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.

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!

Now, I’ve noticed SafeAuto Insurance, Meineke, Mattress Firm, even Wendy’s following suit. Are they copycats? Zeitgeist? Same creative team? What gives?

painting from Rachelle Diaz on Vimeo.

Ink, acrylic, and colored pencil on paper
April 2010

Many times I feel a need to take apart someone else’s art to figure out how it works (but not put it back together), just to satisfy my curiosity. These cloth studies were inspired by Pattie Lee Becker’s Ropes exhibit I saw at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art earlier this month. Her drawings brought me back several years ago to the memory of this dude who lived two apartments down from an ex-bf. His 300 sq. ft. efficiency was covered top to bottom in massive drawings and paintings of loops, knots and intertwined strings. The paintings weren’t really that great, I don’t think he’d ever shown any of his work, he just seemed like a normal guy who was obsessed with these shapes. This obsession perplexes me. Cloth studies aren’t anything new, but besides just a drawing exercise, I was also trying to get inside the mind of someone captivated by producing the same object over and over, seemingly indifferent to the evocative repercussions of repetition. While my work has themes, I feel like I’m trying to show different sides of the same thing in various ways. I suppose I tinker because in the future I may need to draw upon the lessons learned, kinesthetically figured out. For me, there’s really no better way to learn than to attempt and apply it to myself. I’m also fascinated by The Other: obsessive and compulsive artists who must be constantly active, people for whom drawing is an end in itself. The drawing I’ve done lately is a means to something else.

Staring at Screens painting #2 (original photo)
Acrylic on canvas
worked on June-November 2009

An issue of layered solids

Although I have a BA in Art with a concentration in painting, I was never taught basic techniques how to wield acrylics or oils. Yet, at as artist, I’m highly skeptical of “tips/tricks/helpful hints.” in art. I was taught Technique — Hannon excersies in the form of life drawing for three years: one in high school, two in college. That was helpful. It validated the experiments I’d done, discoveries I’d made on my own around ages 13-15: there are no lines in the world, only variations in shadow.

In 7th grade, a piano teacher showed me how to “improvise”: certain cadences and arpeggios that could create a new piece or transition an existing song in performing with an ensemble (vocalist, instrumental). It killed, to this day, the composing I’d done on my own since I was 7. I felt I learnt more from music theory, which was pure math and pure ear, dissecting intervals, the algebra of counting, without any connection, any “tips”. “Ear” was what I felt naturally. While I didn’t always get all the math equations of the annual TMTA theory tests correct (but close enough to get a 95-100% score every year for 10 years), I aced the listening part of the exam every year. It was like the final round on Wheel of Fortune where you’d get R S T L N  E on the board: depending on grade level, there’d be 2-5 questions with different notes filled in. The moderator would play the whole melody and you’d have to figure out the rest; to use the Wheel of Fortune example by grade 9, you’d be lucky to get a couple of R’s and one N, I think the last one I took in 12th grade had the key signature and the first two notes out of 10 measures. It was also like “So You Want to Be A Millionaire?” in the sense that in the early years, you could ask the moderator to play over certain measures as often as you needed, by the upper levels, they could only play it through, no special requests, maybe three or four times. No colors or flashing lights, just melody, just intervals, just the distance between two things.

I also entered a new school in 7th grade, and enrolling in a new school means new competitions, chosen or not. A classmate, J., was a pianist and a good student, like myself. Yet we passively hated each other. She was a memorizer of literature, algebra, science, Chopin. I felt the knowledge I sought, and while I had an desire for it, it was a desire for utility, for creativity, not for… well, I still don’t understand people who learn based on memory to this day, over 15 years later.

What I was sold as “improvisation”, as creativity, in 7th grade connected empirical knowledge and interpreted emotion, irrevocably, instead of figuring out the connection on my own, as an artist. So, sure, I could probably take a painting class and be “taught”, but I’m so paranoid of the creativity being killed for life. Figuring out on my own how to paint layers that are also solid colors is a puzzle. With music, as with art, I have to use mathematic and scientific processes to work out and to feel, to creep my way to the solutions of the problems for myself

The only person who seemed to be able to manipulate and explain hoax, farce, faux news in the book was an artist. Why was Sandow Birk allowed, in the public/art establishment, to exhibit fake paintings,  installations, and a Ken Burns-style documentary about a war that never happend without any lasting outrage? Is the falsehood, the projection more visible or clear when an artist is passing off fiction as commentary, as truth, as a joke, as opposed to a writer? Why do words have the expectation of being rooted in reality so much more than images? Why do newspapers have more “established” (traditional) credibility than art galleries? What is each really doing? Who is each really serving?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, can we process all of it? Are we really doing that? Or are words really necessary to make the point crystal clear?

I went down a 2-hour Wikipedia rabbithole this weekend, starting with this blog I recently started following on the Tucson Citizen (along with my obsession this year for all things Ghost Hunters, GHI and Paranormal State on Hulu). Let me see if I have this straight: Aleister Crowley (and about 20 related topics) > Black Mass (ugh, weird) > Goliard (/Carmina Burana, which I have fond memories of singing Carl Orff’s setting in college classical choir).

When I read about the Goliards, I couldn’t help but think of The Yes Men’s recent US Chamber of Commerce fake press-conference stunt. One one level, they were basically doing performance art and guerilla theater (as well as music and poetry) exposing the corruption in the Catholic church. The Church lacked credibility at the time (when has it not?), much like the US government over the last decade or so. The spirit of their antics was certainly not real-fake (like propping up a fake Pope, or fake miracles, and then — “The Reveal” [to cull from reality TV-speak]), and not for theoretical-artistic noogies in which no one’s reputation really gets hurt (artist or butt), but extreme late-night cable TV parody.

Let us not flatter ourselves that everything sacred in Western history has been shattered only within the last 50 years. Been there, “done” that.