A gay day at SOIL

It was a hot, sweaty Saturday Talk at SOIL last week when we new members talked briefly about our work. I could be wrong, but I think SOIL might have been all hetero before this round of homos joined this year.  It was nice/interesting to see common yearnings in our work. All three of the gay members present for the talk (one bear couldn’t make it) are making work about our sexual identities, histories, and relationships. And, all three of us are using somewhat abstract means to do this. Also, I think talking comfortably about these things in a gallery setting is relatively new to all of us.

Chris Buening talked about how Mad Dog is a kind of abstract “portrait” of his fifteen-year-old self drunk on a date with his much older boyfriend.

Derrick Jefferies found the body for Anatomy in cinnamon and mint chewing gum, stretched and and molded together to shape sinews and nakedness.

I’m using The Song of Songs from the Bible as a way to paint the trajectory of my love song to my wife and son.

Related: Erin Shafkind’s take on the Saturday Talk.

demystification in the works

There’s something really interesting happening on Grey Gallery’s blog. The process of gathering artists for inclusion in a juried show has been made transparent.

5×5 will be a show of five local artists chosen by five non-local jurors. Grey Gallery chose the jurors (artists and curators from California, New York, Miami), and then put a call out for local emerging artists to submit images for review. All 88 of the entries are posted on Grey’s blog, for all to see.

Of all of the juried shows I’ve applied for (I applied for this one), I’ve never been made privy to the pool of applicants. I usually prepare my application and then send it off to be dealt with behind closed doors. Sometimes I get an acceptance letter, often a rejection letter, sometimes I never hear back at all. From start to finish, the process is a mystery with the artist left in the dark. I’ve learned to equate the act of mailing my application (with application fee) to lighting it on fire. Then if I get an acceptance letter, I can enjoy genuine surprise; “Oh, hey! I did apply for this, didn’t I!”

After twelve years of participating in this covert operation, I find Grey’s approach mighty refreshing. I’m enjoying looking at all the artists’ works, reading their bios and statements. It’s fascinating to see art worlds innocently butting up against each other in the format of a blog entry.

No. 69

Now Grey is asking everyone to join the conversation around this project by commenting on the blog. You can say which artists you would pick for the show! Here are some of my favorites:

No. 12

No. 55

No. 84

No. 27

No. 24

No. 42

I wonder if the gallery is going to make the jury’s decision-making process public on the blog as well. If they do, it will be an exciting and satisfying conclusion to this exercise in transparency.

We all need to read this (THIS IS OUR REAL JOB)

If you haven’t already, you need to read this. I recommend the printed version, which you can pick up for free at SOIL.  A single issue newspaper, ART WORK is a project of Temporary Services in Chicago. It is page-to-page text of artists talking about what it means to be an artist presently in the U.S.  Their considerations are wide-ranging and poignant; this is seminal reading at its most relevant.

“Universities continue to crank out masters of fine arts who have next to no possibility of getting gainful employment and little to no role in creating future employment outside the already tiny pool of highly coveted tenure track positions. If you are an educator, we challenge you to use your privilege and your security to improve things for your students and the rest of us. If you are an adjunct teacher, we encourage you to make it difficult for your university to continue exploiting you. Unionize. Walk out. At least make sure to milk every resource you can, preferably to enable and supplement educational models that happen outside of these institutions. Scan those rare and out of print library books and periodicals and put ‘em online. Check out A/V equipment and use it to put on free events for everyone. Get as many guest lecturers paid through your classes as you can. Bring the visiting out-of-town lecturers to an extra event space and encourage them to do a bonus talk for people who aren’t clued in to academic calendars around town. Sow dissent. Teach the brave truth of poverty rather than the sniveling, competitive lie of the Top 5%. Make everyone’s pay public knowledge – demand equity for all of us who create the next generations of artists and thinkers. It is time for some leveling and accountability, even for you progressives in the art schools.”

- Temporary Services

How to get involved with the Art Lending Library!

The Art Lending Library is a system of lending and borrowing artwork to the public for free. It is a trust-based program where artists provide artwork to be checked out by any member of the public, and patrons allow artwork and artists into their homes; all in the spirit of sharing.

- Art Lending Library Mission Statement

The Art Lending Library (A.L.L.) (recently featured in City Arts Magazine) at Cooper in West Seattle has a call out to artists as well as an invitation to the general public to come check out art.

What’s left in Seattle when you take out Culture? (4Culture is slated to die in two years.)

4Culture –arguably the cultural aorta of Seattle (if not the region)– will lose its primary source of funding in 2012. If it doesn’t have funding, 4Culture will die. From 4Culture’s website: “4Culture provides funding for support of the visual and performing arts, heritage programs and historic preservation. Annual funding supports the activities of more than 250 arts and heritage organizations, hundreds of artists and heritage specialists, capital construction projects and equipment purchases, new arts and heritage projects, and cultural education in public schools.”

It’s frightening to imagine what this city (or any city) would look like without all of these things.

The employees of 4Culture have been doing everything they can to advocate for the change of the legislation that has their funding ending in 2012. They’ve driven to Olympia to stand in courtrooms, written letters, initiated advocacy forums, and waited anxiously for funding to be extended. It hasn’t worked, and time is running out.

If enough people act, it might be possible re-establish funding and effectively SAVE 4Culture.

How YOU can help:

blog: Advocate4Culture.blogspot.com

email:   Advocate4Culture@gmail.com

facebook: Advocate4Culture

twitter: advocate4cultur

Studio Group

We’ve started a studio group here in Seattle. Anna and I had been wanting to participate in a group of artists that visited each others studios, so we decided to start one. I emailed local artists I already knew personally, as well as the members of SOIL and Crawl Space. People were very responsive, and a truly great group has taken shape. Members are: Saya Moriyasu, Troy Gua, Sharon Arnold, Laura Ward, Amanda Manitach, Damon Mori, Margie Livingston, Thom Heileson, Ryan Molenkamp, Etsuko Ichikawa, Joey Veltkamp, Anna Callahan, Susanna Bluhm.

Amanda Manitach

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Etsuko Ichikawa

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Sharon Arnold

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Joey Veltkamp

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Laura Ward

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Troy Gua

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Ryan Molencamp

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Anna Callahan

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Margie Livingston

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Saya Moriyasu

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Thom Heileson

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Susanna Bluhm

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We wore mustaches at our first meeting.

{Troy Gua and Margie Livingston}

A lot of us hadn’t met before, so we introduced ourselves and our work. It was really great to see the variety of paths that brought each of us to this art community. Among us there are several high school dropouts, a former professional chef, a former engineer.

{Amanda Manitach, Joey Veltkamp, Sharon Arnold, Thom Heileson, Anna Callahan. Joey Veltkamp’s apartment was not on fire. I’m not sure why this photo came out like this!}

We’ll take turns hosting the studio visits, and the hosting artist will decide on the topic. We’ll talk about each others work, stuff we’re thinking about and reading, projects in early stages, etc.

Sometimes life as an artist can feel rather solitary. It can feel like you’re working alone in your studio in a kind of void. While that sensation is probably my favorite part of being an artist, I also feel the need for my work and my art practice to connect to a community that functions in a world. I think I’m in art not just for the making, but also for the being. It has something to do with the role I play as a worker in our culture, and the way I want to relate to other people.

This gathering felt more like a reunion than a first meeting.

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FLOATING WORLDS

Gallery4Culture, Seattle Washington, October 2006

“Floating
Worlds” refers to popular “Ukiyoe” prints of Japan in the 1800s.
Moriyasu interprets the prints, buddhism investigating the absurd
optimism of heaven and travel.  The escapism of landscapes and heaven
take us away from the here and now.  The popularity of Asian landscapes
that grace landscape painting, dishes, lamps and consumer items speaks
of our desire for that “other” more perfect and less complicated
place.

Sponsored in part by a 4Culture Grant

Price available upon request.  Photos by Saya Moriyasu.

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How do artists live?

I would love to go on some kind of massive research expedition to explore this very question. I want to know details about how other artists are making ends meet and making things work. I don’t know if it’s for commiseration or inspiration, or purely because no one ever talks about it. It was an unmentionable even in my grad school program, this “how to survive” issue. Is it because you don’t? Or at least not by doing art?  I’ve heard “There’s always teaching,” but really there isn’t. Teaching art at the college level is extremely competitive, and in order to get a stable teaching job, MFA graduates must first be willing to (typically) move anywhere in the country to adjunct part-time at near-poverty wages.

{Jennifer Dalton, How Do Artists Live? 20-image slide show, detail, 2006}

Unless they are independently wealthy, artists have “day jobs,” right? As I’ve waded through several career crises in the past ten years, I’ve gathered that some day jobs seem to be more valuable than others, regardless of the income they yield. They have a higher romance factor, thereby enhancing the perception of the art career. Like: Zookeeper, Baker, Fireman, Roofer, Hair Stylist.  Then, other jobs seem like they would actually hinder an artist’s standing: Therapist, Nurse, Accountant, High School History Teacher. Is manual labor somehow better for the artist’s reputation? Is it the same for men as for women? Would it be cool to be a mailman delivering mail, but uncool to work in the post office proper? Does anyone know what I’m talking about?

How do you pay your bills?

Has having a child helped or hurt your art career?

Do your parents give you money?

Is there a day job you’d like to have, but haven’t pursued because it wouldn’t “look good?”

Do you like your day job? How did you get it?

{Jennifer Dalton, How Do Artists Live? 20-image slide show, installed at Winkleman Gallery, 2006}

Alice Wheeler on Seattle, the wild west, the physical space of a woman, and Feminism.

I [yes, finally] listened to Jen Graves’ podcast of her interview with Alice Wheeler. Wow. The interview is more of a monologue, but it’s one that is wholly worthwhile. She said so many things that no one else seems to be saying; yet lots of people must be thinking about them, right?

I hadn’t realized that I have this idea of what the [contemporary] [female] [American] artist is supposed to be like. I hadn’t ever articulated it or heard it articulated before; at least not in this way. There’s this female artist template, and I’ve been sharing studio space with her all along. Negotiating.

There are conversations about feminism and what it means to be a female artist, but they are usually among feminists, and they are few and far between. If they make it into a larger arena, they seem to be bullied back into specificity so quickly that no response is required from the greater community.

Apparently I’m chickenshit because I can’t find the words to elaborate on my own experience as a female artist, nor bring myself to provide examples for any of the points I’m making. Sometimes it feels dangerous enough just writing this blog. Sometimes I’m struck with the thought that writing a blog about the art scene I’m participating in isn’t really what I’m “supposed” to be doing. I’m fairly certain it would have been safer to be quiet. Ah well, it’s too late for that.

Panel Discussion: Regionalism In the Contemporary Art World, Sincerity, History, and Everything.

“To be an artist, you might as well tattoo ‘Shithead’ on your forehead. You’re always in a position where you have to explain who you are and what you do and why you do what you do. It’s a weird job to have in the long haul.”

- Seattle artist Dan Webb 

Dan W. was spouting quotable phrases left and right. Jen Graves is really charming. (As the only paid art critic in town, it would be easy for a lot of people to hate her; but when you’re in a room with her, you can’t help but love her.) It was a rousing evening. There was a lot on the table!  I think all we really did was get all the issues on the table, and then look at them. I could talk about this stuff for days. 

Is there such a thing as a Seattle Artist? If we entertained the notion that there were such a thing, what would s/he look like? Dan W. offered that Seattle artists might be more sincere than your average artist.

Stephen Lyons from Platform made a kind of squirmy (like, eww) movement when he said “sincere,” saying usage of the word made him uncomfortable in the context of contemporary art. 

Jen G. talked about how Vancouver artists seem to reference their own city’s art history in a productive way, whereas American artists seem to forget where they came from. (I’d say this is true on the whole– not just with art.)

This begs the question: Do artists working in Seattle need to fashion themselves as Seattle Artists?

In my opinion, no. I think we need to make ourselves international artists. And I guess my answer to the first question is also no; there shouldn’t be such a thing as a Seattle Artist. 

I see curators as having the opportunity to frame art and conversations in such a way that poses questions surrounding issues like “regionalism.” (Maybe there is such a thing as a Seattle Curator? Or maybe there isn’t, but there should be?)

One thing that I see as missing in Seattle is thoughtful risk-taking by the major art institutions. It seems that the risk-taking is left to the gallery dealers, with the museums only showing “new” artists after they’ve been around for ten years and recognized by the rest of the world. The way this plays out strikes me as odd, because a gallery dealer has so much more to lose than a non-profit art space. Because the museums don’t take risks, there is a lot of pressure on Seattle galleries to fill the void. 

Dan W. talked about how we all need to just accept the American model of the gallery/patron-based art system. He spoke of the specialness of making an object that a [wealthy] individual loves enough to want in his/her own home. 

I find specialness there as well; but when there aren’t enough risk-taking galleries and wealthy patrons to go around, what’s left?

TVP part 3: Local Is the New Conceptual

TVP isn’t really about Vancouver anymore (well, no more than it’s about textured vegetable protein) but it’s a catchy way to refer to the identity crisis of Seattle’s art scene.

When I left this train of posts dangling, I had imagined I’d pick up RIGHT HERE! Local IS the new conceptual!!! Ah the sweet smell of synchronicity! Dan Webb should be credited for first uttering the phrase “Local is the new conceptual,” and now we have a panel discussion (swoon, I love panel discussions) tonight called “Local Is the New Conceptual” moderated by Jen Graves at Greg Kucera. 7pm.

(I only found out about this event because my blog stats alerted me that this blog o’ mine was listed as a link on SLOG that would likely cover the discussion. Funny.)

There’s so much to talk about!

Some questions to pick up where we left off: What is missing in Seattle’s art scene? What might fill the void?

I think the crux of the problem is that Seattle’s art scene has been built using the template of the New York art scene, as most art scenes in the U.S. are. The New York art scene thrives on the romance of the (preferably tormented) artist slogging away in his studio creating masterpieces that rich people snatch up like hotcakes. Young artists barely out of art school are preyed upon (if they’re lucky) and celebrated and then lost in the frenzy. A few artists have repeat successes and Whitney shows are had and books are written. This works in New York, with its gallery culture. This doesn’t work in Seattle, because there is no gallery culture.

We need a new template.

I think one is emerging, right here. In the writing, in these blogs.

Something exciting is happening, and while it might include galleries, it is not of galleries. We’re banding together, and it’s going to be good. And it will be unique to Seattle.