The Live in Public
by Tammy Parks
I am sorry that I will miss talking to you all on teh 15th. I have a wedding that evening (a reception at least) I really enjoyed talking to the group on the 18th in a small intimate session. I thought I woul post some of the things I was inspired to add in my last packet as I was talking to Ruth and see if any of you all felt the same way or different. A few things just jumped out at me.
The introduction warns artists against the “white lady syndrome” (7) or what Devora Neumark calls “trying to rescue instead of involving participants.” As I discussed in the last packet, I too find missionaries and mediocrities to be very destructive to the community. Also the reader is reminded that a community is not a static entity. “It is, rather, a phenomenon, existing in a specific site and often summoned into being at the appropriate moment.” (8) I think that this definition is too simplistic, though, and ignores the tradition, culture, storytelling and caretaking that build community. This “summoning into being” sounds a bit like mystical jargon to me. I must remember that the community, in terms of its historical embodiment, existed before me. Martha Morena describes the artist’s role to be “a part of community; to help that community articulate its sacredness, not only for its particular group, but to share with others.” (11) I am not sure what to do with the word sacred in this sentence because this word holds a great deal of baggage for me. In my town, sacred means Christian. I prefer the word hallowed, as in valued, respected and adored, which seems to be more inclusive of secular ideas and expression.
All of the authors of the essays in this book might differ in the methods and techniques of practicing socially engaged art but they would agree on one thing: that “communities benefit from having a connection with artists and deepening their connection to their own creativity and their own voices.” (14) With this understanding in mind, I address those essays that I find most interesting due to my agreement with their ideas or the discord that rings out when I read them.
Paula Jardine’s Celebrating Spirit: The Role of Celebration Arts:
Jardine says that “By taking over and transforming public spaces, we reclaim human space and bind community, building connections and empowering people to address other issues that affect the life of the community. By repeating the event, it becomes part of the community calendar and social fabric.” (24) Perhaps this is the effect of ritual that Lucy Lippard is talking about in Overlay. I think that repetition of a community event year after year reveals the deep commitment of the participants while allowing the phenomenon to evolve as the participants grow older or change. By “creating space with intention,” (27) we transform a public space into a public place where we can bridge our differences as we highlight what we have in common. The work is the result of collective participation, but the citizen artist is important because (s)he brings an overall vision to the event to ensure unity and completion. Jardine believes that community based celebrations are vital to each locale because they allow us to maintain “our link with metaphor and beauty by questioning, inspiring and re-inventing our customs and traditions, we reinforce culture as a living entity.” (28) I see how the story of the place is told again, an important act of remembering.
Devora Neumark’s How at Home Are We Really?: Diversity and Dwelling in Canada’s Multicultural Landscape:
Neumark identifies a huge paradox in the societal policy of the federal government’s platform, found in Canada’s Heritage report, in which it outlines how it wants “multicultural assimilation and the maintenance of cultural differences.” (41). What tricky terrain this is to travel. I have encountered this tension before when I was studying Spanish at the University of Southern Mississippi. As hyphenated Americans, many people struggle to maintain a sense of tradition to their heritage while integrating into the American mainstream of language, dress and entertainment. How are we to be the same yet different? How are we to be different yet the same? How do artists respond ethically to this scenario, avoiding stereotypes and other simplistic interpretations of cultural identity and values?
I find Tania Willard’s poster called “Walls Turned on Their Sides Are Bridges” to be a simple, beautiful and masterful piece. (42) This is a perfect example of the power of metaphor at work. Quietly, the artist takes an image, the border between the US and Mexico and turns the wall on its side and transforms the wall into a bridge. The simple visual twist is compelling and persuasive.
Irwin Oostindie’s Uncomfortable Choices: Inside the World’s Most Liveable City:
“Participating arts projects become activities to occupy people’s leisure time and break through the isolation endemic in consumer culture.” (61) Barbara Kruger got it right when she created her “I Shop Therefore I am” piece. She has identified a contemporary cause of alienation, isolation and introversion as we become a culture of consumption.
Under modern trends of public art sponsorship or urban and rural revitalization programs, Oostindie writes that art has been “pushed to collaborate with business improvement associations, municipal departments, schools and libraries—as low wage accessories to civic institutions.” (67) As someone who has based their practicum around improving the aesthetics and atmosphere of the school I teach in, I am sensitive to these kinds of proclamations. Our murals are not accessories, in fact, they are the visual highlights of the building, and, yes, I chafe at the low wage aspect of this work, but I know how to get it done anyway.
Oostindie warns that “programs and initiatives that make the areas more attractive for investors make it less affordable for residents.” (69) It is tragic to watch revitalization programs ultimately result in the exile and expulsion of the very people they were trying to help. I am sure that many capitalists would cringe when I say that I would like to see legislation enacted along with revitalization programs to regulate rents to prevent this from happening in the future.
Glenn Alteen’s Dystopian Realities: The New Art Activism:
I commend the efforts of Action Terroriste Socialment Acceptable (ATSA) in Montreal who each year sponsor a five day festival called “State of Emergency” to bring homeless people from across the city with “performances, activism, intervention, dry clothing, and hot food.” (76) They should be commended and helped financially as they challenge society’s attempt to keep the homeless invisible. Annie Roy, a co-creator of the organization and event, intimates that hope is “the point of the event.” (78) They do not base their success on the qualitative progress or change they can assess. They hope that they can change attitudes, but this happens “only one person at a time.” (80) It is too bad that grants can’t be based on hope, determination and good intentions instead of numbers.
Maria Hupfield’s Aboriginal Art Practice from Quillboxes and Kitchens to Totem Poles:
I had an epiphany as the author talked about an aboriginal community based program called the Common Weal Project in Regina. The official name of Virginia includes the term Commonwealth, and I saw the potential name for my community based program/project—the Appalachian Common Weal of the Arts. Common Weal is an earlier expression of English refering to the life and health of the whole. I saw many connections with the principles of Hupfield’s aboriginal cultural community development programs and what I am interested in starting in my town. “There is a tradition in urban Aboriginal organizations of supporting the arts by supporting artists through the purchase of artwork.” (88) In my Heads Above the Rest project, local artists would decorate the shaved cosmetology heads, the heads would be showcased around the area in local businesses and they would be auctioned off at the end of the year. The proceeds would be split in two, half going to support the Common Weal and half going to support the vocation and livelihood of the local artists.
Oliver Kellhammer’s Botanical Interventions: Open Source Landscape and Community Repair:
I think that Kellhammer identifies two major reasons why many artists are hesitant to work collaboratively in community projects. First, they must “leave the controlled space of the studio and step into the seething messiness of the world outside.” (116) I think it is messy, confusing, frustrating, slow and bureaucratic. It can also be fun, passionate, innovative, revelatory and democratic. Secondly, he reminds us that the artists must give up a certain degree of control of the process and the product as it “interacts with the communities around it.” (118) I am discovering that giving up control is liberating as I watch students make more decisions and take charge of their environment.
Kellhammer created “Park” in Toronto in which he took an empty lot and planted plants and provided a water source. He describes his work as “open source” because his goal is to have the work live on without him. He says he became more of a fixer than a maker. He works as a bridge builder between people and nature. “Park” was a “botanical intervention” (119), and Kellhammer reverted back to the status of observer eventually as “natural and human systems grow over and absorb the scaffolding” (120) he helped to create on the lot. It must feel good to have something that started as a simple idea grow into something self-supporting.
I would like to use Kellhammer’s work in the next advising discussion as a specific example of successful ecoart.
Caffyn Kelley’s Better than Sex: Sweet spots, Systems and Openings at the Online Conference on the Art of Engagement:
Kelley discusses an online conference of over 200 participants from around the globe that took place before the real conference in Vancouver.
One participant expressed their concerns about funding. “When funding runs out, when the project is completed, communities and society as a whole are left abandoned.” (138) I shared my concerns of starting a community based program in my town with the fickle disposition of foundations and programs that offer grants. What do deeply involved community members do who when the funding runs out? There is the potential of doing so much good yet so much harm when a program falls apart upon losing financial support. I appreciate the advice offered by Brita and Susan during our conversation on October 18th. They suggested starting more at a project level than a program level. I now plan to start with this smaller goal with a specified time frame that does not raise expectations unintentionally. I will start with promises that I can keep since many of the people in my community have been let down so often in the past.
Another participant identifies existing programs that are “closed systems—hierarchical, defended boundaries, insiders and outsiders.” (141) This is how I would label the Fine Arts Center in my town. In their closed system, there is no place for change or creativity. Those who volunteer or who are on the board are the insiders. No one can make a move unless the action is cleared by the director who is a micro-manager. I see this as a recipe for defeat if one is concerned in involving as many members as possible in a community, both as participants and as active and concerned viewers.
I was impressed with one participant who questioned the legitimacy and success of the on-line discussion itself. How socially engaged is any type of on-line communication? Is “on-line conversation limited to communicating more information, rather than cultivating vital relationships?” (145) Elizabeth Lange writes in response quite eloquently, “The power of electronics and a corresponding frenetic economy is increasingly at odds with the organic needs of humans—their embodied seasonal and biological rhythms, social need for continuity and the spiritual need for reflection and meaning. Interacting in an online environment, how can we make space for silence, stillness, attention, and the integration of knowledge?” (145)
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Essay discussion Appropriation
Laura Berlage
10/13/09
Balance and Liminality:
Walking the Path between Creative License and Cultural Tradition
[this essay was also accompanied by images of several of my tapestries with illustrative descriptions]
“Culture can be seen as a tapestry; pull on any thread and eventually
one is connected to every other.” ~Arlene Goldbard (102)
As I have been revisiting weaving Navajo-inspired tapestries, a question arose that has fueled much of the research and discussion of this semester: What are the ethical implications of non-Native artists producing Native style art? While there may not be a clear or tidy answer, as my faculty advisor Cynthia Ross has indicted, it is still a question worth holding. As artists, we need to take full responsibility for our work and its social, cultural, and political significance. In this essay, I will explore thoughts, concerns, and insights that have arisen around this question from my readings and personal reflection.
When I first started Navajo weaving classes with Fran Potter, just after I had turned 13, learning a Native art form had not appeared a controversial issue at all. Madison (a progressive university center) was, granted, a bit removed from any reservation or its people. All the other women in the group (so far as I knew) were of Euro-American ethnicity. Fran connected our work from its original culture—telling us the Navajo story of how Spider Woman taught the Navajo to weave, the meaning of spirit lines, and vegetal dye practices. She brought in vintage Navajo tapestries that she had restored (or that were part of her own collection), and showed us special aspect of how they had been made, where they had come from, and the story of how they had come to her for restoration. The yarns we wove came directly from the Navajo reservation, and Fran liked to give us updates about her latest visit to Hubble Trading Post in Arizona. It felt like we had a link with the Navajo people, even though we never met or talked with any of them.
It was when my family and I moved to rural northern Wisconsin that my perspective began to change. Our homestead is about 10 miles from the Lac Court Oreilles Ojibwa reservation (between us and Hayward, our postal address). There is great polarity between more prejudiced locals (who often have little good to say about “the Indians”), more tolerant transplants (who would rather ignore the problems and pretend all was well), and the various strata of the Native population (the dichotomy being between those who live on or off the reservation). Relations are often strained, with ill feelings on both sides. Recreationists fume over Native spear fishing rights (both used and misused), and Natives continue to hold anti-white hatred engendered by years of broken treaties and discrimination.
I had grown up reading Native stories and myths. They seemed a balanced, earth-loving people. But seeing life on a real reservation (and hearing my mother’s inside stories from working at their medical clinic) began punching major holes in that perspective. With rampant business corruption, inner-city style crime, roadside and home-site litter, sexual abuse, drug abuse, and semi-wild free-roving dogs that add to the danger of even stepping outside your car on reservation land, I kept finding myself wondering What happened to these people? Has some ethic from their stories been lost? I wanted to look at these issues without falling into the attitude of the bitter Euro-American neighbors related in a story from A Forest of Time by Peter Nabokov:
The folklorist Richard Dorson was assured by Anglo residents of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that he had come a half-century too late to learn anything from their Chippewa neighbors, whom they derided as mostly drunks and freeloaders anyway. But when Dorson made his respectful interest in their traditions known to these same Indians, they invited him over and regaled him night after night, filling his notebooks with reputable legends, unique versions of trickster tales, storytelling contests, their takes on local history, and even humorous responses to the prejudice that surrounded them. (20)
Was the local cultural dynamic situation really as bad as it seemed, or were there openings for people to cross ethnic boundaries with compassion and sensitivity, like Dorson had?
The Native/non-Native question began to arise with regard to my tapestry artwork when my former art teacher, Madeline Sattler, asked me to weave my first commissioned piece. She had purchased a house in Arizona, hoping to move there soon, and had wanted a Navajo weaving for it. She had pondered buying one from the reservation, then remembered that I made them as well. To her, it had more personal significance to have a piece of art from one of her own students, and she had direct influence on its design. For me, I began to wonder about my art’s significance within the greater Navajo tapestry market. Would my work be seen as being in competition with theirs? I hoped not. While I had been trained in the Navajo tapestry tradition, and while I was using Southwest motifs, I felt that my work still carried my own interpretation of that style and Lucy Lippard, in her book Mixed Blessings, has cautionary feelings about borrowing imagery from other cultures:
While it is difficult not to be moved by the antimaterialism, spirituality, formal success, and principled communal values of much traditional art, there is no “proper” or “politically correct” response by white artists that does not leave something out. But there is a difference between homage and robbery, between mutual exchange and rape. I am not suggesting that every European and Euro-American artist influenced by the power of cultures other than their own should be overwhelmed with guilt at every touch. But a certain humility, an awareness of the other cultures’ boundaries and context, wouldn’t hurt. (9)
And her quote of Lowry Stokes Sims argues that “Appropriation may be, when all is said and done, voyeurism at its most blatant” (Lippard 25). Lippard also grapples with the sticky connotations of labels like primitive art for the beautiful and meaningful works produced by Native artists. By primitive, do we mean less advanced? Do we mean less cultured? Placing Native arts in polarity with Euro-style arts brings up hierarchies and stereotypes that should no longer apply for enlightened art enthusiasts. Because a style of art (like baskets) might have a useful purpose, does that make it a lesser art form? I think this is a very frivolous argument.
I agree with Lippard that the best way to approach the creation of Native-inspired art is with respect and understanding. As part of my last packet, I explored the history of the Navajo weaving tradition with authors Alice Kaufman and Christopher Selser, which they describe as “An artistic manifestation of the turbulent history of the Navajos—and of the Southwest itself” (2). Several hundred years old, weaving has been a Navajo women’s tradition that was greatly disturbed by the enforced relocation to Bosque Redondo and later molded by the wishes of trading post owners. Such powerful Anglos on the reservation as Juan Lorenzo Hubbell and John B. Moore drastically influenced the design and colors of whole genres of weavings that are now considered part of Navajo traditional imagery—such as Red Ganado and Two Gray Hills, respectively. These men were working in the interest of selling Navajo weavings to Euro-American tourists, influenced by the popularity of Oriental carpets. Their pressures were not entirely negative to the tradition, as Kaufman and Selser show through comments like, “Hubbell encouraged the weavers who lived in the Ganado area to produce high-quality weaving in a very effective way: he refused to buy any weaving that did not meet his standards” (67).
Today it seems that the Navajos have fully reclaimed their weaving tradition, utilizing both older traditional, banded, borderless designs as well as the newer multi-bordered with a strong central motif designs. Kaufman and Selser beautifully describe the ongoing tradition:
Rather like poets working within the strict confines of the sonnet style, Navajo weavers give free rein to their creative energies to produce something distinctively original within clearly defined limits. When Daisy Taugelchee, the prize-winning Two Gray Hills weaver, sits down at her loom, she will use almost exclusively natural shades of wool—white, black, brown, and carded tans and grays. She is bound by tradition—merely decades old but firmly rooted nonetheless—to create a multibordered geometric design dominated by a strong central element. … The ability to transcend form and function is basic to Navajo weaving and has been since the Navajos started to weave some two hundred years ago. (3)
But what happens when Native artists step outside of the tradition? Or when a non-Native attempts to step into it?
At least in northern Wisconsin (and this likely applies to other areas), there is great pressure on reservation youth from within their culture not to branch into non-traditional art forms. Kevin McMullin is familiar with this in the world of classical music and the difficulties in keeping Native students, which sparked his multicultural project “One Nation.” But derogatory proddings like What, you’re not Native anymore? or terms like apple (red on the outside, white on the inside) are common local methods of peer pressure that keep Natives from exploring other expressive forms. Jaune Quick-To-See Smith adamantly disagrees that Native artists who integrate modernity into their work are impure, saying that “Dying cultures do not make art. Cultures that do not change with the time will die” (Lippard 28). In essence, strict tradition seeks to keep its adherents within its box (and others out of it), while artists (notorious for ignoring boundaries) keep running into the insides and the outsides of the walls of these boxes.
The walls of these boxes became starkly apparent last autumn when I was trying to start Navajo tapestry weaving classes at a local yarn store (much like Fran’s classes in Madison). I was circulating posters at area businesses and wanted to share my ideas (and a poster) with the shop that sells Native artwork on Main Street. I walked in, smiling, and started talking to the Ojibwa lady working the desk. She interrupted me abruptly with “are you Navajo?”
“No,” I replied, honestly. [1] She turned away and would not talk or listen to me anymore, and I left the store feeling a bit shaken. It was quite apparent from her voice and body language that there was no room for conversation in her mind about this issue. Had I said something wrong? Had I said it the wrong way? Was the local Native art world going to hold a grudge against me for infringing on their cultural space unauthorized? Unfortunately, in part due to the economic slump that made people wary of spending money on learning to make art, the classes never came together.
Certainly, there have been people from one culture who have interpreted material from another culture without much respect for the original intent and meaning. Robert Graves in The White Goddess draws an example between the ancient bards and the troubadours:
The Norman French trouveres and Malory who collected and collated their Arthurian romances had no knowledge of, or interest in, the historical and religious meaning of the myths that they handled. They felt themselves free to improve the narrative in accordance with their new gospel of chivalry fetched from Provence—breaking up the old mythic patterns and taking liberties of every sort that the Welsh minstrels had never dared to take. (60)
And this type of treatment has been felt by Native cultures across the Americas. Nabokov tells of protective and defensive walls that have been erected by Native cultures to preserve their histories from Anglo misrepresentation:
Not sharing history as a form of active persistence, because it contains crucial guidelines for group survival, and not revealing it as a form of passive resistance, because it has become a token in psychological tussles between whites and Indians, are often merged motivations. The shift from “you’ll make fun of what we tell you” to “what you don’t know won’t hurt us” to “what we don’t tell you makes you crazy” reflects the ever-changing and always subtle interplay of intercultural relations. (56)
Does the world of traditional arts grapple with these same situations? It seems so. This reminds me of Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof and the song “Tradition!” that is followed by a decay of his known world as his children break from the old way of life. He is torn between making them stay within the traditional box (and therefore keeping them close) or letting them follow their love (therefore losing part of his stability). Yet if tradition is not allowed to encompass the new—like Navajo weavers embracing the Two Gray Hills design—then we are left with misplaced residuals like American Scandinavians still eating lutefisk[2] during the holiday season (even though they no longer eat it at all in the Old Country).
I realize that, because I am not of Native descent, that I will forever be an outsider (at least to some degree) to that world. Neither am I a puristic traditionalist; instead, I seek to learn the wisdoms inherent within traditions and give them my own interpretive twist. It is a place of balance and liminality, imbedded with respect for the old ways yet open to the new. Perhaps the path of walking between these worlds—between past and present, between Native and European—is not unlike the spirit line in traditional Navajo tapestry. It is believed by the Navajos that perfection is not meant for mortals, just as multiple borders were contrary to their original tapestry aesthetic. So they always left an imperfection in their weavings that allowed their artistic spirit to exit from that tapestry so it could make another. They weave a path (several strands of the background color) through the border, the wall of the box. Maybe that is what we should all do; leave doorways in the boxes so we can have conversations about intercultural issues, share ideas, and create beautiful works of art from our hearts. In that wonderfully liminal space between (around, over, under, through) our cultures, we can hold difficult questions and learn to see with compassion and understanding.
Works Cited
Goldbard, Arlene. New Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development. Oakland, CA: New Village Press, 2006.
Graves, Robert. The White Goddess. Amended and Enlarged Edition. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966.
Kaufman, Alice and Christopher Selser. The Navajo Weaving Tradition: 1650 to the Present. Tulsa and San Francisco: Council Oak Books, 1999.
Lippard, Lucy R. Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America. New York: The New Press, 1990.
Nabokov, Peter. A Forest of Time: American Indian Ways of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
[1] I actually had a Euro-American fellow vendor at the farmer’s market say, “You should have said yes, you could pass for Navajo.” Can you imagine! What an incredibly cruel lie. How would someone ever keep such a front with someone from a Native culture? The hypocrisy would be glaring.
[2] Lutefisk is cod preserved in a lye solution, which leaves it semi-translucent and very slimy. I tried it once, out of politeness, and cannot understand why—since it is no longer the necessary way to preserve fish—anyone would delight in eating it.
10/13/09
Balance and Liminality:
Walking the Path between Creative License and Cultural Tradition
[this essay was also accompanied by images of several of my tapestries with illustrative descriptions]
“Culture can be seen as a tapestry; pull on any thread and eventually
one is connected to every other.” ~Arlene Goldbard (102)
As I have been revisiting weaving Navajo-inspired tapestries, a question arose that has fueled much of the research and discussion of this semester: What are the ethical implications of non-Native artists producing Native style art? While there may not be a clear or tidy answer, as my faculty advisor Cynthia Ross has indicted, it is still a question worth holding. As artists, we need to take full responsibility for our work and its social, cultural, and political significance. In this essay, I will explore thoughts, concerns, and insights that have arisen around this question from my readings and personal reflection.
When I first started Navajo weaving classes with Fran Potter, just after I had turned 13, learning a Native art form had not appeared a controversial issue at all. Madison (a progressive university center) was, granted, a bit removed from any reservation or its people. All the other women in the group (so far as I knew) were of Euro-American ethnicity. Fran connected our work from its original culture—telling us the Navajo story of how Spider Woman taught the Navajo to weave, the meaning of spirit lines, and vegetal dye practices. She brought in vintage Navajo tapestries that she had restored (or that were part of her own collection), and showed us special aspect of how they had been made, where they had come from, and the story of how they had come to her for restoration. The yarns we wove came directly from the Navajo reservation, and Fran liked to give us updates about her latest visit to Hubble Trading Post in Arizona. It felt like we had a link with the Navajo people, even though we never met or talked with any of them.
It was when my family and I moved to rural northern Wisconsin that my perspective began to change. Our homestead is about 10 miles from the Lac Court Oreilles Ojibwa reservation (between us and Hayward, our postal address). There is great polarity between more prejudiced locals (who often have little good to say about “the Indians”), more tolerant transplants (who would rather ignore the problems and pretend all was well), and the various strata of the Native population (the dichotomy being between those who live on or off the reservation). Relations are often strained, with ill feelings on both sides. Recreationists fume over Native spear fishing rights (both used and misused), and Natives continue to hold anti-white hatred engendered by years of broken treaties and discrimination.
I had grown up reading Native stories and myths. They seemed a balanced, earth-loving people. But seeing life on a real reservation (and hearing my mother’s inside stories from working at their medical clinic) began punching major holes in that perspective. With rampant business corruption, inner-city style crime, roadside and home-site litter, sexual abuse, drug abuse, and semi-wild free-roving dogs that add to the danger of even stepping outside your car on reservation land, I kept finding myself wondering What happened to these people? Has some ethic from their stories been lost? I wanted to look at these issues without falling into the attitude of the bitter Euro-American neighbors related in a story from A Forest of Time by Peter Nabokov:
The folklorist Richard Dorson was assured by Anglo residents of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that he had come a half-century too late to learn anything from their Chippewa neighbors, whom they derided as mostly drunks and freeloaders anyway. But when Dorson made his respectful interest in their traditions known to these same Indians, they invited him over and regaled him night after night, filling his notebooks with reputable legends, unique versions of trickster tales, storytelling contests, their takes on local history, and even humorous responses to the prejudice that surrounded them. (20)
Was the local cultural dynamic situation really as bad as it seemed, or were there openings for people to cross ethnic boundaries with compassion and sensitivity, like Dorson had?
The Native/non-Native question began to arise with regard to my tapestry artwork when my former art teacher, Madeline Sattler, asked me to weave my first commissioned piece. She had purchased a house in Arizona, hoping to move there soon, and had wanted a Navajo weaving for it. She had pondered buying one from the reservation, then remembered that I made them as well. To her, it had more personal significance to have a piece of art from one of her own students, and she had direct influence on its design. For me, I began to wonder about my art’s significance within the greater Navajo tapestry market. Would my work be seen as being in competition with theirs? I hoped not. While I had been trained in the Navajo tapestry tradition, and while I was using Southwest motifs, I felt that my work still carried my own interpretation of that style and Lucy Lippard, in her book Mixed Blessings, has cautionary feelings about borrowing imagery from other cultures:
While it is difficult not to be moved by the antimaterialism, spirituality, formal success, and principled communal values of much traditional art, there is no “proper” or “politically correct” response by white artists that does not leave something out. But there is a difference between homage and robbery, between mutual exchange and rape. I am not suggesting that every European and Euro-American artist influenced by the power of cultures other than their own should be overwhelmed with guilt at every touch. But a certain humility, an awareness of the other cultures’ boundaries and context, wouldn’t hurt. (9)
And her quote of Lowry Stokes Sims argues that “Appropriation may be, when all is said and done, voyeurism at its most blatant” (Lippard 25). Lippard also grapples with the sticky connotations of labels like primitive art for the beautiful and meaningful works produced by Native artists. By primitive, do we mean less advanced? Do we mean less cultured? Placing Native arts in polarity with Euro-style arts brings up hierarchies and stereotypes that should no longer apply for enlightened art enthusiasts. Because a style of art (like baskets) might have a useful purpose, does that make it a lesser art form? I think this is a very frivolous argument.
I agree with Lippard that the best way to approach the creation of Native-inspired art is with respect and understanding. As part of my last packet, I explored the history of the Navajo weaving tradition with authors Alice Kaufman and Christopher Selser, which they describe as “An artistic manifestation of the turbulent history of the Navajos—and of the Southwest itself” (2). Several hundred years old, weaving has been a Navajo women’s tradition that was greatly disturbed by the enforced relocation to Bosque Redondo and later molded by the wishes of trading post owners. Such powerful Anglos on the reservation as Juan Lorenzo Hubbell and John B. Moore drastically influenced the design and colors of whole genres of weavings that are now considered part of Navajo traditional imagery—such as Red Ganado and Two Gray Hills, respectively. These men were working in the interest of selling Navajo weavings to Euro-American tourists, influenced by the popularity of Oriental carpets. Their pressures were not entirely negative to the tradition, as Kaufman and Selser show through comments like, “Hubbell encouraged the weavers who lived in the Ganado area to produce high-quality weaving in a very effective way: he refused to buy any weaving that did not meet his standards” (67).
Today it seems that the Navajos have fully reclaimed their weaving tradition, utilizing both older traditional, banded, borderless designs as well as the newer multi-bordered with a strong central motif designs. Kaufman and Selser beautifully describe the ongoing tradition:
Rather like poets working within the strict confines of the sonnet style, Navajo weavers give free rein to their creative energies to produce something distinctively original within clearly defined limits. When Daisy Taugelchee, the prize-winning Two Gray Hills weaver, sits down at her loom, she will use almost exclusively natural shades of wool—white, black, brown, and carded tans and grays. She is bound by tradition—merely decades old but firmly rooted nonetheless—to create a multibordered geometric design dominated by a strong central element. … The ability to transcend form and function is basic to Navajo weaving and has been since the Navajos started to weave some two hundred years ago. (3)
But what happens when Native artists step outside of the tradition? Or when a non-Native attempts to step into it?
At least in northern Wisconsin (and this likely applies to other areas), there is great pressure on reservation youth from within their culture not to branch into non-traditional art forms. Kevin McMullin is familiar with this in the world of classical music and the difficulties in keeping Native students, which sparked his multicultural project “One Nation.” But derogatory proddings like What, you’re not Native anymore? or terms like apple (red on the outside, white on the inside) are common local methods of peer pressure that keep Natives from exploring other expressive forms. Jaune Quick-To-See Smith adamantly disagrees that Native artists who integrate modernity into their work are impure, saying that “Dying cultures do not make art. Cultures that do not change with the time will die” (Lippard 28). In essence, strict tradition seeks to keep its adherents within its box (and others out of it), while artists (notorious for ignoring boundaries) keep running into the insides and the outsides of the walls of these boxes.
The walls of these boxes became starkly apparent last autumn when I was trying to start Navajo tapestry weaving classes at a local yarn store (much like Fran’s classes in Madison). I was circulating posters at area businesses and wanted to share my ideas (and a poster) with the shop that sells Native artwork on Main Street. I walked in, smiling, and started talking to the Ojibwa lady working the desk. She interrupted me abruptly with “are you Navajo?”
“No,” I replied, honestly. [1] She turned away and would not talk or listen to me anymore, and I left the store feeling a bit shaken. It was quite apparent from her voice and body language that there was no room for conversation in her mind about this issue. Had I said something wrong? Had I said it the wrong way? Was the local Native art world going to hold a grudge against me for infringing on their cultural space unauthorized? Unfortunately, in part due to the economic slump that made people wary of spending money on learning to make art, the classes never came together.
Certainly, there have been people from one culture who have interpreted material from another culture without much respect for the original intent and meaning. Robert Graves in The White Goddess draws an example between the ancient bards and the troubadours:
The Norman French trouveres and Malory who collected and collated their Arthurian romances had no knowledge of, or interest in, the historical and religious meaning of the myths that they handled. They felt themselves free to improve the narrative in accordance with their new gospel of chivalry fetched from Provence—breaking up the old mythic patterns and taking liberties of every sort that the Welsh minstrels had never dared to take. (60)
And this type of treatment has been felt by Native cultures across the Americas. Nabokov tells of protective and defensive walls that have been erected by Native cultures to preserve their histories from Anglo misrepresentation:
Not sharing history as a form of active persistence, because it contains crucial guidelines for group survival, and not revealing it as a form of passive resistance, because it has become a token in psychological tussles between whites and Indians, are often merged motivations. The shift from “you’ll make fun of what we tell you” to “what you don’t know won’t hurt us” to “what we don’t tell you makes you crazy” reflects the ever-changing and always subtle interplay of intercultural relations. (56)
Does the world of traditional arts grapple with these same situations? It seems so. This reminds me of Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof and the song “Tradition!” that is followed by a decay of his known world as his children break from the old way of life. He is torn between making them stay within the traditional box (and therefore keeping them close) or letting them follow their love (therefore losing part of his stability). Yet if tradition is not allowed to encompass the new—like Navajo weavers embracing the Two Gray Hills design—then we are left with misplaced residuals like American Scandinavians still eating lutefisk[2] during the holiday season (even though they no longer eat it at all in the Old Country).
I realize that, because I am not of Native descent, that I will forever be an outsider (at least to some degree) to that world. Neither am I a puristic traditionalist; instead, I seek to learn the wisdoms inherent within traditions and give them my own interpretive twist. It is a place of balance and liminality, imbedded with respect for the old ways yet open to the new. Perhaps the path of walking between these worlds—between past and present, between Native and European—is not unlike the spirit line in traditional Navajo tapestry. It is believed by the Navajos that perfection is not meant for mortals, just as multiple borders were contrary to their original tapestry aesthetic. So they always left an imperfection in their weavings that allowed their artistic spirit to exit from that tapestry so it could make another. They weave a path (several strands of the background color) through the border, the wall of the box. Maybe that is what we should all do; leave doorways in the boxes so we can have conversations about intercultural issues, share ideas, and create beautiful works of art from our hearts. In that wonderfully liminal space between (around, over, under, through) our cultures, we can hold difficult questions and learn to see with compassion and understanding.
Works Cited
Goldbard, Arlene. New Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development. Oakland, CA: New Village Press, 2006.
Graves, Robert. The White Goddess. Amended and Enlarged Edition. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966.
Kaufman, Alice and Christopher Selser. The Navajo Weaving Tradition: 1650 to the Present. Tulsa and San Francisco: Council Oak Books, 1999.
Lippard, Lucy R. Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America. New York: The New Press, 1990.
Nabokov, Peter. A Forest of Time: American Indian Ways of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
[1] I actually had a Euro-American fellow vendor at the farmer’s market say, “You should have said yes, you could pass for Navajo.” Can you imagine! What an incredibly cruel lie. How would someone ever keep such a front with someone from a Native culture? The hypocrisy would be glaring.
[2] Lutefisk is cod preserved in a lye solution, which leaves it semi-translucent and very slimy. I tried it once, out of politeness, and cannot understand why—since it is no longer the necessary way to preserve fish—anyone would delight in eating it.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
A Little "Engaged Arts" Workshop Given by Susan and Triada this week in Brooklyn
Hello! I thought you might all enjoy this:
Here is the post I wrote for the CORD blog this morning:
Friday, October 23, 2009
LOCAL TEENS CREATE "Airborne Contaminants Masks" in response to the Toxic Gowanus Canal in their "backyards"
MASK BY LIZZIE (See CORD blog)
Local teens from Starting Artists started an "Airborne Contaminants Masks" project this week at their local, artspace at 211 Smith Street in response to their feelings about living near the polluted waters and banks of the toxic Gowanus Canal. After a presentation by Brooklyn Utopias? Exhibition Curator, Katherine Gressel, and by participating and visiting artists, Triada Samaras, and Susan Konvit, these teens artists expressed deep concern over their health and safety in the event of a Gowanus Canal clean-up.
The on-going mask project, which may include works in other art/s media, will be a testament to their feelings. The teens expressed a clear desire for the safest and most comprehensive Gowanus Canal clean-up available to the public. Many live close enough to the canal to smell it on a "bad" day and cross it daily on their way to school and back.
The "Airborne Contaminants Masks" project that will be submitted in early November to the Brooklyn Utopias? Teen Art Exhibition at Starting Artists.
All Brooklyn Teens are eligible to submit an art work to this show.
Brooklyn middle and high school students: click here to submit artwork to the Brooklyn Utopias? Submissions DUE NOVEMBER 5!
Here is the post I wrote for the CORD blog this morning:
Friday, October 23, 2009
LOCAL TEENS CREATE "Airborne Contaminants Masks" in response to the Toxic Gowanus Canal in their "backyards"
MASK BY LIZZIE (See CORD blog)
Local teens from Starting Artists started an "Airborne Contaminants Masks" project this week at their local, artspace at 211 Smith Street in response to their feelings about living near the polluted waters and banks of the toxic Gowanus Canal. After a presentation by Brooklyn Utopias? Exhibition Curator, Katherine Gressel, and by participating and visiting artists, Triada Samaras, and Susan Konvit, these teens artists expressed deep concern over their health and safety in the event of a Gowanus Canal clean-up.
The on-going mask project, which may include works in other art/s media, will be a testament to their feelings. The teens expressed a clear desire for the safest and most comprehensive Gowanus Canal clean-up available to the public. Many live close enough to the canal to smell it on a "bad" day and cross it daily on their way to school and back.
The "Airborne Contaminants Masks" project that will be submitted in early November to the Brooklyn Utopias? Teen Art Exhibition at Starting Artists.
All Brooklyn Teens are eligible to submit an art work to this show.
Brooklyn middle and high school students: click here to submit artwork to the Brooklyn Utopias? Submissions DUE NOVEMBER 5!
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Models of Action are Needed by Susan
Susan:
As an outsider witnessing the environmental community battle that is now being fought by art activists and environmentalists to save the health and homes of the residents in Brooklyn, it is appear that the need for a critical arts language to define this art discipline along with art activist models that have been used in the past, would be of enormous value. Access All Areas: Conversations on Engaged Arts brings artists steps closer to accomplishing this task and providing the seeds of future models.
The discipline of community arts grew out of artists recognizing the needs of their own community. Choosing to step forward, with the purpose of bringing attention to the issues that plague their home communities and motivating the changes necessary through the use of art, is a risky business and takes courage and commitment on the part of the artists. Sacrifice is the word that is at the heart of how hard life becomes for artists when they walk this path. How can this journey be made easier for those artists? And what language and models can be left behind for the next generation?
The essays in this book examine multiple Canadian communities and how the arts have played an important role in addressing the issues of their hometowns. Throughout the book multiple terms are used to describe these “art interactions – community-engaged artistic practice, community cultural development, publicly engaged art, littoral arts, cultural democracy,”( 9) community public art, new genre public art, and the naming lists continues. Even as an artist, the difference in these terms can be somewhat confusing. And to compound the difficulty, these term are not included in the general art definitions and art term books and websites. Even locating working models to implement these art interventions is near to impossible. The first concrete step is to create a unified language accepted by the entire art community.
Throughout Access All Areas I read thoughtful words and sentences that gave me hope that at least efforts are being made to acknowledge and question the need for a unified language. The term Engaged Arts is a comfortable fit for the art interventions in this book; engagement as the umbrella with the spokes composing each of the individual terms. This one word can be the foundation to build this unified language to classify the different roles of art activism. But the words are coming too slow for this fast paced technological world.
Essayist Irwin Oostindie expresses impatience over and over again about the progress being made in his field of the community cultural arts. His words are an example of the frustration expressed by artists participating in the engaged arts. He writes, “Clearly good intentions are not enough”. Oostindie does not stop here with his criticism and suggestions. “Can community-engaged artist practioners learn critical perspective and empower their peers with constructive criticism? Can we integrate knowledge gained from decades of cultural resistance? Do we know the names of our cultural heroes?” (68) This is the information that is needed to energize and educate the discipline of art activism.
The lack of documenting and making available the knowledge gained from art interventions is what weakens the progress of art engagement, and leads to exhaustion and burnout of both artists and community members, and dissuades funding sources from giving. Art Activists templates / models based on this knowledge could shorten the learning curve of how to implement art interventions that can create an impact that educates residents and can reach political powers that control the decisions being made over how communities function. Each community artist/s could utilize the information as a guide to inspire the creative steps they take in implementing their own art interventions.
Right now, this moment, artists in Brooklyn, New York are working and implementing art interventions, as they have been for the past two years. They are creating their own words to describe what they are doing; yet they too have a need for a unified language and knowledge they could look to for inspiration. These artists understand that they and the environmentalists are at the forefront of this battle to save their community of 2.5 million residents from massive exposure to highly carcinogenic airborne contaminants. Brooklyn artists have been the residents educating their fellow residents through the use of their art. This is engaged art in action.
The role of artworks is no longer to form imaginary and utopian realities, but to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real, whatever scale chosen by the artist. Nicholas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics (2002)
As an outsider witnessing the environmental community battle that is now being fought by art activists and environmentalists to save the health and homes of the residents in Brooklyn, it is appear that the need for a critical arts language to define this art discipline along with art activist models that have been used in the past, would be of enormous value. Access All Areas: Conversations on Engaged Arts brings artists steps closer to accomplishing this task and providing the seeds of future models.
The discipline of community arts grew out of artists recognizing the needs of their own community. Choosing to step forward, with the purpose of bringing attention to the issues that plague their home communities and motivating the changes necessary through the use of art, is a risky business and takes courage and commitment on the part of the artists. Sacrifice is the word that is at the heart of how hard life becomes for artists when they walk this path. How can this journey be made easier for those artists? And what language and models can be left behind for the next generation?
The essays in this book examine multiple Canadian communities and how the arts have played an important role in addressing the issues of their hometowns. Throughout the book multiple terms are used to describe these “art interactions – community-engaged artistic practice, community cultural development, publicly engaged art, littoral arts, cultural democracy,”( 9) community public art, new genre public art, and the naming lists continues. Even as an artist, the difference in these terms can be somewhat confusing. And to compound the difficulty, these term are not included in the general art definitions and art term books and websites. Even locating working models to implement these art interventions is near to impossible. The first concrete step is to create a unified language accepted by the entire art community.
Throughout Access All Areas I read thoughtful words and sentences that gave me hope that at least efforts are being made to acknowledge and question the need for a unified language. The term Engaged Arts is a comfortable fit for the art interventions in this book; engagement as the umbrella with the spokes composing each of the individual terms. This one word can be the foundation to build this unified language to classify the different roles of art activism. But the words are coming too slow for this fast paced technological world.
Essayist Irwin Oostindie expresses impatience over and over again about the progress being made in his field of the community cultural arts. His words are an example of the frustration expressed by artists participating in the engaged arts. He writes, “Clearly good intentions are not enough”. Oostindie does not stop here with his criticism and suggestions. “Can community-engaged artist practioners learn critical perspective and empower their peers with constructive criticism? Can we integrate knowledge gained from decades of cultural resistance? Do we know the names of our cultural heroes?” (68) This is the information that is needed to energize and educate the discipline of art activism.
The lack of documenting and making available the knowledge gained from art interventions is what weakens the progress of art engagement, and leads to exhaustion and burnout of both artists and community members, and dissuades funding sources from giving. Art Activists templates / models based on this knowledge could shorten the learning curve of how to implement art interventions that can create an impact that educates residents and can reach political powers that control the decisions being made over how communities function. Each community artist/s could utilize the information as a guide to inspire the creative steps they take in implementing their own art interventions.
Right now, this moment, artists in Brooklyn, New York are working and implementing art interventions, as they have been for the past two years. They are creating their own words to describe what they are doing; yet they too have a need for a unified language and knowledge they could look to for inspiration. These artists understand that they and the environmentalists are at the forefront of this battle to save their community of 2.5 million residents from massive exposure to highly carcinogenic airborne contaminants. Brooklyn artists have been the residents educating their fellow residents through the use of their art. This is engaged art in action.
The role of artworks is no longer to form imaginary and utopian realities, but to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real, whatever scale chosen by the artist. Nicholas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics (2002)
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Brooklyn Utopias? Show by Triada Samaras
Hello everyone!
I want to report on my Brooklyn Utopias? exhibition as so much has been happening. The exhibition takes place at two places: The Brooklyn Historical Society and the Old Stone House. Both locations have historical significance but the second one's history really blew me away as I installed my little "Democracy Wall" project there. It turns out that the Old Stone House occupies the spot of the greatest battle of the Revolutionary War: (The Battle of Brooklyn). The vivid time-line of that battle and the loss of life involved by innocent men trying to protect "Democracy" utterly screams from the ground when you are there. (I became very in-tune with those energies the night of one of my events there.) In the Battle of Brooklyn 400 men lost their lives as they tried to stall the British while General Washington snuck away over the Gowanus Canal to streets next to mine on the way to Brooklyn Heights. This was the largest number of deaths in any of the battles of the Revolutionary War and these men literally sacrificed their lives for us to occupy the spot we are on right now.
So when I fast forward to the last two years of my life here in Carroll Gardens, and the enormous fighting spirit that has taken hold of so many of us, I am seeing we are in a spot that breeds debates and fights and even deaths. FIERCE DEBATES! The Gowanus Canal clean-up by getting the Canal Superfund Designated is now an even hotter and broader issue than our prior issues with out of context development were as this Canal clean-up issue affects our health and safety.
The history of my neighborhood has thus become so tangible to me and I have also begun to think about others people who were pushed out or killed before the Europeans ever arrived (the Native Americans). I realized that each spot on earth is hallowed ground of one kind or another. But the spots I am on are what I would call "contentious ground", no doubt about it. There is the spirit of the daring warrior here from our ancestors.
As an aside, I think it would be an interesting artistic project to find out what lies below one's house and yet I think some of us would prefer not to know.
At any rate my artist/activist work in my neighborhood has become situated in a greater historical context and that is very humbling and makes me feel honored too, I must say.
I got one very good question from someone at the Old Stone House event that evening: A woman asked me: "How did you feel when the Democracy Wall was demolished?" In the past I would have been devastated as an artist to see such an event occur, but through my art/activism here in CG, I realized something long ago: That wall was coming down no matter what I tried to do. We are hopefully winning the war, but yes we are losing many battles.
So I just tried to celebrate the wall to the hilt for all it was worth when it existed, Now, by exhibiting pieces of it in public I am able to outreach even more with it.
I also have exciting news! Brooklyn Utopias? is having many outreach events for the public and for teens. Susan Konvit and I (from this blog) are doing a project together next Tuesday with teens near my house: We will be helping them to create a work of art/performance in response to the issue of general air quality here (or lack thereof). This is so exciting to work with a fellow Goddard student on this. The place we will be holding this workshop is a very impressive, new non-profit called "Starting Artists" on 211 Smith Street in Brooklyn. Susan will be linking her own non profit in NJ to ours here in Brooklyn using this issue as a catalyst for conversation, for art, and for ACTION! Britta Wheeler will also be involved with us.
Peace, Triada
I want to report on my Brooklyn Utopias? exhibition as so much has been happening. The exhibition takes place at two places: The Brooklyn Historical Society and the Old Stone House. Both locations have historical significance but the second one's history really blew me away as I installed my little "Democracy Wall" project there. It turns out that the Old Stone House occupies the spot of the greatest battle of the Revolutionary War: (The Battle of Brooklyn). The vivid time-line of that battle and the loss of life involved by innocent men trying to protect "Democracy" utterly screams from the ground when you are there. (I became very in-tune with those energies the night of one of my events there.) In the Battle of Brooklyn 400 men lost their lives as they tried to stall the British while General Washington snuck away over the Gowanus Canal to streets next to mine on the way to Brooklyn Heights. This was the largest number of deaths in any of the battles of the Revolutionary War and these men literally sacrificed their lives for us to occupy the spot we are on right now.
So when I fast forward to the last two years of my life here in Carroll Gardens, and the enormous fighting spirit that has taken hold of so many of us, I am seeing we are in a spot that breeds debates and fights and even deaths. FIERCE DEBATES! The Gowanus Canal clean-up by getting the Canal Superfund Designated is now an even hotter and broader issue than our prior issues with out of context development were as this Canal clean-up issue affects our health and safety.
The history of my neighborhood has thus become so tangible to me and I have also begun to think about others people who were pushed out or killed before the Europeans ever arrived (the Native Americans). I realized that each spot on earth is hallowed ground of one kind or another. But the spots I am on are what I would call "contentious ground", no doubt about it. There is the spirit of the daring warrior here from our ancestors.
As an aside, I think it would be an interesting artistic project to find out what lies below one's house and yet I think some of us would prefer not to know.
At any rate my artist/activist work in my neighborhood has become situated in a greater historical context and that is very humbling and makes me feel honored too, I must say.
I got one very good question from someone at the Old Stone House event that evening: A woman asked me: "How did you feel when the Democracy Wall was demolished?" In the past I would have been devastated as an artist to see such an event occur, but through my art/activism here in CG, I realized something long ago: That wall was coming down no matter what I tried to do. We are hopefully winning the war, but yes we are losing many battles.
So I just tried to celebrate the wall to the hilt for all it was worth when it existed, Now, by exhibiting pieces of it in public I am able to outreach even more with it.
I also have exciting news! Brooklyn Utopias? is having many outreach events for the public and for teens. Susan Konvit and I (from this blog) are doing a project together next Tuesday with teens near my house: We will be helping them to create a work of art/performance in response to the issue of general air quality here (or lack thereof). This is so exciting to work with a fellow Goddard student on this. The place we will be holding this workshop is a very impressive, new non-profit called "Starting Artists" on 211 Smith Street in Brooklyn. Susan will be linking her own non profit in NJ to ours here in Brooklyn using this issue as a catalyst for conversation, for art, and for ACTION! Britta Wheeler will also be involved with us.
Peace, Triada
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Social Acupuncture--Tammy Parks
Last thoughts before the next text
In Social Acupuncture: A Guide to Suicide, Performance and Utopia, Darren O’Donnell uses acupuncture as a metaphor for the imbalance of power and resources in our social body and calls for theater that pinpoints problems in our civic sphere to intervene and address issues of disenfranchisement, war and commercial manipulation. It was interesting as an outsider to the theater to read an insider’s viewpoint—I might even call it a manifesto—on how the theater needs to change in order to thrive in contemporary times. O’Donnell feels that most contemporary theater is boring and irrelevant as it remains obsessed with the classics and representational works.
O’Donnell believes that it is difficult to sustain theater because it is a forum where actual bodies encounter one another. In live theater you must have “creators and consumers in the same space (proximity)” and socially engaged spaces are being killed by information-age capitalism. I have witnessed this distancing within society as the preferred method of communication becomes texting and e-mailing as compared to speaking on the phone or face-to-face exchanges. The author is also concerned about how “all socializing and public encounters occur under the banner of consumption” (94), and there are few forums to meet people where “identity and power do not dictate the parameters of discourse.” (53) I cannot think of any significant events or public spaces in my community which allow people to interact physically or mentally that are not based on commerce (selling tickets, food, alcohol, etc.) or managed by a corporate body (school administrations, town councils, church elders, etc.) The author fails to mention whether or not there is a charge for his performances that take place in theater (corporate) spaces.
O’Donnell makes a point to meet and greet the audience as they enter the theater for his performance. He attempts to remove the understood distance located between viewer and performer in order to encourage interaction during his play. He wants audience participation. I am not as disturbed as he with being a “passive” viewer because of many experiences of being deeply affected by the performances I have witnessed on the stage. I think that the word witness is better used than viewer when it comes to naming the audience in a theater. I am participating even though I am not interjecting orally or physically in the event. I am moved by the words, emotions and ideas transmitted by the actors and my silence and stillness allow my eyes, ears and skin to be even more sensitized to the work taking place before me and in the midst of my presence.
O’Donnell writes that the elements of the social body are intertwined (a holistic approach) in which “small interventions at key junctures should affect larger organs to directly engage with social flows.” (48) Theater and art in general can be used to perform social acupuncture as it asks questions and encourages dialogues between the actors and audiences. O’Donnell advocates theater that is unscripted and accidental because it “is often much more beautiful, astonishing and revealing than the rehearsed.” (60) There is a particular beauty in ad lib and improvisation that is attractive to me. I am spellbound whenever I watch an interview with Robin Williams as words and humor pour out of him with every interaction. My favorite show on television is Whose Line is it Anyway? in which comics devise sketches, impersonations and songs based on suggestions and props from the host and audience.
Just like acupuncture performed on the human body, the effects of artistic acupuncture on the social body “will be felt only over a significant period of time and with repeated applications.” (51) In this scenario, the little things that we all do really can make a difference if we continue our work day after day with diligence, consistency and patience. This is a difficult concept, though, for a society that wants immediate gratification and measurable progress and which possesses an attention span of about two minutes.
O’Donnell warns us that social acupuncture, like real acupuncture, will not always be pleasant because “when you’re increasing your social intelligence, you will spend some time in discomfort.” (57) He believes that “discomfort and antagonism are hallmarks of a successful encounter.” (31) He sites many examples of civically engaged art with people on the street by asking very personal questions, the creation of adult spin-the-bottle games and haircuts by children on adults. I am not quite sure how politically and socially engaged these examples are without a more in-depth analysis of the events and the processes. His synopses are brief and allow only a glimpse into the projects he describes. He includes the script of his “Suicide-Site Guide to the City” that is uncomfortable, confusing and even tangential at times. I realize that the script can only give you a taste of the actual embodied performance, but I felt a little disappointed at the work because it was fragmented and hard to follow and understand. I am reminded of Hal Foster’s warning in the first packet in Participation that “at times, the death of the author has meant not the birth of the reader, so much as the befuddlement of the viewer.” I fear that the befuddlement of this viewer was official by the end of O’Donnell’s script because I did not feel connected at all to his words or ideas.
What keeps writers and performers from writing, producing and performing more work that is controversial, uncomfortable or painful? O’Donnell thinks that many theatrical performances are limited creatively by parameters that “use the rhetoric of safety to cloak control.” (56) Many people in power do not like change because it means losing control or power over a situation. I have experienced this very scenario in the past when a principal has pulled the old “safety card” out as an excuse for not doing something new or creative. I requested that the administration allow students to go outside for their lunch time again since the privilege was removed after a series of fights took place last year. I was told that we should just continue keeping the students inside because “the surveillance was better indoors.” I am still trying to understand the equation that being outside means more fighting. The “tradition card” has been pulled a few times in my public school experience when administrators explain how “that is the way we have always done it.” I have determined that tradition in the United States means anything that has happened for two consecutive years. Two years equal always? Another shallow equation, it seems to me.
O’Donnell promotes a neo-philistine work ethic where a person’s “acts of charity also improve the well-being of the donor.” (39) If artists create social good, the author believes that the artist’s motivations do not need to be pure. Why shouldn’t the act of goodness or kindness result in bettering the situation of the artist as well? He warns artists against masquerading as do-gooders in their work and to avoid performing any type of charity because charity “can discriminate and emphasize the classicism, racism, sexism, etc.” (79) that is present in the culture. I think that if you consider yourself a member of the community that you are helping, you are simply working to make things better for everyone, including yourself. I see the destructive qualities of setting up a stereotypical scenario of the artist helping out those “poor and unfortunate people” in the community. Done rightly, however, breaking down the wall between giver and receiver places people on more equal ground.
I identified with O’Donnell’s caution of the new freedom given to artists who work at home. “Working at home brings the opportunity to never escape work opportunities.” (79) I think that it is healthy to have this physical separation from the work world. I leave the school at five in the afternoon each day and drive home to paint, play with my pets, have dinner with my husband or work on the usual house chores that never seem to end. I found myself frazzled about eight years ago, edgy, impatient, unhappy, anxious, exhausted and even a little depressed. It took a little while for me to recognize that I was spending too much of my time at home still working as an art teacher. I was being super teacher; the artist, wife and woman were suffering. I committed myself to leaving my school work at school.
In Social Acupuncture: A Guide to Suicide, Performance and Utopia, Darren O’Donnell uses acupuncture as a metaphor for the imbalance of power and resources in our social body and calls for theater that pinpoints problems in our civic sphere to intervene and address issues of disenfranchisement, war and commercial manipulation. It was interesting as an outsider to the theater to read an insider’s viewpoint—I might even call it a manifesto—on how the theater needs to change in order to thrive in contemporary times. O’Donnell feels that most contemporary theater is boring and irrelevant as it remains obsessed with the classics and representational works.
O’Donnell believes that it is difficult to sustain theater because it is a forum where actual bodies encounter one another. In live theater you must have “creators and consumers in the same space (proximity)” and socially engaged spaces are being killed by information-age capitalism. I have witnessed this distancing within society as the preferred method of communication becomes texting and e-mailing as compared to speaking on the phone or face-to-face exchanges. The author is also concerned about how “all socializing and public encounters occur under the banner of consumption” (94), and there are few forums to meet people where “identity and power do not dictate the parameters of discourse.” (53) I cannot think of any significant events or public spaces in my community which allow people to interact physically or mentally that are not based on commerce (selling tickets, food, alcohol, etc.) or managed by a corporate body (school administrations, town councils, church elders, etc.) The author fails to mention whether or not there is a charge for his performances that take place in theater (corporate) spaces.
O’Donnell makes a point to meet and greet the audience as they enter the theater for his performance. He attempts to remove the understood distance located between viewer and performer in order to encourage interaction during his play. He wants audience participation. I am not as disturbed as he with being a “passive” viewer because of many experiences of being deeply affected by the performances I have witnessed on the stage. I think that the word witness is better used than viewer when it comes to naming the audience in a theater. I am participating even though I am not interjecting orally or physically in the event. I am moved by the words, emotions and ideas transmitted by the actors and my silence and stillness allow my eyes, ears and skin to be even more sensitized to the work taking place before me and in the midst of my presence.
O’Donnell writes that the elements of the social body are intertwined (a holistic approach) in which “small interventions at key junctures should affect larger organs to directly engage with social flows.” (48) Theater and art in general can be used to perform social acupuncture as it asks questions and encourages dialogues between the actors and audiences. O’Donnell advocates theater that is unscripted and accidental because it “is often much more beautiful, astonishing and revealing than the rehearsed.” (60) There is a particular beauty in ad lib and improvisation that is attractive to me. I am spellbound whenever I watch an interview with Robin Williams as words and humor pour out of him with every interaction. My favorite show on television is Whose Line is it Anyway? in which comics devise sketches, impersonations and songs based on suggestions and props from the host and audience.
Just like acupuncture performed on the human body, the effects of artistic acupuncture on the social body “will be felt only over a significant period of time and with repeated applications.” (51) In this scenario, the little things that we all do really can make a difference if we continue our work day after day with diligence, consistency and patience. This is a difficult concept, though, for a society that wants immediate gratification and measurable progress and which possesses an attention span of about two minutes.
O’Donnell warns us that social acupuncture, like real acupuncture, will not always be pleasant because “when you’re increasing your social intelligence, you will spend some time in discomfort.” (57) He believes that “discomfort and antagonism are hallmarks of a successful encounter.” (31) He sites many examples of civically engaged art with people on the street by asking very personal questions, the creation of adult spin-the-bottle games and haircuts by children on adults. I am not quite sure how politically and socially engaged these examples are without a more in-depth analysis of the events and the processes. His synopses are brief and allow only a glimpse into the projects he describes. He includes the script of his “Suicide-Site Guide to the City” that is uncomfortable, confusing and even tangential at times. I realize that the script can only give you a taste of the actual embodied performance, but I felt a little disappointed at the work because it was fragmented and hard to follow and understand. I am reminded of Hal Foster’s warning in the first packet in Participation that “at times, the death of the author has meant not the birth of the reader, so much as the befuddlement of the viewer.” I fear that the befuddlement of this viewer was official by the end of O’Donnell’s script because I did not feel connected at all to his words or ideas.
What keeps writers and performers from writing, producing and performing more work that is controversial, uncomfortable or painful? O’Donnell thinks that many theatrical performances are limited creatively by parameters that “use the rhetoric of safety to cloak control.” (56) Many people in power do not like change because it means losing control or power over a situation. I have experienced this very scenario in the past when a principal has pulled the old “safety card” out as an excuse for not doing something new or creative. I requested that the administration allow students to go outside for their lunch time again since the privilege was removed after a series of fights took place last year. I was told that we should just continue keeping the students inside because “the surveillance was better indoors.” I am still trying to understand the equation that being outside means more fighting. The “tradition card” has been pulled a few times in my public school experience when administrators explain how “that is the way we have always done it.” I have determined that tradition in the United States means anything that has happened for two consecutive years. Two years equal always? Another shallow equation, it seems to me.
O’Donnell promotes a neo-philistine work ethic where a person’s “acts of charity also improve the well-being of the donor.” (39) If artists create social good, the author believes that the artist’s motivations do not need to be pure. Why shouldn’t the act of goodness or kindness result in bettering the situation of the artist as well? He warns artists against masquerading as do-gooders in their work and to avoid performing any type of charity because charity “can discriminate and emphasize the classicism, racism, sexism, etc.” (79) that is present in the culture. I think that if you consider yourself a member of the community that you are helping, you are simply working to make things better for everyone, including yourself. I see the destructive qualities of setting up a stereotypical scenario of the artist helping out those “poor and unfortunate people” in the community. Done rightly, however, breaking down the wall between giver and receiver places people on more equal ground.
I identified with O’Donnell’s caution of the new freedom given to artists who work at home. “Working at home brings the opportunity to never escape work opportunities.” (79) I think that it is healthy to have this physical separation from the work world. I leave the school at five in the afternoon each day and drive home to paint, play with my pets, have dinner with my husband or work on the usual house chores that never seem to end. I found myself frazzled about eight years ago, edgy, impatient, unhappy, anxious, exhausted and even a little depressed. It took a little while for me to recognize that I was spending too much of my time at home still working as an art teacher. I was being super teacher; the artist, wife and woman were suffering. I committed myself to leaving my school work at school.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Any Suggestions?
Would any of you have suggestions on some good books and/or organizations on the topics of eco-feminism and eco-racism? We're slightly touched on eco racism in our conversations but never identified it as such.
Thank you for any input.
Susan
Thank you for any input.
Susan
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