Rest Residency

Listen to the essay here

A few years ago I announced to a group of people during a professional development workshop that I wanted to apply for and attend an artist residency. I didn’t know much about what the actual experience would be like but I was interested in it because it fit on my checklist of what an artist does. My version of artist drag I was performing as I explored this new career path that I was woefully underprepared to take on, but was with some unknown faith leaping into as if it had been my calling all along. It took me a while, maybe two years after committing to the goal in front of people to find a residency I wanted to apply to, along with the courage to do so. And, much had changed in our reality since I’d said those words aloud (hello COVID-19 ongoing pandemic anyone?) Things were still shifting into what we now call the “new normal,” when I applied to the Tallgrass Artist Residency in February of 2021. The residency would take place over a 10-day span during the summer later that year and I began my usual process of a deep research dive into the application before preparing my materials.

I had a lot of things going for me that made my application a successful one, which was excellent given that I later learned over two hundred people applied for eight spots. Besides my tried and true over the top research approach that involves reading and researching everything possible about the opportunity including but not limited to watching all the virtual talks provided by the 2020 artists in residence, I had a deep connection to the place where the residency resides. The Kansas Flint Hills is a region of tall grass prairie (the largest undisturbed remaining tall grass prairie in North America) that extends to the place where I was born. To which my hermanita, also familiar with my birthplace as she followed in family’s footsteps to attend a university there, said that this residency “was my birthright.” It’s always good to have people in your corner, and her encouragement and my interest in spending time in this special place was calling me. I’ve recently been reflecting a lot on this artistic opportunity because I’m looking for my next item on my artist career checklist after completing a recent large body of work that partly emerged from my residency. I’ve also been spending time reminiscing about the residency because there were valuable lessons in synchronicity that I couldn’t see in the moment, but have more recently become clear.

And of course, these insights are all connected to my lifelong journey practice of “letting go.” Before setting out on my residency journey I panicked! “But all my thing are here at my home studio! What if I need something I didn’t bring?!” I was not sure how anywhere else could be better for creating than my perfect studio utopia, the renovated space that the previous owners had dedicated as an entire room for a robust doll collection. I mean, the absurdity, the randomness, the absolute perfect synchronicity of buying this weird house in the country and having a room no one had any clear idea about what to do with! There are lit cases built into the room with glass windows to peep in that hold paint and other supplies as well as they used to hold dolls. So many dolls. But, I digress. The thing about leaving is that you are sure to experience something you simply cannot through a screen or a virtual opportunity. Would I have been so drawn to roots as a conceptual frame for my recently released body of work if not for visiting the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve several times during my residency? Would that imagery and symbolism have worked its way into my paintings, if not for that experience? While on my 10-day retreat I made things just for fun. There was the very slight pressure to have something to show during my required artist talk, but for the most part I painted little studies I wanted to explore for no one’s benefit other than my own curiosity. What freedom to play and make and then find affirmations in the ways that these creations were received by others. What wonders in being treated as if I had something to say, a perspective that mattered, an artistic response to place that others were interested in learning more.

And those studies, surprising me, led into strategies I used in my larger works. Again, birthed by being in the moment, not trying to do something for the future. Interesting. I’m trying to treat my time right now as an artist residency at the ChicFinn. Currently, that’s looked like lazy mornings and easy yoga movement to start, home cooked meals or lazily snacking with intention. It’s looked like gathering my ideas and materials, finding inspiration in the unexpected. It’s resting thoroughly after a big push that felt like it might kill me. A twitter friend just reminded me this week that it is ok to feel full (on rest) before going into the next thing. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. I’m very skilled at running on empty, and getting better at running on a half tank. What would it look like to run this body from a full one? For now, I’m returning to practices that went by the wayside as I was birthing my current paintings, like sketching and painting random things in gouache in my sketchbook, cleaning up my workspace and up-cycling shelving I’ve been thrifting the last few months. I’m creating the future resources I’ll draw on for new works that I can only do if I have time and space filled with rest and ease. I can’t know what the future for them holds until I do it. I have to write this out because otherwise I will feel compelled to make announcements about my artist career checklist and my goals and my achievements as if they are the only things that matter.

I am trying to shift to a place where I am ok with rest, and slowness and simply being instead of driving toward something. Or at least a better balance between the two ways I seem to operate. I am seeking permission from myself to be afraid to rest and slow down, and do it anyway with the same vim and vigor as I have with my goals and checklists. I’m going back to times when that paid off even if I didn’t know how it might influence future work. I’m letting go of expectations of results and shifting toward the faith all will work out as it will. A process, not a destination and one that feels like I have to keep trying at it almost every minute. I know I’m capable of leaning into this state, I’ve been here before, afraid. And, I’m going to keep doing it anyway.

In Kansas, on the tallgrass prairie walks in July the grasshoppers accompanied me as I trudged my paths. Every step sent grasshoppers off to different grasses, some hopping, some floating with their wings flashing a black and yellow burst on their way out of the way. Our grasshopper season in the Minnesota mixed grass prairie is now. They’ve been accompanying me in large numbers as I walk our dirt driveway with the pups. Hopping and taking flight, sometimes ricocheting off a leg human or otherwise; I’ve always been intrigued by their adaptability. They jump or walk but also fly! They sing and bounce, seem to be as into the sun’s warmth as the rest of us, are skittish like my nervous system always on alert, and are helping guide my way in this period of rest and renewal. May we work the legs or wings of our routines in ways that serve us, in ways we need right now. Even if we’re scared. Do it anyway.

What I’m Reading

The Chicken Chronicles: Sitting with the Angels Who Have Returned with My Memories: Glorious, Rufus, Gertrude Stein, Splendor, Hortensia, Agnes of God, The Gladyses, & Babe: A Memoir by Alice Walker

Phew! What a title. And what a journey to find this book. It was labeled “new” and in the area of my local library where the new acquisitions live, which when I saw the original publication date of 2011 (paperback version 2012) I chuckled and thought, well I guess the information will get where it needs to go on its own timetable. Regardless, it was new to me! Walker’s meditations on her relationship to her chickens is a subject matter close to my heart as a member of a rural household tending chickens. We too once named all of our chickens after women poets and writers, until tragedy struck our coop and I cried for days over their loss to a culprit later known as the dog living at the ChicFinn. Walker’s losses seem to be much more inspirational in terms of connecting to the broader themes of the time, war, spirituality, travel, homemaking, love among many more. The chapters are short and sweet offerings written directly to the chickens which inspires me to think about what I would write to the chickens we live with, or the goats, or the pups, or the gatitos. A beautiful interspecies offering.

Artist Offerings

• Check out this retrospective of Katherine Bradford's work which you can tour virtually 
• Stumbled upon these interesting musings on beginner’s luck for creative writing (but I think likely applicable to any creative pursuit) by Elisa Gabbert
• I’ve been enjoying the new episodes and working my way through the previous episodes of Soft Bulk, kind of like a zoom roundtable about quilting organized by Heidi Parks on YouTube
• Have I shared this already? The tab remains open in my windows so it's still relevant even if I have - especially in light of daily new climate disasters (Pakistan floods) and environmental racism (Jackson Mississippi water infrastructure crisis) I keep revisiting this essay Facing Extinction by Catherine Ingram
• I’ve signed up to attend the free Darkwater Project 2022 Colloquium Series titled, Historical American Art, Whiteness, and the Idea of the American Nation, you can learn more about it here

Creative Ritual

Experienced a wonderful opening reception for my series Roots currently on view at Kaddatz Galleries through October 1st. If you can’t stop by in person, the virtual tour is now live and you can see the paintings in the space through the interactive website version of the show. Thank you to all who made the reception and who have been taking in the work in person and virtually! Much of this half of August has been slowing down, I actually took a full week off from working and decreased screen time and increased rest time last week. Easing back into some creative work that I’ll be excited to show you all when it’s ready. Continuing to update my online shop with more images of the current artworks available. As a reminder, all my tiny tequilas are now framed, matted, and wired for hanging which would make a great gift for the tequila fans in your life, and I have several Kitchen Saints hot sauce bottles still available for purchase to adorn your home spaces. I’m gearing up to make my subscriber only print for the year and excited to see where that takes me. If you’d like to get one, become a monthly sustainer at any amount and one will be headed your way when it’s ready.

Questions to ponder

Where does rest align with achieving in your productivity calculations?
What kind of residency do you need right now?
What bugs are walking with you where you are?
What types of adaptations are you integrating in your life right now?

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