hello sweet friends! I am back from a true break โ truly the first time I have taken an actual break (without sneaking a little work moment in between) in years? ever? Perpetuating the bullshit of โbusyness = inherent goodโ isnโt something I am logically cool with but somatically โ resting โ feels ass awful. But but but a lot of work and trust and releasing of the steering wheel and letting go and letting god-spirit-universe etc.
I am continuing my summer sabbatical until Sept 4th. My only rule is no free work (sorry to zuck and his content machines!) and no new clients. It has been a lot of trusting the process and the process is feeling โ good actually.
The only pull to work while offline was writing but I donโt think pulling out my phone to write 1000 words is going to be something I stop anytime soon. The constant pulling apart of what is work what is art what is me is not a puzzle I am interested in ever โsolvingโ but instead working to just take stock of.
My big summer project, and the reason (among many) for my sabbatical is to finish writing (start? keep going?) a book of essays. Through the summer I will be releasing parts of my Paris essays, 1000 words of summer essays and the first, second, third drafts of essays I have had in my back pockets for years to paid subscribers. It has felt so cozy and safe to be able to put these out into the world, but in a way that is a little more tender that just blasting them into the void.
And as much as I love being an artist living in a time where I can just hit send, I am also an artist living in a time where anyone can become my patron. ๐คธโโ๏ธ
The benches of Centre Pompidouย
Sitting in a museum bench in Paris France as the Joni Mitchell song (almost)goes. It feels almost goofy to be a writer moved by the city of Paris but I think if I were trying to avoid all cliches of being an artist I would 1. Have stopped years ago 2. Give up my constant screen shotting and texting my friends โMEโ โ every moment Carrie Bradshaw stands looking out over her desk pantless, smoking a cigarette she promises will be her last with fingers hovering over her keyboard. My particular brand of neuro-divergence makes me excellent at pattern recognition.
I see the cliche, learn the rhythm and work to break it.
I couldnโt help but wonder, is being an artist noticing the patternโฆ only to interrupt it?
To mull over art and itโs relevance to the world as it is now is something all creatives are constantly pushing against.
The voice of โyes yes its worth itโ gets turned down each time the gallery gets a little to crowded. The battle of art is self expression vs art is to be consumed has a clear winner after having your ticket scanned for the third time and your tote bag searched for pointy objects that could puncher the painting that could really hurt someones bottom line this quarter.
I hesitate to make any kind of remark about the people pulling out their phones to document the Karel Appel paintings that a quick google search tells me are abundantly well documented online โ while I feel in the same moment the need to pull out my phone and complain about it on the pine benches of gallery C.
Art is an interruption of a pattern. The beat of our agreed social niceties is our rhythm. Hi hello how are you, make eye contact, order the coffee, donโt talk about the day you learned your mother was a fallible human being, ask how someone else is, leave the room unscathed. The pebble in the road is art. The moment the soles of our feet sense unfamiliar ground. Breaks freeze, rivers squeak. A new pattern emerges.
The popular opinion to have in a modern art museum is the provocation of any feeling at all is succesful art. Success prompts a response good or bad. Du champ is hailed as the king and a new pattern of disgust and anger emerges. The popular opinion becomes urinals. Art is to be consumed and thought of on the surface, not to leave us unchanged, moved or altered, but to have the right opinion of the collective. Something that you can fit inside your mouth like a crumpled piece of paper.
I maintain the success of my art is none of my business. The feeling sparked inside anyone isnโt mine to control for, any longer. But my French isnโt articulate enough to explain that to the 2nd Grade field trip of French children holding hands through the un-air-conditioned gallery.
The simplicity of the wood cut prints strikes me in a way that greaves first year university Phoebe who stood in printmaking critiques ready to defend the medium we were all assigned but had to justify our creations to the class like it was a new thought.
Another successful piece of art to consume.
I wonder about the ease of simply wanting to reproduce art over and over and over and over. I roll over if art can be desired or wanted or laboured over or valued in the land where I can hit cmnd P and distribute my own black and white images. Production isnโt just fast, its instant. To make something slowly is to make a statement about pace. About production. Instead of possibly just wanting to enjoy the journey there.ย All we do now must be a comment on the work before us. The grooves of the pattern are carved deeper. To create or to express is to be ready for consumption.
I look at the paintings I memorized didactic panels for exams and stunned by their smallness. Not the smallness of their size but the impact and emotions I feel. Is it always better in person?ย If the intention of sharing is present while taking the photo are we now also altering the reality in which we are consuming. Impacting the present moment we claim to capturing. I wonder if the real thing is always better.
The 2nd Grade french children found Brancusi's studio replicated in its perfect messyness behind a glass wall. I want to tell them about how we only want the cool artists stuff, and not the cool artists themselves so they donโt have to learn that lesson for themselves. I think of how french it is to have my existential spiral be the thing that stops me from interrupting the pattern of being a patron of the arts.
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