The role of Art

This days I am writing an application for a future exhibition. With it, I was asked to send a paragraph of exactly 50 words describing the role of art. I could have just make up some kind of irreverent piece. But somehow I took a serious and sincere approach when writing it:

Art has a different role/edge for each individual. Those roles are not fixed they evolve.
For me it is a way to explore, apprehend and communicate my human experience. Art is embedded in my social relations.
But also I use art to experiment and transform myself and the surrounding world.

I left many things out. Maybe I should have written a whimsical piece, which could have satisfied more my artistic self. Instead I took it as a summarizing exercise. Which is something I have to practice nonetheless.
I did not mention the fun . Neither did I speak of my position as a consumer or user of art. But there is no need to say everything about everything, actually is impossible.

Control

On winter times, you should keep warm, eat nuts and sleep. I was advised by a friend. Wise words, difficult to follow in London. I do end up having that guilty feeling of being lazy and laid back, the world is still spinning around and London with it, there are plenty of shows, talks, work to do, parties, functions, demos... whatever... In any case case I try to put my catholic guilt aside and, stop the headless chicken in me.
Most of my time during January was spent at the studio, I am working on figures now, I get quite absorbed on them, and it is the only thing I think about. I have been drawing too, and doing some house keeping within the folders of my computer.
No many exhibitions to report, also I have not seen anything remarkably special. I keep going to Matt Roberts help sessions for struggling artists. They are very helpful, and I have met some very nice people there. But I will talk about this other time when my opinion is more formed.
I wanted to comment on one talk I managed to assist last Monday. The talk was deferred from a previous date due to the cold weather, so I am not the only one. The talk was from one of my ex tutors, Ruth Dupre. I quite like her, lifestyle and art practice, I even like the results of her work. She was also an encouraging and positive tutor. So I want to keep in ouch with her, she is interesting...
She has been jumping from painting to ceramics to glass and now she is making movies. It seems from what she said that she is now interested in sound. We have something in common there, also the ceramics.
She started her talk stating that she does not feel obliged to talk about her work as her work is a way of expressing what she thinks, so if on top of that she uses language to define those expressions she will create two or more parallel discourses. I agree with this. After the clarifying introduction she guided us with words and images through her artistic trajectory.
The talk was for me a learning experience, capturing words and ways of describing my own artistic practice. Her attitude is so confident that made me feel reassured on my own ways.
At some point she talked about control. She wants to touch, edit, film, and be the one creator of her art works, no surrogates or slaves to make her will. She explain this as a need for total control. I can relate to that, but there is something else though. I have experience briefly myself the (suppose to be) pleasures of ordering others around, to do my will. I did not like it, it is a boring burden, I would not care, I prefer to do it myself, on my pace, and experience it, because that it is what interest me, to experience the creative process, not the end result. If someone is doing it for me, where is the fun and the discovery journey. I should say I am a very selfish person so you can not ask me for long to give duties to others, is like I have to construct their lives for them...I am more interested in my life...

Nonetheless I am not a power monger. Maybe I will, when old become bored with my life and everything. Maybe I should pity myself, as there are so many power mongers willing to manipulate and give orders around me. Some of their skills and attitudes are necessary to survive in the world. Living is not just creating nice objects or situations. Living is the fight for survival. And I want to live

On pots

Life at the studio has been the most important part of my day to day lately. There is a string of new works coming up and awaiting their turn to be realized. It makes a difference, a great difference for me, to be now mainly working on my magical realism pieces, rather than the functional table ware. I have to admit that time goes by at a very fast pace and I feel more committed to sculpture.
It is not the case that I force myself to make objects for daily use. I need this side of my artistic output to flourish too. It balances me. Besides I like to use them myself. They are special not like the lifeless slip casted clones. They have weight, they are warm, their colors are vibrant, they do not resemble plastic to me but a rock, somehow they make eating or drinking from them more exciting.
Pot making is a good training towards mastering the architecture of forms, in my case it is also where I allow myself to go wild with color and glazes. I let the abstract expressionist in my to come out of the closet. I paint on my pots, I paint with glazes. It is not the same as painting with oils, what you see is not what you get after firing. The firing conditions have also a huge impact on the colors and surface obtained. But all this is part of the special magic of ceramics. It is alchemy, it is making rocks.
My next outpost for selling/exhibiting my functional ware will be the first Saturday of March at the Abney Hall in Stoke Newington Church Street.

runaway dream

I was in a war area last night, was it Cambodia?, was it China? And I had to run away...

I was staying in a house living my life, it seems... As I apply to so many residencies it may be that my dream was fulfilling somehow this aspiration of traveling and working overseas. Also I am very attracted towards South East Asia.

At some point we received the order/ advice to move out of the territory as we are in danger. There is none to protect us and we would be certainly executed if caught. In any case it was quite certain that I will die.
There was an ex boyfriend of mine hanging around, but at that point I realized I have to get rid off him in order to move and save myself. Now that I am going to die I can bare his presence any more... There was also some people from Camberwell who studied with me when I was doing my ceramics degree... I have not seen them since then, long time ago...What are they doing in my dream?

So there is a lot of havoc and people is packing their things and leaving in some direction, towards somewhere.
Someone gives me a bunch of pills in case I want to commit suicide...

I can easily connect that to the Horizon documentary 'Pill poppers' on medicines/drugs that I watched yesterday. How the diabolical pharmaceutical industries transformed medicines into a commodities, getting people hooked to pain killers, anti depressants, cholesterol eating pills, viagra..etc, the funny bit is when a bunch of eighty something is shown researching by themselves for a pill that will kill them peacefully. They are the only ones trying to take control of their own lives.

Back to my dream, I did not take all the pills as I did not wanted to die, I just took one expecting it to give me a high so I could get through the crisis in good spirits, wihout panicking and just having a laugh.
There was almost none left and I was proceeding in a slow pace, but I knew I could not stay in the house. It was quite possible I would have to travel/escape alone and by foot. At some point I focused my attention on this guy from Camberwelll. He was not in my class but we knew each other. Somehow he was delaying himself on leaving the house, I asked him for any suggestions or advice on where to go and how.
At this point in the dream, I am not sure if due to the effect of the pills, I was not scared any more, well, just slightly.
Camberwell boy was vague in his answers. I was a bit afraid of annoying him with my questions , but hey! this was a life/ death situation.
I decided I did not want to be alone running through the jungle, even if I was going to... so I asked him if I could join his group. He says yes, without much excitation, and we left the house. It turns out he had a car... so the trip was not going to be as I was imaging it.
We got in the car, had a look at the maps, discussed about the possible dangers and decided for a route.
As we were driving away my dream or memories of it blurred and I woke up.

things you can see from a bus

Two days ago in a bus, looking through the window, saw this message on a bus stop roof:
'Some things you just can see when sitting on the left side of a double decker bus'

It is no with regularity that I get into buses, I cycle or walk, but when I do I always benefit form the advantage point of view that double decker buses give you if you go to the second floor. I am fascinated by demolition/building sites. If going on a bus I have a better chance of having a good look at them. I am fond of photographing the huge holes for the foundations, the skeleton of the buildings the machines involved, some of them look like dinosaurs devouring the building. it is too suggestive to me. I am still not sure of what to make with all those images of construction and deconstruction. But it is not just the building sites, I like in general to take photographs from the bus. Most times I messed the image because the bus moves or there is a bump, this just adds up to the fun of it.

I have not yet took any photo from the art messages displayed on the rooftops of bus stops. But I am not a collector. So I just look for them and feel grateful to whoever is doing it. Some of them are like wake up calls to us, the people of zombie land. I wonder how many of us see them. Although they may just be some kind of attention seeking device...

Kienholz and Gill, Gaudier Brezska, Epstein shows

Last week I went to the National Gallery. I was in the area and had some time to spare. I like it there so much! all those paintings, I can spend hours walking and staring, dreaming, elaborating. What is it that some paintings have? they can transport me in a journey over memories, ideas, recollections.
But the main reason for my getting into the National Gallery that day was to see an installation from Kienholz: The Hoerengracht

To be honest I did not like it. This was my first contact with his work, I was very curious and excited to have the chance to experience it, so I was a bit disappointed...
The present work at the National Gallery was a reproduction or recreation of a segment of the red district in Amsterdam. The red district used to be inhabited by prostitutes who were offering themselves in the window displays of their workshops. I have not been in Amsterdam yet.
My problem with the work is that it looked in most aspects as pretending to be very accurate, but then there were those loose details, like the hands of the prop/prostitutes, so badly done, like if they were wearing gloves, it did not match the rest of the work. It catched my eye from the beginning but I did not see any point or remark from/to it. Another annoying thing to me was that after going through all the pain/pleasure of making molds from real people, the final figures representing prostitutes looked like mannequins, he could have used mannequins, why not?... There was nothing to it, no art, no interpretation of the chosen subject, or I did not feel it. To me it looked like a cheap reproduction of the red district that could belong more to a low budget theme park...
But I was impressed by the old paintings with the incredible almost science fiction landscapes and backgrounds of impossible cities, and the over the top religious art which is in focus this days at the National Gallery.
My other mission that day was to get to the Royal Academy to see Wild Thing, an exhibition featuring the work of three amazing and very particular sculptors, Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Erik Gill. I was jumping with the excitement as I really like their work, I was going to see Rock Drill... I love their work, but the display of it was so cold...

It is frustrating the way sculpture is exhibited, you are not allowed to touch it. What is the point? Most sculpture depends on the tactile experience, and we are deprived of it

reflections during hibernation

Right, first of all, I wrote not long ago that I felt like writing the chronicles of the end of the world... but, I read this today: ' ...we are not working for the spectacle of the end of the world, but for the end of the world of spectacle' IS n. 3, 1959
Sweet...
I am kind of hibernating this days, after new years bash and with this freezing weather it feels like a sensible thing to do. I am kind of hiding in my room, the house has not central heating so we just warm up our individual rooms... 'We' is not accurate, I have been alone for almost two days, what a record!

To the point, I have been reading, listening to music and just a bit of writing as I was quite lazy ... these activities make me feel quite good and alive... but due to my general lazyness my main occupation has been to watch movies and soaps, non stop... Yep not just good movies, some crap and soaps...They normally sent me to the reign of darkness and depression, almost depression...
Even though, some of the movies kept me thinking afterwards and I got something out of them, I feel really thankful to anything which opens the doors for my brain to start elaborating with ideas. It is not the super well done movies the ones which make me think more, a lot of times is the nonsensical ones, the ones full of ideas, the ones which are imperfect so I keep going on and on around them, obviously I have to be interested in the story line. One good example is the movies from Julio Medem, not all of them are nonsensical juxtapositions of poetry and metaphors, but they all go around themes with which I can relate... I wish to meet him at some point and have a long conversation. One of the last Caotica Ana has have very bad critics and he has been justified due to his recent loos of a beloved relative, his sister... Well... it may be true, but the movie is not more crazy and illogic than previous ones, and who cares about logic, he does not. The movie has his usual themes, life, love, dead, war/violence the will to live against the will for power, and that there is something else not just plain biology ... and he has so much faith in women! in some women and in love, and the creation of our own individual values. I love Medem, even if his characters are just excuses to tell a story, an illogical story...

Another imperfect movie director is Win Wenders. I will summarize, I watched 'Untill the end of the world' from 1991, very long movie... I watched it long time ago and it left a good impression on me. Now years later I wanted to see how the movie would affect me. It was entertaining and I realized why I do like Win Wenders, there is a lot of traveling in his movies, normally. This one is a science fiction movie, it is not such an impressive round cinematic work as Blade runner. It is imperfect, it does not keep a tight rhythm, but that makes me to sympathize and to think about it more, how I would do it or why he did what he did, is open...I keep thinking on bits from the movie... There is in my opinion a critique to our addiction to be spectators of movies TV etc, I may be wrong... At the end of the movie Claire Sam and his father get addicted to watch their dreams on the screen, they isolate themselves from each other and they just watch their individual screens projecting their dreams which they try to perfect in order to watch them again. Claire gets saved by her ex lover, a writter who takes the batteries out from the screen and leaves her with a book of her own story written by himself, very poetic...
So this is why I started to write this blog... I was reading something from Raoul Vaneigem when I started to elaborate about all this, and then I felt like writing. There are movies and movies though... Chaotic, imperfect and poetic Medem makes me think and specially makes me to want to be alive, whatever happens... makes me fall in love with life, again and again