The nature of artists?

A residency is an intense period of work, but also a reflective time. I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of artists—how hard we work and how strong and persistent (some would say stubborn!) we have to be to commit to art-making as a life’s work, but also how fragile we are. I’d guess that we all had those moments, whether publicly or privately, while at Jentel. The studio can be exhilarating and confounding, a place of pure pleasure, and of struggle, and sometimes of agonizing self-doubt. My writing class calls the self-doubt part the sh*t bird—the one that sits on your shoulder while you are working and says, “This is all sh*t! You’re not good enough! Who do you think you are?”

Perhaps these apparent contradictions are part of the dilemma of being human and not exclusive to artists, though creative life seems to embrace them more than most. In years of making art I’ve become a little (but not entirely) comfortable with these high and low swings, knowing that it will swing high again in time. And I wouldn’t miss those great times for the world. (That sounds a little like something a manic-depressive might say, doesn’t it? Not the same thing…) This seems to be the cost of heightened awareness and sensitivity, both the blessing and the curse of the artist. (Kinda like the blessing and curse of photography–once you start to see the world as potential photographs, then you see the world as potential photographs…hard to see it otherwise.) The alternative, of course, is to go through life a bit numbed down and oblivious to both the poetry and the anguish that is around us. NO! NO! NO! Difficult is not necessarily bad, it’s just, well… difficult. Easier said in good times, I know.

So Jentel was one of the high times (the creative type, not the pot type!). Gonna try to hold onto that for as long as I can.

Next adventure: a residency at Caldera Arts in the Oregon Cascade Mountains later this winter. It should be snowy (up to 6 feet!) and glorious. Stocking up on the long underwear and socks and will be posting from there after the holidays.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Goodbye, Jentel/things to love and miss

One of the joys of a residency is the little family that forms when you live and work with other artists. But it also comes at a cost, when everyone leaves at the end. I will miss you all very much. Some things that will stay with me:

• No snakes! (they were all sleeping in the cold) Oh, except that little one in Patti’s studio, yikes.

• Huge starry skies and the full moon on snow-dusted hills

• Jam sessions at the Occidental

• Java Moon and King’s

• A last-night Scrabble game (which I won…)

• Home-made cookies on my birthday and salt-roasted pears with caramel sauce last night

• Communal dinner (where I think my nickname of “cumin” originated)

• long underwear and Smartwool socks

• brilliant yellow aspens on brilliant sunny days

• “Strawberry”

• The black pheasant

• Gray kitty

• Pronghorns (antelope) and white-tail deer

• cowboys and pick-up trucks

• pink dawns over the Bighorns

And so much more...

"family"

our luxurious abode

The studio and the Snake Hills

Oh no! (Actually he's fake...)

Sunrise

Sunset (the same day)

Studio Days

I’m writing this on my way home to New York, and trying to mull over the incredible time that I have spent at Jentel. My work really ramped up to a whole new level, and I can’t recall ever enjoying the studio as much as I have this past month. When I looked at the pictures that one of my fellow artists took of me in the throes of work, I thought wow, I look really happy. There were so many things that fell into place at Jentel—the wide open spaces and vast skies of Wyoming (and lots of sun, great for a SAD sufferer like me), a place where artists are VALUED for what they do, a surprisingly varied and yet wonderfully compatible group of hard-working and inspiring fellow artists, a huge studio wall where I could watch a body of work evolve as I pinned it up, getting off the computer and my hands on physical material again—it’s hard to say what was most important. Whatever it was, I launched full tilt into making work, at first thinking that I might produce 20 or 30 mockups for final photo-encaustic pieces, but ultimately making a stunning 112! And I did not want to stop there. I ended up making lots of works that I would call drawings, ironic given that I never ever draw… But let me loose with stuff I can cut up and restructure into something new and I am happy as a clam (are clams happy?). These pieces grew out of photographs of Victorian dress patterns that I made 2 years ago while a Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society, and in the end I was creating collaged fragments of the patterns layered over the photos embedded in beeswax. Now I will begin the (long, I expect) process of making the finished pieces.

One of the challenges of residencies is that you go someplace far from the distractions of life and focus entirely on creative work. Much harder is the question about how to bring that experience home with you, where real life begins to intrude the minute you get off the plane. So… some things to try to hold onto:

• I need to clear some junk out of my studio! There is nothing like space to spread things out and see your work as it evolves, and empty space creates mental space. Over time my studio has also become my office, my TV room, and my living room, too much stuff…

• I need to set aside clearly defined studio days and not allow other things to encroach. I’ve gotten better at doing this, but still the email is open, the phone rings, etc.

• I want to work more with physical materials, and not solely digitally.

• I’ll try to make more opportunity for studio conversations with other artists. Everyone is so busy that this is hard to do, but important both for perspective and community.

• Get outside more (duh), the mind opens up when the body moves…

Thanks to my fellow artist Elizabeth for the photos...

happy artist

A wall o' art

Jentel visits Ucross

The world of artists' residencies is a small one, and at any residency I've been to, artists are exchanging information (and gossip) about other residencies. Jentel and Ucross are very close to each other (about 10 miles), so there's a lot of curiosity between the 2 places. On Saturday we ran into a group of artists from Ucross (you can kinda tell the artists from the locals...), and promptly went to see the place. There are 8 artist/writer/composers there at a time. We did not go in the studios, but everything looks great. A big difference there is that the studios are some distance from the house, necessitating a bit of a hike or bike ride from one to the other. Here at Jentel they are steps away from each other, convenient when it is very cold! There's also a chef at Ucross, so lunch and dinner are cooked for you, very plushy!

artists' residence

kitchen/dining

artist's studios

patio outside the studios

A little winter in Wyoming

We finally got a tiny bit of snow yesterday, so it begins to feel like winter. Cold nights, mild days, lots of sun—not too bad! Last night we had Jentel Presents, an evening of short presentations of all of our work to the local community in Sheridan. About 35 people showed up, filling up the room, and there were lots of interesting comments and questions. I've been astonishingly productive in the studio the last couple of weeks, more on that later... I will be coming home with tons of new work.