Damnation of Faust and stuff

Our fine arts event this week was The Damnation of Faust at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Good music, opera singing, lots of people wearing black and white. this is my response to the event:

The Damnation of Faust this week was only okay for me. Not my favorite type of entertainment, but it was quality work. I liked listening to the music of the orchestra more than the singing. Maybe it was because the singers weren't acting out their parts, I couldn't believe their characters. It took me out of it even though they sounded really good. Plus they sang so little of the story that it was very fragmented and hard to follow. It took me out of the music to have to read the bits of story, too.
So I just enjoyed listening to the music and watching the performers. I liked how when they we all synchronized it looked like a rolling wave, or a field in the breeze. It was very calming to watch. Or when the choir stood up and sat down in unison. And the conducter was fun to watch, too; he was so energetic. The man playing Faust was bobbing his had to thee musc when he wasn't singing.
While the music was good, and very well played, it was more like background music for me. It was never powerful enough to fill my senses and make my soul swell. Not until near the end. So it was hard to keep my attention focused and I found my mind wandering all over the place. But the music was a good backdrop for my thoughts.



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other stuff:


been finding it really difficult to concentrate on homework lately. too many art projects swimming around in my brain, and if i don't work on them, i fear i'll either forget them or they will continue to grow and generate new ideas that i'll explode. i really don't want to do either of those things, so i have let out the creative juices sometimes, and then i forget that i have homework to do still until the last minute. kind of stressful.


had halloween funness tonight. played charades and drank cider and ate candy in some friends' apartment, then went to a Funk, a club where we get free drinks from 9-10 on friday nights. i went as Rorschach from the Watchmen graphic novel. pretty awesome. fedora, trench coat, and a homemade mask. looked awesome, but it was really hot and the mask wouldn't stay pinned. but the best part is that no one new who i was unless i spoke! and the guy at the bar was surprised that i was a girl. got lots of great looks cause rorschach is kinda creepy. the best was the people who actually new my character and told me they were excited for my movie (which comes out in march andohmygodiwanttoseeitsobadimightdie). *nerdfighters!*


didn't stay out very long cause i had homework to catch up on. (remember two paragraphs ago?) plus i'm kinda tired. woke up early yesterday to register for classes for next semester. taking some good ones: printmaking, philosophy of arts, tpe, layout and design, and Women in Public: Chicago Theatre and Film. i'm really really excited for that last one. it includes a trip to chicago! and it's taught by great professors. it's a nice, easy schedule. only 13.5 credits. i might add another class, on shakespeare. if i do, i'll take it pass/fail.

what else have we done this week? chili night on sunday, with cornbread and cookies. perfect day for it cause it was really cold. then we played scene it and my team totally dominated. mostly cause we had steven on our team and he's a huge movie buff. spaking of movies, wednesday night a group of us went out to the movie theatre and saw eagle eye. it was actually pretty good. lots of explosions.


this is a short film thing that i've recently discovered and fell in love with and watched a few times and you should all watch it. http://www.drhorrible.com/mushortio.html

well, that's all i can think of right now. happy halloween!

Woman Made and Intuit and other stuff.

This week's art event was actually at the gallery I work at and another gallery nearby: Intuit, a galllery I also interviewed at. Because I work at Woman Made, and another CSer works at Intuit, we were asked to give the "tours" of our galleries. It was a good experience, but rather difficult. I don't like talking in front of people. But stuff like this, and leading other gallery walks for work helps. what doesn't help is having to interrupt board meetings to give the tour, which is already limited because of the workshop going on on the lower level. that's right. three things at one time. so my class couldn't see the solo show because of the workshop, and we had to walk around the set up for the board meeting, which kindly took a break so we could have the tour. it was a hectic setup process, too. i didn't actually get to go to intuit because of all the setting up, but i've been there plenty of times already. anyway, here's my formal write up on the experience for class.

"Well, this week's art event was different for me. When I signed up for this class, I didn't expect to have to interrupt a board meeting to give a tour to 30+ students. I wish it ccould have ben a less hecctic day, but there are some things that are out of our control. But if it hadn't been such a busy day, I'd have taken more time and talked more about the history and mission of Woman Made.
But the class seemed to like it; at least the ones I talked to did. I'm glad. It is a great show in a great space. And I love the mission we have. There needs to be more awareness of the inequality of representation in the arts. It's not just gender, either, but race aas well, alternative lifestyles and interpretation of art.
Like Intuit. I love the shows at Intuit, especially Lee Godie's work. I wish I could have met the woman, she sounds like a real character. Her work is so crude and childish, but it is honest and real. I know a lot of people won't consider her work art, but I find it beautiful. She had such confidence in herself and her work.
The Sunday Painters collection always makes me laugh. Some of them are really good. Others are just strange. I wish I could have been at Intuit with the rest of the class. I wanted to hear their reactions.
It raises a lot of questions about art, questions we've already asked. What is art? Who defines art? What is 'good' art? I know that my answers are to those qustions are rarely the same as anyone else's, and my standards change from piece to piece. We all do that, judging what is art based on our feelings for a particular piece or show. If we don't like it, it can't be art. And it doesn't matter what other people have to say about it. If they disagree, clearly they don't know anything. It takes an exceptional person to see past their own preferences and look at the value of art objectively."
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as for other stuff, work is going good. i've got a great new long term project. i'm searching for and collecting information on artists that would possibly fit into our artisan gallery- ceramicists, jewelry and metalworkers, etc. stuff that's more "craft" rather than fine art (although that line is constanty blurred). so i take images and contact information for the artists i find and create pages for them that we will print and put into a booklet for the gallery to use when they want to find a certain kind of art, or want to get new items or more artists interested in our artisan gallery. it has been an interesting experience. i spend a lot of time just browsing the internet. it's great having deviantArt as a resource for it, too. I've contacted a lot of artists there for it. most of them are really excited for the feature, even though it is not a published book. i've gotten a couple requests from them for copies of it! i'm not sure how possible that will be, but i'll try.
let's see, what else is new? ........ we had a poetry reading at work last week sunday. the poets were from two feminist pubications: Dancing Girls and Switchback Press. i liked it a lot better than last month's, even though half of them still read poetry weirdly. i think that is how people are taught to read it, where they end every line as if it's a question while the rest is emotionless. Maybe i'm just used to poetry slammers- where it's more performance based, more theatrical. some of the poets this month did that, and i loved it.
yesterday we had a performance thing of music, poetry, and interpretive dance. pretty cool. one guitar player named victor did something really cool where he played his guitar but had a beer bottle in one hand near the strings. it made a really unique sound. and they had a cellist. i like cellos. cellos? celloes? celli? whatever. it was good.
tonight after work i tried going to a thrift store to buy a trenchcoat for my halloween costume, but the place i was looking for apparently isn't there anymore. :( so i got coldstone ice cream instead. i think monday i'll try again to look for more thrift stores.
i've got everything else i need for my costume. I'm going as Rorschach from the Watcman graphic novel. pretty awesome. not sure what we're doing for halloween. we're trying to set up a get-together of our normal group in one of the apartments. should be fun. it's already crazy here on division street (where we live). it's a big busy bar area, and covered in halloween decorations. already this weekend people are dressed up in costumes. next week is going to be intense. i can only imagine the crazy drunkeness i'll have to walk through to get home.
well, i really need to get started on some homework. love and miss you all! happy halloween if i don't post before then!

here's my response to our art event this week. it was a play based on a russian novel called The Brothers Karamazov:

Wow. Just wow. The Brothers Karamazov was so full of different themes that I find it hard to start a response. I think the easiest way would be to start with the technical aspects of the show.
I love black box theatres! You can do so many cool things with them. Theatre in the round is one of those things. When I saw that that was how this show was set up, I got excited. They did a pretty good job of blocking the show so that the actors played to all sides. Some of the scenes were too far in the corners for everyone to see them well, but it being only preview, hopefully they fix that.
One other thing that bothered me were some of the costumes. Some of them looked like they could be period costumes. Others were fairly modern. It was distracting when I noticed Ivan was wearing jeans. It bothered me for half of the show. But then someone else pointed out that a lot of the costumes looked like they all just went shopping at Hot Topic. After that, I began to wonder if that was, in fact, the concept. That would mak Madamee Khokhlakov's bright red hair make more sense.
The actors all did pretty well. The man who played Ivan was my favorite. He was so captivating during the court scene. The intensity, the way he was trembling, was all the more powerfu because he was so calm and laidback throughout the rest of it. And Dimitri's passion was done well. Sometimes I thought Alyosha was too softly played, But it seemed to fit with his monkish qualities. I felt bad for that character because everyone else always came to him, only trusted him. How hard would that be? But he always keeps hhis cool, even during his "rebellion."
There was so much in this show. Probably too much. 3 1/2 hours is a long show. It was hard to keep focus. I think they trid to carry over as much as they could from the book, but you can't do that in theatre and still keep it coherent as well as interesting. While the themes were all interesting, and kept me thinking, it became disconnected. I can't even remember now all of the thoughts I had while watching it.
But I do remember one big one, and it's my favorite. From Ivan's poem scene. "I believe in God. I just don't accept the world he created." How often have I struggled with that myself! What do you do when the God you believe in doesn't seem to care about his creation? That has to be where social justice steps in, where we take matters into our own hands. As long as we do it in a moral way, following God's guidelines, what could go wrong? Sadly, a lot still.
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would write more but i'm really tired and have a headache. no energy or motivation. had a good weekend, though. same old stuff of going out and eating food and seeing people and watching movies and laughing at stuff. going to bed now.

Toying with Death: An Afternoon with Jere Van Syoc

I’m not going to lie, I was nervous. I’d heard a lot about Jere Van Syoc: how interesting she is, how unique her art is. One person told me they were intimidated to be talking to her. Plus, I’d seen her movie: learned about her “Brothel,” her “Temple;” the fire and the windmill. But I still didn’t feel prepared to actually meet the woman.
On a Monday afternoon, I stepped off the bus and walked a few blocks, according to the directions from Google Maps. I found myself in a beautiful neighborhood, with stone buildings and numerous shady trees. When I found the right house, I was a little bit early, so I walked around the corner to catch a small glimpse of the area in which Jere resides. Behind the house, I found the van Jere uses to transport her artwork around: the Death Toy Art Bus. That made me smile, and I felt a little more comfortable going in, having seen something I recognized.
As I climbed the stairs to her second floor apartment, I was greeted by Minnie, a rambunctious puppy that likes to chew on things, like the wooden handle of a screwdriver and my arm. Jere wisely banished her to the porch for most of the interview, giving me time to look around. It was a smallish space, but felt bigger because it was very white and well lit. There were knick-knacks, books, and Death Toys everywhere. The Death Toys created a harsh contrast to the rest of the surroundings, being very crude looking, insect-like creatures in dark reds and blues. I sat on the couch and pulled out my notebook.
When Jere came back, she sat down in a chair across from me, very comfortable in her paint shirt and sweat pants. I could already tell that this would be very informal. As we start talking, her voice has a calming affect. It sounds so familiar, having watched her film. It takes me back to that setting, that story-telling atmosphere. And Jere has quite a story to tell.
“Born with a talent for foolin’ around with stuff,” Jere has always been involved with art, having a fondness for contraptions and toys. During the war as a child she would make guns out of wood. Even then, death as subject matter was developing. That has been a popular theme for her, and so has sex; a lot of her work is based around those ideas. When asked why, she replied, “They keep most people’s attention!”
Truthfully, though, she is motivated by events in her own life: her mother’s remarriage, dealing with a new family, and her mother’s death. When her grandmother died, Jere took the ashes and created a sort of altarpiece for it. That recycling of a loved ones remains seems morbid, but for Jere it is a renewal. Art pieces like her Death Toys series are sculptures of things that had once been alive but are now dead, whether that refers to animals or mechanical parts that used to run.
These Death Toys are very much not toys. They look like twisted mockeries of children’s toys. That is pretty much what they are. All are mobile- whether on a skateboard, a wagon, a stroller, etc. They take the forms of dogs, a rocking horse, a pilot. Using found objects and mixed media, Jere creates these things that some might call monsters to talk about the primitive and destructive behavior of human beings: animal cruelty, domestic abuse, gang warfare, etc. She then takes them out to public venues for people to see.
Death also plays a major factor in the project she is currently working on. Not to give away too much before it’s finished, but it would basically be a device to play music at her own funeral. And she seems very comfortable with the fact of her own mortality. I admired that in our conversation. She is very at ease with her self: answering my questions honestly and with sincerity. It’s like her work- very personal.
Perhaps that comfort comes from her longstanding relationship with Death in her art, as well as her history with the Feminist movement. She was just starting college during the Women’s Liberation, and that had a large affect on her work. She added an aspect of protection to her work then, with undertones of anger towards the abuses of women.
Women’s Rights aren’t the only issues that Jere was advocating for in her art. In the 1970s, she was part of a group that created a windmill, as a sort of recreation of Stonehenge that also had environmental capabilities as an alternative resource generator. She wanted something big- in size, impact, and concept; something almost mythical o legendary. Unfortunately, it didn’t stay up. Jere said that everyone hated it, but for her it was a great success.
This is only a brief telling of Jere’s story, and I would encourage anyone who’s interested to check out her movie, The Brothel, The Temple, and Art. It gives a wonderful, personal description of Jere’s art and life, much better than I can do. The part about the fire is particularly interesting. It destroyed much of her work. I asked her how hard that was to deal with, and she admitted to it being a great setback. But it also turned into an art of renewal. “It was the worst and best experience of my life.”
“I know many people say ‘you’re really making art’… but I never know that I have made it this far, where I’m ranked.” Hearing a woman like Jere, who I have come to admire, say that about her own success makes me wonder how I’ll ever judge my own work in comparison. What is success, anyway? But if I continue to work, day by day, I’ll improve. And one day, if I reach a level of art as deep and personal as Jere’s, that will be my measure of success.

It All Counts: A Morning with Dorothy Hughes

Monday, October 6, finds me sitting in a small apartment with a cup of hot tea, surrounded by ceramic pieces, mixed media paintings, and a large fiber hanging piece. Dorothy Hughes sits across the table from me, dressed in olive green. She lives in the loft above this showing space, and works in the studio below. This is only the third time I’ve met her, but she welcomed me warmly into her home for this interview experience.
“I was just totally addicted…It’s never not been there.” Dorothy and I start our hour and a half conversation by talking about her beginnings as an artist. Her parents were always supportive of her passion. As a child, she was always making art. She even attended Saturday school at the Fort Wayne Art School. After high school, she attended the University of Illinois and Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Having married and had children young, her options were limited school-wise, but she still got in to some of the best art departments available. But at that time, a lot of things had to be managed at once. She doesn’t resent it, though. “There’s not a single thing more important to me than my family.”
In college, she focused her work on ceramics, with fiber work in the background. She recalls the clay work from this time as very conservative- simply wheel-thrown ceramics. It wasn’t until she started teaching at the Art Institute and Evanston that brought her fiber work out of the background and into brighter focus. Fiber pieces were having a break through in the art world, unlike clay. She also started working in mixed media, using plaster and twigs to bring an essence of story to her work.
Nowadays, Dorothy is teaching ceramics classes in the Cultural Center in Chicago, a program called Artscape. Everyday she is working, whether in physically or speculatively. “You spend so much time preparing for work that it’s not separated from making art.” And she works a lot. Some of her large fiber pieces, the size of an average wall, can take months of work. She works in dozens of clay pieces at a time to fill her kiln.
Working so much, you would expect to get burnt out, run out of ideas. I know I’ve hit that block many times myself. But as Dorothy says, “You constantly need to do things that stimulate you.” Every other year for 12 years, she has been going to the International Design Conference in order to be in the center of activity, to gain renewal. This past summer, she went to Italy to take a painting class, which is something she does not practice regularly.
But she said that getting out of her comfort zone like that makes a huge difference. If you get stuck in a rut, you need to involve yourself in a new creative situation to nudge you out of your normal work. “You are profoundly influenced by having this opportunity to be exposed to different things.” You have to take chances, even if the money comes out of your own pocket. If you don’t, you’ll get stagnate.
She also involves herself in things that are not art. Her and her friends started a book club ten years ago that is still thriving. “The library is my single favorite place to go.” She also claims to be a movie addict. She tries to balance the concrete of Milwaukee Avenue with natural green spaces like parks. But for her, “art life and everyday life work together.” She takes what she sees in nature and works it into her art. I can see the influence looking around me. The ceramic bowls and vases are very organic.
This integration of art and daily life is very important to Dorothy. “Everyday, all of us are around people that are very much not involved in the creative world. And I feel like something is missing in their lives.” In her classes, she has students who are not artists as a profession. “I can see that it’s such a balance to their other world.” She is very grateful that art has always been there for her as a means of expression.
She also appreciates the need for community in and outside the studio. “You need to have people feeding into your life…we all affect each other.” You have to get out and have a social life, a family. Besides, you never know the connections you might make! For Dorothy, a couple visits from a writer in the 70s became a small article in a newspaper, which spurred her career to new heights. Now she gets commissions from businesses like Shure (“That really was a thrill!”) and Household International. She has a piece in the Art Institute’s permanent collection.
If there was one recurrent theme in our conversation, it was this: It all counts. “All the different aspects, they all matter.” Especially good writing. A well written article, like the one previously mentioned, can make all the difference. But you have to make your own opportunities, and take what comes up, no matter the risk.
My favorite thing she said was this: “Everything gives you something, but some things give you so much more.” I had asked her about having a back-up plan if her career as an artist didn’t take off. She never really had a Plan B, but she supplemented her income by working in an accounting firm and a hospital. And while they didn’t give her experience in the arts, they still had something to offer- more than just a paycheck.
And I think that is something we all need to understand, artists and non-artists alike. It ALL counts. No matter what you are doing, you can learn something great from it. It all counts.

3 good shows

this weeks fine arts event was a musical: Caroline, or Change. about a black woman, a maid for a Jewish family, in 1963. she has to deal with the changing time; being poor; relationships with her kids, employers, friends, and herself. here's my response for class:

I LOVED Caroline, or Change! Probably my favorite event so far. it was beautifully done. stunning. i cried. from the moment caroline started humming, i was hooked. and then she started singing! such a voice- so deep and longing, strong and real and full of pain. all of the actors sounded good, but caroline blew me away. noah was adorable, though, when he was dancing, getting femmy. he was funny and sweet- he stole my heart. all three off the kids we saw were great. and the young woman playing emmy was just as good as caroline. each character was so believable, even if they were a bit cliché. the one charatcer i didn'tt like was the father, Stuart. he was acted wonderfully, but i just wanted to hit him! make him take care of his son and new wife.
i really liked the personification of inanimate objects (i.e. the washer/dryer, the bus). it's like, for caroline, they are what she associates with most. not people: her kids or friends. so she gives her radio and her dryer personalities. it's sad, but that's where her time is spent, where she's most herself. she has to be strong and tough for her children, obedient to her employers. but on her own in that basement, she is free to remember, free to feel and hope. in that lonely space, the dryer and washer and radio become her friends.
the set was great, sunken in for the basement, the stairs going up to the orchestra. having the orchestra on stage is always good. and this one sounded great- not overpowering. lighting was so good- adding mood, temperature, drama. beautiful. not just functional. and when they made it rain on stage- *nerdgasm* -that blew my mind. i can only imagine the work that went into setting that up. the visual it created, the sound. so refreshing, cleansing, but also sad. and it mirrored the repeated line of being underwater. that imagery was so powerful. being underwater, drowning, not being able to breathe. but at the end, it becomes a comfort.
the story was so moving, so sad. the way caroline was so trapped in her life, but fearing change. it was hard to see the end as happy when caroline ended up back where she was so miserable. but the hope comes with emmy- her mother's strength and resilience lives in her, plus the spunk of youth and the daring of her generation. this handling of change by caroline and emmy is paralleled with the more tactile plot of noah's bad habit of leaving change in his pockets. they tie together so well. one is what creates and enhances the problem of the other.

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on tuesday, i went on my own to see Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train. it was about a young latino man, angel, who shot and killed a religious cult leader. in jail he meets lucius, a murderer who found God while in prison, but still has a temper. then there's angel's lawyer, risking her job to keep angel out of prison b/c she believes his motives were honorable.
it's a great story- trying to figure out if bad actions are acceptable if done for good reasons; if wrongs are canceled out by the Ultimate Right.
it was really well acted. it was only a preview so they had a few mistakes, but the emotion was there, the power. it was a good story w/o being preachy. it was angry, loud, moving. the ending wasn't exactly happy, but it was hopeful for angel's inner piece.

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opened our new show at the gallery today. Objects of Desire. there are a lot of good pieces in it. lots of people came to the opening. spent a lot of time talking to other interns, a couple of the artists and visitors. still not good at mingling with strangers. plus i've got this stupid cold! my voice is much better, but not completely normal.
my feet really hurt- worked 12-8:30 in heels, running around all day, going up and down the stairs. should go to bed...

i've got paint in my hair again!

and it feels so good! it's been awhile since i've been covered in paint. i kinda missed it.
so the reason i've got paint all over is cause we are in between shows at Woman Made and we are making the gallery look nice. friday we took down the old show and packed it up, into boxes according to artists' various instructions and multiple levels of obsession with packaging peanuts. we also took out all the pieces for the next show, making sure they looked good. 2 came broken. :( and i spent a lot of timing giving a golden baby a lotion bath. that night amy and beate planned out the arrangement. i got to help! sort of. they asked me for my input at least! :/ it was interesting at least to see the process they went through.
yesterday, the preparator Emanuel came in and put everything up where it's supposed to go. and today we sanded and spackled and painted. i love painting. we had to redo some of it cause the color got mixed wrong. it was a nice, informal day. went around barefoot in a tanktop with my painting jeans. felt good. more me. we still have a lot of work to do. sweeping the floor, putting up labels, putting up the solo shows, etc.
this whole week is going to be busy. monday (tomorrow) i get to interview 2 artists. i'm excited. kinda nervous, cause one of them i've never met but she's supposedly really cool. it will be a good experience. i've got a lot of good questions ready. maybe i'll post the answers here, or at least the essays i make out of them. on tuesday, my practicum group goes on a neighborhood visit to auburn gresham for the day. should be a good time. that night i'm going to a show called Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train. i'm going by myself- got a free ticket online. there were a lot of shows to choose from. you could only pick one, and most of them sounded really good. it was hard to choose.
wednesday is classes like normal. thursday at work will be a lot of cleaning up, fixing things up, etc. our art event that night will be a theatre production called Caroline, or Change. no idea what it's about. then on friday we have to opening for the new show. it's called Objects of Desire. there's a lot of sculpture in this show. it's pretty good. there are a few pieces that i would not have chosen, but there are some that i love. check it out: http://womanmade.org/show.html?type=group&gallery=object_of_desire2008&pic=1
well. this was kind of a lame post. nice and short, though.
peace out

dancing tomatoes and a mermaid child

just got back from our weekly art event. it was called "Dr. Egg and the Man With No Ear." and it was 75% puppets. about genetic experiments. and it originated in australia. and it was AWESOME!
i was kinda nervous about it, it sounded weird. i'd heard that shows at Redmoon theatre are kind of hit or miss. but i was pleasantly surprised how good it was. they combined projections, puppets, and silent actors with music and a storyteller narrator. the narrator was exaggerated and funny, had a jim carey quality to him. it was good. the puppets themselves were incredible! they moved so well, so realistically. for one scene of a girl swimming, it took 3 puppeteers to move it. they way they had to dance around each other must have taken a lot of practice. the mix of projections and puppets that switch to actors worked so well. and the music added a sense of wonderment and mystery, made it light and childlike.
all of this makes it sound fun and happy- but it was NOT a children's show. it was played out like a children's show- the exaggerated acting and clown makeup. and the story itself was very simplified, with humor that a child would enjoy. but the theme of genetic modification, growing body parts in a box, a mutated mermaid child that almost gets killed: these things bring up very mature questions. how far is too far when it comes to science? what should be allowed? can we halt progress and discovery for fear of creating monsters? what is ethical? what do you do with a genetic mutant if you create one? who decides what is moral? i found the contrast between the way it was presented and what its message very interesting.
the show was fasicious and exaggerated to show it's point, and some people might find it to be "anti-science," "anti-progress;" but i don't think so. i think it just warns us to be careful how far we push. there are limits- there are boundaries that shouldn't be crossed. the result probably won't be a tomato with chicken legs or a fish with ears. the result would be a loss of consciousness of right and wrong. this argument has been carried through the years, this fear of what science is capable of. mary shelley's frankenstein said the same thing.
it was a really good show, and it was done wonderfully.