Embracing the Other
Embracing the Other
A couple years ago my relationship to art began to shift. I think that was the beginning of this feeling that I was unraveling from my roots. I’d always identified as an artist and had aspirations of having a career in art. I think every artists dream is to be able to support themselves with their art. But three years ago, I began to push myself really hard. At this time, maybe for the first time, there was real hope that a young artist could show and sell their work and actually maybe make enough money to sustain. So I painted like crazy, I was making a painting every month and I was posting and sharing with people online, I was networking, I went to all the openings, I talked to people who were cold and unwelcoming to me and I was forcing my way in. I began to show a little, I had some galleries peeking at what I was doing and so I worked harder, I pushed more. But it was a forever moving goal post. I would be in a group show, (something I had dreamed of) and then it was onto the next, I wanted a solo show and then that happened but it was “just a small one” and next, I needed to have a bigger show. All the while, there was hardly any money to be seen, which just fed the instinct to push harder; if I just made more paintings, if I made better paintings, then they would sell and I would be worth something. I would have a show or an opening, and that’s the dream right? But those events are frankly some of my lower points. Radical honesty time, there is not one show I’ve had where I didn’t cry on the way, furiously trying to pull it together, or sneak away during to sob in a bathroom, or cry all the way home filled with regret I couldn’t understand. That’s so fucked up! And the thought I would always play over in my head was, “This can’t be what all this effort is amounting too—This can’t be what is deemed the high point or what gives me value in my career”.
Those thoughts were the beginning of my reckoning with myself and my art goals. I had forsaken and profaned what I held most dearly and the only thing that truly grounded me in myself. My art started to fight me; I’m not even trying to be dramatic— I couldn’t make anything work. There was an all out refusal, on the part of my paintings (which are really some parts of myself). At least, if there was no art being made, then there was nothing to profane or for me to pimp out anymore.
So, I’ve really slowed down. I’ve let myself not paint. I’ve let myself build tension and angst until I can’t contain it any longer and then I let it all go on a canvas and lately that has been the only way I can make anything true or real. I am on this path or journey right now of how I un-alienate myself from my art. It is only in the moment where I drop all the anxiety and posturing and just let my emotions overflow that I feel I can allow myself to connect again. I am stuck in this alienation that I am trying to break out of. We all have inherited patterns, patterns that are pressed so deeply into our skin that it is hard to separate them from who we really are. The deeper we get into these alienating behaviors, the further we feel from each other.
It takes enormous effort to strip ourselves of these patterns and choose to embrace one another. How can we build bridges to connect with each other when we are so estranged from our own thoughts and feelings? It is a fact that we are trapped in our own consciousness, and our society impresses patterns of individualism. It is our responsibility to resist and find what allows us to connect with the collective. I think as artists we are gifted with an ability to build these bridges of connection not just with our own bodies but with the body and being of the work itself. The real value of our work is how it acts upon us and others, not a numerical value, nor a stamp of approval from “the market”.
This salon series started as an investigative project for Adi and I, where we were curious how the work changes and how we are changed by the work in an environment completely removed from capital. I think we are able to truly discover the value of viewership in this environment. I’d like to think the art feels safe to reveal here and I hope you do too. So tonight, we are asking you to “embrace the other”. How can you embrace your role as a meaningful viewer and take the time to connect deeply with the art? How can you embrace the community and offer your own vulnerability as the currency in this space? How can you use this connection to embrace the parts that have been othered within you? Acknowledge the parts that make you uncomfortable, making that alien rear its little green head, and still choose to build bridges of connection. Our urge to isolate, in avoidance of what is uncomfortable, is what keeps us stuck, what builds borders, and what starts wars. So tonight, all together, we are embracing the other. We are loving the alien.
Now to open up and start the conversation— I want to ask whoever wants to share: Why did you come here tonight? What are you looking for?
August 23rd, 2024.
Written for the 7th In Our Own Spaces salon.
Embracing the Other
A couple years ago my relationship to art began to shift. I think that was the beginning of this feeling that I was unraveling from my roots. I’d always identified as an artist and had aspirations of having a career in art. I think every artists dream is to be able to support themselves with their art. But three years ago, I began to push myself really hard. At this time, maybe for the first time, there was real hope that a young artist could show and sell their work and actually maybe make enough money to sustain. So I painted like crazy, I was making a painting every month and I was posting and sharing with people online, I was networking, I went to all the openings, I talked to people who were cold and unwelcoming to me and I was forcing my way in. I began to show a little, I had some galleries peeking at what I was doing and so I worked harder, I pushed more. But it was a forever moving goal post. I would be in a group show, (something I had dreamed of) and then it was onto the next, I wanted a solo show and then that happened but it was “just a small one” and next, I needed to have a bigger show. All the while, there was hardly any money to be seen, which just fed the instinct to push harder; if I just made more paintings, if I made better paintings, then they would sell and I would be worth something. I would have a show or an opening, and that’s the dream right? But those events are frankly some of my lower points. Radical honesty time, there is not one show I’ve had where I didn’t cry on the way, furiously trying to pull it together, or sneak away during to sob in a bathroom, or cry all the way home filled with regret I couldn’t understand. That’s so fucked up! And the thought I would always play over in my head was, “This can’t be what all this effort is amounting too—This can’t be what is deemed the high point or what gives me value in my career”.
Those thoughts were the beginning of my reckoning with myself and my art goals. I had forsaken and profaned what I held most dearly and the only thing that truly grounded me in myself. My art started to fight me; I’m not even trying to be dramatic— I couldn’t make anything work. There was an all out refusal, on the part of my paintings (which are really some parts of myself). At least, if there was no art being made, then there was nothing to profane or for me to pimp out anymore.
So, I’ve really slowed down. I’ve let myself not paint. I’ve let myself build tension and angst until I can’t contain it any longer and then I let it all go on a canvas and lately that has been the only way I can make anything true or real. I am on this path or journey right now of how I un-alienate myself from my art. It is only in the moment where I drop all the anxiety and posturing and just let my emotions overflow that I feel I can allow myself to connect again. I am stuck in this alienation that I am trying to break out of. We all have inherited patterns, patterns that are pressed so deeply into our skin that it is hard to separate them from who we really are. The deeper we get into these alienating behaviors, the further we feel from each other.
It takes enormous effort to strip ourselves of these patterns and choose to embrace one another. How can we build bridges to connect with each other when we are so estranged from our own thoughts and feelings? It is a fact that we are trapped in our own consciousness, and our society impresses patterns of individualism. It is our responsibility to resist and find what allows us to connect with the collective. I think as artists we are gifted with an ability to build these bridges of connection not just with our own bodies but with the body and being of the work itself. The real value of our work is how it acts upon us and others, not a numerical value, nor a stamp of approval from “the market”.
This salon series started as an investigative project for Adi and I, where we were curious how the work changes and how we are changed by the work in an environment completely removed from capital. I think we are able to truly discover the value of viewership in this environment. I’d like to think the art feels safe to reveal here and I hope you do too. So tonight, we are asking you to “embrace the other”. How can you embrace your role as a meaningful viewer and take the time to connect deeply with the art? How can you embrace the community and offer your own vulnerability as the currency in this space? How can you use this connection to embrace the parts that have been othered within you? Acknowledge the parts that make you uncomfortable, making that alien rear its little green head, and still choose to build bridges of connection. Our urge to isolate, in avoidance of what is uncomfortable, is what keeps us stuck, what builds borders, and what starts wars. So tonight, all together, we are embracing the other. We are loving the alien.
Now to open up and start the conversation— I want to ask whoever wants to share: Why did you come here tonight? What are you looking for?
August 23rd, 2024.
Written for the 7th In Our Own Spaces salon.
