The Last Art Taboo

2010-10-25T14:23:00.000-07:00

The Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art (outside of LA) is the host of an exhibition called "Separation Anxiety", on the theme of parenthood. The review is here.

2010-06-17T17:37:00.000-07:00

Artist mothers are a hot topic. The film "BREAKING IN TWO follows Los Angeles curator, artist, mother Bruria Finkel and filmmaker, mother Sabine Sighicelli, as they build from the ground up, the first group exhibition to challenge societal perceptions and representations of motherhood through the visual and performing arts."

Here is the trailer. Looking forward to this, as I so wished someone would do a version of "Who Does She Think She Is?" with artists that are successful (by my definition). Ask and you shall receive.

2010-04-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

New work:

"Your Fragility...", 2010, mother's hair from gestation period embroidered in child's garment, velvet, 14 x 15".

2010-03-19T04:22:00.000-07:00

Wait, I may not have to interview Sarah Petruziello, most of my questions were answered by her latest post.

2010-03-19T04:04:00.000-07:00

Saturday, March 20th (tomorrow), in conjunction with my exhibition "Purge/Deluge", I am hosting a screening of Pamela Boll's film, "Who Does She Think She Is?" at the Hillyer Art Center in Washington DC. The film will be followed by a panel discussion with four artists who are also mothers: Elena Patiño (whose exhibition is also on exhibit at Hillyer Art Space), Sarah Wallace Petruziello from the NY area, and Tess Cummins of Richmond.

***SEATING IS EXTREMELY LIMITED. PLEASE RSVP TO events@artsandartists.org
TO RESERVE YOUR SEAT***

The event is free, but donations are accepted.

For more information on the film, please visit http://www.whodoesshethinksheis.net/

2010-03-19T04:01:00.000-07:00

Artist Sarah Wallace Petruziello wrote a very interesting post on the complexities of using one's children as subject matter in contemporary art making. She is visiting this weekend to be on my artist/mothers discussion panel and I am hoping to interview her for this blog.

2010-03-07T15:35:00.001-08:00

Found a fantastically relevant article by Sharon Butler.

Stay.

2010-02-27T15:07:00.000-08:00

"Stay.", 2010, 18" round, baby shoes, baby blankets, embroidery thread, convex glass, frame.

2010-02-22T21:44:00.000-08:00

Since my daughter was born, at the end of each day, if I have not been able to get into the studio, I prick my finger and write the word "art" before going to bed. Appeases the art gods, tells them that I am still here, have not abandoned those who have been so good to me & saved my life. I mark the day. I make SOMETHING.

2010-02-21T01:28:00.000-08:00

"Who Does She Think She Is?", and Centuries of Conditioning

Awoke with a start this morning, at 4 a.m. Last night, I pre-screened "Who Does She Think She Is?", fell asleep thinking about it, and awoke still digesting it. Ever since I first saw the trailer, I have been begging people in the DC area (National Museum of Women In The Arts, most notably) to screen this film, and, getting no response, decided that I would take matters into my own hands. I ordered a house party copy, and will be screening it in several small local venues in the coming months.

This film is nothing short of revolutionary: I thank God that it has been made and is being packaged and promoted in such a way that its messages are bound to eventually seep into the collective consciousness. This movie, along with Jerry Saltz's highly influential Facebook post about women artists who are mothers, is a can of worms that desperately needed to be opened.

The issues this film brings forth are so complex and layered, it is difficult to tease them apart. I wept at several points during the movie, in part because the subject currently hits so close to home these days. (I plan to supply tissue and brownies at the screenings.) But being someone who has always been bored and rolled my eyes whenever the subject of "Goddess Culture" comes up (especially in art contexts), I found myself stunned to be particularly moved by the introduction, which stressed the development of our various civilizations as they evolved from goddess worshipping cultures to those that devalue all things feminine, most notably the power of creation.

I thought of the bad reviews I read about the brilliant Janine Antoni's last two NY gallery shows, featuring some work that touched on themes of Motherhood. I thought of the female gallery owner on Jerry's Facebook thread who complained that, when her women artists became mothers, "their work changes". And I thought about my secondary response to this film: while the women's personal histories are beyond inspiring, the reason some of them are not recognized is because their work is not that outstanding. It is derivative, fairly literal, non-confrontational, and executed in a visual language that is easily dismissed.

I wrestled with these ideas for a little bit, asking myself if I was mindlessly following along with the mainstream art world in being dismissive of their work because I didn't get it, and then I thought, "no, I'm not". When looking at art in Chicago last week, I realized that I often discriminate, preferring the work of women artists like Louise Bourgeois, Petah Coyne, Kiki Smith, etc,. over work made by men. I believe this happens for the same reasons that male curators, gallerists and critics (and females who were educated with the values of a male-centric art world) devalue the work of women: it doesn't "speak to them". They can't relate.

I remember being in grad school (it was a while ago, and the dept has evolved since then), and volunteeering to be the one who ran the slide projectors for the faculty when they reviewed MFA applicants. I thought it would be a valuable learning experience, and it was. For whatever reason, the two female members of the substantial faculty were not present at the screening. They might have been putting up important shows, they might have been lazy, or maybe they were tired of having their voices drowned out in these contexts. In any event, I remember several instances of female applicants' work coming up on the screen, and hearing the male faculty say, "I don't know what this is about....", or "I don't get it. Next!" I was so livid after witnessing this, that I wrote a letter to each of the female faculty members, telling them how much their support was needed at these events.

Of note in "Who Does She Think...": several, no, most, of the women get divorced, seemingly a direct result of their drive to make art. And, although they did not make a big deal of this in the movie, one of the women supplements her income by being an assistant for Larry Bell, who tells an incredibly sexist story about her showing up on his doorstep one day, "young and beautiful, in a light cotton dress", looking for work. (He responded by handing her a broom.) She turned out to be quite valuable, and has been helping him make work for several decades. Take a look at his resume.

Watching the extras provided with this DVD (some of which are more potent than parts of the main film), I understand that the director Pamela Boll made an important, unprecedented, and inspirational work with the resources that she had available to her. From all accounts I have read of screenings across the country, a dam has been broken by her efforts: women uniformly leave the screenings weeping, or carrying on conversations with complete strangers about their shared experiences until the wee hours of the morning. I was going to make one of my screenings an all-girl slumber party, but thought the better of it, since men who profess to love women need to see this film more than the women themselves, IMHO.

I am so grateful to Ms. Boll, but couldn't qualm a strong, nagging thought I had at the end of the film: I hope this is only the beginning, and someone will be inspired by this to make ANOTHER film. Because this movie wasn't for me: these women's lives, mainly outside the mainstream art world, were not the life that I aspire to.

I wish someone had interviewed Elizabeth Murray on this topic. Talk to Janine Antoni, Teresita Fernandez, Bjork (whose "Wanderlust" video, I am convinced, is about motherhood): has anything changed for them since they became mothers? What happens if/when they make work about motherhood? Can/will they talk about it? What role does class play in the equation, because wealthy women (and already established artists) can pay for help while they are in their studios?

PLEASE, SOMEONE, create this film. I would do it myself, but I have art to make.

2009-11-05T03:35:00.001-08:00

The Point.

2009-11-05T02:22:00.000-08:00

We've come a long way, but we all know that we are still not there.

It took centuries for female artists to be recognized as "serious". Then, we were considered serious only if we sacrificed all other aspects of our lives to devote ourselves to making art, (while Bad Boy Artists only become more legendary as they spread their seed.) Despite the fact that our work is still not exhibited, collected, or valued in the same way as men's work, more female artists are visible these days. Some even dare to become mothers, but we all understand the rules... don't make art about motherhood.

Society values life experience in their artists: the more an artist has "lived" (traveled, experimented with drugs & sex, etc.), the more they have to offer in their work. So why is work about the most profound, life-altering, and universal experience still a taboo subject in art?

The mission of this blog will be to present contemporary, unconventional work that tells truths about the greatest life experience of all. No earth-mother vagina art from the 70s. No soft-focus pastel sleeping babies. But powerful work from professional artists who are brave enough to endure the trenches of motherhood alongside the trenches of art making, and daring enough to tell about it.

Stay tuned.

The Backstory.

2009-08-14T08:44:00.000-07:00

I devoted my life to making art exclusively for 26 years. Worked almost full-time while earning a BFA and an MFA. Amassed student loans that took me 20 years to pay off, worked shitty jobs to feed my habit, and wrecked my body through the abuse of obsessive art making.

(carpal tunnel operation scar)

For 26 years, making art was the driving force in my life, to the exclusion of all else. I ate pasta to save money for supplies, shopped at thrift stores for all my clothes & furniture, put myself in debt again and again to buy supplies, ship work, and send out packets. I have pushed my body to the brink again and again through sleep deprivation to finish an important project for a big show.

When I chose a life companion, one of the most important criteria was his complete understanding of the role art plays in my life: I simply have to make it, or I will self destruct.

Because art (and my work in particular) is about life experiences, and being human, after careful consideration, I made the decision to have a child. I did not want to miss out on the biggest, most expansive life experience one could have. It was the right decision, it turns out.

Being an academic, I did my research on artists who are also mothers. No one, it turns out, writes books about "artists who are also fathers", because no one cares... no conflict there, no threat to the work. I recall being livid when the New York Times Magazine featured an otherwise wonderful profile of artist Marlene Dumas, and chose to include a somewhat indicting few paragraphs about her relationship with her daughter:

Is Helena (Marlene's daughter) interested in art? “ No,” Dumas replied without regret. “She wants to work with the psychology of children.” (AH HA!)

Dumas returned to the table, and we resumed our conversation, only to have Helena approach a few minutes later. “I’m sorry,” she told her mother. “I don’t want to interrupt, but we had a date.” She said she wanted to go shopping for a watch for her birthday, which was three weeks away.

“Not now, Helena, not now,” Dumas said with a hint of impatience, adding that she was in her studio until 3 the previous night and wasn’t feeling up to a shopping expedition. Then she turned to me and said: “Every time she has a birthday — she still has that from childhood — she gets so into the birthday it overrides everything else. Whatever it is, if it’s a cat, if it’s a watch — can we please not think of that now?” (because I'm being interviewed by THE NEW YORK TIMES, and I have no wife to keep you out of the studio during my interview)

“I just like the window-shopping,” Helena said, and there was something touching about her persistence. The watch seemed as good a symbol as any for the predicament of a child who wanted more of her mother’s time.

After a while, they stopped speaking English and switched into Dutch, and their tone grew more strident. Unable to make out what they were saying beyond the “ja”s and the “nee”s and the bursts of guttural, throat-clearing sounds, I wandered off to look around the studio.

In all my years of reading art articles, I have never even heard mention of a male artist's children... does Damien Hirst even HAVE children? How about Jeff Koons?

Many famous, iconic male artists spent a great number of their waking hours chasing women and/or getting drunk, life experiences that occupied every bit as much time and energy as raising a child with a strong support system. Why is a male artist with children "well rounded" or even "potent", while female artists with children are dismissed?

Jerry Saltz recently began a Facebook discussion with his thousands of artist friends about art making and motherhood that confirmed many of my suspicions. One prominent (female) gallerist noted that "every time one of my female artists gets pregnant, their work changes". No kidding. I wonder if we would trust an artist who, say, had an earth-shaking near-death experience, if it never showed up in his art?

So, now I am a mother. My heart has been blown wide open. As I suspected, every emotion that I experience has deepened. And it has already changed my art. Some of my current work has motherhood as an impetus, some of it does not. Because it is a big part of me, but not all of me. So I will do my job like I have always done, and make the most powerful work I am capable of making. I'll throw it out into the world and see if the world is ready, and with this blog, applaud others who have the courage to do the same...