and... we're out.

I set up a Wordpress blog today, fed up with the bugginess of Blogger, and had this weird Big Brother hope/fear that just mentioning that I was going to leave Blogger would alert a Google Intelligence Center where they would fix my inability to upload pictures just to keep me under their wing. But maybe I was too influenced by this Onion report :)

I gave it one last hurrah, and... no, pictures will still not upload here, which is the pits for a visual artist who likes to look at and talk about and share work by other visual artists. So the new apartment has my boxes in stacks along the walls. I am just starting to unpack, hang pictures, get the electric bill in my name. Switch your bookmarks to galabent dot wordpress dot com! Also, the rss feed should be good as gold. Cheers!

movershaker

dad blast it, blogger. you're not uploading images again. babe, i'm gonna leave you.

(to audience):
hang on y'all. this site will remain out here somewhere, but i'm going to work on a seamless transition to wordpress. then maybe those of you who have noted that my rss feed doesn't work over here either will be able to get it chugging.

(mutters to self):
dad BLAST it.

upcoming show! DRWNG: OHGE ltd.

DRWNG

A Brief Look At Contemporary Mark Making

Timothy Cross

Linda Hutchins

Councel Langley

Peter Foucault

Kevin Haas

Scott Kolbo

Gala Bent

August 29th through September 26th

Opening Reception Sat. Aug. 29th 6-9 pm.

OHGE Ltd.
831 Airport Way S. Seattle
(next to Lawrimore Project)

yee-haw, brick and mortar!

{Lisa Berry: Risk}

Half/Dozen Gallery's new home:

Up until now, Half/Dozen was a publication-based project out of Portland, OR, as Tim Mahan, the director, looked for a physical space. My show in August would have been an online exhibition, a catalog, and a limited edition print. All of that would've been great on its own, but it's even better to be able to have a real-space show in Portland!
...

"We are moving into a storefront space this month. We will be located on the edge of The Pearl and Old Town neighborhoods in Portland. Because of the move we are changing our schedule. Gala Bent’s show, which was scheduled for August, will be postponed until October. During the month of August we will be busy moving in and renovating the space for a group show in September, which will feature all of the gallery artists. Check out our blog this month for pictures and updates on the renovations.

In addition to the new space and upcoming shows, you can see a selection of Lisa Berry’s work from This Close That Far at Werner Financial Group this month. At the opening there will be a wine tasting by Jacob Williams Winery.

Opening Reception at Werner Financial Group
Thursday, August 6th from 5-8pm
1129 NW 11th Ave, Portland, OR 97209"

lyrical

Come then, your ways and airs and looks, locks, maiden gear, gallantry and gaiety and grace,
Winning ways, airs innocent, maiden manners, sweet looks, loose locks, long locks,
lovelocks, gaygear, going gallant, girlgrace
-- Resign them, sign them, seal them, send them, motion them with breath,
And with sighs soaring, soaring síghs deliver
Them; beauty-in-the-ghost, deliver it, early now, long before death
Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, beauty's self and beauty's giver.
See; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost; every hair
Is, hair of the head, numbered.

{Gerard Manley Hopkins}

diego stocco: music from a tree

Diego Stocco - Music From A Tree from Diego Stocco on Vimeo.

I'd be sold on this just as a romantic idea, but the song is rad, too.

**

lachrymatory

There's a rich interview with my husband Zack up today at Eyeteeth {parts one and two} about the process and product of his last (and continuing) body of work. Utne Reader picked up on the section about the tear-catcher-- Lachrymatory, shown above-- one of my favorite pieces in Buffalo Trace.

influence tracking #1: permeable membranes

{Betsy Walton}

I took an international film class in college, and that was where, in connection to the Spanish film The Spirit of the Beehive, I was first introduced to the phrase "Magic Realism." This form lets the divisions between real and imaginary, corporal and spiritual, magical and rational, loosen and almost disappear. This is very different from much of Western storytelling, where ghosts only appear in spooky stories and dreams are preceded by wavy lines to let you know that you've passed into another world. I latched onto the idea of Magic Realism right away. Perhaps it was because, especially in youth, the membrane between sleep and waking was very unclear for me. I've had blue-white fish jump in front of my face in my bedroom, have had old hags taunt me just outside of my sight. I've had dreams come true, and other dreams that have stuck with me for days and weeks and years at a time, like wisps of smoke around my head.

In visual (static, vs. filmic or performance) art, this attraction plays itself out in several ways.
Acknowledgment of a spiritual world alongside what is usually seen... where angels tread the same physical ground as mortals:

{A 15th-century icon of the Nativity of Christ, of the Novgorod school; Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.}

...where heads and arms multiply:

{painter unknown... found here.}

...where people perform otherworldy tricks and flips:

{Marc Chagall Birthday, 1915. Oil on cardboard, 31 3/4 x 39 1/4" (80.6 x 99.7 cm) Museum of Modern Art}

...and one thing gracefully becomes another:

{Shahzia Sikander To Ride 2004 Ink and gouache on paper}

{Counter Reformation: Edward del Rosario}

{Tim Hawkinson Scout}

{Hieronymous Bosch}

well i never

Long-time favorite Louise Bourgeois did this drawing (that I haven't seen until today) in the 40s. See this drawing of mine (et al). Sigh. There is no new thing under the sun. But it is fun to remix what is here. That's really all we are... remixers with unique perspectives (or so Mr. Rogers told me-- there is no one like you in all the world). I've been having a conversation on Facebook that makes me want to trace my artistic genealogy. It borders on self-indulgent, but I'd like to do it here on la blog. Coming soon... installments of art-families that have influenced and continue to influence me. I'm going to stick with big names; even though many many friends and teachers have influenced me, I don't want to leave anyone out or do any strange second guessing.

blog book?

make it last.
(can't decide if I would like having this around in paper form or not.)

if i could be two places at once

My opening for the SAM Gallery show is Thursday, which I'm excited about, but boy am I bummed to miss Mandy Greer's culminating installation (with performance by Zoe Scofield) of Mater Matrix Mother and Medium. Wish I could split myself in two in order to be down by the pond at Camp Long. Ah well. I'll have to rely on eye witnesses. The image above is from Mandy's blog, and the link has more info.

wish list

{^ Communion by Robert Hardgrave ^}

The Wish to be Generous
{Wendell Berry}

ALL that I serve will die, all my delights,
the flesh kindled from my flesh, garden and field,
the silent lilies standing in the woods,
the woods, the hill, the whole earth, all
will burn in man's evil, or dwindle
in its own age. Let the world bring on me
the sleep of darkness without stars, so I may know
my little light taken from me into the seed
of the beginning and the end, so I may bow
to mystery, and take my stand on the earth
like a tree in a field, passing without haste
or regret toward what will be, my life
a patient willing descent into the grass.

***********************************

I'm surely not the most well-read in art theory, and though I always have intentions of reading serious philosophy that grapples with Art-- the True, the Beautiful, Simulacra and Simulation-- I have lost focus time and again while struggling to navigate a stream that reaches as far back into time as writing itself. I admire those who have a handle on it. But I have been a maker for some time now, and a teacher, and have been in countless conversations about the purpose of art, the ancient and recent history of art institutions, shifting standards for excellence. My post about activist art has me back in the mind of it.

Words serve endless purposes, which we understand readily. Some words instruct, others warn, some form poems and others tell stories. The words we use every day have a wide range of emphasis and importance. They are tools for delivering meaning of every sort. Such is the case with images which act as visual language. The functions are as wide-ranging, and the success of an image has to be judged according to its context. So the question is: what do you want to say? It doesn't even have to be something you can reiterate in speech, but something that can only really be said in a way other than words.

I've painted ice cream cones and portraits and murals, have lettered signs and drawn maps and filled ridiculous acres of notebook margins with doodles. I've illustrated and designed for record labels and harpists and coffee shops and string quartets. But the work that I respond to most deeply, and that I aspire to make, puts form to something that has been sensed or felt, but not yet seen. While I really do admire the intentions of an artist who makes work to instruct people politically, socially, even spiritually, I have next to no desire to fashion work after that purpose. I like best when visual language is used as a philosophical tool-- to investigate realities and perceptions of the universe as seen through human eyes. And I love when beauty joins hands with tragedy, somehow... so that the result is more true than pretty. I like when absurdity is used well-- when a laugh is the most honest response. And I also like seeing something that at first appears ugly or malformed, but which slowly grows on you until it seems more beautiful than anything else.

Perhaps the best verbal parallel of the work I most want to make is certain types of poetry. Poems like the Wendell Berry one above encapsulate a metaphysical straining. They hint at a narrative-- a protagonist-- without needing a full arc of story. There are as many bad poems as bad paintings in the world, but when a good one hits, it hits hard.

bite sized

MTV, I have to admit, was once the pinnacle of contemporary art culture for me--as a junior high/ high school girl in the suburban Midwest especially. But can you blame me, when you glance at these logo riffs? (Compiled at notcot... click on image to see closer up) Almost everyone my age that I talk to laments the Real-World-ing of MTV, after having grown up with the music video-centric version. And there really *were* some fantastic short films and animations that were born out of this medium. When musicians team up with strong visual artists and film-makers, we get the gratification of synesthetic pleasure! All within a bite sized time frame! Of course, the music video is still alive--mostly through youtube, vimeo, and other web-based sharing--but here are a handful of the most memorable TV delivered videos for me:

Owner of a Lonely Heart: Yes This video always captured my attention-- so eerie, and such a good match with the song. I actually associate this even more with "Friday Night Videos."

Sledgehammer: Peter Gabriel (of course) directed by Stephen R. Johnson, in collaboration with Aardman Animation (known later for Wallace and Gromit) and the Brothers Quay, who did another, very 120 minutes, favorite of mine:

Are We Still Married? His Name is Alive

So Whatcha Want: Beastie Boys This is not a work of film genius, but it's very memorable because I literally saw it, jumped in the car and bought "Check Your Head." How's that for marketing success?

Human Behavior: Bjork (below) was directed by Michel Gondry, who also directed Bjork's video, Army of Me... and films Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind... The Science of Sleep... etc.


P.S. Two things sabotage this list. One is that after linking to a "small handful" my mind is flooded with other examples. The other is that youtube videos can be such low quality that the pieces aren't very readable. Oh well... maybe worth a little shot of nostalgia anyway.

next show!

Summer Introductions: Seattle Art Museum Gallery

Opening: Thursday, July 16th, 5-7pm

Our annual Summer Introductions show features eight artists who are new to SAM Gallery. This summer's artists are Gala Bent, Mary Margaret Briggs, Andrée B. Carter, Garek J. Druss, Grant Hottle, Jason Larsen, Andrea Schwartz-Feit and Liz Tran.

Hours: Tuesday through Friday 10:30 am to 5 pm

Located east of the Seattle Art Museum at Third Avenue and University Street in downtown Seattle.

artists setting sail on seas of trash

(image: Brooklyn artist Swoon floats into the Venice Biennale uninvited on a ship of NYC trash)

A small version of myself one day heard-- at school? on television?--about the problem of trash-- extensive landfills, toxic waste, plastic islands. This version of myself was grief stricken, panicked. She sat wide-eyed in bed trying to come up with a solution to our world's throw-away problem. She winced anytime she had to toss something in the trash, because she knew it wouldn't just go away, as she had once thought. Since that time, the many troubles of the earth's balancing act in response to humans' ridiculous tendency toward imbalance have remained a central concern in my life. (Even prehistoric farmers over-farmed!)

Of course, as an artist, this preoccupation often slips into my work either as part of a loose narrative or as an admiration of the patterned interconnectedness of nature (the whole series Solving for Pattern is named for environmentalist/poet Wendel Berry's call to more deeply understand the patterns of ecology in solving environmental problems, e.g.). I avoid taking up any deeply felt cause as a guiding force in making a piece of art, however. Perhaps it's because I'm not convinced that art is the strongest voice for persuading or converting in a direct way. Perhaps I've seen too many bad examples of art that pleads for change. I tend to agree with a comment I read on a different blog posted by Jim Bovino: "When artists allow their politics to guide their creative choices it normally results in ham-fisted gestures and flaccid aesthetics." But are there exceptions to this tendency?

There are artists who deal directly with the modern trash dilemma. At a recent Society for Photographic Educators conference that I tagged along to, Edward Burtynsky spoke, and showed a career's worth of photographs documenting the vast effects of human consumption on the land and sea (Burtynsky is usually associated with his ship-breaking images, which are incredible, but click on Urban Mines on his site for even more of a direct connection to this post). While his photographs are stunning, they strike me as more documentary than anything. Chris Jordan's work, because of its clever mathematical or pictorial reorganization, carries a few more angles, but still serves relatively simply as aestheticized mental models for contemplating mass (curious about his event at Western Bridge on June 29th-- did anyone go?).

I know my requirements for art are idiosyncratic, and that there are as many functions for pictures as there are for words, but in a fine art context, I look for complexity, mystery, conundrum, ineffability. I look for a mental world with some swimming room. Swoon's prankster act at the Venice Biennial (pictured above) does more for me on this front. From the New York Magazine article:

Swoon and her group are emissaries from a specific underground culture: the bike-riding, Dumpster-diving, anarchist street-art movement that has flourished in Bushwick, Greenpoint, and areas near the Gowanus Canal over the past decade [...] For them, scrounging is a kind of religion, and the boats are an embodiment of that aesthetic. They’re not interested in expensive green technologies or recycling programs—the point is reuse, to breathe new life into the city’s detritus and build a new, separate world from those remains. “We’re not perfect,” Swoon says. “How much jet fuel was used to fly all of us here? But we’re not going to let being imperfect stop us. If you are too rigid in your ethics, you undo positive action.”

The life-as-art approach is age-old, but in the context of consumption and waste, this band of rebels leads by example. There's also something very Mad Max about the effect, becoming a picture of the global profligation and unconscious exchange of trash on every level. And then there are these unexpectedly hopeful observations on the human condition embedded in the work as well: “You start to build something like these boats, and you can’t believe it yourself, but enthusiasm has a way of sparking other people,” [Swoon] says. “What this project has shown me is that there is no place for pessimistic disbelief in the world; it’s just not useful. Once you’ve decided to be on the side of audacious wonder, beauty, and joy, you can’t go back.”

A useful tool, this wonder, when faced with information like this:


When I saw this last night, all of my childhood dreads and devotion came rushing back. I looked around at my plastic-y environment with awe. How pervasive this stuff is! I resolved to emphasize the Reduce and Reuse side of the RRR mantra, without relying as much on Recycling. Even if the problems are planet-sized, small steps en masse become large ones. (If you're in Seattle, here's an easy one-- vote in August!)

As for the questions raised about art exacting change, the jury's still out for me, and the discussion is likely to continue... I'm using this space to think out loud.

body fluency

Debra Baxter
Palate Cleanse (big dumb heart)
Alabaster, steel
24 x 8 x 7 in
2009

There's a streak in art that I'm sure has been explored deeply by many (if you have names, lemme at 'em), but that I find I'm always referencing. I'm very often drawn to artists who deal with the human body as the central metaphor. I want to call it something fancy like Corporal Proclivity or something. Body Fluency. And this is funny because the phenomenon is essentially non-verbal. It's related in some way to the impulse to dance, to create physical theater or performance, even to gesture with your own body and face, in order to communicate something beyond words. And the body itself is only another vehicle for accessing things less corporeal.

Seeing Debra Baxter's show at Howard House sparked these sensations in me, several times, even in the unusual Seattle heat of the evening, even with a sweaty baby strapped to my chest, even at an art opening, for goodness sake (I marvel at the cursory glancing done at openings, compared to the attention we're able to give art in less social settings, but still enjoy the energy of those nights). Maybe it's because I was in the setting of an art opening, where tongues wag and wander, and we spill out weird small talk in between observations and catching-up, but the tongue pieces spoke especially loudly--and ironically--about being at a loss for words... about wanting to start over-- peel it back, cut it off!-- in a mixture of desperation and hope. All this to say, Debra's work, which I've liked ever since I was a new transplant trawling the internet for interesting work in Seattle, is especially powerful in person. While not all of her work is body-related, much of it resonates with either a muscular physicality or the ephemeral and delicate constant of breathing. (For those in Seattle who haven't seen this show-- my write-up is very late-- the show is only up for two more days!)

Dust Mask (Catching My Breath)
Alabaster, sterling silver
5 x 4 x 2.5 in
2009


Time Out
Glass, sand, sterling silver, african wonder stone
14 x 13 x 10 in
2009

On the subject of the body speaking, I just returned from an engaging and exciting work-in-progress viewing of Jillia Pessenda's Force Feed (v. 1) at the Henry Art Gallery's Open Floor series. The bodies of Jillia and partner Jim Bovino were buried, rolled, hidden and interrupted by a shopping cart, an enormous rug, a garden hose, a vacuum cleaner and plastic detritus as they struggled through a domestic relationship built of poetic gasps and quotidian lists that seemed to spin off of each character into the void. I found myself covered in persistent goosebumps several times, especially in response to the more physical representations of the relationship that was being portrayed. I can't wait to see the extended version-- my main critique is that it was too short!

hungry and fearless and thirsty and supple

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

{e. e. cummings}

{drawings: aleksandra kopff}

i'm so glad i saw this

Life with a newborn and two active older brothers dictates that my "alone time" means trips out with said newborn, who is still very dependent on me (a revisit to Dr. Sears' Baby Book reminds me of the transition that this little guy is making-- from womb, where all needs are met without communication, to this wide world where his needs are met only by learning to give cues. What a leap! Newborns have to do a version of talking from the moment of birth...) The other day, on one of these escape trips to Ballard, I was so excited that I caught Supramundane at Ambach and Rice a mere few hours before its disassembly. I went mostly because I wanted to see Robyn O'Neil's drawings in person, and those were fantastic. But it was Whiting Tennis' Coulda-shoulda-woulda that really moved me.



This grid of sculptures, each about the height of a hand span, were a materialization of synthetic thought...quiet connections between abstracted forms and figures and architecture grouped into a believable family of structures that read like scale models of temples-for-one. The single readymade component-- a metal garden spray head-- along with the humble piece of paper that had been crumpled into a cone to echo the forms of its other, more constructed counterparts, were category-challenging, and produced a delightful variation on the theme. A quieter message comes through these misfits that fit so well. It seems to me to be the sculptor's acknowledgment of the relative power of modest objects that can, when selected and displayed, add an important piece to the dialogue between his more-labored experiments. There's a humility in that, I think, and it shows in Tennis' interview, in which he describes his deep connection to inert objects:



I like this review of another of Tennis' shows as well...

phantasma

Edward del Rosario

Zack came across this review that plays up some of the more monster-like aspects of Overgrown. I find it fascinating, this take, since the creatures, if they have any conscious symbolic content in my mind, are about the unknown, the unclassifiable, which is, indeed, frightening sometimes. It reminds me of this perverse fear-giddiness I get when I can't tell if a head in the back seat of someone's car is a dog or person.

newness and freshness

^image: by the illustrious Jen Corace^

I've updated my website to make room for some of the work in Overgrown that was shown at 4culture in April.

And, over at Asthmatic Kitty Records, I've posted a new art (review? not really...) meandering thought chain. I'd been thinking about things I'd recently read about bibliovores (people who literally eat books) and the phenomenon of relics (both sacred and profane), when I saw work by Laura Mackin, who is showing in the gallery/project Half/Dozen where I'll be having work this August. And it all kind of knit itself together into a post about proximity and the idea of objects being infused with some sort of power through being touched by famous or holy people. And the flip side of that-- which I feel is present in Mackin's work-- ignoring the associations that history stains an object with, and trying to make stuff just stuff.

Here at home on week three of three sons? In turn: exhausted, grateful, teary, aimless, amazed, amused, claustrophobic, overwhelmed, poetic, despairing, touched, confused, panicked, comatose, adoring...

i want to make drawings that feel like this music

{The video itself is not much to look at. Close your eyes for full effect, or surf around with the music in the background. Also works best in a quiet room, since it gets hectic and can be the wrong sort of thing to compete with other noises. Now my listening instructions are complete. Ha!}

psst

eyeteeth

tabula rasa

First things first! Caspar Robert Bent made his way into the world on a gorgeous Seattle spring morning (May 9th). Just like his brothers before him, he spared no time making his entrance. At 3:30am, I looked out the window at the full moon in a clear sky, and thought, "I think I'm in labor." Got down on my knees in the quiet dark living room with a full heart and head (and belly!), and it was less than 6 hours later that I was holding little Caspar, long fingers, long toes, serious expression, reddish-blonde hair. It should be said that we didn't know he was Caspar until the next afternoon. We had a short list of names that we wrestled with, trying them on this new creature like temporary tattoos, until settling on this name from nativity folklore. It's a variation on a name given to be one of the Magi-- a king who is also humble enough to be a seeker and gift-giver.

At five days old, Caspar has proven to be a pretty mellow baby, though persistent when hungry and clear about his dislike for diaper changes. But the little guy smiles! A lot! This is somewhat new in my experience of newborns, who always fool you with their serious demeanor before breaking into grins at about three-four weeks. He even laughed in a half asleep state last night. So I hope this bodes well for his entry into a lively lively world of two older brothers.

I don't know that much about symphonic music, but my father and his family are literate in classical music, so I get trickles of knowledge. It's almost like having a parent that speaks a mother tongue, and growing up without learning much more than basic greetings and a handful of nouns. I picked up some favorites along the way, mostly as a result of me asking my father at least three or five times about the same piece of music that would strike my fancy (he did the same thing with us kids and our music-- he must've asked seven times about Nick Drake). One of the composers that has stuck with me is Arvo Pärt. This morning, I listened to Pärt's Tabula Rasa, mostly because I had the phrase in my head. It means "blank slate," and is most often used as one side of the nurture-nature debate. In other words, do people start as blank slates or are they predisposed, predestined, to be a certain person? As a mother of now three, I can attest to the ridiculousness of this notion, at least in an extreme. You cannot help but notice obvious differences in children from the moment that they are born-- in fact, even pre-birth movement in the womb is different. But there is a sense of a clean slate, in many ways. A child comes into the world with all sensors pitched to collect and process, and the extraordinary amount of receiving and building of the brain within the first year is staggering.


In any case, reading a little bit about Pärt this morning was fun (just so you know-- babe sleeps, eldest at preschool, middle child at store with dad, so I've had some nice quiet time). An interesting quote on his creative process (taken from this biography):

"To write I must prepare myself for a long time.
Sometimes it takes five years,
And then I come up with many pieces
In a very short time."

Fratres, Cantus in memory of Benjamin Britten, [and] Tabula Rasa came out of Arvo Pärt's creative silence in the years 1974 to 1976.

catching up with inka

Inka Essenhigh
(American, born 1970).
Deluge, 1998
Oil enamel on canvas, 72 x 72" (182.9 x 182.9 cm.).
Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
Sarah Norton Goodyear Fund, 1998.

I think the first time I saw an Inka Essenhigh painting was in Buffalo's Albright Knox Art Gallery, when I was going to graduate school (Deluge-- above image). It was one more inlet of inspiration along the illustrative, pop-street style that I was flirting with cautiously, after having studied under painting teachers who were largely under the influence of the tail end of Modernism... who nearly gagged on their tongues when something got too decorative or narrative. I enjoyed the way Essenhigh seemed to capitalize on the recognizable structure of confident animation lines-- as if she'd whipped up a Disney film hallucinogenically into a rubbery storm of almost-characters.

Supergod 2004, oil and enamel on canvas-- Saatchi

In 2004, she was still stretching and morphing in this general direction. So it's with a bit of surprise that I have just encountered Essenhigh's more recent bodies of work, which are more influenced, it seems, by John Currin or Lisa Yuskavage than Disney (though less obviously sexual in nature than either of these artists of pornographic exaggeration). I can even see links to post-surrealist painters like John Wilde. Essenhigh's still warping off of an ideal, but now everything's gone soft and wickedly smiley, seasonal and almost pastoral, but not without an eerie light that forbids you to become too comfortable inside the swooping creamy lines.


Setting Sun
2005
oil on canvas

The work feels like it has moved more toward what, in Seattle, might be best suited for a venue like Roq La Rue, alongside artists like Travis Louie, or Marion Peck. And this is a full-circle, I suppose, since I am still a border-sitter in my interest between the contemporary art sanctioned by a sort of current academic ideal and that world of highly-polished illustrative imagination (among other camps).

I'm still not entirely sold on this new approach for Essenhigh, but fascinated to see an artist with an established name break with the form that put her on the map.

mythos

A strikingly poetic post as my 4culture show draws to a close from Regina Hackett of the very recently un-papered paper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, on her new blog Another Bouncing Ball. And for those of you who may have been bounced here by her link, my website proper is galabent.com. Cheers!

Tomorrow, Zack and I do a little tango, so that his show can go up in the same space. This Thursday, Buffalo Trace opens (the link will connect to my info now, but will soon switch to his).

In the midst of all of this, I enter my 39th week of pregnancy, feeling expectant and mostly relaxed, but sheepishly asking the fellow to wait until after Thursday to join us in the air breathing world.

post script

Case in point: From the time of my post a few minutes ago, I ran across this artist: Danielle Rante, who is showing with an old classmate of mine at Mt. Comfort in Indianapolis. And my heart says, yes yes! And my hands itch and my pencil twitches! And the edible tactility of paper remembers itself to my imagination.

why we fight (for it)

{image: Yayoi Kusama, from here.}

A conversation that my husband Zack and I had a while ago comes back to me all the time when we are navigating the waters of being artists at this time in history. Actually, we've had many versions of this conversation. We agree that success for its own sake is an old awful human foil, and press one another to answer why we do it otherwise. Why do we forsake other sorts of stability or respectability in favor of this often-absurd practice? For me, it comes down to a few lodestar reasons. One is that my life has been moved and touched, shaken and cleaved, made more vibrant and meaningful, by the work of other artists in every medium. A simple formula, really, but something that helps me realign the compass when engaging in this self-directed, ambiguously-shaped "job." Imagine your life without the music, films and books that have hedged it. The word inspire has been overused, but when I think of its etymology (as I have before on this blog) I love the image of being breathed into. The most fitting response has always been to exhale.

the earth breathing

{above: Childe Hassam "The Goldfish Bowl"-- this painting is a tad too prettily ideal to fall into the middle of my taste, but I've always loved that light-filled orb and the sense of the open window letting in the smell of new spring. It reminds me of the cover of Sue Monk Kidd's "The Secret Life of Bees," a novel I wanted to like, maybe more than I actually did, because I loved the painting of the honey jar.}

Thank you Shawna, for being a more savvy googler. And, in Seattle today, where the yellow-green leaves are swaying against a blue whose name is fresh, this poem is even more potent:

This fevers me, this sun on green,

On grass glowing, this young spring.

The secret hallowing is come,

Regenerate sudden incarnation,

Mystery made visible

In growth, yet subtly veiled in all,

Understandable in grass,

In flowers, and in the human heart,

This lyric mortal loveliness,

The earth breathing, and the sun.

(From "A Bravery of Earth" by Richard Ghormley Eberhart)

the fever

I'm having the strangest thing happen... I have a clip of poem in my head today, and I don't know if it's memorized, or if I wrote it years ago. I've googled the portions I remember, and nothing's coming up. I actually thought it was an e.e. cummings phrase, which would be easy to find, I'm sure. Anyway-- has anyone heard anything like this? ...because now it's gonna drive me nuts:

It fevers me, this sun on green, this *** *** ***, this newborn Spring.

The stars are not curses, or as far as I can remember, they're not... just three syllables I can't recall. And that part drives me nuts, too. I'm 80% leaning the direction that I didn't write it.

art appreciation

It's been a joy working sporadically with Asthmatic Kitty Records over the last few years. The whole lot of them that we've had the pleasure to know are simply good people, with clear vision and derring-do. They've just posted a kind news item about "Overgrown," to which I say thank you, and thank you.

The images above have nothing to do with me or AK... they're Alison Saar sculptures. I suppose I could form another post, but they're pretty eloquent on their own. All I will say is that I haven't seen her work for a while, and am excited about the newer work. She seems to be resonant with one of my favorite artists, Kiki Smith, but has her own voodoo-feeling spin.