A couple of events happening around Tucson this weekend got me to thinking about the dimensions of cities and art.

• Mercury Portal at Monterey Court
• The Boneyard Project at Pima Air & Space Museum

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For me, smaller cities, towns and rural areas, by providing more space, physically, mentally and alternative uses thereof of all of the above, allow for/force interesting art to happen.  I notice big cities, while full of perfectly lovely people, tend to get hung up on trendiness. Allow me to disparage Austin for a sec: let’s see, what do we have going on art-wise this week? A couple of printmaking (silkscreen, to be specific) shows, an zine release party on the street art tip; on the highbrow side, some lectures at the University, a commercial gallery show with a tome of a press release, and an installation-performance about the end of the world at an old house.

The installation-performance and apocalyptic theme have been “trending” over the course of the last year or so (but thinking back to those paintings I saw at arthouse in ’06/’07 or thereabouts — can’t find the info online). I think this is because one’s understanding of space in the city is so rigidly compartmentalized: exit ramp, median, lamppost, sidewalk, yard, office park, cool neighborhood, ghetto neighborhood, rich part of town. The destructive nature of this type of art satisfies the urge to break out of this utilitarian framework, to wrenchingly twist it past recognition in order to self-consciously surprise. While this is healthy and interesting and wonderful, it seems to me a bit like unrequited love. The cement does not give back, it merely reflects.

Lacking these utilities and dedicated facilities, smaller cities and rural areas allow artistically-minded inhabitants to make their mark on the environment — and for it to make its impact felt in reciprocation. I’m not talking about some sort of hippie utopia, just the everyday-ness of living in a place where everything is subtracted. There is a perception that things must happen in order for a place to be happening. What would happen if something didn’t happen?

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As I’ve gotten older, my art has turned outward towards experiencing my environment, away from the introspection of growing up, something probably everyone goes through. I feel obligated a to make a detailed drawing of my next-door neighbor’s plastic-encased vegetable garden.

My dream is to be crank in the country, not a cog in a city.

Wistful electronic tunes from the late 20th century to today

for cruising dark suburbs with the windows rolled down on hot summer weeknights; for that pre-dusk hour at the beach where people pack up their stuff and go home, crammed all sticky and sandy in their air conditioned cars; for humid Saturday mornings going to the mall to buy new high tops and lunch at Chick-Fil-A; for walking out of the hair salon after enjoying a cold Coke at your chair, feeling the clippings inside your shirt and knowing you’ll have to wash it and break the spell; empty palm-lined sidewalks in New Urban shopping developments; the smell of cheap plastic toys and swimsuit fabric in souvenir shop after souvenir shop; tail light trails on a 4-lane freeway as streetlights flash by; the tunnel level in Pole Position.

Summer’s sadness is a journey of longing, on your way to or from somewhere where something actually happened. Step into my ride.

DOWNLOAD

I don’t have a iPhone and didn’t care too much about owning one, till some of my favorite bloggers and tweeps starting using Instagram earlier this year. Now I want one specifically to use that app! But alas, such a purchase is not in my financial future, so I will just have to ignore my obsession.*

When hipstamatic was all the craze last year, I recall coming across debate in the photography community about the further demise of “analog” photography through hipstamatic’s shortcut of mimicry of lenses and development processes. What I didn’t hear much of was these apps’ mimicry of photographic prints, and not even fine art lab-created prints, but drugstore and 1-hour photomat snapshots of the mid-to-late 20th century that serve as a visual reference point for most people, whether as lived memory or family history. Do we still inherently long for arts/culture/folklife/documentation solely produced and exhibited in the digital realm to be rendered physically? Why?

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*King Of The Hill, Season 1, Episode 5: “Luanne’s Saga”

HANK: Luanne, sometimes life throws you a curve ball. Now there’s two ways you can deal with it. You can cry — and that’s the path you’ve chosen — or you can not cry.
LUANNE: How do you not cry?
HANK: Well, instead of letting it out, try holding it in. Every time you have a feeling, just stick it into a little pit inside your stomach and never let it out.
LUANNE (trying it): Are you supposed to have a pain under your rib?
HANK: Yes. That’s natural. The body doesn’t want to swallow its emotions. But now you go ahead and put that pain inside your stomach too.
LUANNE: I think it’s workin’, Uncle Hank. I feel sick, but not sad.

True to character, I jotted down a few points of interest during the panel discussions that I’ve been assessing, but no significant lessons or questions to add to my mental card catalog, much less post about on here.

Yesterday morning I read a negative [but completely justified] review on Keep Austin Stylish of work recently shown at a fashion event that provided the foil I was looking for:

Does taking a pair of jeans and cutting part of them out and replacing it with neon lace and then creating a “top” by simply taking a yard of tulle and tying it around your boobs really make you a designer? The sad thing is that in Austin it apparently does. I’m sorry to have to be the one to say this but, adorning an outfit does not make you a designer.

Photo credit: http://keepaustinstylish.blogspot.com/

This “bad review” was heartening to read because she had the balls to write it, and because it was the truth. You gotta respect that, and she did go back to compliment the hair and make-up, which was actually eye-catching and well-executed. I haven’t subscribed to this blog over a long period of time (a matter of months, vs. 3-4 years as I have with other fashion blogs) so I am not sure how many other shows have been negatively reviewed on the site, but in general, I rarely come across panned fashion shows or collections. * I will say after barely delving into review-territory on Tu Scene in late ’09/early ’10 that even throwing the teensiest amount of negativity into a commentary is what definitely gets the conversation going.

Another foil: there’s a whole genre of online venues for and by graphic designers to vent about pain-in-the-ass clients/bosses/salespeople and their dismal creative preferences: Sh*t The Creative Director/CEO/Account Guy/Client/Intern Says, Comic Sans Criminal [I'd love to see a site called Papyrus Perp! why won't that font just DIE?!]. And of course, outlets like Design Observer, Design You Trust, PRINT, Voice, etc. offering industry news and formal analysis. And a ton of other stuff I don’t even seek out because it’d probably push me over the edge. I worry enough about designing and executing projects 40 hours a week, thank you very much, and I’m lucky to have sympathetic co-workers there in the trenches with me and a kindhearted husband who actually listens when I need to blow off steam about all of the above.

Why compare to art writing to fashion and graphic design? For one, I read comparatively more about these subjects than I do art, and because they are both creative, subjective cultural topics, unlike, say, computer programming or neuroscience. Not that one can’t write passionately about computer programming and neuroscience, but a slogging through lot of the empirical information to get to the juicy conclusion would probably be rather dry for most people. And also because both forms cull hugely from visual art — contemporary, historic, folk. But there doesn’t seem to be a lot of conversation and second-guessing about pre-reqs in those communities. You’re either with The Establishment [anyone who has a print magazine presence] or you’re a rogue blogger. If anything, blogging has actually helped the fashion machine reach out and grab consumers by the lapels through the web with all kinds of creepy tracking MO’s. The last couple of years have seen the rise of the Superblogger – once fairly regular people who now wield influence* over media and major brands. [On a side note, wouldn't it be cool to see something like IFB for art bloggers? A support network, not so much an information aggregator]. The only pre-reqs I can gather in a general sense for these two sectors are that the writer must have a passion and knowledge about the subject matter. Graphic design bloggers take it one step further, but not a big one: the expectation is that one works in the field, which would require a piece of paper issued by an educational institution. So while it’s true not just anyone can write well about fashion or graphic design, there certainly seem to be less hang-ups in those communities.

When I write on my own site here, I worry about being invalidated because I didn’t go to a prestigious state school with a strong visual art program and don’t aspire to move to NYC or get my MFA [but Marfa, Alpine or heck, even Silver City would be OK]. Maybe because I don’t possess that background I’m more likely to second-guess myself, and it’s just my perception of a snobbish vibe that actually has little to no existence in Austin, because all the kids who went to state schools with fancy art programs seem to be equally doubtful.

So my question is, why are art writers so self-conscious? As Women & Their Work Executive Director Chris Cowden pointed out [via], Texas doesn’t have as many writers as it should considering the amount of work out there. I don’t ask this in a self-congratulatory, “hey, let’s give ourselves some credit” or self-aggrandizing, “hey, let’s not be so hard on ourselves” Oprah-esque self-esteem check. I’m just curious as to why this conversation is happening with visual art and not these other cultural communities I mentioned.

• Is it because there are formal conventions [or perhaps "trends" is a better word] to graphic and fashion design one can delineate and analyze?
• Is it because unlike fashion and graphic design, art is not completely consumer-driven, thus making its value harder to quantify?
• Are we afraid of hurting relationships with readers and other artists in our locale?**
• Is it a self-image problem? Do we have to be the first at everything, bucking trends unless we’re the ones who establish them?

On a side note, personally, when it comes to trends I just try to give myself a break. I dislike a lot of trendy work, but usually only for that reason — because it’s popular, and when something is popular, the quality and technique and be better manipulated to have a market and influence. But ubiquitousness is not a real reason to be so harsh about it, because I’ve come to realize it’s kind of inhumane. 95% of trendy art won’t even matter in a couple of years anyways, and the 5% of artists that do evolve deserve success because they progressed, and I think if one progresses in any endeavor, it’s a show of real dedication. Another quality to respect. So why get so upset about it? Just take a look at Facehunter and you’ll see fashion conventions are flimsy, transparent and easy to puncture as a layer of cellophane. Graphic design styles, on the other hand, shift slowly from decade to decade, with relatively little hand-wringing over the past, present and future.

Probably the most common trait I can chalk this self-consciousness up to is that most artists who can write decently are people who are caught up in thought about how they’re communicating on several levels, which affects what they produce in their visual art, all through to the way they speak and write. I’m not that surprised when I read something by an artist friend that shows they have a real gift for language as well. These are the people who should be encouraged to write, start a blog. To give whatever they think they might be capable of a try. Honestly, the only other group of cultural contributors I hear stressing more about writing than artists are actual writers!

If you’ve made it this far, you might’ve judged I’m probably not cut out to be in the aforesaid artist-writer group. I guess this is more of a stream-of-consciousness journal entry than a critical essay. In fact, as I was writing this, I kept imagining how I’d discuss this through a Margi Kimball-style brainmapping illustration!

Going back to my sparse written notes, I see a couple of other thoughts I’d like to elaborate upon, but not to nearly this extent. Lucky you!

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* See Mr. Boyd’s wonderfully comprehensive summary of the Summit for further illustration about cheerleading and much more on his Houston-based art blog, The Great God Pan Is Dead.

** Earlier this week, the dazzling WendyB brought up an important caveat about this perception: Famous ≠ Rich. Still, I would love it if designers sent me free shit and all I needed to do in return was snap a few self-modeling photos and post them on my broke-ass but famous blog!

#1) Sometimes I feel like I’m the only white person who’s annoyed by the ubiquitous adage. I mean, seriously? Would you truly do that in a crisis just because a poster told you to?
#2) I don’t have a TV and never watched nighttime talk shows anyways so the controversy regarding network scheduling and humor rhetoric that has all social media abuzz is more interesting to me than which host said what. It’s not so much the hosts who are irritating as it is the fact that that the overall man-in-suit-behind-a-bigass-desk-with-a-coffee-mug late night talk show format is ridiculously outdated.
#3) I do think that “Work Hard and Be Nice” is good advice, although don’t forget about the part that goes something like “As Long As You’re Raking In Millions.”

This one’s more serious. It’s a phrase I’ve had stuck in my head since yesterday, more along the lines of one of my art idols, Barbara Kruger. Particularly her piece “Cram Life Into Death,” which I have in a book but can’t seem to find on the internet. I was also trying to think of what was the opposite of a crown. A dunce’s cap? A jester’s hat? An executioner’s mask? The point of a stiletto heel? A combat boot? Ah, yes. A weird, mocking, mask-like smiley face that looks not unlike the monster in Miyizaki’s Spirited Away. What does “DON’T do” really mean? Verbally? In a public service poster?

When I mention I’m from Austin to people in Tucson, their eyes bug out and glisten with anticipation, as though I were some prophet who’d seen the Promised Land and returned to deliver a sacred message. THERE IS NO SACRED MESSAGE. I repeat: THERE IS NO SACRED MESSAGE.

Quoting from a particular document from the mid-90′s about a day in the life of a person living in/near downtown Tucson, as projected in 2010:

“It’s 7:00 a.m., January 12, 2010. The sun is beginning to rise overhead; and as you step outside, you feel the comfortable, cool breeze of a Tucson winter. You walk the one block from your home to catch the shuttle, which arrives just a few minutes later at the City’s intermodal transportation center, the old Amtrak Station. Strolling across the plaza, you glance at the kiosk and see that there’s a new show opening at the Temple of Music and Art. You’ve already made plans for dinner at Cafe Magritte, if it’s not too busy, and then you are going to catch a live jazz show down the street. Maybe Tuesday you’ll see the new show at the Temple. As you weave your way through the outdoor dining area at Hotel Congress, you step up to the take-out window and wonder if you’ll get everything done today. Another busy Saturday. Normally, you’d sit outside at a table for breakfast, but today you grab coffee and a muffin to go, and begin your walk down Congress, past dozens of stores teeming with local and regional goods. A new gallery catches your eye and then the bookstore next door which has recently doubled its size. Didn’t it just open a year ago? You walk past the main library, stopping to grab two loaves of French bread from a cart vendor. They have bread at the Farmer’s Market, too, but you’re not sure you’ll have time to get there today. As you walk under what used to be the old Pima County Courthouse and is now part of the Museum of Art…”

I came across this text as I was researching raw material the Field Guide to Downtown Tucson Master Plans booklet and Pop Up Spaces’ ±92 exhibition. In my experience with gentrification in Austin (Tucson is sooo not even close to using “gentrification” as a bummer-buzzword in polite conversation), what struck me was how much this lifestyle was crammed down the throat. But it’s not for everyone. It’s not inclusive.  Yet people see this ideal as the big success story of Austin as a 21st-century national cultural center. What outsiders don’t realize and what many Austinties take for granted is that Austin was a segregated city for generations. African-Americans and Mexican-Americans resided and maintained business communities within separate pieces/peaces of the city (East Austin, Clarksville, South First/Cumberland a.k.a. at Casa Diaz as Cumbialand, et. al.), in some areas for over 100 years. What people think of as “downtown” Austin (not central Austin at large) has been/is largely influenced architecturally, spatially, culturally by Anglos. It is homogenous. Tearing away all the highbrow festoons, it’s still leisure centered around the gut and the eye. What is this person doing? Consuming.

What I have learned as a part of coordinating ±92 is that downtown = history = identity.

Tucson’s identity, history, and landscape is much different than Austin’s: Mexicans, Native Americans, and Anglos. The desert and mountain landscape is an identity, an entity, in itself. It’s all in yo’ face. And yet it’s not (just drive to South Tucson and you’ll see chain-linked fenced, concrete lion-adorned barrios similar to my in-laws’ y tios’ y tias’ neighborhood just off the farthest reaches of Southmost Blvd. in Brownsville, TX, el Rio and that abominable wall less than a mile away [slicing through orange groves and reedy marshes buzzing with grasshopers, locusts, crickets {you cannot cut Twilight}], then traveling a few miles Highway 77, up to north Brownsville, up to the primos’ y primas’ garage-enclosed suburbs, it’s all the same here, as if you mixed the Valley and San Anto, minus the Gulf-breeze green).

The master planning exhibition I helped facilitate is not about how sad it was that buildings and roads were not built, because identity is at the heart of it all. People constantly argue over what downtown Tucson should and should not represent. The truth is, there is something there for everyone. There are services for the people that need them: homeless, Veterans, Native Americans (Indian Affairs), Mexican Nationals (Mexican Consulate). There is fine dining. There are bars for bros, bars for hos and bars for hipsters. There are coffeeshops and casual dining and sushi and sandwiches and Sonoran hot dog stands. There are theatre, film, art, music shows. There are places for children and families. There are places that celebrate the outdoors. There are houses of religion, there are suppliers for the spiritual, pagans, wiccans, curanderos. There are spots for people who drive; there are lanes for people who cycle. People can work in banks, government administration, convenience stores, food service, clothing boutiques, schools, upholstery shops, arts, social services, car repair, real estate, bicycle sales, furniture and appliance stores. There are fancy-schmansy condos, there are single-family homes, there are residences affordable for students and artists, there are barrios, there are alleys.

This day-in-the-life-of story took up 3 single-spaced pages. It reflects the identity of a 60-year-old retired U of A professor. It reflects the identity of one demographic. And really, a lot of positivity is crammed down the throat in the name of cultural understanding, political correctness, mental safety. That’s not fair either. But it seems that  people don’t like about downtown Tucson is not about the space, it is about the people using it. If you have a gripe with the cultural/business/service/food offerings and architecture downtown, you might need to dig deeper into your prejudices about history, skin color, family, age and financial status.

There is something for everyone in downtown Tucson. And it is beautiful.

So when I came across this listing on the Tucson craigslist, I felt I finally had a good scenario in which to apply/learn from this spiritual viewpoint. A 21st century Christian, in their words, “village” promoting the same aesthetic-spiritual process/envorinment, i.e. liturgy, as the post-Reformation Catholic Church, as the medieval Church, as the Eastern Orthodox church, as the Muslims (I have to say I am infatuated with Eastern Orthodox and Islamic art), as pretty much all indigenous peoples of the Americas (as I am fast learning from living in modern Arizona/Mexico), as the Hindus and Buddhists… as religions all over the world have done since the beginning of documented art, to provide the viewers/followers with a connection to the God of our understanding.

However, as much as it is about intermediation, art is also a way for people to connect with power structures: institutions, authorities, spiritual, political, economic. Connecting with  subversion as much as preservation. Although irony has been the name of the game in, at least, American art for the few decades, we keep insisting of late that “sincerity is the new sincerity.” But I’ve never equated sincerity with seriousness. I don’t think I’m a “serious” artist, I suppose because I equate “seriousness” with “discipline.” I suppose the only thing about art I’m disciplined at is that I keep at it, although my subject and style always changes. In defense, I say variety can be sincere. Humor can be sincere. My craw is full up to here with insincere seriousness, consistency, irony.

I think we are in a state of flux right now, between fully feeling the effects of/understanding/interpreting/reacting to the power structures of the past and forecasting the future. In a state of flux, you can either progress, i.e. shed the past while learning from its mistakes, or decline, i.e. implosion under its own weight a la the Roman Empire. I believe artists (visual, movement, literary, verbal, sonic) must accept our archetypal status as oracles and shamans in order to usher in the progression of culture, society and its power structures. For to progress is to change, in order to preserve, to survive.

Downloaded clip art from Microsoft Office.

I feel the world financial depression (which started in the U.S.) was caused by an ethical crisis more than anything else. We all say it at work: “not my problem.” But imagine millions of people saying it, over and over. And if everyone’s saying it, eventually it’s going to be everyone’s problem. The optimistic feel of clip art covers up the real complacency and haste of working in the. It’s not that people are inept or wasteful or ridiculous as portrayed on the TV show, The Office. Example: I worked as an in-house designer at a title company during the Exuberance, and the mortgage/loan officers were constantly pressuring the escrow officers and assistants to closethedeal, closethedeal, closethedeal, as fast as possible. And in truth, the problem wasn’t theirs, at the time. Now I work for a printing company, and it’s much more black and white. You either get the job done on time, or you don’t. Eventually I’d like to turn this into a massive piece, several feet wide/tall.