Matchbox God
Dear Grace,
This weekend I made something very different. I made an
assemblage. Not only is it not a sculpture, but it is a very small
assemblage that hangs on the wall. It was a lot of fun! This piece is about the order of the universe and how we tend to see Christ in a little matchbox within that order, rather than the author of it. Sure, it is a lot to read into a little piece like this. It wouldn't be me if it wasn't over-thought, now would it?
From left to right: there are three rusty nails that were the instruments of the Passion. One of the nails pierces a cork, alluding to the wine. In the center-right is a medieval image of the Baptism of Christ in a matchbox. Also within the matchbox is a piece of wood- a piece of the True Cross? Then to the right is a piece of wood divided into phi ratios. Each square that is made by dividing the new shape into phi begins to spin off. The squares are cut out from an old book on political philosophy. This section is on Augustine's concept of the
summum bonum. You see the words "peace, harmony, order," which is how Creation was orginally designed, but then in the postlapsarian world things have spun out of order, out of harmony and out of peace. There is an eight-sided rusty bolt that contains a fragment of a nautilus shell- the shape of the universe and another example of phi. The scrolls of paper mimic that shape. Then there are three golden bottle caps. Three is a sacred number. Or you can just see it as fun.
So there it is.
I love you! I hope we can have fun in the studio again.
Love,
Sarah
Who Said Quitters Never Win
Dear Grace,
I gave notice that I am leaving my job at the small college. I feel like a big weight has been lifted. I was so nervous to tell the department head. He freaked out and begged me to stay until the end of the semester. I might stay, but not one day longer. He understands the call of the studio. Besides, I've been away so much this semester.
The question remains: now what am I going to do? The answer: go to my studio and make stuff! I am not accustomed to just making stuff without being commissioned to do it. Jump and the net will follow. No excuses now. I will have to make art.
So, who knows, perhaps the stork will visit us as well.
Love,
Sarah
Territory
Dear Sarah,In his book The War of Art, Steven Pressfield contrasts hierarchy (where do I fit in the pecking order of artists?) and territory (what's my home base and hunting ground?). Hierarchy is about battling it out with other artists for supremecy. Territory is about knowing your psychological territory and recognizing that in it, you are invincible. Here are the qualities of a territory:- A territory provides sustenance.
- A territory sustains us without an external input.
- A territory can only be claimed alone.
- A territory can only be claimed by work.
- A territory returns exactly what you put in it.
For the past two weeks or so, I've been working on a painting that has been languishing under my neglect for almost 3 years. It's the elephant in my studio that I've been blaming for my inability to work for so long and I've resolved to finish the thing or kill myself trying. Under this sense of determination, I've been painting almost everyday and remembering, to my surprise, how much I love it. It makes me happy, energizes me, gives me hope and pride. Most of all, it feels like home.
Yesterday, I was walking past my easel and the smell of the oil wafted over to me. It was so wonderful that I literally went over, stuck my nose in my paint box and took a long whiff. It's the smell of where I belong, my territory and I can't tell you how great it is to be back.
High on painting (and maybe paint),
Grace
Going pro
Dear Sarah,
It's been forever since I've written and a lot of things have changed for me. For one, I finally got out of the city and into the country like I wanted. I'm in the middle of Amish country, Ohio and it's beautiful. I spent the first couple months sitting around wondering what I was doing there, what I should do next, etc.
Then one day, I got up and did something you've always been telling me to do - I wrote out my goals. They fell into different categories: financial goals, artistic goals, personal goals, spiritual goals and life goals. One of my life goals was to 'live a professional artist's life.' I'm mean this in the Pressfield way, not in the sense of wanting to sell X amount of paintings, have job Y or get one of my works in museum Z. I mean, I want to make art like it matters, like I need to do it to survive, like I have to show up everyday or else. It's not about what I accomplish. It's about how I treat myself. I respect myself as an artist. I give myself a space to work, devote time to art everyday, make a point of really mastering my craft. This time I'm going to beat my block, not because I've figured out how to make the world take me seriously, but because I know that first and foremost, the professional takes the work seriously.
My 'Artistic Goals' were mostly about taking the work seriously and being a pro.- Paint everyday.
- Make letterhead and business cards.
- Put together 2 artist packets.
- Finish 4 paintings by May.
- Make a creative friend nearby.
Well, maybe the last one isn't necessarily needed by a pro, but the rest are all about it. I'm going to paint everyday like I shower everyday. I would feel unpresentable otherwise. My letterhead and business cards are almost done and I e-mailed someone at the college to see if I could use one of the lightboards in their slide library to mount slides. I figure, I might kill two birds with one stone. Get started on the artist's packets and make some aquaintence with the local arts scene.
I was going through boxes of slides last night when I came across two slides of the textile work I was doing a few years back. Remember it? It was the deeply personal, ethereal pieces of silk-screened organza conterposed with patches of hand embroidery - the ones I took to my MA candidacy review and failed with. I don't have them anymore. I felt so betrayed and failed by them that I tied them up in a little sack and threw them (I still remember how light and weightless even the whole set was) into the dumpster outside the studio. I despised myself for even making them.
As I gazed at these tiny squares of light last night, the works seemed so honest and vulnerable to me, so close to expressing something tangible and meaningful. I was mesmerized by their embryotic beauty. Suddenly, I said to myself, They was something there, and they killed it, and it pisses me off. I kept repeating it over and over in my head. They was something there, and they killed it, and it pisses me off. I had, for all this time, put some stock my failure with these works. Maybe they were right, the work sucked, the idea sucked, I sucked. But last night, my revelation that there had been something to what I had been doing, that it deserved to be encouraged and nurtured and that they had rejected it without decent explanation, made me, to my own surprise, angry. Angry and convinced that they were wrong. Totally wrong. And I had been wrong to listen.
I'm not saying that the work was ready for showing yet, or that it would ever have been ready, but I let them short circut my honest pursuit, gave over to them my love of the game for the sake of a degree. I played into their hierarchy of artistic merit and threw the gifts of my muse in the trash, told her to shut up. Never again. From now on, I make my art because I should, come hell or highwater, and the devil take the consequences.
Here's to going pro,
Grace
Resistance is futile?
Dear Sarah,
Sorry, couldn't resist the 'Star Trek' allusion. All (good) forces on heaven and earth are conspiring to make me get off my duff and make art. I even have a random internet friend I've never even met, who is hounding me to paint. To be honest, I've run out of other things to do. There's nothing left put to sit in front of my easel until something happens.
I will work on Matt a little more. He is very worried that the cost of gas will be the lemming that will start our whole financial situation plummenting into the ocean. God bless him for being conscientious though - one of us should be anyway.
At any rate, I, Grace, resolve that I will prepare no less that two painting surfaces in the next 3 days so that I have something to paint on should our daring daylight art escape come to fruition.
Love you,
Grace
Grab on for Dear Life!
Dear Grace,
Finally, the time has come where avoiding the art has become far more uncomfortable than doing it. I fought all of my excuses.
“The studio is too small and uninspiring.” I moved the work outside.
“The work I do is too big for such a space.” Peace in Christ Lutheran has offered me a room at the church.
“I cannot afford a model.” Portraits can travel. Erik suggested the senior center near our house, where the models are free. A friend I haven’t seen in ages has invited me to her studio to draw from a model tomorrow.
“I won’t have the time or energy to work in the studio this semester because of classes. I shouldn’t start anything now.” I canceled my classes for this semester; I went to work in the studio. It felt great.
I cannot fight it any longer, Grace. There is art that needs to be done and I have been called to do it. If don’t stand up, God will find someone else to do it. I don’t want that to happen to me, or to you.
You have done so much to get me to this point.
Letters to a Young Artist has been great; thank you.
Arrivals has helped me to work out so many things. I just cannot avoid it any longer. I am not sure that you can either.
Now, get your butt over here and we are going to make some art together. There are no excuses. Erik is in on this, too. He’ll put a full tank of gas in your car. I’ll cook. We have an extra bedroom. My neighbor is a
plein aire painter who’d love the company. We’ll spend a day at the carver’s studio; another at the National Gallery if you like. The
Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting is still up. Perhaps Titian can speak you to as well. Don’t tell me that you need to find a job. THIS is your job, Grace. You are a painter; you just don’t believe it right now.
You hoisted me out of my pit and now it is my turn to lower a rope to you. Join me here, Grace.
All my love,
Sarah
Having Vision
Dearest Grace,
I don't know that I am brave. I expend a ton of energy avoiding the studio, just like all the lazy sack artists that are out there. Sometimes I just have to do it.
Yesterday I finished up a portrait for the museum figures company. The subject flew out from Nashville for the sitting. I cannot tell you what came over me, but I felt alive! It felt so good- I cannot explain how good. Good like I am doing what I was created to do- that sort of satisfaction that comes from being truly who you were created to be! I stood for five hours straight and my feet ached, but I did not stop. I looked and moved the clay, looked again, tooled it here. I talked to her, an amazing woman who has won a silver medal in the Army, and felt her energy. Parts of the portrait weren't perfect, but it captured that energy. I cannot tell you how to capture energy, it just happens in that interaction with the model. The museum directors said that it was "Excellent." It is excellent because I was alive making it!
Dr. Gene Veith
writes a great deal about "vocation." This is my vocation, Grace, as it is yours. God created us to create art. He also created us as communal creatures. We cannot hide out in an isolated studio and expect to make any decent quality art. I get energy from the model or from others involved in creative endeavors in the same corporate studio. I remember a time working in the studio at Sage. Carolyn was working on her life-size woman and Kayb was finishing up a cast. We weren't interacting, but the energy of all that creative work fed me.
God also created us as women. As women we are chosen and blessed to nurture the most creative act of all! So, a vocation of motherhood is not at odds with an artistic vocation. Embrace all of whom God created you to be, Grace.
If you find yourself in a quaint small college town, sign up for a drawing class. Don't tell them that you are a professional, just draw and enjoy the model. Just don't let yourself get too rusty.
I love you and still dream of a communal Grace-Sarah studio some day.
Love,
Sarah
