I left Berlin 29 days ago today after a three week Kur in the world of Transart Institute. Although it is officially called “Summer Residency”, and was the first of three summer residencies I will be part of in my journey through this world.
What is a “Kur”?
Simply put, in English, it is a cure, a course of treatment intended to help a person recover from an illness. One often speaks of “taking” a cure. It can involve going to a special place, away from the everyday environment in which the illness occurred, drinking or bathing in special, mineral-rich, healing waters; receiving treatments involving exercises or massages; even psychotherapy has often been referred to as a “talking cure”. In non-Germanic culture the “Kur” has often been misunderstood, or misrepresented as a luxurious trip to a spa or resort paid for by the health insurance companies or the state. And for some, this could be the case. But really the emphasis culturally and historically is on the therapeutic nature of the Kur to heal both body and soul. It is considered a vital part of maintaining health and balance in life. It is not a vacation. It is work. Work to heal, gain strength, recover and progress.
This is how I felt the three weeks in Berlin were for me: a Kur. I went to Berlin to work on healing both my body and soul from a long period of withdrawal into my life and my studio. I went to Berlin prepared for the work I know I needed to do there; work which I knew would continue long after I returned to my life and my studio. The preparation was a mental preparation for the changes which lay ahead of me; it was for the work I would be doing addressing my art and myself, and the relationship between these two.
So along with my clothes, toiletries, a few art supplies, iPhone and MacBook, I packed what would be the primary tool I knew I would need during my stay in Berlin and beyond: openness.
I went to Berlin open to whatever would come my way. Of the things I found that came my way much was not necessarily new or even unexpected, rather what came my way was often that which I had misplaced, forgotten about, knew and acknowledged knowing but no longer thought to apply to myself and my creative practice. Yes, I did acquire much that is new: information, reading suggestions, practical and technical suggestions and advice, and most importantly new friends and colleagues. But it is the tool of openness which enabled me to encounter the new and bring it with me back into myself and my studio along with those misplaced, forgotten and ignored things.
Before going back to Providence I want to address here two pieces I worked on while in Berlin. The first piece I will call Berlin One. It is the piece that I began using the pieces of painted canvas I had brought with me to Berlin, wrapped in a piece of fabric an acquaintance had given me from a trip she had made in the winter to Ghana. The purpose of bringing these pieces of canvas to Berlin was in order to use them in the workshop I was signed up to take part in during the second week of the residency, “The World As Sculpture”. We were asked to bring a piece that we considered finished, but that could be added to. A piece which could be passed on to another workshop participant which could be subtracted from. In my studio I have many pieces, small canvases and works on paper, which I could have brought with me. And in the month leading up to my departure I did think about what I might bring. But it was really in the last hours before departing that I grabbed those small, unstretched canvases, wrapped them in that piece of cloth and threw them into my suitcase. Were they finished? Yes. But I also admit, if it is still in my studio it is fair game to go back to at a later date and be redeveloped. I was open to whatever these pieces might become. But I wasn’t really consciously thinking of what they could become, or of the Ghanaian cloth becoming more than just a wrapping to keep them together, clean and safe in the bottom of my suitcase.
Then I got to Berlin, and that first day was reminded of the Open Frame Exhibition the following Saturday. I hadn’t thought about it, don’t even recall seeing the email about it. But in the spirit of being open to whatever came my way I decided to create a piece out of those pieces for the exhibit. So I began by unrolling them, laying them out, taping them to the wall, adding the cloth to the mix. It took me about four days before I picked up a knife and began to cut them apart. Then I began adding some ink and watercolor paintings on paper which I had been working on into the mix. But still I had to think of how to hang the piece, how to hold it together. On Friday evening I went to OBI to pick up a hammer, packing tape and pin-nails. I knew the piece would be temporary, because it would still be the basis for the assignments in the workshop the following week. And this is how Berlin One was formed. It existed in this state for two days. The following week I spent a couple of hours adding a roll of film-tape with marker lines drawn onto it to the mix, while at the same time removing it from the wall and the felt pad nails by which it was hung. The piece moved onto another workshop participant who took it further, altering it by turning it into and onto itself, removing and reforming it in a way that I would have found hard to do myself...but it worked. And it showed me this is one of the ways I can, should and need to use that tool of openness in approaching my work if I really want to take it beyond the point I have been at. I began to rethink what can be paint, what can create a mark, a line, and how a painting could be read as a painting, yet not be bound by the traditional definition, the traditional material, yet still remain within the tradition.
I had done this before, about 20 years ago. I used materials such as candy as paint. I constructed paintings not out of single stretched canvas, but out of many pieces of different materials, sometimes in blurring the line which some use to distinguish painting from sculpture. But I had stopped. Why? I don’t know, but I did realize I needed to go back and find out. But I don’t believe in going back without the intent to move forward at the same time. Going back is not to the same materials, or even approach. Going back is to the openness of exploration and play.
In the final days of the Berlin residency I put together this piece which I call Berlin Two. It is a collage of various drawings and paintings on paper I did evenings during the residency in response to what I was thinking, hearing, seeing and discussing. Other bits and pieces of paper found their way into the collage which was then “glazed” together by packing tape. While it is less sculptural and more pictorial than Berlin One, what I was attempting to do with this piece was to paint a painting without paint. To paint a painting that despite its rectilinear picture plane was not on a single piece of paper or canvas, the rectangle has been created by the glazing together of many bits paper with the tape. And I was trying to do it responsively using drawings and paintings that I had created in a direct, automatic approach to what I was experiencing on a daily basis.
In the various presentations and discussions regarding my work during the residency what often came up were issues of control, working from a concept more than in response to a concept. One of the main questions I have in regards to my first year project is how to make the work I create around this idea readable to the viewer on a more emotional level. A big part of this for me is going to be by putting more of my own feelings and responses to myself into my work. Again, this goes back to using the tool of openness to reveal more of myself emotionally in my work.
In my final draft of my first year project proposal I changed the title to “Self Portrait of a Female with Epilepsy”. While thinking and walking around Berlin during the Sunday prior to the final week of the residency I began thinking about what I had been saying about the work I had been presenting throughout the residency. I came to the realization that much of the paintings I had been making over the past four years, the stories I had been trying to tell, were in a very traditional sense a form of portraiture. While some of these paintings were attempts at self portraiture I realized to make the idea, the feelings behind my project of the exploration of Epilepsy and Women, readable by the viewer, I would need to explore the subject by revealing myself as the subject/object of the work: I would need to make the studio portion of the project a self portrait.
And now finally back to Providence and my studio I continued on this journey by beginning a loose-leaf journal as well as working in my sketchbook. I also rediscovered my sewing machine. I am a horrible seamstress, but the repetitive mark of the needle piercing the paper, the line made by the threads, usually broken in my case, combined as a stand-alone component or a functional element holding together layers of a piece have been a welcome addition to my practical vocabulary. In addition to the sewing element I continued using tape as a glaze. I focused more on paper, and how the mark can be embedded into the paper. Through velum and tracing paper, cloth and collaged papers I added additional layers to these pieces.
Searching through previous works I returned to images such as the labyrinth. The labyrinth calls forth the path which has a clear destination, but also recalls the structure of the brain.
I also found an envelope with words and letters I had cut out of magazines. I began playing with incorporating these into some of the pieces.
The second weekend I was back in Providence I left again. I went to view the exhibit “One Lump, or Two” of Amy Sillman’s paintings, drawing and video work at the Hessel Museum at Bard College. Prior to visiting the exhibit I had read the catalogue, along with additional writings and interviews with the artist on her website. I have seen various exhibits of her work over the years, but what I found fascinating about this particular exhibit was the way it revealed her ability to speak across multiple media and still have it be a single language.
In addition to the time of re-exploration in the studio, I have begun reading. I am not going to write about what I have been reading in this post, because I wanted to focus on the studio work and what is behind its development in relation to the residency. However I will bring the readings and their relation to the studio work’s development into my next blog post, as then I will have more to say about the relationship which is developing. Until then...