The Troll Covets.
i drown in petroleum distillates.
hands cracked to the point of blood.
the room with the low ceilings and concrete floors leaves me empty.
yet every day every hour i am there.
i feel, i think, i hear sounds i know inside and out
they ring over and over again.
the oil and dust cloud my eyes
i am whole, driven, independent and mad
my stomach burns with the black liquid
weeping without tears
it burns and yet no where do i feel so at home
Sweetie has been really good to me. They have let me install work in their windows twice. I have really enjoyed doing it and I think it really fits in with the store philosophy on clothing. The work is visible 24 hours a day and you don’t have to go into the store if you don’t want to. Although, ladies, they do have some great stuff in there for your next evening out.
Look around everyone art is everywhere you just have take a moment to let yourself see it.
I put together four Swarm clusters for Aqua Art in Miami. These are good sized groupings with very specific layouts. Each one is documented, wrapped and ready to be hung by its new Keeper. Right now I have them listed on the map as residing in Miami but will move them as they are picked up by their new Keepers.
Sweetie Boutique has asked me to stay on for another month. This will give all of you who weren’t able to come last month another chance. It also allows me to be more prepared. I will be showing new Swarm Containers, at least one Trophy and two prints from The Sporozoan Cavities suite and of course the two installs in the display windows.
Come out say hello and check out the work. West Seattle should be hopping.
In all this frenzy surrounding The Swarm I have neglected to talk about work that came before it. I started making these hanging wall pieces when I was in the DUMBO studio in Brooklyn. I had a lot of drawings that I couldn’t seem to finish or I just felt needed to evolve into something else. The Tapestries grew from this need to push my drawings to a new place. I had weaved prints together a little bit, as you can see in front of the wall pieces. I had never pushed the weaving to the complexity and fluidity that I was able to accomplish in these Tapestries.
When we moved to western Mass. I pushed these things even further and they led me to new places. I was never able to finish any of these pieces. Life kept getting in the way. Now we are back in Seattle and I feel confident that I can and will return to these works and bring them to the place they need to be. ( Oh to have a studio again. ) I hope to show them in a setting other than a studio so that I can think at length about their presentation to the viewer.
A former student recently emailed me to let me know that he was off to grad school and had spent the last year in a studio making work. He said he was surprised at how much work he could get done when given the time to focus on making art. He is completely right. Time to mull and contemplate your vision is far more important than any other commodity an artist can have. Without time we cannot plan out the ideas that might come to us in daylight or night time dreams or when watching the rain pour or whatever it is that gives the artist her inspiration. Inspiration is useless without being to follow up on it. And for those of us who are not fortunate enough to have time free we must make time lest all the inspiration will fade into drunken stupors.
“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. ” Oscar Wilde
Why make art? What is the point to making a painting, print, drawing, sculpture, installation, costume whatever the hell you might be making? When I was a teacher at Pratt Institute I never professed to having an answer to that question. The reason I don’t profess is because I don’t have an answer to that question because I believe the answer is in constant flux. Artists are always making work which is their refelction on the woes and beauty of the world. Or they could be making work which is commentary on the world. Or they could be making work which is neither commentary or refelction rather a creation of a world. This is where I believe I am right now.
I wish to create a world with my art, a place viewers can become lost in and attain a certain sense of onenesss with the objects. I wish for my objects to have a lasting impression on their viewers so that they might find them more interesting the tenth time they see them then the first. I believe to do this I must leave behind the use of commentary, representation and refelction to become completely absorbed in the act of creating my own world.
So do I know why we should make art? No. I only know why I should make art. Art can be so many things from subtle to obvious, from beautiful to ugly, from subversive to propaganda but the one thing it can’t be is made in void the artist must always experience the push and pull of experience in order to continue to create.
Opening Reception:
Friday, February 9, 2007
6PM-8PM
Cummington Community House
33 Main Street, Cummington, MA
work will be on view through February28, 2007
for more info:
robroy(at)sikwenshel(dot)com
