Wooden Dialogues Artist Talk

Today I was invited to speak in the gallery at Wheelock College with my fellow artist, Gloria Calderon Saenz, about our work. We spoke to two classes, an art history class studying women in the history of art and a studio art class doing mixed media collage. It was rather appropriate, as both my work and Gloria's incorporate use of various materials, as well as a varied use of materials.

First, it was great to get out and speak about my work, to hear the questions that my work brings up and to learn more about another artist. Gloria made a really good point that the desire to create art outweighs the obstacles. Another thing she talked about, which is somewhat related, is the need to make that art even if it is bad. I have such a difficult time making time between working and teaching and being a mother and financial and family responsibilities. So sometimes when I do go to the studio, it is a mental and creative struggle. As a result, I wind up making art that is sometimes not my best. But every artist has to do that, right? What is most important is that I am constantly in motion, challenging my creativity and finding motivation. Artist talks, having coffee with fellow artists or just visiting museums does that for me just as much as producing work in the studio. All experiences are relevant.

Always in progress

For the past month or so I have been working on a number of projects. Too many projects. Not sure if I can keep up but I am putting in a good effort. On Saturday, I installed about a dozen prints for the exhibition Wooden Dialogues at Wheelock College (a two-person show including myself and another Arlington artist, Gloria Calderon-Saenz). I finally finished the last print on Friday. My work is so reactionary, involving multiple layers, processes and materials. Often these materials are found; sometimes the materials I have don't exactly fit the vision of a specific print and I have to wait... and wait for something to come along that strikes me. Until then, a print can sit unfinished for months while I move on to other prints.
















Above are images of prints in thier unfinished state on the wall of my studio in Somerville, and my work table covered with stencils. For me, there is no such thing as completion; I save my blocks and materials and continue to work with particular images or revisit images in different ways. My newest dilemma is whether or not I can UNfinish a print. After the print has been signed, imaged, and even shown in an exhibit, can I then later decide that it needs "something" and continue to work on it? I think so. After all, John Singer Sargent changed Madam X after exhibiting it in a salon show and getting flack for depicting her with the diamond studded strap of her dress falling off her shoulder; he then went back and repainted the strap in its "proper" place. Though his changing of the painting was more a response to societal pressure, I do think it was a good move; a fallen strap gives away too much and makes her sex appeal too obvious. With the strap in tact, her allure is in what is not seen and what is held back through her composure, elegant profile, and the subtle way in which her fingers lightly caress the table top.



The prints I want to change are too obvious, too literal. They are on exhibit now at Wheelock... but I want to wait to have more discussion about them or even announcing on this blog which prints I am considering re-working.

On the use of text, notably the Bible

I have always used text in my work, since my first lithograph. In that print, I used a copy of a letter written to me by my mother (I still have that print somewhere and will find it and include it in this blog entry later...). I never use random text, only text that has meaning. I have to be able to have some sort of connection to the words themselves, even if the words are barely legible in the finished print, as often happens. Sometimes you can barely read the entire line; but that's not always the point. The words have a feeling that I want to convey. I don't want people to be standing there in the gallery READING my prints. I want people to share the feeling of the words.

So I grew up in a strong Baptist household: church every Sunday, Sunday school, church choir (though I can't sing and they all knew it but you can't really kick anyone out of the church choir, now can you?) and my mother's famous line (at least famous to my brother and I) "you are going to hell if you don't change your ways!" No my mother isn't a crazy fanatic; she has a strong faith in God but she's also practical and contemporary. She bought me my first leather mini skirt in middle school (I looked SO cool) and even confessed once that Madonna was her favorite singer. But the Bible is her rock. During the weekday she wakes at 5am (!) to hold telephone bible readings and prayer sessions with members of her church. I tried to tell her once that God is still asleep at 5am but she just shot me a dirty look.

My point is, I started using the Bible in my work to admit that I too read the Bible. I love the Beatitudes because it has taught me that it is ok to be meek ("... for they shall inherit the earth.") And a number of passages which illustrate that women are strong even when they are doubted and looked over. Two women I have focused on are Mary, who stood up to the angel Gabriel by saying "How can this be...?" She didn't just accept what was being told to her, she wanted an explaination. And the woman with the issue of blood, who had been given no cure for her hemoragging. She didn't accept that and pushed against the crowd to seek another opinion by touching the hem of Jesus' garment.

Now, one might wonder how can I (being liberal minded and, more notably, being a lesbian) have such an affinity for the Bible? Throughout history the Bible has been used to promote the persecution of people (blacks, women, homosexuals...) But I think it's important for these people to take back the Bible and reclaim the words that have been used against them.

Family background...

After finishing graduate school at the University of Iowa, I was all over the map with my work and had no real focus. Physically and emotionally I was moving in a number of different directions and this impacted my work. I had no studio, no job, and then when I found a job I didn't necessarily like it very much. Unfortunately, my work began to reflect this period of my life: random, unininspired, unfocused and, well, ugly. It took some time to get myself together, and then to get my work back on track.


In getting myself together, I had to realize that I needed to settle down. I was on the verge of a serious relationship, after years of running away from serious relationships and leaving a wreckage of broken hearts from here to there and everywhere. I had to find a focus not just in a relationship with another person, but also with myself. What were the things that influenced who I was on the verge of becoming as a person? In making these decisions about myself and my work while at the same time settling down with someone, I realized that it was all about family for me. I then began to look at how my family had influenced my thinking, and my work as an artist. Oddly enough, the answer was there all along, even when I was making work that was "ugly." My work had always reflected the influences of my maternal grandmother and my mother: inspired by texture, patterns, found objects and words as well as the ability to use what was at hand to create new "recipes." This is how my grandmother quilted and how my mother cooks.




The work that I have been focusing on for the past few years was started while I was a resident artist at the Vermont Studio Center in May of 2006. Some have used the lace curtains, doilies and table runners pilfered from my mother's storage. Found text images (from poems, non-fiction literature, and the Bible) have provided a context as well as an additional textural element for my work. I have titled my work with words such as "faith," "surrendered," and "virtue" as way of acknowledging the strong spiritual and emotional sensibilities that go into my work. My more recent work (which can be seen in the exhibitions at Wheelock, Bristol CC and Boston City Hall) more directly reference the women in my family who have influenced me: Bertha (my mother), Irene (my maternal grandmother), Daisy (my paternal grandmother) and Margaret (one of my many aunts).




I should also note that I have named this blog after my press name Rae Press, which is named for my mother's middle name Rae. But she hates it.