Madama Butterfly

A few weeks ago, I completed a new painting, which I titled Xtra (above). The piece focused on using paint as a means of illustration. It was an exploration in uniting two different disciplines, painting and illustration, which I often practice separately. Each of these artmaking modes has its own materials and mindsets, and I worked in this piece to marry the two.

Days later, I was on the T (the MBTA's red line, if you're wondering). I was outbound, and already tired. I looked up and was confronted with the image that's on the right: the promotional poster for Puccini's Madama Butterfly, the new production by the Boston Lyric Opera.

I have juxtaposed the two images of my painting and this promotional poster above. I was so surprised to encounter this image of Madame Butterfly. My painting, done days before I had even seen this image, was a shocking echo of the poster. And they had never even met. I, the medium, had not been overtly inspired by an image, and yet, here it was. The works may have well been sisters, birthed from the same mind.

This encounter makes me think about the flexibility of creativity and inspiration. How intricately are ideas, experiences and the environment connected? We are constantly influenced by subconscious sensory experiences and desires, and I suppose it is in art that they manifest themselves. I'm still curious as to how I got the inspiration for Xtra...the painting was, after all, more of an exercise in form rather than content. Of course, the whole situation may be happenstance...Or, perhaps the image of a woman with thick black tears dripping down her face is actually quite common.

Artist Humor - thanks, Stephen Colbert!

Stephen Colbert ponders the all so important question that artists and art historians have debated for years.

Read Colbert's lengthy discussion that aired on The Colbert Report (November 8, 2012) below and/or watch here.

"Tonight. What is art? 

It's a 3-letter word for disappointing your parents."

deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum

Last week, I went to the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA. It was a freezing and wet day, and so I wasn't able to explore the outdoor pieces comprehensively. However, the weather did allow me to engage more fully in the indoor pieces.

I was only able to see this briefly as I drove by, but the sculptures that were outdoors really engaged and interacted with the space they were in. Living in a city, space is limited and sculpture is displayed only occasionally and singularly. So, seeing a whole "sculpture park" dedicated to displaying these modern works was exhilarating. I thought the pieces they had on display really spoke to one another as well.

Inside, artist Julianne Swartz's work was curated in an exhibit called Julianne Swartz: How Deep Is Your, which is on display until December 30, 2012. The exhibit is a survey of the artist's work, with pieces that were created or modified exclusively for the space itself. 

One piece I was drawn to is Line Drawing (2012), which uses "plastic tape, lenses, Plexiglas, mirrors, lights, fans, materials found on site." The piece is a site-specific work that was originally made in New York, but then re-evaluated and re-created for the deCordova. The piece consists of a blue line, made of tape, that wanders across the gallery walls and leads to holes in the wall. As you can see in the photo above, the blue line actually runs across the wall text of the whole exhibition (which was on a different floor). 

My eye followed the tape from the wall and into a hole. I looked into it for several minutes, walked away, and walked back to look in again. The blue line seems to go into the hole and through the wall into another dimension. Looking into it, you seems to be staring into another world, the "behind the scenes" of the museum. Swartz uses mirrors, lights and lenses to distort the perceived space. She uses real space and alters it to create a fantastical location. 

The piece utilizes space in a remarkably non-obtrusive manner. Line Drawing is a simple, and airy exploration of space and depth perception. The piece was compelling, puzzling and inspiring. I cannot wait to return to the deCordova when it becomes warmer (or perhaps just another day of the week since the climate fluctuations are maddeningly unpredictable). 

Shelley Jackson's "Skin"

Shelley Jackson is a pioneering writer and artist who fearlessly engages in genre-bending experimentation. She has worked in the realm of hypertext works and electronic literature. 

I was especially taken by Jackson's project, Skin, which was started in 2003. The work is a story that is published on the bodies of 2095 volunteers. I love how the project is grounded in participation. The work completely depends on the participants. Skin has been called a "mortal work of art." 

Jackson put out a call for participants in 2003, which read: "Writer Shelley Jackson invites participants in a new work entitled "Skin." Each participant must agree to have one word of the story tattooed upon his or her body...From this time on, participants will be known as "words". They are not understood as carriers or agents of the texts they bear, but as its embodiments. Only the death of words effaces them from the text. As words die the story will change; when the last word dies the story will also have died. The author will make every effort to attend the funerals of her words." 

For the video portion of the project, Jackson asked a subset of the participants to record a video of their tattoo and also say the word. Jackson then cut together the footage and created a shorter version of the original story. Here is that video: