Hack of the Art

Vaimo and I donned some going out clothes and grabbed our N95s for an outing to town a couple of weekends ago. Our first dates included spur of the moment camping on the south shore of Lake Superior where I impressed her with my speed and ease in popping up a tent (thanks Albuquerque Academy for all those experiential education opportunities!) And she impressed me with smoked lake trout and all the tequila I could drink in canoes after taking a ferry to an island. So needless to say, our lives together have been built on a foundation of spontaneous adventure. The pandemic has limited our travels and going to town feels like a big adventure most days, especially when I’m not wearing my paint covered pants. We find moments of spontaneity few and far between, but in mid-April we were headed to an exhibit at a museum in the largest North Dakotan city for a fantastic show of Latinx artists’ work. And, as I am wont to do on occasion I may have been simultaneously filled with excitement to take in some works, and dread/jealously/unearned expectations about my own work not (ever) being on the walls.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I suffer from the conditioning of this world around us that requires external validation. Though it doesn’t necessarily feel good — or even in mainstream/dominant cultural terms, acceptable— to admit one’s ambitions out loud. But, vulnerability is also my gift and I know that my natal chart endorses my need to be seen in particular ways. And, so in this spirit, I will unabashedly share that sometimes when I go to museums I wonder, hope, pray, wish, that my work was up on those walls. I want to have a good relationship to my ambition. Some of the desire to see my work on the museum wall is about the prestige of being able to say a museum believes in the work. To have my work there would be the short-lived validation of my life choices. My complete career shift at 37, my faith on pinning my future on some unknown recognition appointed by a gallery curator, the Guggenheim to my Pollock, so to speak. But this doesn’t feel quite right. Because my contrarian nature is such that I always like to do things on my own terms, and working with institutions means compromises in which I remain weary and wary. I’m much more interested in shifting institutional contexts through my presence vs. my naive thought that my specific laboring can make the meaningful shifts that would constitute success in my eyes. My eyes of course, as connected to my brain, my heart and my values hold extremely high expectations. But back to the museum walls, to one day be able to put on my C.V. that I have been acquired into the permanent collections of museums whose names we all know, now that feels like something to achieve. I don’t know, because I’m not there yet, but these desires probably have something to do with my wish to have a legacy -  something notable that I’ve left behind. Something that makes it undeniable that I was here, for an unknown future for which our true work is to believe exists where this all can come to pass.

The joys of museums’ walls include getting time to spend with works that are new and familiar to you. As a painter I love looking at other paintings to see how they were made. How did the artist apply the paint? What tools did they use? Why this substrate? Why these mediums? How are the colors working together? What does it look like up close and from afar? How am I changed after looking at the work? What did it make me feel? What am I now thinking about? How does the artist think about their work? I’m grateful for the opportunity to see others’ ways of working through this plane that shows and obscures their hands. The terror of museums’ walls on the other hand (wall?) include questions like, are my paintings good enough? Are my paintings as good as these paintings? Yeah, yeah, comparison is the thief of joy and I still I question: if thinking my work is just as “good” signals my healthy self-esteem (narcissism?), then if in fact it is good enough then why isn’t it on the wall?

I know myself and do not kid myself that this museum acquisition will somehow change my permanent joy levels. I do not delude myself and pin my hopes of happiness here. I’m sure I would feel joy and a sense of having achieved and then I will set another unrealistically difficult goal to which I will work toward diligently until that too is accomplished no matter the cost. But what I do sit with are the questions of wondering if I’m a hack. Am I making work I think is so powerful, and others are like meh? Like what I sometimes find I do to others' works as I breeze by knowing full well the time and efforts it took for someone to make the works. Will I be able to continue to create paintings that are free from any concern of whether or not I will be able to sell it? On the flip side, are we all hacks? Good is such a subjective category and even so called bad art delivers pleasure in different ways than the realistically rendered figure. What is life if not the constant search for meaning? That is really all I hope for, that my paintings inspire some feeling in the viewer - I’m not even that invested in what the feeling is - just something. Something to call to them, to revisit, to want to chew on and learn more about that feeling. Of course if it looked nice and was executed masterfully that would be a bonus, but really I just want people to want a deep relationship with the works. To be obsessed with them. And sure the museum space could be one entry to that but in the twenty-first century we have multiple entry points for someone to become obsessed with the work. And for this I’m grateful. And for this I hold onto the truth that of course we’re all hacks, even those of us who get the work up on the walls and for those of us who carve other paths.

Days later over a hurried dinner as we prepared to go back to our respective evening work sessions, I told Vaimo, “I now see why starving artists are a thing.” “What do you mean?” she asked. Well, it’s like this I explained, I would be willing to not eat my favorite foods, or at all, if it meant I could paint every day. I would be willing to cut back on other expenses to afford what I need to make paintings. I am just as determined to paint as I am to live. And to be honest, this feels like the biggest accomplishment of my life. To have something I am so sure of, finally. Even as so much remains unsure. I am a proud hack, and I’m now heading off to paint. That’s all I really need.

What I’m Reading

This Long Thread: Women of Color on Craft, Community, and Connection by Jen Hewett

Jen Hewett has pulled together this gorgeous offering of women of color crafters and artists in a collection of essays plus interviews plus survey responses. I love the structure of the book that has Hewett’s experiences as an artist who prints on fabric and then sews objects from her self-fashioned fabrics interwoven with her interviews of nineteen other artisan crafters of color exploring themes of how people got into their particular fabric arts as well as how they’ve navigated the tensions of being in predominately white spaces that reinforce white supremacist attitudes about who participates in fiber arts and why. The interweaving of survey responses as well as contributions by other writer/artists makes this a unique and diverse approach in terms of identity and artistic practice. The underlying connection amongst many of these personal narratives is the sense of community these women have made for themselves and the broader reflection of the global connections that fibers bring to us. There is a lot of joy in these pages and important stories to be shared. I’m grateful for Hewett for facilitating their path to the reader.

Artist Offerings

• My friend SLP is offering a virtual writing class at the Loft Literary Center - check it out!
• Loved reading about Klaire Lockheart's Post-Apocalyptic Feminist Art!
• This timely and important Oral History Project featuring the Founding Generation of Chicana/o Studies includes contributions by one of my idols: Dr. Emma Pérez <3
• This article taking up what is the role of the art critic spoke to me
• I enjoyed learning about Bosco Sodi’s process of creating works for the Venice Biennale
• Yours truly wrote this profile about this incredible social practice artist writer extraordinary Mai’a Williams for Springboard for the Arts and you should know about their work
• I’ve been spending a lot of time with the resources of the Smithsonian Latinx Art page - lots of good stuff to see and learn!

Creative Ritual

What a couple of week whirlwinds these two have been! I submitted an application for a career development opportunity in my homeland and continue to work on another huge fellowship application. I’m making note of how March/April/May seem to be the season of applications and adjusting workflows accordingly. I installed Kitchen Saints at New York Mills Cultural Center. As Bestie says “congrats on your first show in New York…Mills!” It’s up through May 20th - mark your calendars for the closing reception from 3:00-5:00pm with several works for sale (I dropped off 52!) So please go check it out if you’re local. My artistic practice will be featured on Postcards on the last episode of the season! Check out this press release that gives a little preview of what’s ahead. You can view the segment online noon central time Thursday May 5th. I’m nearly finished with a painting and am really looking forward to logging a lot of painting hours this upcoming week now that Bestie and I finished Vaimo’s office renovation project! She’s got a fun, calm, and contained workspace of her very own in the house that is just for her. Ahhhh the beauty of knocking out a house project (or sixteen) with the help of my Bestie has made this end of the month one for the record books!

Questions to ponder

What makes you feel like a hack?
What joys does going to the museum inspire in you?
What terrors do museum spaces inspire in you?
What do you hope of your legacy?

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

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(Also, apologies for this hitting your inboxes a little later than planned, apparently it got stuck in review by Tinyletter for some suspicious activity flagging - was it the title of the newsletter?! We shall never know!)