Art and Divinity: Some Thoughts During My Astoria Visual Arts Residency.
I’ve been making art for the last ten + years. For a good portion of that I have been asking myself why it is that I feel such a strong pull to creating art? Why is it that it is the one habit I cannot seem to just let go of? I am contemplating the truths of these questions during my latest residency. I am just two weeks into my latest residency at Astoria Visual Arts. My studio is the sweetest space and it overlooks the city library and city hall.
There is something really special about the space. It seems as though it is its own creative nexus. A vortex of creative energy that I haven’t experienced or felt since my first time creating artwork at Sou’wester. That energy is imperative if I am to accomplish my three primary goals…
1) Create new work for my upcoming solo show at Providence Community Gallery titled Signs and Synchronicities. This work uses gold leaf to document the flight patterns of seabirds and contemplates the idea that birds are human beings connection with the Divine.
2) Create a second body of work for my (also) upcoming solo show at Ford Gallery titled, Chasing Jessie Applegate. This work is a documentation of 12 womens stories in 8 generations of my family. It is about inter generational trauma, strength and resilience.
3) Give my self the time and space to experience growth in my own work and within my own self.
The first two goals are hearty, goals that will only be accomplished by sheer will and grit. I am thankful for a grant awarded to me by RACC and the ability to create a body of work that if done correctly can as they say heal seven generations before and seven generations after.
The third goal is not something I can schedule or plan for, rather it is the experience of being in your studio looking at your self and your work as honestly and wholy as possible. The third goal is the goal I seem to be starting with. I am going through a bit of an identity crisis or maybe a re-identity crisis. Maybe its that show Russian Doll that started this all by planting tiny little seeds that grew into middle of the night mammoth wormholes. Those wormholes have been asking me to look at all of the versions of myself that have come before and to consider all of the versions of myself that will come after. Like the layers of a photoshop document I seek to combine all the layers into one full layer without leaving versions of myself behind.
Through this microscope I have come to one very important realization. The realization as I work towards personal work and artistic work meant to bring me closer to the divine both within myself and outside myself, is that art doesn’t have to be good to be divine. It only has to be honest and true. It has to come from our tiniest voices rising strong within us. I’d say i’m moving quickly towards succeeding in my goals.
Patchouli Enjoying the View
