Painting is life
Life is Painting
How much time do you spend thinking about painting? Either the act, the material, or the object itself? I find myself, as a painter, and as someone rather scholarly inclined, thinking about paintings, paint, and painting quite a lot (which probably does not surprise you dear reader). I notice paintings and the weird reproductions of them in hotel rooms when traveling for my other day jobs. I love looking at paintings hanging in spaces wherever I encounter them. I see open wall space and then start imagining the kind of painting that I could see hanging there. I dream of creating my own courses on painting where we read about painting and make paintings and talk about paintings and admire paintings from all eras and across all genres and materials. Regardless of how much anyone is thinking about painting, anyone who engages with the medium is likely familiar with the painting discourse - that painting is dead.
For those so not in the know, painting has been declared dead many times and across many time periods. If I were pursing an academic degree I might set out to explore this as a research question. Is painting dead? The literature review section of the thesis would trace the scholarly work already completed about the times over the last 150 years painting has been declared dead. The conclusion of that section would go through how painting somehow lived. This lit review would also lay out the different kinds of scholarly theories of death and of course frame this within the context of a feminist analysis. I think I’d like to also explore why this artistic medium is so belied by outsiders’ claims of its death. Certainly, painters are not currently saying painting is dead as we stretch canvases and gesso and apply grounds and then figures into the pictorial plane. As we seek places to display our creations. As we try to figure out how to keep painting and living in these times - precarious economic times despite record technological advances and wide increases of economic disparities, safety nets disappearing, climate calamity ay yi yi. And yet, some of us still live. And some of us still paint.
What does it mean to call a medium dead anyways? Nature is full of death and rebirth. It does not seem like painting is dead when we line up to see dead painter’s paintings. “Painting is dead” discourse seems to me to be fueled by an amalgamation of the mechanisms of power in the art world - like the disappearance of art criticism, the current age of commodification and commercialization of art, the increase of disparities between those who can afford to be artists and those who can’t, the hegemony of major museum institutions refusing to enact decolonial transformative changes and instead opting for a liberal tokenization model… to name a few points… all of this happening within the buttress of late stage capitalism.
And really, none of this matters to the majority of us just trying to paint and make a livelihood from it. None of this really matters to the average collector who buys a painting from an individual artist in their community, or from someone whose work resonates with them for some reason. There is a plethora of art out there - paintings included - all vying for eyes, attention and the disposable income necessary to adopt it. Whether the paintings all deserve homes is another matter, but I tend to approach that with an abundance mindset. There is a buyer out there for anything, you just need to find them. That’s not to say I don’t aim for excellence in my painting, though excellence is subjective and must be guided by the values you live out in your practice. Who is to say you’re the best judge of your own excellence anyway? My recent and first museum acquisition was a painting from a series that as I made it (a weird painting) I wondered who in the world would buy this? It didn’t stop me, because I’m learning to trust what comes out is what comes out. And I paint to paint, not to sell, which is a testament to my stubbornness and current privilege that I have other economic support systems. But I digress, the other super weird painting of the bunch also got scooped up by a private collector. Perhaps this should be my metric - when I’m like, “woah, what in the world is happening here” with a painting - that might be the sign I’m doing something right!
Vaimo and recently purchased an Apple TV for the movie theater we are renovating at the ChicFinn. I know this sounds really fancy, and in some ways it is; though it’s also more accurately an attic space the previous owners cut a hole in the aluminum siding so that they could store things upstairs. We imagine they used a Bobcat to lift large objects up there, because the only other entrance to the room is a spiral staircase, and as our BFF could tell you, taking a pleather couch up the spiral staircase in pieces was a feat. The point of this side note is that with our purchase we were gifted a three month trial of the Apple streaming service so Vaimo was finally able to watch Ted Lasso. It was a show routinely suggested to her that she should watch because she would enjoy it. And she did! As did I. It’s super wholesome and I have so many good things to say about it. But really what I want to say about it, is that there is a wonderful character on the team named Dani Rojas who is the epitome of joy. When the audience first meets him, he runs out onto the pitch announcing himself by his name and exclaiming “Fútbol is life!” Not to get all twisted and turned around here about what is truly life and death, but what if, just what if we considered for once, our passions were life? For the footballers in the series, clearly “football is life,” Dani is just the one exuberantly connected to his emotions, and confident enough to declare it.
What if painting is life? I’m noticing it might be for me. If I’m not painting my anxiety is ramped up even more than usual. And then when I go to my studio, and I work on a canvas that I’ve been making steady progress on, I feel like I can maybe approach the rest of my existence with a bit more calm and ease. When I have a painting to ruminate on instead of the news, or a mean email someone sent to me, or the reality that it was 51 degrees Fahrenheit on the last day of January in 2024 in my latitude of Minnesota - well, maybe painting is life. It helps me live. Paintings help make life worth living for a lot of people. After all this, I think I’d like to change my research question to - Is painting life? I’ll have to kick the nihilist scholar off of my thesis committee, but it will be worth it. Instead of arguing against something that has already been mulled over by many for many years, let us instead argue for a new world. Dani Rojas, fictional footballer on a television series wears a “boot” (soccer cleat) with “Football is life” embroidered on it. I too have the ability to be so passionate about what drives me. I’m going to try this on for a bit… painting is life.
What I’m Seeing
The 15th Anniversary Show at Kaddatz Galleries - Fergus Falls, MN
Fifteen years ago the Kaddatz Galleries were born out of “a community desire for a place to celebrate and showcase the artists of our region” or so reads the group exhibition description greeting viewers in the Main Gallery of the Kaddatz in Fergus Falls. How lucky we are to have such a gem of a gallery space like the Kaddatz in Otter Tail County - the show brings together familiar artists of the region along with some emerging artists and possibly folks living beyond the OTC as the call for works invited folks with significant connections to the region to also apply. Drawn together by the keen eye of the Kaddatz’s Artistic Director, Stacy Wendt, the pieces included in the show range in technique and subject matter - leaving a sense of there truly being something for everyone to enjoy here. I found myself drawn to a multicolor print by Laura VonBank featuring a squawking bird perched on the side of a sunflower. The treatment on the edge of the lino block with its intricate detailing as well as the beauty in the composition of the print made me feel like I would love to have it in my collection. Another plus, it's already framed and matted - if only I wasn’t saving for a couple of trips this year! There are a few acrylic paintings to enjoy as well as some innovative techniques of the mixed media proclivity plus hanging and free-standing sculptures. For those local it is definitely worth a trip out to see, and for those a little further out consider making the trip to see what our region has to offer in the form of this celebratory gathering of works by the artists of whom I am grateful to be in their good company.
What I’m Reading
Wet: On Painting, Feminism, and Art Culture by Mira Schor
In an attempt to read more about painting and my artistic endeavors and as a by product of my new way of being on choosing to be a bit more mindful about what I’m ingesting I started a deep plunge into this volume earlier this week. Schor too, painter and feminist scholar and teacher, has much to share on the field as she sees it. The book is a collection of her writings across a decade from the mid-80s to the mid-90s which satisfies my curiosity as someone who lived through this era but at a much longer distance both geographically, age-wise and culturally from Schor - though this time travel captures a moment I was living through as a youngster that shaped me and my artistic interventions nonetheless. I’ve been taking bites out the book by approaching each free-standing essay organized under the following headings Masculinity, Femininity and Feminism, Teaching, and Painting - mulling on Schor’s words seeing where my feminist scholarly perspective connects and departs from hers.
Artist Offerings
Is painting dead? Are you wondering more about the phrase, here's an article about it that I skimmed for my writing!
Which led me to this article about painter Catherine Murphy
And also led me on a shallow dive of Zombie Formalism
From the 15th Anniversary show I have been drawn into learning more about the following artists whose work was included like Dawn Rossbach and Rebecca Krueger
Creative Ritual
The goat painting continues to shift and change in the studio, as does the plans for it post completion - I'm trying to lean into the flux and trying this approach of taking one step at a time for this Guaranteed Income project. It has felt absolutely wonderful to be paid to make this painting before making the work though - a true first in my world, and I’m dreaming about the impact it will make beyond my studio space when it’s fully birthed. I’ve had a couple of filming sessions with a reporter for Lakeland PBS out of Bemidji that is also helping me keep moving on the painting. I completed and submitted a painting on the theme of Valentine’s Day candy and it will be up at The Rourke Museum in Moorhead, MN for The Heart Show. The painting will be available for purchase, and the show runs from Feb 9- March 10. If you’re into giving candy to your loves or crushes, consider purchasing one from Calendula too online or in person in St. Paul - on appropriately romantic fluorescent grounds! Also, don’t forget that my show Artifice: Outward Facing Inner Worlds is up at 410 Project in Mankato, MN through February 10th. And I've got a small quilted painting up in the 15th Anniversary show at the Kaddatz in Fergus Falls alongside many other lovely works. The beginning of the year is starting out like a whirlwind as per usual.
Questions to ponder
What is life?
What is death?
Is there a passion of yours that could be reignited by elevating it to a driving force of your life?
How can we continue to engage with our purpose with joy in these tumultuous times?
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
The Art of KCF Newsletter is a fiscal year 2023 recipient of a Creative Support for Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
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