They Asked Me To Talk
about my work at the DeCordova the other night. And before talking it seems I primarily took photos of my friend Brian. I'll have to insert a photo here of him rather than of me, which is just as well seeing as my right eyeball chose that night to undergo what I now understand to be called a subcutaneous hemorrhage, the white filling up with red, red blood and causing people to respectfully avert their gazes from me all night. Gore.
Giving the talk made me nervous (even though I thoroughly believe that to be nervous about one’s own performance is to give one’s self way to much credit for being important. I mean, I’m a small thing and I matter but in the end, so what?) I made notes in outline form beforehand, four pages of bulleted lists which I carried with me. I consulted with people more experienced in public speaking, confirming that almost anything is a better place-filler than the word “Umm”. I hoped that that included the place-filler of throwing up in one’s own mouth.
In the end no tragedies or digestive anomalies befell me while I talked, though about two minutes in I found myself wondering what would happen if I just fell flat on the floor (wondering in that same way that I sometimes wonder about what would happen if I put my sweater sleeve in the stove’s gas flame. It’s a form of wondering that is a definite warning of impending experiment).
While speaking I spotted a woman (later confirmed to be a museum employee) who was grinning and nodding her head and even popping her eyebrows in various expressions of delight and surprise, so I looked at her the whole time. When I was finished my best friend Stacie wept and squeaked out “I’m just so proud of you”, which made it all worthwhile for me and gave our other friends a good laugh. All around it went fine, it went fine.
Aside from the joy of making a cute girl cry, there were two distinct and important things that I got from the Night of Talking Out Loud. One was a little more insight into my own process and aim, and one was some sweet thoughts about materials.
When figuring out whattheheck to say, the biggest challenge was to figure out why I paint birds. I ended up talking about my transition from painting people to painting birds, explaining that I’ve always been interested not so much in narrative painting but rather in the suggestion of narratives where Lots of Information is Missing. To paint not the narrative painting but the tiny detail of a narrative painting that one might see in an art book, where you can tell that there is a story going on but the detail is taken so completely out of context that you can’t tell what the story is.
I explained that I’d found that the human form, no matter how ambiguously posed or obscured, just inherently gives away too much information, and that I’d turned to birds because they still offer expressive body language, gesture and posture but without the overwhelmingly familiar human characteristics or identities. I mentioned my long-standing desire to make a painting that would affect the viewer as a snippet of overheard conversation affects a listener.
I’ve never been entirely sure what I mean by these things, but it’s starting to become clearer. I realize that although I feel like a fairly astute observer, I still feel like I’m constantly bombarded by fragmentary information. I think this is the way most of us go through the world, only partially absorbing and understanding the torrents of story and stimuli around us. That our stories consist more of holes than of plot lines. And that’s the primary thing I’m interested in and, probably, painting for; to examine the way we pass through and take in our world, communicate and don’t communicate with it and with each other. Maybe, as I meant to claim in my talk but forgot to because one page of my notes stuck to another one and went un-taked, my work is at its very least a plea for increased attention (to, you know, the small species, small victories and small lies).
There are other things about birds which I discussed. There is their special role as Most Visibile Wild Animal Ever, going on with their going ons amidst and amongst us, in broad daylight, observable. Yet they’re simultaneously some of the most elusive creatures ever, fast and above as and able, in that awe-striking and unstoppable way of theirs, To FLY. There is the way they seem to be observers themselves, and always to be watching us. There are other things too.
Following my humble success at not throwing up, James Grashow, the maker of the 100 monkeys, spoke. And he was an absolutely amazing speaker. Performer, even. He gesticulated and provoked and built a big robot out of cardboard and I think he even made it speak about mortality. Stunninng. His primary topic of discussion was material, specifically cardboard, and why he’s so drawn to working with a non-precious, mundane material.
“It is not like Bristol Board, saying ‘oh, I’m so perfect and precious, make precious art on me’” he said, “cardboard says ‘I’m trash, I’m yours!’, cardboard is just thrilled for you to make anything out of it”.
This is something that really speaks to me, and I think he’s got a great attitude. Something has always turned me off about the white and flawless materials manufactured exclusively for Art. I’m figuring out more and more just why it is that I’m so attached to painting on ratty, splitty, knotty and hole-ful plywood. It is a material that is of the world, it is a building material, we walk on it and past it everyday. It has history and utility and splinters. Umm. Splinters of overheard conversation.
I like showing the baseness and simplicity of the material, but there is also something to be said for transforming it and transcending it.
In addition to his rustic, swinging monkeys, Grashow also had a piece in the show that was so intensely refinied and detailed that the fact it was made of cardboard is almost unacceptable. It is a scene of marsh birds and flowers, leaves and feathers all tooled down to miniscule exactiture and mindful minutae. When showing this work he said:
Well, you know. Often you want to make something that causes people to say “I could totally make that!”. But every now and then you want to make something that makes them say “Whoa, I definitely couldn’t make that!”.
How true man, how true.
about my work at the DeCordova the other night. And before talking it seems I primarily took photos of my friend Brian. I'll have to insert a photo here of him rather than of me, which is just as well seeing as my right eyeball chose that night to undergo what I now understand to be called a subcutaneous hemorrhage, the white filling up with red, red blood and causing people to respectfully avert their gazes from me all night. Gore.
Giving the talk made me nervous (even though I thoroughly believe that to be nervous about one’s own performance is to give one’s self way to much credit for being important. I mean, I’m a small thing and I matter but in the end, so what?) I made notes in outline form beforehand, four pages of bulleted lists which I carried with me. I consulted with people more experienced in public speaking, confirming that almost anything is a better place-filler than the word “Umm”. I hoped that that included the place-filler of throwing up in one’s own mouth.
In the end no tragedies or digestive anomalies befell me while I talked, though about two minutes in I found myself wondering what would happen if I just fell flat on the floor (wondering in that same way that I sometimes wonder about what would happen if I put my sweater sleeve in the stove’s gas flame. It’s a form of wondering that is a definite warning of impending experiment).
While speaking I spotted a woman (later confirmed to be a museum employee) who was grinning and nodding her head and even popping her eyebrows in various expressions of delight and surprise, so I looked at her the whole time. When I was finished my best friend Stacie wept and squeaked out “I’m just so proud of you”, which made it all worthwhile for me and gave our other friends a good laugh. All around it went fine, it went fine.
Aside from the joy of making a cute girl cry, there were two distinct and important things that I got from the Night of Talking Out Loud. One was a little more insight into my own process and aim, and one was some sweet thoughts about materials.
When figuring out whattheheck to say, the biggest challenge was to figure out why I paint birds. I ended up talking about my transition from painting people to painting birds, explaining that I’ve always been interested not so much in narrative painting but rather in the suggestion of narratives where Lots of Information is Missing. To paint not the narrative painting but the tiny detail of a narrative painting that one might see in an art book, where you can tell that there is a story going on but the detail is taken so completely out of context that you can’t tell what the story is.
I explained that I’d found that the human form, no matter how ambiguously posed or obscured, just inherently gives away too much information, and that I’d turned to birds because they still offer expressive body language, gesture and posture but without the overwhelmingly familiar human characteristics or identities. I mentioned my long-standing desire to make a painting that would affect the viewer as a snippet of overheard conversation affects a listener.
I’ve never been entirely sure what I mean by these things, but it’s starting to become clearer. I realize that although I feel like a fairly astute observer, I still feel like I’m constantly bombarded by fragmentary information. I think this is the way most of us go through the world, only partially absorbing and understanding the torrents of story and stimuli around us. That our stories consist more of holes than of plot lines. And that’s the primary thing I’m interested in and, probably, painting for; to examine the way we pass through and take in our world, communicate and don’t communicate with it and with each other. Maybe, as I meant to claim in my talk but forgot to because one page of my notes stuck to another one and went un-taked, my work is at its very least a plea for increased attention (to, you know, the small species, small victories and small lies).
There are other things about birds which I discussed. There is their special role as Most Visibile Wild Animal Ever, going on with their going ons amidst and amongst us, in broad daylight, observable. Yet they’re simultaneously some of the most elusive creatures ever, fast and above as and able, in that awe-striking and unstoppable way of theirs, To FLY. There is the way they seem to be observers themselves, and always to be watching us. There are other things too.
Following my humble success at not throwing up, James Grashow, the maker of the 100 monkeys, spoke. And he was an absolutely amazing speaker. Performer, even. He gesticulated and provoked and built a big robot out of cardboard and I think he even made it speak about mortality. Stunninng. His primary topic of discussion was material, specifically cardboard, and why he’s so drawn to working with a non-precious, mundane material.
“It is not like Bristol Board, saying ‘oh, I’m so perfect and precious, make precious art on me’” he said, “cardboard says ‘I’m trash, I’m yours!’, cardboard is just thrilled for you to make anything out of it”.
This is something that really speaks to me, and I think he’s got a great attitude. Something has always turned me off about the white and flawless materials manufactured exclusively for Art. I’m figuring out more and more just why it is that I’m so attached to painting on ratty, splitty, knotty and hole-ful plywood. It is a material that is of the world, it is a building material, we walk on it and past it everyday. It has history and utility and splinters. Umm. Splinters of overheard conversation.
I like showing the baseness and simplicity of the material, but there is also something to be said for transforming it and transcending it.
In addition to his rustic, swinging monkeys, Grashow also had a piece in the show that was so intensely refinied and detailed that the fact it was made of cardboard is almost unacceptable. It is a scene of marsh birds and flowers, leaves and feathers all tooled down to miniscule exactiture and mindful minutae. When showing this work he said:
Well, you know. Often you want to make something that causes people to say “I could totally make that!”. But every now and then you want to make something that makes them say “Whoa, I definitely couldn’t make that!”.
How true man, how true.
posted by Josie Morway at 12:44 PM
1 Comments:
My very favorite quote of the week, if not month.
"the human form, no matter how ambiguously posed or obscured, just inherently gives away too much information"
I'm still digesting it.
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