New images are posted in the MCP501 Gallery section of this website; bold titles link to the specific gallery page being referenced. Here is the link to my MCP501 Bibliography [in progress] .
Continuing work in my sketchbook I saw a merging of visual language in relation to my first year project and the subsequent ideas about the journal presentation in the sketchbook and in the loose leaf journal pages.
My main thoughts concerning the sketchbook this month focused on the Skype conversation addressing the horizontal orientation of these images versus the vertical orientation of the loose leaf journal pages in the website galleries. The questions were raised how this occurred and if it was intentional? I understood these to come from the assumption that the sketchbook pages were being worked and resolved in a landscape format. I hadn’t really thought about this, but realized that most of the pages were not created in landscape, rather were done as portraits, just as the loose leaf pages, though presented vertically are often worked and resolved horizontally. When I photograph and post them, I flip them, thus unifying the orientation for the website presentation.
Was I unknowingly [or knowingly, but unconsciously] presenting the work untruthfully? Why? Why do we assume that what we see presented to us is “the truth”? Should we assume that what we see online, or even in person, is true? Should the artist blatantly lie by presenting something as it is not while saying ‘this is how it is’? What does this say about what the viewer wants to believe is “the truth”?
How I have chosen to resolve this is by including in the Process Photos Journal and Sketchbook Gallery images of recent work at various stages -and I reveal the discrepancy of orientation and the choices I make. The Sketchbook Gallery remains presented in landscape, the September- October 2014 journal pages in portrait. I reveal “the truth”, just not within the page on which the work is displayed. If “the truth” is revealed as “untrue” does this make it a lie? Or does it simply reveal the nature of “the truth” as not absolute?
Process Photos Journal and Sketchbook
In this gallery I also wanted to show how within the parameters I have set for myself for the ways I begin a page and the paths I take to its resolution are not a given. Even pieces which might have similar beginnings and endings may follow different paths; just as pieces which begin with very different approaches and follow different paths might end up with similar resolutions, or vice versa.
While I was making the pages my mind was often elsewhere; thinking about what I was reading, writing, talking about and the ideas that were developing around the journal’s presentation. I was not fully cognizant about what I was actually producing. I was aware of what I was doing and I felt so much of what was going on in my head was flowing so freely into the work, but I was not trying to ‘problem solve’ in the work itself. I remained open to using the work to respond to the thoughts, so that as a page was resolved I quickly moved on to the next. I was not lingering over any single page or image; and in turn what I was thinking about seemed to resolve itself in a freer manner as well.
After the Skype conversation on September 19 I was thinking about how I want to present the journal in relation to my first year project; how I viewed the pages as individual parts of a whole which needs to be presented as a single, whole piece; and how, if in anyway, I might want to incorporate digital media/technology into the work. What I found was that I was thinking more about what I did not want to do while not yet knowing what I did want to do.
I knew I did not want to make a video; not make a bound book; not create digital paintings and print them out; not use digitized scans and photos to further the collage technique; and not reduce the experience of an epileptic seizure to the generalized seizure most people associate with Epilepsy-- the moment of falling down, foaming at the mouth, body cramp image that people have always used to define a very complex, multi-experiential disorder of the brain. Why did I not want to do these things?
First, I am just not that interested in devoting the time and energy required to working with digital media/technology to make the effort worthwhile in terms of what I want to achieve through my painting. I like the tactile qualities of the materials I work with. I believe it is the direct experience of that material and the human touch by which it has been worked and formed which reveals both to the viewer and to myself more about the human experience than most current applications of digital media/technology are able to offer.
Second, binding the images into a book constrains the pages in a way that I don’t really feel reflects the experience of Epilepsy, and specifically my experience with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy [TLE]. I want the pages to remain loose, free to be shuffled, thrown into disorder, and then experienced differently by each viewer. Binding would confine the pages to a single order. An alternative to a fixed binding would be a loose arrangement in a portfolio or box, and I have not ruled this out. But I do want to try taking the presentation to a grander scale in order to emphasize the experience of a seizure disorder.
Third, why not show the “cramp”? My problem with using the imagery associated with a generalized seizure in this project is that it is a “generalized” understanding of Epilepsy. And as a “generalization” it can cause people to make assumptions which are then inhibitive to the development of greater awareness and understanding. Epilepsy is a complex disorder with over 40 different varieties of seizures currently known. The generalized seizure that most people think of when they think of Epilepsy is in reality not that common. It is the simple seizure, the partial seizure, the complex partial seizure that are experienced more often by persons affected by seizure disorders; and often these seizure are invisible and very individualized in nature. The people around a person experiencing one of these seizures most likely will not realize it is happening, and often the person experiencing the seizure doesn’t even realize the seizure is happening. The “falling down” generalized seizure is easy to see and diagnose, the other seizures are much more difficult, more complex in all aspects. I would rather work on making visible something that is not, expanding the knowledge base people have of the disorder, than to try to change pre-existing definitions based on assumptions and generalizations that have been misused and abused for centuries. By consciously leaving the depiction of the “cramp” out of the picture I hope to raise awareness of the complexity of the disorder, the invisibilities associated with the disorder and the preconceived notions of what defines Epilepsy. People might wonder why the “cramp” is not depicted, thus opening the conversation to the other, more complex elements and questions of the “hidden disease”.
I want to relay the experience I personally had with the complex partial seizures from TLE. But how? TLE has often been associated with artists and other “creative” individuals.
A well known example of the experience of TLE and the seizure types associated with it can be found in Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll [Charles Dodgson], the author having himself lived with this seizure disorder. As part of my project I have been re-reading these two books. I have also begun tackling The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky, however I have found that I can relate personally more to Alice and her adventures than to the life and times of Prince Myshkin. As a young child I was already exposed to Alice and the characters of Wonderland and through the Looking-Glass by way of my most favorite ballet recital; by hearing the stories read to me; watching Walt Disney’s animated, musical composite of the two books; and most importantly, listening to the Walt Disney film soundtrack record album while putting on mine and my older sister’s costumes and re-creating all the dances I could remember from our recital in our garage and driveway for our neighborhood. At some point between then and my own diagnosis I learned about Dodgson’s Epilepsy and his use of the seizure experience in the stories. I began re-reading the books after my diagnosis, then I really understood how accurate his portrayal of those feelings was.
Using Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories as the starting point I hope to present the journal pages to the viewer as both a physical experience as well as a mental experience of the feelings induced by the complex partial seizures of TLE.
This is a physical journey through the journal, “down the rabbit hole”. A single viewer navigates her way through a narrow, dark corridor in which the pages of the journal are suspended at various heights and distances from a red thread which weaves and loops its way through the space- connecting each page to the others. The movement of the viewer causes the pages to spin and turn. The viewer can grab hold of some of the pages, hold them steady and take a closer look. But some pages might be out of reach, only viewable from a distance. Others the viewer might need to bend down, lay on the ground to view. The darkness of the black felt envelopes and silences the space. The black glitter vinyl reflects the light, as does the metallic and shiny surfaces of many of the pages. The tulle, through which the red thread is woven and the pages suspended, casts a mesh shadow on the pages; the pages cast shadows on each other. The viewer is free to make her way through the space, view the pages as she wishes to. It is up to the viewer to find the points at which she can gain control in a chaotic, highly stimulating environment.
This is a mental journey through the journal, through the “looking glass”. The Look In Glass is a mirrored box containing an iPad hung flush on the wall. The exterior and interior sides of the box are covered in standard mirror, the front panel of the box is covered in a “see through” or “one way” mirror. The back panel of the box is the iPad screen on which a slideshow is running a standard theme of “Sliding Panels”. The viewer enters the slightly darkened room and approaches the box hung on a wall and emitting a faint glow through the front panel. Approaching the box she looks into and through the glass where she will see the slideshow of shifting images reflected throughout the interior space of the box as well as her face reflected faintly back into the box. The act of looking into the box places the viewer mentally and by way of her reflection into the world of the journal. Like Wanderland the world of the Look In Glass is chaotic and highly stimulating. Unlike the experience of Wanderland, which is a physical experience, Look In Glass is a mental experience.
In the next four weeks I will continue to work in my sketchbook; continue to create pages for the loose leaf journal in preparation for an installation of Wanderland and Look In Glass on December 6. The substructure of the mirrored box will be built and the mirror ordered from Rhode Island Glass. My crit group will begin posting and providing feedback, with my time scheduled for October 31-November 7.