A Jump Scare is Art

You know that moment in a scary movie when the music has set the scene, anticipation is in the air and you know something is lurking somewhere out of sight of the character and the audience and then BOOM out it lunges? I used to live for that cathartic release in a movie theater especially when I had an excuse to hold onto someone when scared, be it Vaimo, or my more typical scary movie companion, my Bestie. Remember seeing a movie in a theater? Wow, I know they’re open again, but I’m just not there yet in terms of feeling comfortable to attend a movie with other people I don’t know breathing in a room for two hours. As someone with anxiety, actually increasing my resting heart rate for two hours in the before times was good therapy, because at the end of the film there is at least the resolution that you’re leaving the scene. You can keep the fear in the theater. You’ve made it through the gauntlet. You survived the experience.

Horror is such an interesting genre to me. It’s fun how polarizing it is. It’s one of the polarizing situations in our current cultural moment that I don't have a "dog in the fight" as they say. Though from this correspondence it will be clear which pole I'm on. You’re either into it or you’re not. I've been into it since growing up with Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books. It’s also a fascinating case study in low-budget cinema still getting made within a Hollywood landscape where that is more and more difficult. Let’s not count out the horror renaissance we’re in with some films receiving mainstream acclaim and release. Like Jordan Peele’s socially conscious horror exploring racism and capitalism as the most scary part of his films in Get Out and Us. But horror has often had a conscious. The good stories anyways. Think of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead series that totally raises the question about who are the true zombies…in a mall! Even the torture gore or slasher film provides messages about our broader cultural moment for the conscious viewer. A genre rife for cultural examination of how gender, sexuality, ability, and class (among other categories) function in a narrative arc and for the purposes of entertainment. The fact that we have arthouse horror (A24 productions) should make us stop and think about the art of the scary story. And, show me a film genre that is better at making fun of its own tropes and conventions? Part of the pleasure is that we are all in on the gag.

When I moved into our home in the country I stopped watching horror films for a bit, especially films that featured houses in rural places or hauntings of any kind. I was afraid of the trees, and the unknown of the forest. Probably connected to the primal Western-based fears of being wary of the uncontrollable (feminine) nature, and all of the horror movies I’d seen of bad (people, demons, vampires, werewolves…fill in the monster here) lurking in the dark. But in a similar way when I moved into this big house in the country I had also metabolized some really negative thoughts about my creative ability. I was scared to make art, scared of imperfections, scared of what lurked below the surface I chose to not even look to see. We all know the smartest “Final Girl” is the one that doesn’t walk toward the spooky noise in the attic. She gathers more information. Not one to be led by her uninformed curiosity, she stays put. She thinks. She researches. She makes sense of what’s happening to save herself.

When Vaimo was at a conference in Boston for a whole week earlier this month, and I found myself needing company on the TV, I dipped my toe back into the horror genre. I started screening the American Horror Stories series, the short mostly contained within one episode horror narratives with interesting twists on common horror themes. I’d warmed up to this possibility only because mis hermanitas have gotten me hooked on scary podcast listens. I thought while Vaimo was away, watching scary content would help me feel something like an illusion of control. That I would be in charge of my own fears of being in the house by myself again (something that hasn’t happened in such a long time because of the 18-month-long event we’re all continuing to navigate that need not be named again). And it kind of worked. Mostly it helped me think differently about my fear. It gave me a framework to hang onto, a sense of being that was able to recognize that like a horror movie, this too would run its course and end. Vaimo would return.

And she did! And now I’m back in my studio full time, painting up a storm, and reconnecting with that inner depth within me daring myself to look where I’m afraid to look. When I approach a new painting or series there is this element of fear that is under the surface. But it’s a good, scary feeling. It’s how I know I’m going somewhere I need to be going with my work. When it’s not there, I’m bored. I need a jump scare in my creative practice more than I’d like to admit. And really, what it all comes down to: is there some fun in this fear? Is there some purpose to it? I’ve committed to watching 31 horror movies on Netflix for the month of October as a fun challenge to myself. ’Tis the season anyways! I'm in search of finding some of the joys in fear and to figure out how to bring more of that comfort in the cycles of anticipation and release of tension into my studio practice. I’ve already got a good start, the decades of horror films and lifetime of scary content I’ve consumed give me good footing. Now it’s just about not being so scared about what goes bump in the night and to fight like hell to be the last one standing.

What I’m Reading

Leaving isn’t the Hardest Thing, Lauren Hough

Some may remember the viral essay that hit the scene a few years ago by Lauren Hough I was the cable guy that wonderfully captivated a variety of readers for different reasons. That essay is in this collection alongside more reflection by Hough on her difficulties navigating our contemporary US experience as someone informed by her experience of growing up in a cult. Her writing style is gripping and her insights enviable. I often found myself in awe of turns of phrases I’ve never before heard. The kinds of sentences that make you wish you wrote like that. The memoir is not an easy listen/read but it’s an important one. Especially as an ever-present reminder that the intersections of poverty, the military, Christianity cults and sexuality are not simple topics. Hough’s voice is an important truth teller, of whose words I want to read/hear more.

Artist Offerings

• This essay moved me as an elder millennial barreling toward 40, I don’t think we write/talk/speak about age enough - MFgrAy by Geri Modell as part of Roxane Gay’s Emerging Writer’s Series via her newsletter;
• Happy Latinx Heritage Month! Enjoy this Latinx Project interview with Moises Salazar about masculinity and softness;
• I attended a webinar this week about this Library of Congress Artist or Scholar in Residence Program they are launching, if you do work at the intersections of technology and race apply!
• Need to stock up on some scholarly reading? Duke University Press’s 50% off fall sale is happening NOW!

Creative Ritual

Sometimes when fifteen or sixteen days pass since the last newsletter I feel like, woah, was that just fifteen days ago? It’s kind of wild how this arbitrary twice monthly newsletter sent out into the world has become such an important structure to my often less structured lifestyle these days. Anyways, since mid-September I submitted a grant application for funding for emerging artists and conceptualized a new project I’d be working on if awarded the funds. Bestie, Vaimo and I along with a MAJOR lift from Hermana pulled off the largest production at the ChicFinn for the stunning and magical wedding of Hermanita and her love (new Prairie Bro-In-Law!) I also squeezed five days of painting and prepping paintings to head to Kansas. I will be at the group exhibition for the Tallgrass Prairie Artists in Residence cohorts from 2020 and 2021 summers on October 2, in Matfield Green. I’m excited Vaimo will be traveling with me and it will be fun talking about the work with others who are enthralled by the prairie in their own ways. Plus, some of my family members will be attending the first in-person exhibition I’ll take part in since I started this whole art career thing. I’ve “finished” the painting on two large canvases, though I’m still deciding on are there more of this series that need to emerge and if I need to stitch some symbols onto these canvases to mix-media them up. Likely yes, but that will be for another time. Lastly, I had the first of many meetings with a new Latinx Artist advisory group for some important research on artistic making that will be happening in Minnesota. Exciting stuff

Questions to Ponder

What scares you?
How do you work through or with your fears?
How does fear influence your creative approach?
What do you need from your jump scare?

Thanks for journeying with me. I hope, as always, that you take what you need and leave the rest for someone else, or for another time. 

-KCF

PS: Please consider supporting the work of this newsletter and my other creative efforts by becoming one of my one-time or sustaining donors. I appreciate my network of support, you all make the scaries much less so!