

Not winning the Governors Island residency knocked me down hard for 24 hours and kept me down for twice that. I forced myself to apply to another residency right away, like getting back on the horse. I'd felt a brief but powerful tug to stop applying for anything, and eventually came to the resolution to spend less time on each application. Given the likelihood of winning, I invest a lot of

Here I Am

2010-09-12T16:41:00.010-04:00

From Ellen's directions: "Subject matter, media, scale is your choice. Handing the work in, is not." From Ana, one of the librarians where I teach, when asked what she learned on a leave of absence: "It doesn't matter." She wasn't saying that what she learned doesn't matter, but that she learned It doesn't matter. It's stuck with me and, when I'm lucky, it surfaces when I'm weighing a

September 11, 2010

2010-09-11T21:49:00.000-04:00

From my kitchen window I can see the shaft of light from Ground Zero quite clearly, and the Empire State Building alight in red, white, and blue. There seems to be an inordinate number of sirens going off, not car alarms but fire and police. I wasn't living in NYC on 9/11; living here makes the day even more unfathomable.

Not Giving Up

2010-09-11T11:17:00.000-04:00

The most forthright statement I can open with is that not until recently have I even fleetingly thought of stopping, of closing up shop. I won't stop, I can't stop, but the thought doesn't contradict that. It's just a thought. What's behind it is the frustration of this ongoing block and the challenge of making enough time and finding enough courage to push through it. I've asked my dear

Rest in Peace, Willa

2010-09-04T10:39:00.003-04:00

I've been reconnecting more with my Boston art community. I miss these artists and my critique group dearly; it is about the only aspect of my Boston years I still mourn for. I'm fairly isolated in NYC as an artist, and it makes it all harder. I was invited into a critique group shortly after moving here in 2004 and was in it for a couple of years, but it was unsatisfying - and that was more

2010-08-28T18:02:00.002-04:00

I've spent time in Prospect Park the last two days, and there was much to take in. After my run yesterday I stopped by the lake to watch this swan - a really big one being really territorial. He was bullying away all the ducks in his vicinity, run-paddling through the water to disperse them. I didn't know a swan could move so fast. Once he had cleared his space, he started a major

One Step, Then the Next. Repeat.

2010-08-25T20:57:00.003-04:00

I finished my full-time job Friday. While I was more than ready, having been planning my departure since spring, it was surreal and not the purely celebratory moment I envisioned. I have unfinished business there, so that fuels some fuzziness in my departure, and perhaps that made it slower for me to realize I'm out. Walking away my last day, I purposefully went straight across town - to exit

Beginners Mind

2010-08-14T11:54:00.005-04:00

As I ease out of my full-time job (one week to go), I'm seeing with more clarity (and pain) how silenced I am in my work; it set in with the loss of my loft in October 2007 then took deep hold starting in 2008. I'm starting to see that the worst thing I can do is go into my studio and try to "pick up where I left off." I did that last week, and while I felt some success in the bare fact of

Size ... Scale

2010-08-01T18:42:00.002-04:00

I've been in the studio all day working with "Day Job" ideas. I fall into illustrative mode when I'm out of my practice or pushing myself to explore a set theme, and the work tends to be immature and heavy-handed. But I worked solidly, and since it is the first time in many weeks and has left me with things to think about, I am satisfied. The experience of my full-time job is a potent mix,

A Chink

2010-07-30T10:02:00.000-04:00

The Drawing Center released an open call to Viewing Program artists for an exhibit titled "Day Job." I began writing last night and in 20 minutes produced a lucid explanation of my situation from a perspective I'd not been conscious of: essentially, that while the theme of my work has always been care, relationship, and paying attention, my day job has shown me the stronghold that abuse and

Easier Said Than Done

2010-07-29T17:42:00.000-04:00

The studio is excruciating when it's been dormant, or nearly so, and when I've gone through so much time and so many changes since really engaging that I don't know what I make any more. I worked with paper today, then wire, watching myself struggle to construct something that stands up or is coherent out of small, undefined bits. It's the same struggle I'm having outside the studio, in my

In My Head, Gardening

2010-07-28T12:36:00.002-04:00

I'm very much in my head. The upside is my head is a better place to be, as I'm getting excited about the next phase: more art, more teaching, more flexibility over my time. When I was waiting to give notice and lagging, my wise friend Alicia promised I'd get my energy back once I leave. Just giving notice has helped. I've been going running more, which energizes me, so the momentum is

Transitioning

2010-07-27T22:13:00.006-04:00

I started a post a few days ago but wasn't able to find the right tone, or the many right tones. My connection to my self is fragile and I'm quickly overwhelmed. I resigned my full-time job. On August 20 I return to independent worker status. I've got a nice line-up of fall classes to teach at LIM College and a book to edit, but need to be in marketing mode 24/7 to get this new life off the

On Fire Island

2010-07-21T15:03:00.002-04:00

Queens Boulevard, Forest Hills, 7.15.2010 Sally invited me to her family’s Fire Island beach cottage last weekend, one of the best invitations ever. The stress goes out as soon as I board the ferry and the nostalgia comes in, like a tide. I took the LIRR to Bay Shore Thursday night so I could wake up on the island. (The photos are from my trip.) The station names echoed - Jamaica, Freeport,

Marquez on Time

2010-07-13T20:02:00.001-04:00

In One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes "...and then they understood that Jose Arcadio Buendia was not as crazy as the family said, but that he was the only one who had enough lucidity to sense the truth of the fact that time also stumbled and had accidents and could therefore splinter and leave an eternalized fragment in a room." This is an incredibly beautiful and

Braving Want

2010-07-09T08:16:00.001-04:00

I'm finished with Turn, and as much as Anne Truitt's way and work move and inspire me, we don't live in the same (art) world or time. If I want my work to be visible, I have to market it - hard. Her fortunate early meetings with Kenneth Noland, David Smith, Clement Greenberg, and Andre Emmerich laid the foundation for her career; even the way she writes about these introductions, casually, is

"Echoes reconcile."

2010-07-01T14:24:00.006-04:00

Paul Chan spoke in a panel at MoMA last night about Waiting for Godot in New Orleans, which was staged in the Lower Ninth Ward in November 2007. Other panelists were Robert Lynn Green, a life-long Lower Ninth resident, Katrina survivor (he lost his mother and granddaughter), and neighborhood ambassador for Chan's project; Greta Gladney, Executive Director of the Renaissance Project, a nonprofit

Return to the Studio

2010-06-06T18:44:00.000-04:00

It's been a long time since I went into my studio newly, with no work under way. Since I begin with process and materials rather than idea, it's a matter of going in empty and hoping something will come out. It's unnerving (at best), waiting without knowing what I'm waiting for or whether anything will come, but it's how I work. My grad school theory instructor, Iain Kerr, introduced me to the

The Day After, Plus

2010-05-30T20:21:00.001-04:00

The new Web site is launched; early feedback is positive. I had a huge wave of anxiety after sending it live last night, but seem to have recovered without permanent damage. I joined Facebook today. I despise it. Utterly. It's ugly, it's cluttered, it's juvenile, there's irrelevant stuff I can't seem to make go away, and it's hard to work with. Do I sound like a dinosaur? Some excellent

A Big Anniversary

2010-05-28T20:48:00.001-04:00

The entire month of May was very difficult for me for years, as my father spent the month in the hospital, then died on May 29. Tomorrow will mark 30 years since that terrible month. It's still sort of unbelievable to me, because I can summon and feel his presence and voice. I miss him, as I was too young to be without him or to have achieved any kind of adult relationship with him, and he was

On Commerce

2010-05-23T15:35:00.001-04:00

Why does it feel like I have to keep money and art separate? I've been reworking my Web site for weeks, and one of my intentions is to set it up for commerce. Even the intention feels a little shameful, like it dirties me as an artist and cheapens the work itself, as if the content and formal strength of the work spill out when I put a price on it. I know this isn't new or just me; it's the

Roller Skating

2010-05-16T05:34:00.005-04:00

I wrote a week ago that my father was good with a camera, then posted photos whose value to me were as clues to where he might have worked and what his world was like before I was born yet he was married and adult (or maybe not so adult; there was something about him that never quite grew up in "normal" terms, as there is with me). He took the photos below when I was two or three, and even though

Pushing

2010-05-14T12:44:00.010-04:00

I've been working hard to push through into my work and get more involved in art in the city. For last night, I'd signed up for a panel on social issues in artistic practice, and rushed there after work. I couldn't find it. The address didn't exist, or was one of those hiding art addresses that you have to know to know. I wish it didn't bother me but it did. I walked back and forth a little,

So Of Course

2010-05-08T16:58:00.003-04:00

\It was inevitable, I suppose, that I would come across my father's photos May 4, not long after my last post, while relocating some family boxes to a less visible spot in my apartment. (My family did not create tidy photo albums but rather left piles, shoeboxes, and slide trays of unsorted, mostly unidentified photos, which can be an adventure or an irritant depending on mood.) The one above

Housekeeping

2010-05-01T22:39:00.012-04:00

In October 2007, I lost my live-work space in Queens when the city closed the building. I knew we were living illegally but thought the studio aspect was legal. Not so. Our landlord had us in dangerous circumstances. So I came home from teaching one evening and had no home. While some people are nomadic and others don't mind where the furniture is placed, I'm not one of them. Home is as

The Statement and the Wall

2010-05-01T16:39:00.007-04:00

As content as I am to have written a statement that doesn't sound inflated or stupid, I've since realized it doesn't apply to all my work. While that might sound like a big so what?, the realization disturbed me, as if it marks a problem with consistency or focus. What it actually marks is a difference between my three- and two-dimensional work. That difference, I now see, is between work that

As Promised: Accessibility

2010-04-24T19:52:00.000-04:00

Had I revisited this question closer to my March 20 post, it would've been forced. In the interim, I've realized that the question is moot: my work is my work, and it's going to be this accessible no matter whether it's in a gallery or on the Web or anywhere else. The point is to get the work out there and establish myself (not least in my own mind) as an active artist in the broadest sense -

Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present

2010-03-22T14:43:00.009-04:00

I took some students to see Abramovic at MoMA Sunday; it was my second visit. I'll return. I'm not ready to put words to it yet, but one of my students, Codi, sat with Abramovic in the Atrium and described it in class this morning as "transcendent." I won't dilute the intensity of Codi's description by paraphrasing it, but here she is during (above) and after (below). The photos are courtesy of

Just a Moment

2010-03-20T08:26:00.011-04:00

The struggle I'm having with how to develop a Web presence and sell work without giving up something that's important to me parallels the struggle I'm having with the work itself. Hmmm. How do I say this? In my day job, I work with underprepared college students from diverse backgrounds, most underserved in some way. Some are on welfare, some live in shelters, some have done time, some are ill,

NYFA Workshop: Selling Art on Line

2010-03-19T17:35:00.005-04:00

I signed up for this NYFA workshop without giving myself the luxury of defensiveness about selling work on line. I've been thinking about making a for-sale gallery of drawings and collages on my Web site, but need to find a way that matches the spirit of the site (and its owner). What I learned at this (great) workshop is that it's social media sites and larger marketplaces that can deliver

This Artist's Way

2010-02-22T15:26:00.005-05:00

I've been opening Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way at random spots and reading, thinking I'll land where I need to be. The book is so art school and the writing is, for me, sometimes over the top, but it's dismissed at my own peril. Cameron's guidance is helping me see the mental mindgames I sometimes play for what they are, and getting to work. I've been invited by poet Rich Murphy to

Acknowledgment

2009-11-08T10:10:00.005-05:00

While my previous words are entirely and deeply accurate, and not just lately but every day, I didn't acknowledge (in true form) that in the midst of my immersion in Glenwood and lemons I did prepare a grant application for the New York Foundation of the Arts with nine videos that I'm quite happy with. And I'm eager to continue working, with video and other mediums, and appreciative of the deep

Solace

2009-11-07T20:03:00.002-05:00

Immersed as I am in the care of Glenwood the miracle kitten, I'm finding that solace - creative and personal - comes in the teensiest of gestures and observations. That entirely matches my work; I want to capture the pure, visceral joy of placing a lemon in a purple bowl on my countertop; the act and the visual result are utterly satisfying. The spirit of Alison Knowles's Make a Salad keeps

Mind-less

2009-10-16T14:12:00.007-04:00

I've been pretty mind-less since June 8, when Riley's heart condition was diagnosed. From the awfulness of her last month to my sadness since her death, to the external focus of my day job, and now to the drama of little Glenwood, my emotional state has been so reactive to outside events that what's going on inside me is remote. I'm so distracted I don't even know where I am. (I tried a new

Stuck?

2009-09-06T11:44:00.012-04:00

A friend visited some months ago and, hearing my anguish at finding a way to work in this new-ish life, said, "It's all here," referencing the place I inhabit as home and studio. Her observation was good, as it's slowly allowed me to see the potential in the minute but precise actions that ground me, that keep me from stalling out or sinking, that are a making-order-of that sets the foundation.

Riley, November 1, 1999-July 10, 2009

2009-08-26T20:20:00.012-04:00

Her strangely squared-off and graceful paws. The little flash of white fur at the end of her tail. Her stripes, like pajamas. The orange in her. Her tough little shoulders. Her bow legs. Her with-me-like-a-puppy-ness. Her night-time wails, carrying her little dog-doll around by the neck.How she ran to sit between the curtain and liner while I showered. How dripping water mesmerized her. How she'd

Michael Ashkin at The Sculpture Center

2009-06-20T18:31:00.012-04:00

Untitled (where each new sunrise promises only the continuation of yesterday). Untitled (where the wind carries from afar all but that for which one has yearned).Untitled (where transcendence appears as a drone sent from afar by men with thick torsos).Untitled (where too much significance is attached to the debris of a single airplane).Untitled (where angry men search through the wreckage of a

Sorting

2009-06-14T14:53:00.007-04:00

All is cliche; I'm bored, frustrated, and disappointed - three streams of anger! No wonder all I want to do is sleep, and most of what I do when awake is berate myself.This midlife crisis (the overarching cliche) has started its sixth year. If I have to live this thing that us aware types can be arrogant enough to think we'll sidestep, can it at least wrap up? Can I at least bounce back to

Change Default

2009-05-03T09:25:00.013-04:00

My default thinking is about my jobs: constructing a final exam for my art class in my head, making a mental note to talk with my boss about staffing. While I'm fortunate to have jobs I largely enjoy, I need to be in my work when I'm not in the studio ... to have the studio be my default. Getting traction feels nearly impossible. I have to start up again every damn weekend. I'm rarely

Of Postcards and Birds

2009-05-02T13:57:00.013-04:00

I wait all week for time in my studio, and this weekend is a good stretch. As it's turning out, a good stretch to be discomforted at not knowing what to do, at seeing every move as forced and superficial, at fearing there won't be any potency and it'll be Monday again. The collages feel stale (again). I signed up for a postcard show to nudge myself into working bigger. Yet a 4 x 6" field

Tiny Catharsis

2009-04-30T18:06:00.019-04:00

Perhaps it was inevitable I'd be tested. Walking on W. 55th St. a week ago with a friend, a baby bird had fallen onto the sidewalk. Its wing was wrong and its beak was hurt, but it was a chipper little thing. We kept it from scooting into traffic by using our feet as barriers; it cuddled against them. I made a circle around it with my scarf, and it settled down. I started to cry. There was no one

What's the Question?

2009-04-12T09:22:00.010-04:00

I've spent hours in the studio struggling with the collages. Nothing makes any sense, though the cutting-out-of-things with my Exacto is soothing and satisfying. (The tip, however, breaks in 3.2 seconds. My self-healing pad heals itself, but at the blade's expense. How's that for a human metaphor?) The collages come in series and have persistently exhausted themselves and resurfaced, the

Shaq O'Neal

2009-04-05T19:34:00.005-04:00

I had a good solid six hours in the studio today. It feels meaningless for the first two or so hours, like every choice I might make is guided more by my good eye than any rigorous question. My impulse is to stop work since I feel like a lightweight, but this is how it works. I have to stay, or act like a lightweight and start my week at a deficit. If one gesture resonates, I'm through - and

Attitude Adjustment

2009-04-03T14:13:00.005-04:00

I've felt weird about my last post for a couple of weeks - so whiny! - and was tempted to delete it. But I won't allow myself, as it seems dishonest to edit my less shining moments out of this history. Plus, I finally got so sick of myself wallowing in my petty complaints that I decided to push out and get on with things. I've felt better ever since.My emotional make-up and history have made

Is This It?

2009-03-07T09:57:00.006-05:00

Today marks one year since I moved into my home. I promised myself I wouldn't let this milestone pass without painting the inside of the last closet, which I did. I only wish that the many other promises I make to myself - or wishes I hold for myself - were getting the same attention.I start each day fresh, with hopes and intentions to end it with a sense of self, accomplishment, optimism. Yet

Flags?

2009-03-01T17:42:00.006-05:00

At last, a substantial and productive studio day. Nothing is more satisfying and unsettling - both, inseparably both, as that's the only way for it to leave the studio with me as I go into the week.I worked on new collages, "after" the 2007 Interior series in that they're architectural and tiny, but they're in another key. A new video is on my site too. It's good not to be precious with these

"What Remains"

2009-02-28T20:39:00.008-05:00

I went to the Met today. I can't take credit for the impetus, only that I'd scheduled it as a field trip with my students. Thank God. It was pretty great. Not only my casual conversations with them, but also the wandering in between. I saw the Bonnard show, Late Interiors, which was lovely. Some of the work seems to presage Diebenkorn's Ocean Park paintings. Before and after Bonnard I moved

Missing

2009-02-22T18:22:00.005-05:00

It's been three weeks since I wrote, not for lack of inclination but time. For having to set priorities so that many things I want to do don't get done and many ways I'd like to feel don't get felt. Like embodied. Like I'm doing my work. Like I'm in it. I seem only to disappoint myself, and it's exhausting. My expectations are probably too high, yet I've had what I'm missing and I want it

But Still

2009-01-26T16:23:00.012-05:00

The Internet is saving me as an artist in some ways; I see that. What I'm pining for is a process that's tactile, immediate, repetitive, portable, compelling - one I take seriously. Taking cell-phone photos is an outlet, but it's not my work; it's just something I do ... the visual equivalent to this blog. Satisfying, valuable, and maybe even necessary, but still tiptoeing around the edge.

In Actuality

2009-01-25T15:11:00.011-05:00

I wrote about my surprise at seeing the figure come into my recent work, and now a week later see the obvious: it hasn't. My work remains as it's been, about absence. All that's changed (not to diminish it but put it in perspective) is that the trace or shadow or ghost is representational.Actually, I feel like I don't know how to work any more. It takes a million hours to earn a living (and

P.S.

2009-01-19T13:11:00.016-05:00

This morning I saw that the subtitle of the Mark Morris book is A Celebration. Its photographs are vividly expressive: all color, light, and motion. Yet the dancers I'm choosing aren't the ones celebrating; they are still, turned inward, contemplative, even when celebration is going on all around them. I make them into shadows, without color. They're also alone; I can only tolerate multiple

Ghosts

2009-01-18T16:04:00.009-05:00

A few months ago a new process emerged: making silhouettes of dancers from photographs, using graphite on vellum or trace. I've long collected photos of dancers with multiple figures in the same stance or with a powerful, nonspecific emotional charge. I have Mark Morris' l'allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato, which has spectacularly beautiful, forceful photographs. It's unusual, but every

Measuring My Own Grave

2009-01-15T19:59:00.014-05:00

When I remembered that the title of the Marlene Dumas exhibit at MoMA is "Measuring Your Own Grave" (I wish I had the funds for the catalog!), I realized that my posts "Waiting (for Meaning)" and "Late Bloomer" are of-a-thought. I considered titling this post "Well, Duh," but am letting myself off the hook for slow dot-connecting, or a minor episode of late blooming. Today a US Airways plane

"Waiting (for Meaning)"

2009-01-13T15:00:00.009-05:00

I saw the Marlene Dumas exhibit at MoMA, which includes the painting this post is titled after. The painting wasn't a favorite, but its title - and much of her work - resonated, maybe even more so because of my own pervasive angst and frustration. Her figures' eyes are wrenching. The emotion they hold, or don't, is potent, discomforting, tragic. Unsituated, her figures can be anywhere and

"A State of Serious Mortification"

2009-01-05T21:10:00.013-05:00

The phrase that titles this post perfectly describes my relationship to this blog, and it was a perverse relief to know I'm not alone. The words are Leah Hager Cohen's about starting her blog, Love as a Found Object. I came across them in the NY Times Book Review, where Cohen reviewed The Mercy Papers, a memoir by Robin Romm.I love the Book Review. I'm not looking for something to read; the

Late Bloomer

2009-01-04T09:51:00.013-05:00

Within the last couple of years, I've begun to measure major decisions against my own lifespan. The question that's surfaced most is whether to get a doctorate to better my job prospects, but it's just one example. What I hear myself say is, "If I were 30 or even 40 I'd probably do it, but now?" I know that any decision I've made based on money has proven bad and that I don't even know of a

In My Own Way

2009-01-03T19:23:00.015-05:00

When it came time for the training wheels to come off my bicycle, my father apparently thought he'd be doing the standard running-down-the-street-beside-me scene. I wanted nothing to do with that and walked my bike, sans training wheels, to the neighbors' concrete driveway. As my parents told it, I was gone for hours. I came home banged up and bleeding, but able to ride a two-wheeler.I sent my

"But the Visual Is Not Reducible to the Verbal"

2008-12-26T08:33:00.007-05:00

Having spent the last couple of weeks trying to figure out how to categorize my work for my Web site, it's still unresolved. I do distinguish between my work on or with paper and "the rest," but what is "the rest"? I can't find the word or words (which reminded me of the quote that titles this post, from ”What ‘Evidence’ Says About Art,” Carter Ratcliff, Art in America, November 2006). Using a

"Many Kinds of Nothing"

2008-12-19T14:38:00.006-05:00

My work was in "Many Kinds of Nothing" this fall, a group show curated by Shana Dumont at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA. The other artists were Roni Horn, Dan Senn, and Nancy Murphy Spicer. It was a terrific experience, and a much-needed boost for my studio and morale. I gave a public talk and visited two sculpture classes, which left me sad that art school faculty jobs in NYC are

Sophomore Outings

2008-12-18T16:23:00.007-05:00

My first body of artwork was purely autobiographical. I used my personal and family history to find a way to work. I needed the content to be familiar (if challenging) to experiment with new forms of expression. When my work separated from my autobiography it was a huge relief, though I only saw it in retrospect. My work began to be mysterious to me and seem more relevant in the world, even as my

Invisible Pencil

2008-12-16T08:15:00.008-05:00

In the fourth grade my friend Lauren and I started doing our homework in pencil so light our teacher couldn't read it. More than once, she contacted my parents so they'd have me bear down harder. It seems a pretty clear signal that I felt invisible.Some 40 years later I make artwork that plays at the edge of visibility. I've matured a little bit, so my production doesn't come from the same sad

Why the Distinction?

2008-11-23T16:26:00.007-05:00

Photos and artwork are separate efforts for me. Taking photos is like journaling or sketching - "notes" that share a frequency and aesthetic with my artwork. They're scenes from my day-to-day that I usually capture with my cell phone. The images are unedited. I'm after certain formal qualities and emotional resonances, and the impact is either in the image or isn't. Keeping my words separate

Begin Again

2008-11-22T17:59:00.008-05:00

I'm working on how to incorporate the computer and Internet into my studio practice, no easy feat given the below-low-tech work I make. Making a Web site only to present the work doesn't much interest me. I want some of the work to find its form on the Internet, so that even if a drawing, sculpture, or installation persists physically, it's not the "original" of what's on the Web. They'd be