Posts Tagged ‘artist’
Transitions- continuing my art through illness

The corner of my empty studio
Since becoming sick with ME/CFS, I have had a lot to contend with and it has changed my practice. I have limited energy, and I have to spend it wisely. I have only minutes at a time of standing, walking, holding my head upright, etc. before I need to take a rest. Then again, my practice changed a great deal when I became pregnant, and it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to my art (I did the first Identity Tapestry while pregnant and it brought me into Installation). The main effect is that I have to pace myself, and think through everything many times before I make the effort of _making_. I suspect it will generate more thoughtful new work. I also have new reserves of patience, and new understanding to feed my empathy.
Right before I got sick I had come to an inflection point in my work where I knew I would have to start hiring assistants to complete large projects, but I was dragging my feet. For those not familiar with how art at a certain scale of production goes, this is pretty normal and has a long history reaching back to the studios of the famous Renaissance painters and before. Even without being sick, I needed to accept that I now needed assistants.
For the three shows I did in the first year of my illness, I relied on the help of an awesome network of friends and my husband (who even learned how to dye wool!) to help me do my work. They were my hands. They got me through the installations at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, The San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles and at the Marjory Barrack Museum. Initially it was hard to conceive of hiring strangers to come into my home in the vulnerable state I was in, given that I had already resisted it before. I wasn’t ready then.
At the same time I became sick, we realized we had to do major repairs to the foundation of our house, and it became a huge remodel complete with moving out. After I did the museum shows that year, I buckled down to the task of packing and purging the house… again with the help of my amazing friends. My outside studio space was unreachable for me (and not wheelchair accessible even if I had the energy to work after driving there and parking) and essentially became expensive storage while I hoped I got better. I turned down some shows and applied to nothing while I used all my energy to move house.
Today I am a little better overall. The house is moved into a temporary space, and I finally let go of my studio of 14 years. The new studio and shop space I will have in our house will be an absolute dream though, and I can’t wait. In the meantime, I have use of our temporary garage and have set up the studio there, complete with a chair that supports my neck and torso so I can sit up longer.
Now that I have the moving hurdle done, I am back to exciting new projects! This spring I will be doing a new participatory installation that I have been thinking about since 2014 and am super excited about: Access. There is also another installation in another country coming up in the summer which I can’t wait to do. Details will follow when everything is confirmed, dried and dusted.
In the meantime, it’s time to take the leap and hire some assistants. Whatever my condition, my work will continue.
Thoughts on Performance Art- my Ritual Space approach
So I have a lot of thoughts on performance art. Many of them come down to the idea that when you push it to the extremes (which is one of art’s natural habitats) it becomes about enacting extremes on the body. Extreme pain (so many), extreme pleasure (Seed Bed comes to mind), sex, nudity, privation, stillness, repetitive motion… so many extremes of what the body is and what it can take. An extension of that is the extremes of emotional exposure as seen in and through the body. There are many interesting, important approaches to this, but I feel like it is ground well covered, and not what I’m interested in for my own work.
My work isn’t about me or my body or extremes, it’s about creating a platform, structure, even a ritual space for others to engage with ideas I present: with each other, with themselves, and now, possibly with me.
Ritual space is something I have been interested in for as long as I can remember. It was central to my studies in my first undergrad in History of Religions. I took a wonderful anthropology-based (Turner-centric) course on Ritual, but I saw ritual in everything from folk tales to architecture and football games. Ritual space is throughout our secular and personal lives- the ritual space of a hot bath with candles, a classroom, a bar, a gallery or a public library. These spaces have forms, rules, and roles which set them apart from other spheres and spaces in our lives and they create feelings and thoughts unique to those spaces. In these spaces we are ourselves, and yet ourselves in a specific role or character to fit the space, observing certain rituals of that space (a 3rd grade teacher will be themselves at both a bar and their classroom, but different selves).
In #DadaTarot I am creating a ritual space for the action to happen in. That action requires a mediator with a certain level of otherness and authority. A slight change of clothing and demeanor is enough to create this. I am still very much being myself, but I have given myself certain rules (some of which I specifically gave myself permission to break). The rules, the clothing, demeanor and the simple object of a table give me the structure of a ritual space for the piece to work in. Given the nature of Dada I didn’t even allow myself anything fancy for the table- it is a ready-made cocktail table and the covering was the first plain black piece of fabric on the top of my fabric pile, not sewn or tidied in any way.
For this piece, the Role of Barker/carnival worker has to be there to set the interaction apart from other gallery interaction, but also to get the participants to enter in a questioning way. These roles are known for being untrustworthy. I want people to come to this project with skepticism. For this piece I would absolutely not dress in any kind of clothing associated with actual fortune-tellers with very good reason: my role does not actually involve doing the fortune-telling. That I leave to the participants. The barker’s role is to bring bystanders into the action and tell them what the rules of the game are, which is what I do.
Me in the role as artist would to explain the piece and how it fits into my work. In the case of me performing in this piece (as opposed to someone else performing the piece while I stand next to it as Artist) I mostly steer clear of this. If they press, I mostly answer as Barker, not artist as to the nature of the piece. That said, I am remaining myself. This performance allows for expressing what I want to say, holding back, and then allowing myself to be pressed for an opinion, even as I say I should not really be giving it… which is what good Barkers do too.
I suspect more of my work is heading in this direction. Most of the participatory works need some kind of “baby sitter” during interactions to explain the interactive process to people and to keep people (especially drunk people) from breaking them or walking away with parts of the art. Mostly the ritual space of Gallery with the role of Gallery assistants covers this. Now that I am looking this aspect of my work in the face and acknowledging that what I am creating with my installations is ritual space (inside the ritual space of gallery/museum/etc.), it logically follows to incorporate ritual roles for certain works.
*note: I am fully aware that not all performance art involves extremes, and there is a lot of performance art out there (physically extreme and not) which I admire. A lot of it is politically extreme and I applaud that too. This studio blog post is about my own artistic path.
Identity Tapestry to show in Switzerland
From the first iterations of Identity Tapestry I’ve been wanting to create it both in a museum space and in another language. I’m pleased to announce that this May I’ll be doing both! Identity Tapestry will be up as part of the upcoming show “Identity” for four months starting this May at the Vögele Cultural Center in Pfäffikon (just outside Zurich).
I will be flying out for the install and I’m incredibly excited. Any iteration demands a look at which statements to include or leave or if new ones ought to be added, especially in a new area or situation. In this case the language use should be especially interesting because there are essentially two languages at work there: High German and Swiss German. One is the official language which is used for nearly all text, the other is the language of intimate conversations and the inside of one’s own head. Apparently it is only recently that the Swiss-German language has appeared in text, and then mostly in text messages, and only to very intimate friends. How I approach these languages and navigate translations will add new levels of complexity to the piece. Thankfully the curatorial staff is wonderful and I have a local Zurich-raised person who is willing to consult with me on language as well.
The Crucible of Deadlines and Constraints
My problem as an artist has never been lack of ideas or even crafting skills. The real skill is deciding what is most important and when, what not to do, what to sacrifice, what to put the most time and effort into. Drawing itself is an act of selection- what line to place, what line to ignore, what line to emphasize, tweak, or ghost.
So right now I have a good problem for an artist- two shows at the same time. One I committed to months ago, but without a specific piece. Since I knew I could have more space for that show I prepared to spread out and create a larger installed environment. Then I was invited to be in a show in a museum just outside Zurich, Switzerland. They wanted a specific piece, and it is one I have to be there to put together. And they open two days apart.
Now that the Switzerland one is confirmed I’m turning back to the first one. Suddenly I have more constraints. Something that can run itself. Something smaller and easy to install. Still something interactive. In the case of this show, something both contemporary and Dada. I was intimately familiar with Dada before I left high school and I loved it then, but two more advanced art degrees have actually put me at more of a distance. So I dove back to the source. I re-read the manifestos, looked back at the beginnings and what motivated them. Suddenly an entire new interactive, small, easy to set up artwork burst out of my head. And it will work. And it comes right out of the unconscious pool of all the ideas I am constantly exploring. Better still, because the process of Dada involves some randomness, it will be fun and surprising to make. I’m excited.
When I have enough time and resources to do whatever I want without a burning idea starting in my mind and a place to put the result I do very little that gets finished. Give me a place, a time, and a single constraint or direction and suddenly my mind is on fire and my hands itching to create.
Stepping Back (in)
I’ve been away from being public about my art for a little while now. I’ve only applied to a single program, I’ve written no blog posts, showed no work and even turned down a few shows. I needed a break where I could think my thoughts without offering them to the world.
Years ago I might have pushed on, and possibly had a breakdown. I’ve learned better. During the course of my recently completed MFA program six people I love died. Three of my four grandparents, one of whom was like a second mother to me. Two mentors. One friend and fellow artist to suicide.
Just on their own MFA programs are difficult, intense cauldrons of emotion and ego and challenge and intensity of ideas and beliefs. They are the crucibles that forge us… those of us who don’t crack. The ones that did crack were measured in the bulging mailboxes and empty studio spaces at the end of each year, and there were more than a few. We put ourselves on the line, our ideas, our thoughts, our work, and those of us who are willing, our loves and lives and beliefs too. Of course, the current fashion is cynicism and snarkyness (which doesn’t call on people to put themselves out so far) but for me being on the line it is what makes the art have a soul, and while Soul doesn’t matter to some, and there is some good purely intellectual/aesthetic art, it matters very much to me.
After the thesis show I had immediate offers for shows and commissions- wonderful opportunities, but not the breath of air I needed. For a full year after it I was busy, during which there was another death, the final grandparent. They all lived full lives, all died over 94, but the loss is ours and never easy. The situation of being in constant physical pain was one factor I had throughout all three years, as was being the main caretaker of my young daughter during a period where my husband was so busy he rarely even got weekends off. There were other significant pressures I won’t list. It was a hard three years. It was also intensely productive and important.
At the same time I was incredibly fortunate. I didn’t have to pull my hair out over money. I had love and good friends and whether I wanted a break or not I those commissions and shows just dropped into my lap- nearly every vacation during the MFA program as well as after it. I didn’t have to look for a single show after I graduated- I didn’t have time for any more, but when I saw the pause in the stream, I took the break instead of hunting for the next one. I shut down the blog and set out to take care of everything in my life that had been held together with sealing wax for three years. I did things for the fun of them, I saw the people I love, I experienced new things and got new ideas.
Like many artists, I have depression. I have anxiety and panic attacks. It is almost a cliche that artists are tortured souls and some of us think we can’t work without that (I disagree, but it is different). Chronic pain adds its own layer to one’s process. Most people looking at me would have no idea about the first two and many would never know about the pain either. There were many classes and critiques where I was clenching my fists not to scream from the physical pain in my back and concentrating hard on keeping a normal face. I have many strategies for dealing with it all. I kept on, put one foot in front of the other, did all the things I needed to do and held everything together and met every deadline, did my best work… and when I had an opening I did the sane thing I would not have done 10 years ago, and rested.
You see two other people died during that time, acquaintances, but each with a compelling message. One was another suicide from depression- someone who worked himself into the ground and didn’t acknowledge the care he needed to take of himself, he pushed himself too far. The other was a car crash, a terrible random thing that could take any of us at any moment. When I resurfaced those deaths reminded me again not to take a moment for granted, and not to put taking care of myself last. I even discovered something to help my back and for the first time in seven years I’m having multiple days without serious pain. I’m breathing again.
So here I am, back at work. My mind has been plotting new art, my hands have been busy, sketches and ideas form. It’s time to step back in to show my work and share my thoughts again. I leave you with this TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert on creative genius and depression.
***Addition: Wonderfully, when I moved on to check my email I found an invitation to include a specific piece in an exciting museum show in another country waiting in my inbox. A well-timed confirmation to stepping back in indeed.
Living With Endangered Languages in the Information Age show Opening next weekend!
The “Living With Endangered Languages in the Information Age” show at Root Division is opening on the 7th! I will have my new mixed media sound installation Cultural Fabric Breathes Still there waiting for you.
Much thanks to curator Hanna Regev, the participants (who chose to remain anonymous), to technical collaborator Dan Garcia.
Endangered Languages Piece- participate!

capture of UNESCO’s interactive map of endangered languages from http://www.unesco.org/culture/languages-atlas/en/atlasmap.html
I am gathering endangered words for an artwork and I need speakers of endangered languages to participate in my project.
I have been invited to be part of an exhibition on Endangered Languages curated by Hanna Regev which will begin at Root Division in San Francisco.
I need to collect audio samples of certain words in endangered languages for the piece I will include in the show. There is a physical element to the work, but the text and the sound of each language are essential to it.
I am looking for words that say something that isn’t easily translatable into more commonly spoken languages, possibly words that hints at the culture. For example: “tattybogle” is a lovely Scotts word (a language on the endangered list) but it directly translates into the English “scarecrow” so I would not count it. The word “tingo” (Pascuense , Easter Island) is better. On Altalang.com it is translated as “the act of taking objects one desires from the house of a friend by gradually borrowing all of them.” This is a word which gives you a window into a culture that would produce such a word and takes a clever sentence to translate into a more commonly spoken language.
What I need for my work is words like that from Endangered languages, spoken and explained on audio by speakers of those languages. Amazingly I’m already finding a fair few… on the internet. Mostly at this point it is friends of friends, but I hope to expand. If you speak an endangered language and would like to be part of the piece, please contact me at contact@marymarch.com with the subject heading “endangered languages”.
One component of the show is the effect of technology on languages. Are dominant Languages like English, Mandarin and Spanish just taking over because of media and the internet or does the internet create opportunities to connect and encourage speakers of endangered languages? My thought is probably both, but I am finding that the internet is fantastic for connecting with people who speak endangered languages- something that may itself become part of the piece.
UPDATE (12/1): I am still collecting Audio samples through the end of November. Please contact me if you can contribute. You may remain anonymous in the public project information if you like. It’s basically a 15-30min Skype, Google Hangouts or Facetime call (which you can turn the video part of off) where I record the word or phrase, your translation and a personal thought or story about them.
INFORMATION
To see if a language you speak is on the endangered list see Wikipedia’s Lists of Endangered Languages by area.
The United Nations has an interactive map of endangered languages here.
Another great interactive map is here on the Endangered Languages Project site.
For more information on me and my work as an artist, see my website at www.marymarch.com (I suggest the installation and “About the Artist sections in this case).
Filling Out
The hard part with this kind of thing is knowing when to stop. At this point I’m happy with the materials. I could keep going forever, but right now there is enough material to fill the space I am using twice. The idea is to provide the variety and let the participants determine the color balance of the piece in their selections. This does make me think I want to do some themed work with dyes that do focus on a specific color range, but the project hasn’t presented itself yet.
The rest of the parts for the installation are coming along… but this is the fun part.
*note* There are more blues in the final set than are showing- arrangement of the curve was a little off so they are hiding under each other while the greens/teals are spread thin… but I am prioritizing making the piece over documenting the process perfectly.