Neutrality

Happy New Year! Sorry I’ve had such a long hiatus from writing. I would love to blame it on something like the end of the semester, the holidays, vacation, etc., but I don’t really believe it was any of those. I believe my silence is the result of and overwhelming feeling of neutrality I’ve had for a while. Its not quite a depression, but more like a type of boring contentment. I’ve had no inspiration to make work in my studio or apply for shows and its really becoming quite frustrating.

I’ve started some of what I need to do to turn this around.

1. Get back on track with meditation. I tend to loose my momentum during the holidays and while traveling, something I’m embarrassed to admit, but I am getting back on track with my at home practice, and I am signed up for the next evening class, Contentment in Everyday Life at The Shambhala Center.
2. Exercise. After our ski vacation I am really inspired to exercise outside nearly everyday even when it is cold, snowy and icy here in Chicago. I’ve been cross-country skiing once and have been urban hiking around town in my new yaktrax.
3. Reading. I’ve started to dive into my new books starting with “The Critique Handbook, A Sourcebook and Survival Guide” Which will help me lead more rigorous critiques during this next semester.
4. Going to my studio. This area still needs improvement. I just need to go there, even when there is seemingly nothing to do.
5. Remain open. It seems like I’ve been short circuiting every idea. “Oh that won’t work.” or “Thats dumb.” Almost all my work is the result of making one thing and discovering something else unexpected. Without the making part, the discover will never come.
6. Go to see art. This is also on the to-do list. I want to go to some openings and make use of my new Art Institute membership this week.
7. Be Gentle. I am also reading “Start Where You Are,” and I need to remind myself of Pema’s gentle approach constantly. Beating myself up for perceived failures will not get me anywhere. Lately, even though I’ve been accomplishing things from my to do list, I only feel like I’ve done nothing.
8. Sketchbook! Work in it. I am planning to cut out everything I found inspiring from last year’s Sculpture Magazines for my sketchbook, and review previous notes and ideas.
9. Help someone. This is something I’ve been aware of since undergrad. Somehow helping someone else really gets things going. I don’t have any art friends I can help at the moment, but I will be helping my neighbor design some storage solutions for her condo.

Hope your new year is of to a more inspired start.

Seeking Contributions and Contributors

Dear Artists, Artisans, Writers, Craftspeople, Musicians, Designers, Carpenters, and Makers of All Kinds,

Do you use a meditative practice in your life? What is your meditative practice and how does it relate to your making practice? How does your making community relate to your meditative practice? How does your meditative community relate to what you make? How do make time for meditation and making?

I’m looking for contributions and contributors for this blog. Please consider writing about your experience with mindfulness and making. Unfortunately, I cannot offer you fame or fortune for your contribution, but I hope you will help create a community of dialogue here online. If enough people begin to contribute, I am interested in moving this blog to its own domain and collaborating with interested people on developing it.

Please submit your finished and titled essay, a short bio, your website address and/or blog address to me reneeuna at gmail.com.

Thank you!

Art, Teaching and Meditation

I wrote an essay for Chicago Artist’s Resource on the relationship of art, teaching and meditation in my life. You can read it on their site.

Open Crit @ Hyde Park Art Center

Last Thursday I was included in a new program at The Hyde Park Art Center: Open Crit. It was lead by photographer Daywoud Bey and curator Nathan Mason, both were so great. Three other artists were selected to present and the room was full of great people who contributed. I showed Orange Jelly and my ceramic fungi and received great observations and suggestions. The atmosphere was really great, all participants were motivated by being helpful and honest. I would recommend this program for anyone. I will be back as an audience member because I feel like I’m rusty in the art discourse.

Demoted/Downsized

Recently, an employer of mine dramatically reduced my appointments and consequently my pay. This sadden me since I thought of this as may main employment, it not only provided me with the lions share of my income, but it was also a stimulating appointment for me and my students. I felt very invested in the program even though I was only part time. Since this reduction, my responsibilities have been ambiguous and greater then my remaining appointment would indicate. In short I have been demoted/downsized. In this economy many people are doing more work for less money, and are glad to be doing it, but it is frustrating and stings in very real and human ways, and is probably an excellent moment for practice.

Things I am not doing:

• Recognizing the impermanence of everything, but namely jobs and associated responsibilities, or even that this demotion could be impermanent.
• Recognizing that I have no self, and clinging to any identity (even one associated with employment) will bring suffering.
• Recognizing habitual behavior as the creator of cocoons and other restrictive protective devises of the mind.
• Answering the question my dad asked himself when he was demoted late in his career.

“If I didn’t have this job, and someone offered me this job, would I take it?”

This question is like a reset button. It is precise. It elegantly releases the past from dictating the future and brings the situation into the present moment. It reminds me that everyday is a new job and every moment is filled with the unexpected.

Hopefully soon, by applying effort, I will be doing the above.

The Path of Labor

From Franconia Iron 2009

This summer I had the great opportunity to participate in Franconia Sculpture Park’s Thirteenth Annual Iron Pour. This took the form of a week long residency living and working at the park with over seventeen other artists making our molds and preparing for the pour.

The process of making cast iron art is extremely labor intensive, and the process of making it out of doors, competing with the weather, and sometimes for working space is even more strenuous. All the steps needed to create the art, from making sand molds, to cracking iron radiators into small pieces and breaking coke into small pieces, to pouring the molten iron itself, is just so HEAVY! I had participated in many pours when I was younger and I remembered what hard work they were. In fact, I lifted weights in preparation for this residency to protect my back from what was coming. After the first two days of working I almost felt as if it was more than I could do. It was so much harder than I remembered. I worked almost from dawn to dusk most days, which was facilitated by sleeping in a tent. Most of my fellow artists kept the same schedule. As more days past, I was still so very tired, but my production did not decrease. I think this was mainly due to working with such friendly and dedicated artists. I fell into the river of momentum, which when it was white water was hard to keep my head above water, but was most often slow and steady. I began to love the intensity of working all day, never having to wonder what to do next because there was too much to do. I found that the intensity of the physical labor kept me in the moment almost the whole time. It was a one pointed labor. Only as I finished my projects did my mind have the space to wander and worry.

From Franconia Iron 2009

The pour was a spectacular culmination to the week. Many artists made very ambitious projects which were almost all successful and wonderful.

From Franconia Iron 2009

My modest project was not as successful as I’d hoped, but I left feeling completely inspired and happy, knowing that I would miss the hard work. After the pour many of the artists disappeared before I could say goodbye to them, and this seemed standard. When I left I was sad to leave, and felt myself foolishly clinging to the experience and happy to be coming home. I hope that I can carry that work ethic and one pointedness into my fractured practices of studio, and teaching.

I dream of a museum without curatorial comments.

This week I made my first trip to The Art Institute’s new Modern Wing with my mom and sisters. We had a lovely time there, and even got to eat in the new restaurant. I was quite pleased to see that the new Modern Wing, featured some much needed contemporary art, like Robert Gober, and Bruce Nauman, but I would have loved to see more (like the whole wing filled with contemporary art). The modern standards looked great as well, although much of the exhibit was the same work which was featured in galleries in the old building.

While wandering the galleries and looking at the work, I found those little curatorial tags to be particularly pesky. Not that they had changed at all: Artist Name, Nationality, Life Dates, Piece Dates, and a paragraph. That paragraph bothered me, like a person who keeps talking while you are trying to concentrate on a task. I found myself “feeling bad” if I didn’t read the paragraph, like I might be missing something, but then found the first two sentences to be so far from the experience of looking that I quit reading.

What would a museum be like without those paragraphs? What would it be like for the art to stand on its own? I dream of an exhibit where each work is free to stand on its own, free from the historical cannon, free from its family of work in another collection, free from the artist’s biography, free to be seen by an audience entrusted to have their own experience.