Progress

Today I managed to talk with some folks who run a local non-profit gallery. I brought some of my work with me and asked them if there could be a possibility of there, maybe, being some space for me to show my work, pretty-please. (They meet every Tuesday to discuss their calendar and want artists to come by who are interested in helping them fill it, so I wasn’t really dropping in out of the blue… which coincidentally is the name of the gallery.)

Because of this meeting and the support the gallery managers have shown me, I will have an opening reception on October 17th for a week long show of my artwork.

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”

–George Orwell

One thing that was agreed upon by fellow art students was that we weren’t necessarily going into the art field because we wanted to. Lord knows there are easier ways of making a living. Instead, we created because we had to. We’d go mad without this outlet and so therefore had no choice about focusing on art.

In my own life I can trace the patterns of my moods and correlate them pretty closely to how much or how little I was creating at any given time. When I’m able to devote some time every day to my artwork, I’m much happier than I would be otherwise.

One of my favorite artists is Charles Benefiel. I was introduced to his work while taking the following course at the University of Delaware…

ARTH 422
Folk and Outsider Art
3 credits
Focuses on the traditional and popular arts of the United States. Topics covered include colonial Pennsylvania German decorative arts, Victorian Welsh gravestones, African-American textile and basketry crafts, and contemporary Inuit graphic arts. Discussions and research will focus on the relationship of folk arts to questions of ethnicity, class, popular culture, and community aesthetics.

The professor, one Bernard Herman, had met with and interviewed this artist. As it was explained (and further simplified via my description), Benefiel starts in the center of the drawing and fills in dots… counting each one up to 1,000 at which point he starts over at 1… until he has completed these lush, detailed, grotesque masterpieces.

A “sane” person would probably not be able to do that. If they started out sane, they’d either get bored after the first 700-odd dots or they’d go mad by the end. People ask me how I can have the patience to make tiny detailed heads… my answer is that I love it. It makes me feel better. Benefiel is able to function normally because he gets his demons out of his system through this productive focus. (There is a spectrum of people who show this trait, of course; I know I would never be able to complete even a square inch using his technique because my focus would give out.)

There was a story of a woman in a mental institution who begin sneaking threads from socks and created elaborate needlepoint and embroidery with no instruction prior. Once she was given medications, she stopped. I find this sad for many reasons. Must the chaos be tamed at the expense of the divine? Is an illness that reveals itself in madness and energy only to be treated with medication rather than channeled into unusual and fantastic realms?

I recognize that my questions are naive; few people would be willing to coax and care for those in the extreme throws of OCD, bipolar, etc. It is not “practical” to give them the space and safety to learn how to focus.

But, damn I wish it could be.

(Addendum 6-24-03: In the course of hunting down information on Charles Benefiel, I discovered that the American Visionary Art Museum’s current exhibit High on Life: Transcending Addiction included some of his works. On a recent trip home, I made a point of going to this show particularly because I’d never seen Benefiel’s work in person.

The dots are about the size of the pixels on my screen… and the pictures are measured in feet. They are amazing undertakings. It makes me overjoyed that he has managed to turn his demons into such breathtaking images.

Am I fawning? Yeah…)

Sometimes just randomly bending wire can be therapeutic and pretty.

This isn’t a new idea, of course…

No one has identified “The Philadelphia Wire Man” (or woman). Whoever the person is or was, s/he was obsessive, single-minded in technique, probably always walking. Perhaps even homeless. Over 600 of these small, tightly-wrapped, street-debris, fetish-like clusters were found in an alley during the renovation of South Street during the late ’70s. I like to envision a slowly-moving figure walking the streets, picking up trinket-like pieces of trash, wire- scrap, etc., an intuitive wrapping and tieing taking place until a hand-sized conglomerate object was obtained. Once hand-sized, this fetish object was no doubt stuffed in a pocket and another piece started. At the end of the day or the week, pockets were emptied into the hiding place.

More on OCD and art later.

… she was in pieces.

However, it’s been a while since I last blogged and she is now almost finished.

The other 3-dimensional puppet for this particular show is in need of clothes and some inner contraptions; the latter aspect I’m looking forward to working on but not so the former. Sewing does not come easily to me, at least not to the standards that I’d like, so instead I’m hunting for appropriate doll clothes. My keyword-googling skills have failed me in my hunt for doll business attire so I’m going to hunt through local toy stores, second hand stores, etc.

Another item for which I’m on the prowl is a doll sized computer. Non-functional, of course. The poor, frazzled puppet is going to have her fingers glued to the keyboard. After a suggestion from Joe, I checked out the possibilities of computer-shaped, promotional items. Scary stuff. I had no idea you could get stress balls in so many shapes, but I guess that’s because I’d never really thought about stress balls that much… Maybe that’s a good thing.

Or is it “Moulds”? Whatever…

I’m ashamed to admit it, but plaster and I do not get along.

My molds have never been good. They’ve achieved their purpose, but oh they are ugly and awkward. My last sculpture professor informed us (with tongue fully in cheek) that, “A smooth mold is a happy mold.” My molds must be the most miserable beings/structures around.

When it comes to smaller molds, I can deal. I can build a clay structure to contain the plaster as it dries and the particular quirks of this material are in a small enough space for me to feel as if I have some say in the outcome. But recently, for the stress/boss vignette, I’ve had to construct a mold that is not flat, easily containable, nor square.

Ah yes… the aspect of mold-making that they skim over in most information packets/books/web-pages… The construction of the structure that will contain the liquid plaster. How to create such a thing if you don’t have a convenient container already or if you’re contemplating something more complicated than a flat, square, two-part mold.

I’ve never really had much instruction in this aspect of sculpture. So much of what I know is through trial and error… and error and error and more error.

I guess there are more errors for me to make before I can do this competently. So I’ll get to it. Onward to errors!