Well I hope everyone had a good break.. for me it was fantastic as it gave me time to get my work further along the installation train. I was able to secure the gallery so I have worked there almost everyday. I have two weeks left before the big show.. MArch 30 at 8pm.. Gallery 1716 Main Street. I think we will have champagne .. at least one glass to celebrate.

It appears I have at this point 2000 beeswax doorknobs. In the space it doesn't look like much so I am still in manic production. here is a sneak peak at the tumble of doorknobs in situ...

I've just been re-reading Dave Hickey's essays The Invisible Dragon. They are essays on beauty but I was thinking about the relationship of power that he suggests and thought it might be interesting considering what we have been reading etc re who is making decisions about what is art and who get s funding? Hickey’s four essays are wonderfully tangential and in the end they compliment and fit together completing numerous thoughts on our relationship with beauty and its politics. His critique is centered on the institutions that dictate ideas of beauty through dictum, erasure or obfuscation and the trickle down .. power relationships such as granting agencies.
One of the most interesting passages in the first essay was his discussion of the business of “pleasure, power and beauty” He suggests, that as far back as the 16th century, a point at which the power of the church and state as arbiters of meaning was shifting, that” images became mobile” and could be used to support..”doctrines, rights, privileges, ideologies, territories and reputations.” perhaps the NEA and Jesse Holmes read this??? Caravaggio’s The Madonna of the Rosary is cited as an example. Here the artist created an intricate tableau in which the contemporary drama of the day…the authority of the priest as intermediator is played out. But it is clear from the painting the line of authority is drawn like an ellipse between the priests, rosary, the beads and the worshippers. The Madonna is set apart, and she is separate and as such is the symbol of beauty ,the idea of Beauty but not the real. We, the beholders outside the painting respond to the visual instruction of the geometry and are forced to return to this focal point … the hands of the priests and the beads. It is here that Hickey makes the parallel between the priests of the church and the contemporary art institution, the new church and its’ academic priesthood. These are the art bureaucrats who hold the power and insist on mediating “meaning”. He posits that we are so busy looking for “meaning” that we miss Beauty. “Beauty, in their domain is altogether elsewhere, and we are left counting the beads and muttering the texts of academic sincerity.” just a thought?

How does the artist function in society?

When I think of this question I always think of being in some social situation with non artists who ask you what do you do? When I try to explain the kind of practice that I have I always wish I could say instead….Oh!, I am a painter of landscape or portraits… It would be so easy then for them to understand and put me in an already well defined category…but I am not a painter of landscape or portraits…….. so how do we explain our function without getting reviews such as “a monument to self indulgence”.

I guess acknowledging the stereotypes that already are part of the culture is a good first step. I personally try to talk about my practice in such a way as to engage the person I am speaking with. Most are keen to understand..and most are fascinated. Perhaps though they are busy in there minds slotting me into some category.

As for Marx…
Is art considered unproductive labor having no apparent function..? You can’t eat it to survive..you can’t burn it or wear it……( well I guess in some instance you could?!) Marx certainly suggested that there must be a relationship between labor and function. The artist as profession came from patronage and religion and therefore was heavily linked to the leisure class. In his inscription of a utopian classless society would the artist have a place? Probably not!

I think we as visual artists are very valuable. I think we create, interpret ideas in ways that have implications for the society as a whole.

Two examples come to mind when I think of the more intellectual or cultural value we have as artists to a society. The first is the situation we have in Canada with Quebec. The Quebecois culture has been protected in Quebec.. not by English speaking Canadians but by the Quebecers themselves. In the 1970’s the elite..yes the intellectuals and artists took power of the province and developed cultural policies to establish and maintain language and history through the arts. They sunk masses of money into culture..as they knew that a people’s identity was linked to culture and to the arts… 35 years later the province is flourishing.. the language is in tact and identity is strong.

My second example is Czech.. The Velvet Revolution 1989 was led by artists …They were the generator ..the incubator or perhaps the thermometer of the imagination.. they put into writing, into poetry and into visual art the ideas and allowed the people to imagine a different governmental structure…the artists mobilized the people and from that the communist government fell and was replaced by artists… I realize too this is a cursory analysis but you get what I mean…

I am certainly not suggesting that we are revolutionaries but what I am suggesting is that in our very practices we perhaps are taking the pulse of our culture and through the work we do we create an opportunity for imagination and I believe imagination is the key to our global problem solving… …

“Be the artist that you are!”

The Great Myth maker himself.. Andy Warhol.. but I think he is correct.. An artist is who you are.. I sometimes used to feel like I was looking for my tribe.. When I decided to be an artist I seemed to fit with a core group of other artists and like minded people. AS far as the art world goes I fit here more than in other places so this is my tribe… and I will be who I am as an artist within it..

Radio WART

Thinking about Dave Hickey’s essays inspired the radio show that Jerry and L and I did.. we wanted that vernacular style that he is so comfortable writing in. We also wanted it to be humorous.. so I hope it was. The questions or myths that we discussed are those you so often hear… so we thought it was a good way to play. Values were discussed regarding artwork.. and who marks the value… critics, appraisers, or personal desire of the artist or collector. In the end we concluded that the critic gives good press or bad press and that either way this is good. Hickey of course suggests that the critic is part of the elliptical relationship between the dealer, collector and artist. He is rather cynical about this relationship but I see it as part of the components of capitalism..c’est la vie! As for appraisers they help to put $ to the work and gage this based on sales and exhibition records. And as for the collector they should consider if they are buying for solely for investment to buy then from a reputable dealer.. but in the end if the collector loves the work then he is buying for his pleasure and revery.
Other myths discussed were the notions of artists as drunken crazies…and whether or not going to art school is a good career plan? I think that myths perpetuated by media and the art world??? Who ever that is…?? Are prevalent in every profession so as we become and establish ourselves as artist we define the fluidity of who we are and how we live in this world. De-mythologizing the myth of being an artist is an important process for success.. Other wise you might end up bitter when you realize you can’t achieve the utopic notion of the great artist… and who wants to be a drunken tortured soul.. not me? Most artists want to make their work and live a creative life and have the things that most desire in this western culture. Each will modify this to meet their individual desires.

What is success for you in the arts?

I think for me it is a two part answer.. Actually it is probably more fluid and complex than even that but lets just say two parts. The first is the pleasure and clarity it gives me to be a maker of things. I always feel calmer and better able to deal with my world after I have made something..anything!! The second part for me is to be able to make a living and to have respect for my work by my peers. Peer respect is very important I think for me. I think this means that I am reaching that tenuous balance in my work between materials and ideas both conceptual and poetic. I want to make work that penetrates through the body first, followed by the privileged eye. I want the whole body to be involved.. to take in and understand the work at both a corporeal and intellectual level. So this is my goal.. It is not that I think that Peer respect is the be all and end all but it is a gage that I think is part of my desire for success. Also just to clarify I am not making my work to satisfy some external peer assessment but that is the beauty of respect it comes from in a way exposing your values and having them affirmed.

Why do we pursue our MFA’s?

For me pursuing an MFA was a chance to engage in a more rigorous discourse and to learn some new skills that I had always wanted to learn.. (mold making!) So the benefits of facilities were part of it but also the discourse, the engagement and on some level the teaching was the draws for me. The teaching component was a sort of insurance policy.. If I need to I have the credentials to teach.. But first I am going to focus on making work in both the commercial and non commercial platforms.
I think one could be very cynical and think that the University MFA is a pyramid scheme and that might be true but in the end it is what you take from it. It is an institution and by its very definition is here to recreate itself… so be it.. Let me take what I want from the smorgasbord and leave behind what I think is not to my liking.. From my perspective an MFA is a degree that opens doors to possibilities both practical and intellectual.. There are no promises with any degree in any discipline… and as for the institution my advice is pick your battles..it is a slow to change creature.