Ritual Question

After a lifetime in academia, I returned to the beauty of the biography about a year ago as a means to try to make sense of my new world. At the time, that new world was one of transition, of leaving a job as a tenured Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, and returning to school full-time as a very non-traditional undergraduate student studying visual arts. I sought wisdom from others in ways the distance and obsession of an outside perspective can allow. As a writer who uses the personal as a political tool, I love memoir, but about a year ago I found that reading biography provided new insights I craved. As a scholar working on reclaiming narratives and always reflecting on the limitations of traditional archives, I like to think I live my life in such a way that one day someone would have the materials they need to write about me. I am committed to creating content that marks my lifetime here; I want to leave a mark. While providing the context of where these thoughts are coming from is important to me, this essay isn’t about the biographies necessarily, but rather the lessons I keep thinking about in our current times. In August 2019 I thought my new world I would need to make sense of was just about my career transition. Instead, my new world is about that career transition and the global realities of pandemics and large-scale racial justice reckonings. It may be counterintuitive, but I like to think about biography as a window into the collective. Sure, one person’s life story becomes central, but the biography can’t exist without the person’s experiences, the archive often curated and cared for by many, and of course the writer (and all the others they must consult) who is ultimately responsible for pulling the materials together. It’s important to always see the collective when so much of the old world has been organized to highlight the singular.

Earlier this year I stumbled upon a biography about a late 19th and early 20th century Welsh artist named Gwen John. She’s mostly known for her portraiture work, but as many women artists often are, she is mostly known by her relationship to important men in her life. I won’t center them here, but rather frame Gwen John and another of my favorite artists Lee Krasner as artists of their time with lessons for us as artists, writers, and cultural workers. Gwen John (1876-1939) was an independent woman who made her life as a painter on her terms. She lived most of her life in France, and in Sue Roe’s biography we see her figuring out how to keep living her life when WWI breaks out when she’s 38. It is not lost on me, that I too, am 38 and trying to make sense of war. The US has been at war with other nations for most of my life. The Gulf War began when I was nine, and like so many continuous overarching conflicts, the violence took place mostly far away. Unlike Gwen John whose family used to worry about her in Suburban France, those of us in the US experience war as a sacrifice for sure, but many of us remain disconnected from these wars. Though complicit, we often hold these conflicts in the abstract. Our involvement (unless we are in the military or connected to those serving) is often at a distance. White, middle and upper-class homes are not being bombed, the US consumerist ways of life not totally upended. And yet, even as homes, and cities, and nations were shook with the violent new weapons of WWI, Gwen John still painted. She still found joys tending to her cat companion. She still made breakfast every morning. She still found time for sex, and pleasure, and painting. She was nearer the site of the conflict zone and still, she painted.

Can we use the example of Gwen John as valuable lessons for us as cultural workers? Does it track even as I’ve already provided such distinct differences between many (not all) of our experiences of physical conflict wars of our centuries? Well, for those who are still not convinced let’s fast forward in time then, to a more contemporary example. Lee Krasner (1908-1984) would cringe at the notion of being defined as an “American” artist, she preferred to think about artists as outside of national identity making, so let us go with a New York-based artist. She was 21, fresh out of art school when the Great Depression hit in 1929. And yet, she found a way to make art. Partly because the US Government at the end of the Depression saw fit to create jobs for artists through the WPA, so it’s difficult to square that kind of support for artists today with proposed cuts to the NEA and what feels like the Executive Branch’s complete revulsion of “the arts.” But, lest we fall into the trap of it was always better back then, let’s also remember in 1933, who had access to these grants certainly replicated the very structural oppression Black, Indigenous and artists of color face in our current reality. Back in the early 1930s, as a Jewish woman Krasner had difficulties accessing this funding/work program. The knife’s edge of progress meets oppression once again. And yet, Krasner still painted. When WWII hit and the US again entered into this armed conflict in 1939, Krasner was in her early 30s. She had artist friends deployed, faced economic hardships, and still, she painted.

These artists also both lived through the 1918 flu pandemic. They too bore witness to race rebellions happening in their lifetimes. Krasner was alive during the Red Summer of 1919 when white folks targeted Black community members across the US. Living into the early 80s, Krasner was privy to the seismic political and civic shifts with the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. And still, she painted. Krasner also retreated to the East Hampton beach town, and several photos of her exist enjoying lazy days on the beach in the warm days along the Atlantic Coast with friends. And still, she painted.

Like many creatives, I’m trying to account for how to be an artist in these times. I haven’t the space here to interrogate the idea of the culture wars which some pundits would claim are in new manifestations for twenty-first century times. But these culture wars are not new intellectual conflicts either. They are simply the grandchildren legacies of the culture wars of Gwen John and Lee Krasner's generations; all still from the roots of white supremacy. It’s clear that the work of visual artists is to make sense of and shape the world around them by using the realm of the visual to inspire new ideas. Sometimes biography helps me feel like it is ok to keep my focus on my palate and what is coming out on the other side of my brush. I rationalize that I am also giving public talks, organizing my home space to provide radical retreat for other artists and cultural workers. And, other times I wonder if biography helps me feel like I only gain access to the worlds of those with race and class privilege, and truly question whether there are lessons here for me or others with even fewer privileges than I live. I fret, this work takes so much time, to write, to be, to dream. Is that why I am not painting? Could Gwen John and Lee Krasner have done more to address fascism? To speak against oppression? To organize their time differently? Did they worry about such things and at the end of the day decided their efforts would be better spent in front of a canvas instead of a protest crowd? And then I remember, of course it’s never an “either/or.” Krasner was arrested at a protest in NYC in her youth. She hung out with the communists fleeing Europe and still, she painted. Even as I work to ground a feminist and anti-racist practice in all I do, I still must pay the bills. I still must help run this household, help prep our meals, eat, and rest, and fight, and create. I keep finding myself asking, what is the role of the cultural worker in these times? How can we get away from the “either/or” trap? What does a "both/and" approach mean when only the protest “counts?” When the guilt of not being at the protest prevents us from doing our important creative work?

The answers to my questions I keep coming to, is that we each have our role. We will not live to see the legacy our presence leaves behind. And still, I must paint.

What I’m Reading

A Personal Question

The Turquoise Ledge by Leslie Marmon Silko: In the midst of this pandemic I somehow convinced my youngest sister to come live with Vaimo and me for the month of July. The occasion presented by exchanging family vehicles in Kansas, she brought me this book to read because she thought I would enjoy it. Made of up short interrelated personal stories often connecting to walks in the desert looking for turquoise, Hermanita was right, I like this book. I’m only through the first of five parts of the text so far, but in this part I’m transported to one of my important homelands of New Mexico in her beautiful rendering of the intermixing of Indigenous and Mexican cultures. Of course, these are not mutually exclusive categories, and therein lies the richness of people meeting the land of the Southwest. I cannot wait to get through this beautiful lakeside read. And then perhaps, one day, I’ll be writing about the lessons I learned from this kind memoir.

A Communal Question

LatiNext - is a volume of Latinx poetry released earlier this year as part of The Breakbeat Poets Series through Haymarket Books. My first favorite part of the volume is that my best friend from middle and high school, Felicia Rose Chavéz, is one of the amazing editors. It is magical to see her achieving her dream of being a writer. And still, her writing is gorgeous. My favorite piece of hers is this one about the birth of her first son. Though we're now 20 years out from our high school graduation, we’ve remained connected to each other through the digital wastelands of social media. We email sometimes about logistical things, about the disappointments of academia. But, mostly I wonder if she sees the digital footprints I leave behind when I visit her webpage and view her stories as I eagerly breathe for her dreams to continue to unfold. The poetry in this volume does not hold back - love, resilience, community, pain, and the power of human connection run throughout these poetic offerings. It’s a great balm for this Chicana in the Minnesota borderlands. And of course, every poem I read I think about how Felicia’s eyes have also read these poems. And we’re connected again, like all those years ago in the safety of her bedroom flipping through magazines, reading to each other, and dreaming about what it would be like to be who we are now.

What I’m Watching

I recently binged the Unsolved Mysteries relaunch on Netflix. The show absolutely terrified me as a kid, and yet, I loved getting sucked into the mystery of a true crime. Of course, Unsolved Mysteries in the late 80s serves in my memory as a surveillance tool to keep children scared of strangers and what felt like the inevitability of being kidnapped. Hopefully, now it will mean serious cultural changes in attitudes related to domestic and racial violence. I hope it also brings some families peace in resolving these unsolved crimes.

Vaimo, Hermanita and I have also started watching Killing Eve. I know, I know. So late to the party. The violence has been messing with my sleep cycle. But the underlying framework of obsession speaks to my Scorpio sensibilities. After we finished the first season I postulated aloud that both Eve and Villanelle might be scorpios. To which, Vaimo responded, “oh, I’m sure they both have SO MUCH SCORPIO in their charts.” Jajajajaja. We may be on to something… this astrological theory of the main characters’ placements brings me joy. My brief review - not for the faint of heart - more for those prone to obsessive tendencies. 

Artist Offerings

• If you’re on Instagram there is so much great content happening in that space related to Black Lives Matter - I am a fan of watching Patrice Cullors-Brignac’s (Artist, and co-Founder of BLM) Daily Digest videos via @osopepatrisse.
• Her daily digest introduced me to the musician/artist Kiran Gandhi who recently released this beautifully inspiring music video Waiting for Me read more about it here.
• As someone obsessed with art history as one of my problematic faves I’ve been thinking a lot about monuments and public sculpture. Check out this awesome project that has been doing the work of decolonizing monuments for years - Monument Lab.
•  See also this great interview with Jeffrey Gibson speaking on his piece “Because Once You Enter My House, It Becomes Our House” on view at the Socrates Sculpture Park “Monuments Now”. The collection of sculptures reimagine the monument in really important ways. Gibson’s work in particular draws together queer and Indigenous legacies.
• Always a learner - I’ve been digging deeply into the form of the newsletter now that I’m two months into my project. While TinyNewsletter (which is how I distribute this newsletter) seems to be past it’s prime in the context of internet discourse, I’m still craving good content for my email inbox. Isn’t it kind of fun to have something you want to read show up instead of things you have to deal with? This list of newsletters to explore also expands the notion of the genre of newsletter! Fascinating. Some newsletters are no longer updating, but this archive of the heyday inspires me.
• Speaking of writing, years ago when I had an academic life I joined the email list for the Inkwell Academic Writing Retreats partly for observing how a residential writing retreat might function, partly because I was a professor with a 4:4 load trying to write. Michelle Boyd, PhD who runs the retreats is an amazing writer and the messages I receive in my inbox are great. This month she sent out a story about shifting from trying to develop a writing habit to a writing practice. Good wisdoms - she’s got a blog on her site!
• Lastly, I have been a fan of Josie Del Castillo’s work since stumbling upon her social media. She recently finished an MFA and her portraiture and self-portrait work plays with identity and form in interesting ways. I absolutely love this self-portrait which got me connected to her work.

Creative Ritual

My professor/friend granted me access to the school’s print shop and I ran a small edition of prints of a woodblock I cut earlier in 2020 before the wheels fell off of the semester’s in-class offerings. It felt so good to be in the studio and printing. When I get the prints up on my website I’ll provide the link. Earlier this month, I applied to be a member of the LRAC FY21 Cohort 10 month program. The first stage of the application process included the shortest of narratives (500 characters y’all). I’m not sure how effective I was at drilling down what I would gain from that, but I am definitely looking for new artist friends! Send good thoughts my way. I could use some further development for my artistic practice! In my home studio I have been organizing, nesting, and making the space ready for painting to happen. Hermanita and I mounted peg boards and now I have dedicated storage areas for my acrylic paint, oil paint, and stretcher building materials in my home studio. I also have been gathering my materials and I’ve started playing around with designs for my Kitchen Saints series. I have oil on wood happening downstairs and it feels delicious!

Questions to Ponder

What are you committing to do, especially as a cultural worker?
In what ways can you imagine needing the arts to survive our current moment?
How are you supporting cultural workers in your community?
What questions haunt you in this political moment?

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