Please see Savings & loan, 2001, by Frederick Hammersley at the Menil.
I feel everything about that heavy white weight the abstract figure in this painting carries. The colors of this painting, the cherrier colors balanced with the grey, creates a feeling of teetering that draws my eye. The black with its sturdiness, anchoring the figure, swathing its head, and that fade into blue. The figure is walking away, toward a bright orange plane. I imagine they’re leaving a frozen lake and overcast skies with whatever they have packed, saved, to carry. I hope for them. I wish for the certainess that an artist must have to decide this color ends here, this shape curves like this.
John E. Dowell, Jr., Letter to My Betty II, 1970, color lithograph on paper, sheet: 15 1⁄8 x 12 in. (38.3 x 30.5 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1971.305
I froze up in my writing for this blog because I wasn’t feeling great or good. I was also plagued by the thing I’m trying to get over. This feeling that to write about art means that I must come up with something no one has every said or thought about art to say anything at all. This blog isn’t that. I’m not that. I’m a person who likes to look at art and likes to write, and that’s all this blog needs to be. I’m trying to convince myself. To let myself simpy be. So the exercise continues.
Dowell’s Letter to My Betty II drew my attention because I’ve been thinking of the letters I wish I wrote to friends but don’t carve the time out to. But this past month, my letters would have looked more like this than anything else. A bunch of crossed out words, things I didn’t think I should put in writing and send in the mail. A desire to be alone but not alone, a feeling that I relate to letter writing. A relationship from a comfortable distance.
This one I really wish I could see in person. The layers of color and the bright doodles that rise up from the lake of lines. As always, I need someone to explain the process of lithography to me. Printmaking processes are always so deceptively simple in appearance, or maybe it’s because I can’t think in the way they must to layer. The process is an art in itself.
The first time I saw Aguilar’s photography, I was living in the Sonoran Desert. I imagined the sand she place her body onto would either be scorching hot or icy cold and never comfortable. Before I knew anything about her, I wondered what drove Aguilar to the extreme of putting the sensitivity of her skin at the mercy of the desert. I liked to joke that the desert was either blazing or blustering, rarely just right. Maybe that’s a me thing, as someone who likes to always have a bottle of water at hand, maybe I’ll always feel a sense of life-threatening danger in a desert.
The black and white tones of Aguilar’s photos and the high contrast give me a sense of stillness and brings clarity to an environment that can sink into a beige wash. Because I’ve spent some time living and driving through the southwest, the image brings back the sounds, smells, sights, and feelings of it. Her work encapsulates the alone-ness that vastness can allow you to feel. It’s both terrifying and gratifying. It’s no wonder so much mythology is made of deserts. It’s an environment that brings you close to death, our ultimate freedom.
And yet, the desert still teems with life. Lizards and ants crawl over the ground. The biggest harvester ants I’ve ever seen patrol their blocks. They are the real owners of the land, underneath all of our constructions. In the sky are hawks and ravens and, where I Iived, a multitude of migrating hummingbirds. A mountain lion followed a wash into the city where it met an untimely (and illegal) death. Here I am categorizing my experiences and reliving in the past. How much one photograph can dregde up!
To start, view Untitled (Ocean) by Vija Celmins from the collection at the Ft. Worth Modern.
I should warn you that my favorite form is drawing. Graphite is best, charcoal is daring. Others are all fun but these two will always have a special place in my heart. This post is a little of a cheat because I watched a documentary with Celmins talking about her work. What I like most about it is how the precision through its single-mindedness conveys a sense of calm. I’ve often thought of drawing as a sort of meditation but it never occurred to me that the difficulty in meditation could also be explained through a comparison to drawing. While looking at her works, somehow everything in the periphery fades. I can almost hear the sound of the pencil on the paper. Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Some other notes about the documentary (on kanopy): often I don’t want to listen to an artist talk about their work, but this worked because she wasn’t busy trying to posture her work alongside a bunch of other names. She’s also funny. She also mentioned taking breaks from making art, which is a nice reminder.
I’m keeping this short and maybe abrupt, because it’s been sitting in my notes app for weeks. Until next time.
Please view Dorothy Hood’s painting, Haiti, at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Because I don’t have permission, I’m linking to the work of art instead of copying it here.
I visited the MFAH on a free admission day which meant that there were beautiful groups (hordes!) of children everywhere. Yes, I witnessed some touching, but more importantly I overheard people asking the kids what they thought and saw. Honestly, even if, as some certainly were, some folks were only there to have a large, air conditioned place where they could take their children for the day — so be it. Those children will see new things, imaginative things, beautiful and ugly things alike.
Dorothy Hood’s Haiti was alone on a wall. It was around a corner from a gallery space with another artwork on the way to the restroom. There was a couch in the corner where a couple were watching something on their phones. At first, I might not give the work near the restroom time. It feels too much like seeing art at Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus. But gradually this painting’s gloriously large size drew me in.
Before I read the wall text, it reminded me immediately of the Sonoran Desert. Of the canyons and mountains and swathes of rock. Once I read the text and title, the black abyss took the representation of the 150 million franc independence debt Haiti was forced to pay France.
Indeed, the painting made me feel small and insignificant. And today, as the news always brings anguishing news, I think of this abyss that threatens to swallow the rest of this painting. But it does not. It is hemmed in by rock and valleys, by cliffs, and a bit of sky.
Whyever blog? Whyever now? Three reasons for this blog, as much a reminder to myself as an introduction of me to you:
For fun — During the last five years, I have been relearning (learning?) what it means to do things for fun and for myself. Up until that point, most of what I did was filtered through that misguided belief in a meritocracy, a need to stay busy, and bounds of a capitalist scarcity mindset. What does it mean to enjoy something you are doing for it and to have no expectations for yourself? I’m still learning.
For feeling — My main interests all were set in me as a child as a way of escapism. I am a product of my circumstances. Art was something “more than.” It was something to be achieved. It used to invoke wonder. I would like to unnumb the parts of me that have been ossified as a poor way to survive to this dealth cult society.
For connection — The lack of COVID conscious spaces means I don’t have m/any community spaces where I feel safe or welcome. So here we are, on the internet. 🙃
Who am I? A writer primarily. A person with a day job that has nothing (thankfully) to do with writing. I have written art reviews in the past for various publications and even co-edited a publication. I suppose that will have to do. You’ll learn enough about me as this blog continues.
whyever 