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!

__________________________________________________________________________________

* 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!

Re-posting a few questions I posed on Tu Scene earlier today because I was kind of ready to ask them in terms of my own personal artistic practice lately (see the TuScene comment further down), although I felt given the conversation with my friends about local Tucson art, it was a good idea to start with TuScene, as I am trying to put forth more deeper-level questions and incisive comments on the blog. Quality, not quantity. But much like Mr. Leviton says in the comments, I feel these things take me, personally, some time to process, which is why I have such a difficult time articulating my thoughts in writing. Yet initially in talking to people, no problem — no problem at all! I can nerd out and rant for hours. But I don’t think the conversation really carries the weight and legitimacy of the topic. As I say below, it took several days of reflection to even ask what I felt were appropriate questions to respectfully ask the readers, and it will probably take me much longer to arrive at some answers for myself. Nonetheless, I’m quite pleased a nice little conversation got going right away with other Tucson artists and gallery proprietors I truly admire.

A few days ago, some artist-friends and I got into some post-game commentary over beers at Congress about a show we’d seen earlier in the evening. We’d all seen about half of the work before other other venues around town within the last year. In the heat of the discussion, I agreed with them that seeing replays was kind of a turn-off and just brought down the presentation as a whole. Now I’m not so sure how much it really matters. We’re hardcore art nerds and go to nearly every show that we can so we probably see, and I mean really look at and remember a lot more art than most people.  I think this cross-pollination exists only in our little unofficial ivory tower, since we’ve strayed so far from the casual art appreciator who may visit one gallery that caters to the tastes of their particular social scene, but not another. With this in mind, I’d like to pose a few questions to artists, gallerists, academics, and art professionals:

• Do you let your work “leak” on the web (your personal site or Facebook, Flickr, etc.) before putting it in a show? Or do you reveal it publicly in an exhibit, then put it up on the web?
• Do you prepare a body of work, then share it online? Or do you post images as you complete each piece?
• Are there (loose) professional standards for any of these practices, or are they still developing as technology expands?
• To what extent does revealing your work depend on context? For example, if you have work in a major show, do you keep everything secret until the opening? If it’s a less-important show or a short-run, do you recycle old work?

27-6
Reception: Saturday, February 27, 6-9pm
Open Gallery: Sunday, February 28, 12-5pm
Candelabra Gallery, 412 E. 7th St., Tucson, Arizona

You’ve seen 27 online, now it’s time to see the show!

27 is how different artists approach the same theme.
27 is to be excited and inspired by photography.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/maxed27/

***Come to the Saturday reception for to take part in a surprise interactive photographic experiment!***
Music + refreshments

Work from MAXED ART members not limited to:
Rachelle Diaz, Alex G!, Christian Ramirez, Steven Soloway, Alex Von Bergen (Tucson, AZ)
Molly McClintock, Alex Nelson, Sylvia Sewell (Brooklyn, NY)
Jaxun Doten (Portland, OR)
and others… or perhaps not all of these people.

27 is an international group art project occurring on the 27th of every month. The project began in September 2009 as a collaborative photography experiment among mixed/multi-media artists and friends originally based in Tucson who, over the course of a few short months, found themselves living in different cities and missing the connection once accessible when it was easy to meet in person to share and talk about art.

Each month, we pick a different theme simple enough to shoot on a busy weekday, but one that also requires conceptual thinking and attention to detail. Past themes have included Place, Colors, Reflection, Transport, and Portraits. However, we’ve self-imposed a few technical limitations in order to make us stretch our imagination further within the given subject, leaving room for nuance and surprises. Images can only be taken within 24 hours on the 27th of the month, and only “lo-fi” cameras including disposable cameras, vintage cameras, toy cameras, cell phones, webcams and even scanners may be used.

But 27 is more than just a picture-taking/picture-looking/documentary project. We then share the resulting images online for commentary ranging from introspective aesthetic feedback to humorous quips. 27 has not only provided an outlet for communication within our collective, it has also made us grow as artists through examination of our personal thought processes and technical inventiveness.

[Image by Jenny DuPont: "trophy" from Reddy Set Go]

1980-1984

1985

1986

1987

1988-1992

1989-1990

1992-1993

1993

1993-1997

1997-1998

Some of this questioning also comes from being honest with myself about my sphere of influence. I’m an emerging artist and don’t necessarily aspire or expect to be famous (at least, not in my what is currently the last year of my 20′s, or into my 30′s). Establishing myself on a local scale is a main goal, so that is what I look for in my regular reading about nearly anything. I do keep in touch with several Texas sources, since that’s where I’m from and have many friends, but that’s about it. I haven’t lived here long enough to even touch Phoenix, or anywhere else in Arizona for that matter. Since I’m still peeling back the onion that is Tucson, I don’t feel I’m ready to approach those areas.

There’s a real tension between honesty and growth. Being honest with oneself and accepting limitations and inclinations, and growth through nurturing technique and expanding one’s realm of thought. Growing isn’t easy, it’s just plain annoying/frustrating and potentially painful. Here’s an example: for me, asking questions seems more important than finding concrete answers. Yet, if I don’t push myself to really think about possible answers, have internal debates and tête-à-têtes with friends, I’ll never know myself. And acquiring self-knowledge is a form of honesty.

Blogging confounds this even more. Not as a blogger myself, but as a reader, in reading a piece and then following the thread of comments therafter. It gets so tangled! You could say this about a lot of literature and journalism, actually. Two books I read this year, Wayne Koestenbaum’s Hotel Theory and Salvador Plascencia’s The People of Paper, are broken up to the point that you wonder what the hell is going on a lot of the time. But in the case of blogs and reading articles on the web, the private conversation between the writer and you is disrupted. I take this to heart because reading inspires me so much as a visual artist. I don’t mean I create things that interpret what I read, but I like to read things I attempt to express through art, yet only seem to come out properly in words. (I admit, I’m pretty insecure, although I’m not fishing for praise here).

It seems like every other week there’s something circulating in various media about the death of the newspaper and publishing. What they need to realize is that there’s a new form of reading taking shape on a massive, sweeping scale that I’m trying to grasp, that feels more natural someone 10 years younger than me. The sooner they understand this and try to change instead of forcing/marketing obsolete methods, the better chance they will have to survive. Am I nostalgic? No. I’m sure somewhere down the line, a simulation of consuming printed media will return, not a straightforward fake like the guys hawking handbags on the side of the road, but a sur-reality, the way fashion has been regurgitating the past since the 1970′s, the way suburban shopping centers are designed to look like urban cores, the way “found objects” (both real and reproduced) and crafts in interior design steal the soul of the original. Who knows where this is all going.

All I know is, right now, I feel like I’m looking for some answers. I need some answers. But the questions have slipped my mind so I don’t have much motivation to figure out where to look.

Colored pencil on wood
May 2009
part of the Staring at Screens series

in researching this project the word “colorspace” popped into my head. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this term before in my cluster of thoughts. since I work for a digital printing company full time as a graphic designer, “colorspace” enters my vocabulary all the time in discussing CMYK, RGB and Pantone colors. Each has totally different quirks and foibles in what we see on screen vs what the design software reads (e.g. Adobe) vs what the print driver reads vs what the printer itself reads vs what we see produced. This is about how that image we see on screen, the digital eye of the machine (interpreter [screen]/producer[printer], and what we see physically, is altered in that process, particularly through digital photography: translation of images seen by the human eye into pixels, 1s and 0s, and that mutation of form and message through television, movies, and internet presences such as personal websites, image/video sharing and social networking sites. It begins and ends with The Eye. Consciousness of the Self and how it is reproduced in these media, as well as ubiquitous Unseen Eyes, digital and human, viewing, interpreting, reproducing the Self, infinitely, obscurely. In drawing and painting images produced by machines, I am attempting to reclaim natural vision. Let us take our understanding of “The Work Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” a step further, or in another direction (whatever your preference), and look at our present circumstances in “The Self in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.”

Lately I’ve been thinking that artists need to re-consider the way they present themselves to the public in dress and unfortunately, in some cases, basic hygiene. As governmental entities and charitable organizations run lower and lower on funds, public outcry grows against their financial footing of non-essential projects that support lazy artists. Now is the time for us to combat that crank stereotype. I’ve seen artists who go all-out on the presentation/installation of their work to near-perfection yet viewer-ly accessible as possible, and arrive at their own opening in blown-out khaki shorts, birkenstocks with nasty cracked toenails hanging out (in the over 35-ish crowd) or stanky All-Stars, pit-stained t-shirt and oily hair (if they’re under about 35).

Same goes for interaction with non-artists. By the word interaction, I mean interpersonal relations beyond things like manners, etiquette, sense of humor. Throwing our visionary weirdness in in the face of squares who will never “get it” doesn’t help to win respect and will continue to put us on the fringes of public opinion in emphasizing the vital role the arts play in everyday life and education. Rather than being militant eccentrics in our dealings with average Joes, let’s shift that energy to doing really, really awesome work and producing mind-blowing public shows with the best of the money, time and energy we have. This will take a lot of honesty with ourselves: honesty about our own apperance and actions, honesty about how the other half really lives and thinks, honesty about our own expectations vs expectations of others. It takes a great deal of consideration, maybe not quite courtesy or “dumbing-down,” but consideration nonetheless.

It’s OK to be who we are, knowing that we can let ourselves go with other creative types, but I’ve found it’s effective to meet people halfway upon similarities, rather than getting them to come “up” to your level. For me, this is not an easy thing to do; it takes a lot of energy. Sometimes the most open-mindedness you can sneak into a stoic viewer is a nod of acknowledgment; other times, a little consideration in your interactions with a person opens doors and windows in them that they didn’t even know they had.

If you are going to ask for public or private financial charity, take extra care in how you present yourself. While the mystique of the bizarre worked for 20th century artists shaking the centuries-old system of academies, salons and commissioned funding by patrons, we’re now on the threshold of the post-fame era. Luck is running out, being in the right place at the right time is a four dimensional gamble in which the odds are against you a kajillion to 1. Now, anything, happening anyplace and anytime can be self-promoted online, yet needs to be well-presented to get the attention. I’ve noticed that art and fashion blogs (and bloggers, as they choose to reveal their appearance) whose photos/graphics/writing are well-realized, hitting the ideal nail on the head, get the attention, while others slightly less than masterful in those forms — however inspired — fall more or less to the wayside.

Presentation isn’t about marketing — I think that conversation is being phased out, slowly, as laypeople’s web and photography skills increase, and also simply because marketing lacks what is at the core of art: grabbing someone by the lapels out of the Everyday and teleporting them through a psychic pneumatic tube into the hyper-temporal, spiritual Whatever. And not always on an “elevated” or “higher” plane, just a different, and important one. Making them honorary shamans.

Maybe this “etiquette” I speak of is the backlash away from the self-centered focus concerning embrace or rejection, sobered into the austerity of simply being respected.

Just for fun, a Flickr meme via la Patri.

The concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name? Rachelle
2. What is your favorite food? Salsa
3. What high school did you go to? St. Joesph High School Victoria
4. What is your favorite color? Yellow
5. Who is your celebrity crush? No comment
6. Favorite drink? Red wine
7. Dream vacation? Romania
8. Favorite dessert? Bread pudding
9. What you want to be when you grow up? Artist
10. What do you love most in life? Friends & family
11. One Word to describe you. Multilayered
12. Your flickr name. art diva

Credits: 1. Rachelle Delgado’s 18th Birthday, 2. Chips & Salsa with Frieda Kahlo (finished version), 3. HISTORY OF THE QUEEN’S HEAD PUBLIC HOUSE, 4. vw, 5. No no no !, 6. VinRouge – Dressed & Undressed, 7. Path of Color, 8. Bread Pudding, 9. Eden Park Artist, 10. Love XOXO, 11. a5865 Back to Backlight, 12. Goddess Art Pin