So much of my work looks at emotionally loud parts of life in visually quiet ways, but still hoping to touch some part of the feelings that run just under the surface. In my exploration of the labyrinth that is grief and its relationship to sleep, I tried to keep myself as a solid component of the work. This isn’t to say that I think my emotions any stronger or more special that anyone else who experiences grief, but rather that I feel the only way to honestly attempt documenting a feeling is by examining your own. My work (including the photographs) was all a sort of performative action. The pain of loss and sleep are both such personal elements of our lives I felt it only appropriate to make myself the center object of my work. That said, I don’t feel that my work is solely self evaluation or therapy purely for my benefit, but is more about the sharing of myself. I am interested in using very personal experiences and trying to establish some sort of connections from it.
I am quite comfortable with the level of romance and high emotion in my work. I always hope for my pieces to have (at the very least) hints of light and warmth, which is fitting given the motif of candles, matches and body heat. I want my work to speak to the viewer on a level of compassion, empathy and a connection to them rather than just shoving myself at them. I feel that the soft, non-abrasive quality is well suited for the subject. In all of my pieces I tried to find a balance between quietness and frustration, which I feel are two main components of grieving. There is a stillness to sleep and grief, and a sense of timelessness in both states. In sleep, and in grieving it seems I am simultaneously hyper aware of time passing and unaware of any sort of future. I tried to capture suspense; not in the sense of a psychological thriller film, but of actually being weightless, timeless in the air in your dark bedroom.
The titles of my work are different medical terms. The photographs are entitled euthermia, which means one trying to achieve a healthy body temperature. My video is called dyspnea which is the medical term for short breath. My performance is called Anticoagulant which is a medication that breaks down plaque in the coronary arteries, and my final performance entitled hyperthermia which is another term for a fever. In choosing these titles I was hoping to tap into the bodily and scientific aspect of sleep and depression. I don’t intend for the medical aspect to be the primary subject, but I did think it was important to reference. The terms can, of course, describe medical issues, but they also pertain to the bodily reactions one has to grief or high emotions.
Dieter Roelstraete’s “What is Not Contemporary Art?: The View from Jena” states that culture doesn’t necessarily form art, but that it is art that forms culture. This assertion gives me the greatest hope that my work is relevant. Because although I can’t easily imagine a room of the general population loving an eight minute long video of almost pitch black, I have the hope that such stillness and quietness may eventually touch someone. And if we can use art as a means of shaping culture, then I think that this warmth I am trying to accomplish is an even more important goal.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Hyperthermia
March 29, 2010
I laid in my bed holding a candle, and poured the melted wax into a mason jar periodically until the candle drown itself.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
(T)here
It isn't the sheer memories that keep me up, but then endless ways we could have moved through time together.
I was here.
You were here.
I wish you were here.
You wish I were here.
I wish you were there.
You wish I was there.
I was there.
You were there.
I wish there was here.
You wish there was here.
I wish here was there.
You wish here was there.
I was here.
You were here.
I wish you were here.
You wish I were here.
I wish you were there.
You wish I was there.
I was there.
You were there.
I wish there was here.
You wish there was here.
I wish here was there.
You wish here was there.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Anticoagulant - A Performance
Mississauga, Ontario.
March 4 2010 (11:00AM) - March 5 2010 (11:00AM)
I spent approximately 24 hours holding a jar full of ice against my chest while laying in bed. At the end of this time I went to Lake Aquitaine, which is where the performance ends.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
How to keep your love alive
Arlene Stamp
Artist Statement
The photograph "Mary is Here" is an image of my mother taken in 1944. She is standing in the middle of a group of men – the "final checking crew" at Central Aircraft in London, Ontario. The occasion, as noted on the back of the photograph in my mother’s hand, is the production of the 1000th Bolingbroke bomber. I was six years old at time and would have just learned to print with a pencil.
There seems a certain poignancy to me in the obviousness of my printed observation. Perhaps the awkwardness of the hand is a reminder of the feat of abstraction this simple phrase represents. Perhaps, too, I am remembering the pride she felt at the time to have achieved this level of responsibility – she who was always embarrassed not to have finished more than 10 years of formal school training.
Some 30 years later, while learning to paint, I came back to this photograph. You may have noticed the lettered grid around the edges revealing the primitive system I used to enlarge the image. I no longer have that painting or even the figure of Mary, which I cut out because it was the only part of the painting I wanted to preserve. I remember keeping that canvas figure rolled up in my studio for years. But I have moved on twice since then and it seems nowhere to be found.
Before 30 years passed again I returned to this photograph once more. This time after her death. It has become something else now, it is evidence. Along with all the other photographs, the voice tapes, the personal artifacts, even the handwriting, it is evidence of a life lived by a particular person who happened to be my mother. It is as difficult now to affirm my own personal reality as it was when I had only a thick pencil with which to work.
My mother always considered herself to be an atypical woman of her generation. Having assembled all the evidence, I’m not so sure any more. This Mary seems to melt into so many other Mary’s, so many other mothers, so many other women. Perhaps that observation is linked to this stage of my own life, when it has become the clearest that I am also my mother.
-http://ccca.finearts.yorku.ca/statements/stamp_statement.html
I am drawn to Arlene Stamp's work, though she seems to primarily focus on exploring her mother as an individual after her death I still feel that she entertains many of the same ideas as my work. I am most interested in her series "Mary Is Here" where she creates installations that mimic 1940's rooms her mother lived in. She states in the latter of her artistic statement that she came to realize that her mother may have been a typical woman and not as modern as she once imagined. I cannot help but feel that all this exploring and searching is an attempt to maintain her mother's presence. Though I'm sure she accepted her mother's passing and is grieving in a healthy way, I feel that such focus must be to, in one way or another, keep her mother with her. On the one hand, I feel that she is looking at her mother's life as adults often regard their childhood fascinations- with nostalgia but also a realization of their then glamorous perceptions of potentially average situations. However, I also find a definite sense of longing in her work. It seems there is a hint of regret (though that may be too strong a word) that she didn't get to know her mother. Or, perhaps she is very comfortable with her childhood fantasy of her mother, but just wishes to spend more time with her. Or, perhaps my perception of her work has little to do with her mourning and more to do with mine. But I do feel the work speaks of the finality of death. Now that her mother has passed, she can piece together a very accurate story of her mother, but she still cannot hear her mother's perspective. And all of this time and energy spent, whatever the motivation, still reads (to me at least) as a way to spend time with her mother everyday.
Artist Statement
The photograph "Mary is Here" is an image of my mother taken in 1944. She is standing in the middle of a group of men – the "final checking crew" at Central Aircraft in London, Ontario. The occasion, as noted on the back of the photograph in my mother’s hand, is the production of the 1000th Bolingbroke bomber. I was six years old at time and would have just learned to print with a pencil.
There seems a certain poignancy to me in the obviousness of my printed observation. Perhaps the awkwardness of the hand is a reminder of the feat of abstraction this simple phrase represents. Perhaps, too, I am remembering the pride she felt at the time to have achieved this level of responsibility – she who was always embarrassed not to have finished more than 10 years of formal school training.
Some 30 years later, while learning to paint, I came back to this photograph. You may have noticed the lettered grid around the edges revealing the primitive system I used to enlarge the image. I no longer have that painting or even the figure of Mary, which I cut out because it was the only part of the painting I wanted to preserve. I remember keeping that canvas figure rolled up in my studio for years. But I have moved on twice since then and it seems nowhere to be found.
Before 30 years passed again I returned to this photograph once more. This time after her death. It has become something else now, it is evidence. Along with all the other photographs, the voice tapes, the personal artifacts, even the handwriting, it is evidence of a life lived by a particular person who happened to be my mother. It is as difficult now to affirm my own personal reality as it was when I had only a thick pencil with which to work.
My mother always considered herself to be an atypical woman of her generation. Having assembled all the evidence, I’m not so sure any more. This Mary seems to melt into so many other Mary’s, so many other mothers, so many other women. Perhaps that observation is linked to this stage of my own life, when it has become the clearest that I am also my mother.
-http://ccca.finearts.yorku.ca/statements/stamp_statement.html
I am drawn to Arlene Stamp's work, though she seems to primarily focus on exploring her mother as an individual after her death I still feel that she entertains many of the same ideas as my work. I am most interested in her series "Mary Is Here" where she creates installations that mimic 1940's rooms her mother lived in. She states in the latter of her artistic statement that she came to realize that her mother may have been a typical woman and not as modern as she once imagined. I cannot help but feel that all this exploring and searching is an attempt to maintain her mother's presence. Though I'm sure she accepted her mother's passing and is grieving in a healthy way, I feel that such focus must be to, in one way or another, keep her mother with her. On the one hand, I feel that she is looking at her mother's life as adults often regard their childhood fascinations- with nostalgia but also a realization of their then glamorous perceptions of potentially average situations. However, I also find a definite sense of longing in her work. It seems there is a hint of regret (though that may be too strong a word) that she didn't get to know her mother. Or, perhaps she is very comfortable with her childhood fantasy of her mother, but just wishes to spend more time with her. Or, perhaps my perception of her work has little to do with her mourning and more to do with mine. But I do feel the work speaks of the finality of death. Now that her mother has passed, she can piece together a very accurate story of her mother, but she still cannot hear her mother's perspective. And all of this time and energy spent, whatever the motivation, still reads (to me at least) as a way to spend time with her mother everyday.Sunday, January 17, 2010
Seeing in the dark
There is something both depressing and calming about the dark. Although it makes us instantly vulnerable, there is a certain kind of pretending that can happen in the dark. When I am laying in my bed in the dark I can imagine you beside me in a way that daylight activities do not allow. So this time in the dark, when I am not quite asleep or awake and you are with me in my mind is a form of preservation. It provides an opportunity to keep you around, if only in my mind, as do my frequent dreams. Not that all the time spent thinking of you is positive or uplifting, as I stated earlier, it can be downright depressing; but its better than never having a chance to pretend you are still here.
Blueberries After Dark
By W.S Merwin
So this is the way the night tastes
one at a time
not early or late
my mother told me
that i was not afraid of the dark
and when i looked it was true
how did she know
so long ago
with her father dead
almost before she could remember
and her mother following him
not long after
and then her grandmother
who had brought her up
and a little later
her only brother
and then her firstborn
gone as soon
as he was born
she knew
Blueberries After Dark
By W.S Merwin
So this is the way the night tastes
one at a time
not early or late
my mother told me
that i was not afraid of the dark
and when i looked it was true
how did she know
so long ago
with her father dead
almost before she could remember
and her mother following him
not long after
and then her grandmother
who had brought her up
and a little later
her only brother
and then her firstborn
gone as soon
as he was born
she knew
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
A starting point, not necessarily an artist's statement
This song is the reason for my pun of a title.
I am interested in the exploration of mourning and sleep, and particularly the strength of emotion that seems to rest just beyond consciousness. Sleep seems to play an integral part of mourning, as it is one of the key traits when diagnosing depression. Most individuals experience insomnia, where as others sleep constantly. Multiple studies, including one conducted by Y. Gorgulu and O. Caliyurt, have proven that sleep deprivation seems to be a temporary treatment for those suffering from depression. Unfortunately, once the patient returns to their usual sleeping habits the depression returns. So, in this space of depression and mourning, sleep appears to be many things: an unachievable goal, an escape or a potential catalyst/cure. I am interested in examining what role sleep plays in mourning aside from the obvious physical demand.
Sleep, especially slow wave sleep (the deepest level), involves a sort of letting go. The body relaxes and the brain's functions change quite drastically from its waking state. If an individual has just suffered a traumatic loss (of any sort i.e. job, home, loved one etc.) willingly forfeiting control of your body and mind may be difficult. Or for some, sleep may be an escape because they can forfeit their body and mind.
I am interested in the exploration of mourning and sleep, and particularly the strength of emotion that seems to rest just beyond consciousness. Sleep seems to play an integral part of mourning, as it is one of the key traits when diagnosing depression. Most individuals experience insomnia, where as others sleep constantly. Multiple studies, including one conducted by Y. Gorgulu and O. Caliyurt, have proven that sleep deprivation seems to be a temporary treatment for those suffering from depression. Unfortunately, once the patient returns to their usual sleeping habits the depression returns. So, in this space of depression and mourning, sleep appears to be many things: an unachievable goal, an escape or a potential catalyst/cure. I am interested in examining what role sleep plays in mourning aside from the obvious physical demand.
Sleep, especially slow wave sleep (the deepest level), involves a sort of letting go. The body relaxes and the brain's functions change quite drastically from its waking state. If an individual has just suffered a traumatic loss (of any sort i.e. job, home, loved one etc.) willingly forfeiting control of your body and mind may be difficult. Or for some, sleep may be an escape because they can forfeit their body and mind.
There are so many elements I want to explore (forced relaxation, genuine relaxation, dreams, the process of crying in one’s sleep, a safe loss of control – just to name a few) and I hope to do so in a warm way. I think there is something so romantic about both sleep and mourning, and I hope my work is not entirely cold or impersonal.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
