Art 21

Graciela Iturbide

When I went back to University as a mature student, at Mount Allison University to finish my Bachelor of Fine Art degree, I watched a whole lot of Art 21 in class. I loved these videos, and it was one of the best  parts of my art education. A particular artist I saw on Art 21, was one of my teachers at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design back in the 70s.

Looking back, it really was a wonderful experience generally, to have had the opportunity to be taught by visionary artists, and teachers, like Krzysztof Wodiczko , Jeff Wall, Dan Loomis, Huge Leroy, John Clark, Tom Klink, Eric Fischl, Ken Pittman, Harold Pearse, just to name a few. Yes, I know they are all men. That's the way it was generally, back in the early 70s. However, it is this fact this helped to shape me into the feminist I am today.. Many women at NSCAD were right on the front lines of the second wave of feminism then, with the influences of such artists like, Miriam Shipiro, Joyce Wieland and Martha Rosler.

I still love to watch Art 21, and am really looking forward to seeing what is in the new line up for Season 7. Especially artist Graciela Iturbide who documented photographs about Frida Kahlo. As well, the documentary entitled, The Two Virginias  featuring photographer Sally Mann . Mann reflects on the woman who raised her, Virginia Franklin Carter.
These women, Frida Kahlo and Sally Mann, are two of my favourite artists, whom I admire greatly.
It warms my heart to see how women mentor one another.

                                                               Virginia Franklin Carter,

Lisa de St. Croix - Miriam Shapiro

Deciding to create another blog, Apple River Tarot Readings has lead me to expand, and deepen my interest in the art created and displayed in the decks. The Artist Pamela Coleman Smith, who illustrated and designed the most popular deck, Rider-Waite-Smith, has long been my inspiration, as I am certain she is the same for many Tarot readers and artists who create decks today.

Some Tarot card artists are exceptional, and can be very engaging and compelling to learn about. Many are empowered creatives.
I am particularly interested in women artists, being a woman myself who attended University at the height of the feminist movement in the early 70s at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.

 This morning I found artist Lisa de St. Croix. I was excited to learn that she had apprenticed as an Fine Artist with Canadian Feminist Artist Miriam Shapiro.

Miriam Shapiro was a visiting artist at NSCAD many years ago, along with several other feminist artists, such as Martha Rosler, Martha Wilson, Joyce Wieland etc., who helped to revolutionize the face of woman's art and art history. They blazed a trail, set an example for other young women artists like myself at the time, and helped to change the world. They still greatly inspire me today, probably even more so then in the past.

International Women's Day - Joyce Wieland

                                                            Joyce Wieland 1930-1998

"The problem is to go into oneself and find out what one is and to suffer what it is to be oneself. Go to the darkest parts and the brightest parts and find out what you like and want, and to validate that...It's not just a question of art and finding out who you are and to make this wonderful thing happen out of yourself but it's the responsibility to the society and to care about other people...A lot of people think art is to be separate, but art is to embrace others - whether to convey something difficult or talk about light -  work comes from spirit, journeys into spirit are what we need now. Spirit has always been in art."  
                                                           -  Joyce Wieland


I just finished reading reading Artist on Fire by Jane Lind. It is the wonderful autobiography of Joyce Wieland. She referred to herself as being the foremost artist. Others described her as being fearless. She was also I believe to be the most influential Canadian feminist artist.

The quote from Joyce Wieland summarizes for me much of what best describes what it means to be an artist regardless of your gender or feminism. She was a kindred and inspiring spirit to many women.

Joyce followed her inner visions and the legacy she left to those for us to follow was to listen and find our own voice, an act of faith in the face of fear. She created art because she loved it and believed art was "given from a divine source of love".

Art was not about theory for Joyce Wieland but about creating from the inside emotion of who she was, and making the personal political. She was in that category of women who created from their inner voice and vision.

I highly recommend reading this book, to anyone.

"To read this absorbing account of the life and art of Joyce Wieland is to enter again the magic circle that Canada's most original artist created in her life and work period. She remains unique. We are again enriched by her whimsy, her passion her zest for life, her contagious vitality even while we are saddened by the burden of pain she carried and by her tragic and untimely death. "
                                                                                                            
                                                                                                             - Doris McCarthy

Joyce died on June 27th 1998 of Alzheimers disease at the age of 68. She was greatly loved and admired.

The Open Mind - Artist On Fire

My apologies to my followers and readers for not having posted as of late.
I really dislike not being regular in more ways than one. Without going into lengthy complaining and explaining, I will say it's good to be back after having internet issues.

So with the Christmas break I took time to do some knitting, crocheting, reading, and have started some commissioned paintings. I also have begun to discern the direction I am headed in my creative life journey.


 I just finished reading, The Open Mind - Exploring the 6 Patterns of Natural Intelligence, by Dawna Markova, PH.D. This book was quite interesting, very  informative in examining our conscious, subconscious and unconscious mind.

 I discovered am mostly a VAK: Visually Smart, Auditorily Centered and Kinesthetically Sensitive. Easiest Way to Learn : See/Hear/Experience. Easiest Way to Express: Show/Say/Do.
 
I am also described as being a KAV: Kinesthetically Smart, Auditorily Centered, and Visually Sensitive. Easiest Way to Learn: Experience/Hear/See. Easiest Way to Express: Do/Say/Show.These learning patterns are very useful in being aware of how they enable understanding and perception of myself and others.


" Schools actually penalize kinesthetic learners and reward auditory and visual. Research verifies that beginning readers tend to be strongly kinesthetic. "
                                                                          - Marie Carbo &
                                                                                 Rita Dunn

The other book I am about half way through is Jane Lind's, Joyce Wieland Artist on Fire. It's a riveting read, and have found out that Jane Lind writes about women artists. She is a wonderful writer and also is an artist/sculptor. It is always with great interest and pleasure, when I find out about woman artists. I am enjoying Jane Lind's book immensely, and enthusiastically look forward to reading her blog. I also look forward to continuing Artist On Fire. Joyce Wieland has always been one of my mentors.

" Joyce Wieland gave us dreams. Jane Lind has gathered the "stuff" of these dreams to weave a tapestry rich in the colour, texture, and creative strength of creative passion that was Joyce Wieland. "
                                                                  - Mary Pratt

                                                                                   

Installation, Performance and Video

"Photography is not an art. Neither is painting, nor sculpture, literature or music. They are only different media for the individual to express his aesthetic feelings… You do not have to be a painter or a sculptor to be an artist. You may be a shoemaker. You may be creative as such. And, if so, you are a greater artist than the majority of the painters whose work is shown in the art galleries of today." - Alfred Stieglitz


I have had somewhat of a bias attitude toward installation, performance and video art. There are a few antecedents  to this bias. Being exposed to conceptual art in my early twenties, all through the 70s at NSCAD was a major influence, due to the fact that much of it I thought, was crap, and narcissistic indulgence. That's just my opinion and I am not saying it is correct or that any one need agree with it. I am far from an expert and am certainly not an art critic, nor do I aspire to be.

Much of the genre today is very tame compared to the 70s where anything and everything seemed to be the accepted discourse. 
In my opinion, when I consider noteworthy performance, installation and video artists, who's work I find compelling, the artists often share comparatively similar elements . They stand test of time, enable me to look at the world from a different perspective that challenges my thinking, and there is a continuity to them that contextualizes, transcends and possibly redefines  the past, present and future. I am reminded of artists such as Ai Wei Wei, Kevin Yates, Adam Goddard, Andy Goldsworthy, Krzystof Wodiczko, Joyce Wieland, to name a few. 

What I most appreciate about contemporary Installation, Performance  and Video art, like that of  Bill Viola, and Louise Bourgeois, is how it is utilized as a poignant and powerful tool, enabling socio- political commentary and change. Preconceived notions of what art is, are pushed beyond  confining boundaries, through the mindfulness of the present moment and process.

I am most interested in the spirituality of art work, and this is why Bill Viola appeals to me. Artists that invite and engage the personal into the public forum, can convict the conscience and nurture the soul. I am drawn to artists who lives become a large part of their art and art becomes an even larger part of life.

Joyce Wieland Being A Woman / Artist

Joyce Wieland Menstrual Dance 1987


Joyce Wieland Untitled



The noted Canadian artist Joyce Wieland, I never had the privilege to meet but certainly would have been honoured to have done so. I relate to why she never wanted to call herself a feminist. I always was concerned and involved in women's issues but never wanted to call myself a feminist. I don't much care for labels, though I do understand why we have them, as being the discourse we use whether we are artists or not. I am grateful to her and women like her that have gone on before as trail blazers for other women.




Today found a few websites that I see are related to the work Joyce Wieland was doing, particularly her love of and involvement in fine needle work . I have posted some photos and the links to these sites below. These are inspired by woman writers. This is based on the work of Emily Dickinson. I think they are just beautiful and amazing works. Willow also embroiders illuminated manuscripts. She has she produced a book cover entitled "Blue" inspired by the work of Artist, Cliff Eyland.

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http://web.me.com/wrector1/Willow_Rector/Home.html

Cliff Eyland Self Portrait Blue Manuscript

http://capacioushold-all.blogspot.com/
This blog is beautifully written along with photos that are sure to touch the spirit.







"I think being an artist is about following your own way, and having the courage to be who you are and what you are. To have self-knowledge ... that deep, dark discovery of self, part of which is maturing, part of which is creating wholeness." - Joyce Wieland

Joyce Wieland Video Transcript
Orphaned at only nine years of age, Joyce Wieland found solace in her drawing and painting, which would eventually become her career. She was ahead of her time; she used traditional crafts like quilting and embroidery. Nor was she afraid to deal head on with the issues of the day. For the sixties, her art was refreshingly new. Yet her struggle with the art establishment was won when Joyce became the first woman to have a major exhibition of her work, staged during her lifetime, at Canada's National Gallery. Joyce Wieland dislikes being called a feminist. She says she takes it for granted. But she's convinced that men and women create art that, as she puts it, comes out differently.


http://www.jstor.org/pss/1358083 Here is an interesting article written in the 1980s about Judy Chicago and Joyce Wieland From The Women's Journel

I don't hate Michael Snow! "Shakespeare always said his plays should appeal to the beer-drinkers in the front row "

OK here we go. The entries to follow are for my the second installment of my Canadian Art History class - 1960s to present day.

We have been asked by our Professor, who is the best ever I might add; no I'm not looking for brownie points, just happens to be the real truth-to keep a journal, starting January 11Th, 2011, based on our classes and the topics we cover.

The first article hand outs were about Michael Snow and Joyce Wieland. Both of these artists were also covered in our first lecture.

At NSCAD Michael Snow was pretty much the "IT" boy the "ART STAR". I have to say I wasn't much interested in much of it.

The period of the 60s and 70s does have particular interest to me as I am a child of the 60's born in the 50's. Attending NSCAD in the 1972 right through the 70s gives me a certain perspective.

Conceptual art at NSCAD ruled during the time I was a student. I was 21, a tender age in some ways but I did have by this time a foundation of a core ideology however under developed and naive. I had a desire to work as a traditional artist, rendering figurative subject matter through drawing and painting. I was in for a rude awakening!

I had no idea what to expect upon my arrival into art school. The prevalence of conceptual art was confusing, disturbing, threatening, intimidating, distancing, gender specific and entertaining by times.

I remember on one occasion having Mr. Peanut give a presentation of his book; yes Mr. Peanut published a book! It had cut out peanut shaped holes through the center of the pages with a peanut in the shell snugly fitted into the matching shaped hole. Fascinating!

In open Art Seminar class at Mount Allison we have been discussing Clemet Greenburg, the acclaimed and infamous art critic. The juxtaposition of him as the privier of abstract expressionism, painting being the only relevant art form, the idea of pure art, along side of what Michael Snow and Joyce Wieland attempted, to re-define art that dealt with the ideas of what art is and examining what the process of making art is an interesting one.

I am not an artist that has ever been a really interested in conceptual , abstract or abstract expressionism, although I have explored it some in my own art practice. I am glad things have changed in the art world and that we are no longer subject to adhere to a particular ideology and discourse if we choose not to. The Avaunt Gard had it's on rigidity, as did other art movements.

I say we don't need to throw the baby out with the bath water. We need to hang on to and understand some of our past in order to understand our present and our future.

Thank goodness for change.

I had a wonderful painting teacher in my early years as a student at NSCAD by the name of Dana Loomis, who was an abstract expressionist-cum- surrealist painter. I learned so much from him, not just about painting but more importantly about myself and how it was essential to find out about my own ideology. He gave us a required reading Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Persig, one of those life changing books that had a profound affect on me as an artist then and continues to do so today.

I was very saddened to hear of his death a few years back after finding his obituary on line.

Painting Exhibit Honors The Work Of Late OU Art Professor




By Athens NEWS Staff


From the 1960s until 1990, Ohio University's art program boasted a nationally renowned abstract expressionist-cum-surrealist with galleries in New York City. Now, almost 14 years after Dana Loomis' death...


From the 1960s until 1990, Ohio University's art program boasted a nationally renowned abstract expressionist-cum-surrealist with galleries in New York City. Now, almost 14 years after Dana Loomis' death, OU's School of Art is holding a retrospective exhibit sampling the life's work of the artist.


Ron Kroutel, OU art professor and close colleague of Loomis, was instrumental in organizing the exhibit. He said Loomis' paintings won't just draw intellectuals and artists at the university, but will also appeal to the Athens community. ""I think the show is not only for the people in the School of Art, it's also for the wider Athens community,"" he said. "Shakespeare always said his plays should appeal to the beer-drinkers in the front row -- I think Loomis' paintings have that quality."


Indeed, Loomis' oil paintings do have a populist appeal. The crisp and stunning realism might leave even the most jaded art critic in awe, and the careful arrangement of metaphorical objects leave inevitable echoes in the subconscious.


Consider, for instance, Loomis' ""Four Ages of Man,"" on display at the OU Art Gallery in Seigfred Hall. The picture shows an open closet with an army jacket, a business suit, a university team pennant, and a baby's hat and pacifier. Each fold in the fabric and shadow on the shelves is photographically accurate, yet the angles and arrangement of the still-life objects follow the same composition used by abstract artists like Piet Mondrian -- the man who painted those sleek pictures composed of big red, blue, yellow and white tiles. Loomis, in fact, began his career as an abstract expressionist in the school of the famous American painter William DeKooning, under whom he studied at Yale.


Seigfred's exhibit samples Loomis' early abstract work as well, the most gripping of which is ""Group Forms,"" which he finished in 1961. This painting, though initially appearing as simply obsessive smears of paint, reveals itself to be an intensely sexual painting upon further examination. The swoops and scrawls of paint form the almost-figures of naked women -- or at least squirming and suggestive organic forms.


Kroutel said Loomis' paintings were not difficult to organize because many locals own Loomis originals. Many come from the private collection of his widow, Gloria Loomis, while others belong to professors or other Athens residents.


Kroutel also expressed surprise that the art school didn't act sooner to honor its deceased professor -- they simply hired a replacement. ""When he died, they didn't really do anything,"" he said. ""I thought it was odd that the school would act like a corporation.""


But Kroutel commended the school for its support when he brought up the idea of a Loomis retrospective, allocating money to print a color pamphlet for the exhibit. A graphic design student in the School of Art laid out the publication, and it contains reproductions of Loomis' work along with commentary from Kroutel describing Loomis' career. ""He and I were close colleagues for 25 to 30 years,"" Kroutel explained. ""(Loomis) was quite a bit older than me, but we shared the same attitude toward art.""


Kroutel's essay describes Loomis' transition to realism with works such as ""Pharos #1: Greece,"" which appears at the gallery. Loomis, in this painting, makes no attempt at realism, but he is beginning to use representation to convey his ideas while still retaining his abstract composition.


Most of Loomis' canvases on display, however, sample the artist's realistic work. Some of the most impressive are those that depict a carefully positioned canvas arranged before an open door or window. The paintings on the canvases complete the landscapes outside -- a quote from the surrealist vocabulary of Renee Magritte. ""Mirror Image,"" painted in 1986, uses this device, as do several other paintings in the retrospective.


Loomis' admiration of Mondrian is also a theme throughout the show. Works such as ""Formal Devices,"" ""Bloody Mary Morning"" and ""The Four Humors"" all have the same strong, linear composition and repeating planes of red, blue and yellow.


Anyone in Athens can see Loomis' paintings at Seigfred Gallery through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at no charge. Viewers should be prepared, however, to stand in awe.