February 23rd, 2010
I’ve been feeling so busy and so rushed lately. I feel like I never have time to slow down, and this is effecting my art practice and meditation practice. I’m glad I took a moment to read this conversation between Pema Chödrön and bell hooks.
I feel inspired by and reafirmed by this quote from Pema Chödrön.
“Personally I feel that the role of the teacher is to wean the students from dependency, and from taking the parent/child view of life altogether. That’s what I think of as non-theism. Theism doesn’t just have to do with God; it has to do with always feeling that you’re incomplete and need something or someone outside to look to. It’s like never growing up.
“To me, theism is feeling that you can’t find out for yourself what’s true. You take the Buddhist teachings, or any teachings and you just try to fit yourself into them. But you’re not really finding out. You’re not grappling with it. You’re not really digging into it and letting it transform your being. You are just trying to live up to some ideal. You are still looking for the security of having someone else to praise or blame.
“So accountability is pretty groundless. There is no hand to hold. It’s like the lojong slogan that says, “Of the two judges, trust the principal one.” No matter what other people say, when it really comes down to it, you’re the only one who can answer your own questions.”
Tags: art practice, meditation, teaching
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February 14th, 2010
So, I just moved everything over to a wordpress engine from blogger and I am trying to figure out how customize this page.
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January 7th, 2010
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Going to my studio. This area still needs improvement. I just need to go there, even when there is seemingly nothing to do.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Tags: art practice, art studio, change, inspiration, meditation, practice
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December 5th, 2009
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.
Tags: art, art practice, art studio, buddhism, conversation, meditation, networking
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September 1st, 2009
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.
Tags: art, art practice, criticism, learning
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August 14th, 2009
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.
Tags: contemplation, effort, practice, teaching
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August 11th, 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.
The pour was a spectacular culmination to the week. Many artists made very ambitious projects which were almost all successful and wonderful.
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.
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July 14th, 2009
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.
Tags: curate, exhibit, museum, viewer
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June 16th, 2009
My foot is stuck in the samsaric wheel of technology. I’ve been meaning to write this entry for a while on iPod Touch v. Steno Pad, but now I see the wheel is stronger and more inevitable as I find myself needing to buy an Adobe Creative Suite.
iPod Touch v. Steno Pad
For many years I’ve been happily using a steno pad to keep my list of things to do. I even have a steno pad system.
- Write everything down one sheet of the pad.
- Cross things off as the are completed (very satisfying).
- When that sheet becomes too jumbled up with crossed out things, copy the unfinished items onto a new sheet and add additional items
- Repeat.
This is a good system, but it has some draw backs namely all the different activities I do in different locations. I need to keep in order what I need to accomplish in my studio, at the studio at Loyola, household things, and then there are the things I want to buy, which happens at stores, like what materials I need to buy for my studio, groceries, gifts, etc. I could easily make a list of my lists. Also the steno pad cannot talk to my online calendar that organizes my social life, my two jobs, and collaborates with my husband’s calendar. My online calendar is wonderful because I can access it at both my jobs, at home, if I’m visiting my parents, anywhere I can get on the internet. I cannot get on the internet at my studio and my steno pad cannot get on the internet anywhere.
My lists and my calendar are very interrelated. I was perfectly happy living in this “quagmire” until I was dazzled by my colleague’s iPod Touch. Its does almost everything an iPhone does, but doesn’t have a huge monthly price tag. I can sync it to my online calendar, access it and update it even without wifi. It can keep many beautiful lists all at my finger tips, on which I can actually cross out my accomplished items, just like on paper. Furthermore I can check my email at a cafe, look up google maps, and of course listen to music and podcasts. This is it! This will be the tool that will make my life run so well it will be near perfection. HA!
How many times have I said that? iPod Touch will not solve all my problems, it will create as many new problems as it solves. My steno pad doesn’t need software upgrades and enjoy the slower pace of writing by hand. How mindfully will I use the iPod Touch? But, yet I know, soon I will make the switch. I know it is inevitable, I am just waiting for the next upgraded model to be released.
Tags: organization, samsara, technology
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June 10th, 2009
I recently attended my first ever week long meditation retreat at The Atlanta Shambhala Center. This week long retreat was an Art Weekthun. Weekthun is a week long program based on the traditional Tibetan month long retreat Dathun. The art part of this meditation retreat was not the reason I choose this Weekthun over the others being offered this summer, I choose this one because of scheduling between my husband and I and because we could drive there. However this program was really perfect for me in all my practices, meditation, teaching and making.
The Atlanta Shambhala Center which hosted this Art Weekthun was so much more beautiful, grand, comprehensive and impressive then I could have ever expected. Their center and facilities are so wonderful, they are now being called an Urban Land Center. In about the past seven years they bought wonderful land with two buildings on it, built a large and beautiful new meditation hall, and acquired a guest house. I could not recommend doing a program there enough. I had such a great time, they are so friendly and wonderful it was just great.
The Art Weekthun was an interesting program consisting mostly of sitting meditation, but also interlaced with different art practices meant to be executed as a continuation of meditation practice. This was my first exposure to Dharma Arts. I found the form and the approach to be a great way to remind me of how my own art practice is a type of meditation practice. Getting into the “zone” or “flow” is the basic joy of making. The Dharma Arts we practiced there are like a direct connect to that place.
The Dharma Arts approach, for me, was at first too simple, but as I stayed with it, rather then being a know-it-all in my mind, I realized that within this simple approach was some of what I’ve been missing in my teaching. I needed to see and do very simple exercises to realize how I could connect and engage my students more. This lead to a conversation with Lance Brunner about my interest in mindfulness or contemplative practice in higher education. More on this later….
Equally important was the sitting meditation. I really felt my practice deepen. I really began to see the gears of my mind, and my ego’s agenda. There were wonderful moments of understanding. I can’t wait to do another Weekthun, hopefully soon or maybe a Dathun.
This blog seems so short and inadequate compared to my experience there. I know that it will offer me more to learn as time passes.
Tags: art, learning, meditation, retreat, shambhala, teaching
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