sept2006

Affair, September 30 2006

Doubt. I get so tired of doubt. Or is it just apathy? Can’t put my finger on it; can only say I’m over it.

“A radio show about art? How can you do that? That doesn’t seem possible.”

“Green walls? Are you sure about the green walls?

“A panel discussion about gender bias in the art world? Isn’t that just beating a dead horse?”

“You’re going to go up to strangers at the Affair? What makes you think they’ll talk to you for a radio program?”

God, it gets boring. But thankfully I don’t listen and therefore my life isn’t the bore their imagination allows.

If you are an art junkie, paradise awaits you right now in Portland, Oregon. I left the Affair with a bevy of art propaganda, images, CDs, cards and books, the result of everyone’s generosity. And I left with more than that - as indeed strangers were quite happy to talk to me about their work, their galleries and the artists they show. So instead of addressing the work of one artist in one hour, I will present (on October 16^th) a slice of an art fair including reflections on many artists from all over the country.

Jim Jim (AKA James Chasse), September 27 2006

Recently the clubbing by the police of a certain man has been in the news. Just about every paper and TV station has reported it. His name was James Chasse and he died of that clubbing.

There has been some controversy about how much the police would let out and how late they did it, under the pressure of eye witness accounts. The police say they could not restrain this individual who had already been falling through the cracks for some time. But even doctors have written into the papers, saying that if they indeed can restrain certain patients, why can’t the police?

I knew James Chasse as Jim Jim, and I guess what I find as disturbing as anything is that he is written of in a sort of faceless way, a mental throw-away. But I happen to know that by the age of 13 or 14, Jim Jim was very smart, creative, an artist and writer and the youngest member of the original punk rock scene here in PDX.

He created a magazine (nowadays you call them fanzines) called The Organism, sort of a spoof on the Oregonian. He wrote up reviews and sometimes drew. Sometimes he just told stories about his budding teenage life. He also took contributors and some hot and heavies contributed to the rag: I did and so did Randy Moe and so did Mike King. This boy was certainly eccentric, as we all were, but certainly no slouch.

It was Randy Moe who told me how James Chasse was Jim Jim, for I certainly did not make the connection right away. It had been years since I had seen him and I had heard that he lived under a bridge for awhile. But recently he was living in a group home and had his act more together.

As I told you, Randy has already decided that he would call his upcoming exhibition of portraits: It’s a Sad Sad Sad Sad World. He is adding Jim Jim to the exhibition, based on the above Polaroid and perhaps we can dedicate the show in his memory.

September 26 2006

Yesterday Artstar was a music show, of a very specific sort: the early 1970s.

Jenny Strayer, a great artist who gave me the above photomontage as a birthday gift (the meticulous cutting in this piece would blow your mind if you could see it up close) met me right after the broadcast and had listened to it. She said she liked it but also found it very saddening. I feel the same way, for many reasons.

I played songs like A Man Needs a Maid (Neil Young) and Blue (Joni Mitchell), songs filled with introspection and a feeling of having been already spent.

This was sort of a double-edged sword for me, a young girl listening back then. All young girls are sensitive - life is poignant, feelings are out of bound. But I was born too late to completely relate to that Vietnam come-down and I guess that was OK, at least for awhile, as I had my own come-downs to sort through.

My (step) Dad died at the dawn of the 70s. When my mother told me, she did not hold me. She left me alone in the living room while she chatted with a neighbor in the kitchen. For hours I sat there, thinking that my life would change, never dreaming what was in store. I was never allowed to grieve but sent to school the next day. I carried this shadow for a very long time. He was the only Dad I ever knew and I loved him like crazy. Today was his birthday.

Various tunes can function differently in your life. I do not paint to this music. I do not dance to it. But now that I am driving and have times when I want to drive away from everything – this kind of music is made for that.

B A S Q U I A T, September 25 2006

My pal Terez, who lives in Houston, sent me some stickers from an upcoming show at the Museum of Fine Arts there: BASQUIAT. The show was organized by the Brooklyn Museum.

While some will say that his output was uneven, whose work wouldn’t be when you do not even reach the age of 30? Not that I feel the need to defend him. I rarely saw a work of his I did not like.

I went to what must have been one of the last exhibitions he had, down in Soho in Broadway. I remember thinking the whole thing was kind of strange because I did not think this gallery was all that hot, but of course I could have been wrong. It was a small space, jammed packed with all these works which very clearly told me he was having major health problems.

The canvases were filled with pharmaceutical references and chemistry equations. Also nods to doctors, hospitals, imminent death. Rumour was he had a very unfashionable disease at that time, but we all know how he died and a drug overdose was considered a much better way to go back then. I had several friends who chose that route, rather than deal with the other.

Anyway. He was there. What struck me most odd was how alone he was at his own opening. I swear more people come up to talk to me at my openings than came up to him that night. He was scrunched up and obviously hating every minute of it. It was all just such a stark contrast to what all the dazzling stories and expectations of the 80s art scene were supposed to be about. Not long after that, I heard he was dead.

Not your grandma’s doily, September 23 2006

Yesterday I went to a panel discussion at PNCA for the exhibition at the Contemporary Crafts Gallery ~ New Embroidery: Not Your Grandma’s Doily.

As someone who was denied woodshop in school but forced to sew instead (and still hates it – I will not sew as much as a button on a shirt), I went in curious but with a slightly distanced heart.

Artists claimed that they took the thing they had done all of their lives and turned some of it on its head. Why not put it in the white box? It was creative, it was line and color based, took skill and time. Who was to say where this kind of work belonged? In a closet? Or discarded into thrift-stores? The re-contextualization might be a long process alone.

So for some of the artists, the act was a renewal and a resurrection. For some artists, it was a re-investigation of something they had already made a life-long investment in, all the while being told: “You can’t draw. You’re not an artist.”

What I found interesting was how some in the audience (women, too) wanted to take the gender politics out of the discussion, using examples of sailors making knots or the school samplers both girls and boys stitched at one time.

These examples do not hold a lot of water with me, because men did not use these particular activities as any kind of personal expression. They could go ahead and be painters. Meanwhile, women stitched. You can read about it in any Jane Austen novel.

Some of the audience took umbrage with the show title itself. “What’s wrong with Grandma’s doily?” asked one woman, “Grandma was fucking cool.”

Hmmmm. I don’t really know how fucking cool your grandma was, but mine sure wasn’t. And in fact certain artists on the panel assured the audience that while Grandma was wonderful, she did not like what they were doing. She was not all that happy with the new direction of this medium and where it was being taken and that indeed, well, it wasn’t Grandma’s doily!

The disruption and feistiness of the audience told me that the curators took the right risks with the name and the project. Making a few people upset is part of the job. Hopefully I will have them on the radio in October sometime.

How invisibility persists, September 23 2006

There were so many things touched upon at the presentation the other night, that it will take me a long to sort it out and decide what merits addressing.

But one subject stuck in my mind was the reality of showing, of exchange and of getting into the dialogue of art. I guess it means something to me personally, because I was invisible for quite some time, while still making the work.

I was working full time too (in NYC, and there, ‘fulltime’ does not mean 40 hours). I had no choice after I was sick. There was little room or energy for anything. I held on tight to just act of art-making, regardless if anyone ever saw it. This is a situation to claim the life of male or female artists.

Years later, things changed when I opened Artstar and Lovelake. Suddenly, on some level, I mattered. It made an immense difference to how important it was to progress, get out of the comfort zone, to get unstuck, to matter - because an ongoing conversation with living artists entered my life.

I’m thinking of this because I met an older woman artist who was about Henk Pander’s age and arrived here around the same time. We had quite a talk and I wondered why I had not run across her before? Her body language alone spoke of her resignation of all she was ever gonna be. When I mentioned her to a longtime historian and witness of the PDX art scene, she said: “Well, Eva, she is not half the artist Pander is.”

But I know how you can get that way. Where are the reviews and conversation to make you move? Where’s the dialogue, the talk, an adamant yes or no, that you matter?

You learn from the exchange. It was actually through Abi Spring’s analysis of my work in her blog that I realized that indeed, I had let go of my grid! Abi stated: “Gone is the grid.”

It was instinct-based and experience-driven. I never really thought about ‘releasing’ anything. It was someone else who told me that.

The reason I am making an issue of this is because I am damn sick of tired of people taking about ‘the quality of work’ as the only criteria, when artists are objectified and dismissed for many reasons beyond anything called ‘quality’ ( a subjective verdict!). There’s a reason why some don’t get to make art which matters. ‘Cause no one gave a shit.

Audrey, September 21 2006

A beautiful, perfect orchid arrived in the mail and it came from my friend Audrey. All the flowers where rolled up tight, but as soon as we exposed the plant to the measured light my mate can estimate so well, it all simultaneously sprung into full bloom.

Before I even moved to New York, I saw Audrey working at a NY salon I was destined to work at when I interviewed. I recall it was winter, a blizzard in full force as we passed each on East 60^th later on. She had this very savvy look about her that only a New York Women can have, I swear. Already there at the age of 29.

She grew up in what was then British Guyana. She is a beautiful mix, materially and spiritually of four directions: Indian, Black, Portuguese and Chinese. Over the 11 years I spent in New York, she was a constant companion, though of course a life in New York sort of means that nothing is constant.

Her brother was dying of AIDS, so she was not around. Then I got sick for two years, so I was not around. But as we were of the same age and of the same extremely independent cloth, we kept coming back to each other.

The last time I saw her was when I was last in New York, 2005, and you can see us here at Pastis. We look all happy but we had both just been crying our eyes out. She went through 9/11, left NYC to go to the Cayman, and then had to deal with that hurricane. Left the Cayman to be with her mother and Florida, where the hurricane followed her. This woman had a story!

My junk was more internal but no less real. Audrey was always a great listener and I miss her. She was never replaced here in Portland.

Salem trip, September 20 2006

Yesterday I took a trip to Salem, all in the name of art, and had a load of fun.

Don Olsen, whose work Chambers showed in the spring, teaches at Willamette University. He invited me down to give a talk to a color and composition class.

At first I smiled at the invitation as regards just my own painting, as I have, for several years, made my own attempts at ditching composition! But Don encouraged me to talk to the class about everything – painting, photomontage, radio, curating and basically, constructing your own life.

But before this, we were able to meet John Olbrantz of the Hallie Ford Museum. It is no secret that Hallie Ford has hosted some great exhibitions of contemporary art. The retrospective of Mary Henry is the first one to come to my mind, but I know that there are many. So I was particularly excited to meet him.

One thing I did not know until right before my trip was that he had a huge interest and investment in Roman art in Britain. This was like a meeting of kismet for me, because I worked for the York Archaeological Trust in the 70s and the site I worked on was Roman (more on that venture in the December 24 2004 post.). How many people can you talk about such an experience - with a similar enthusiasm?

One person I was able to call very spontaneously at the last minute was my old high school art pal, Ross Sutherland. He works for the Marion County Historical Society there in Salem, and actually came to my presentation. It was so wonderful to see him.

Without Ross, who knows what would have happened to me. It was Ross who turned me on to Andy Warhol’s Interview, first edition, in 1970. ( I would provide a link to Interview but the current version is so disconnected to what we had back then that I see no point to linking. ) You might say that with his influence, I made the left turn I needed to take to become an artist. He was incredibly inventive and I still have all the Xerox art and silk screens he made during that time.

Ross told me how he came to the decision to not follow a life of art because he could not take the schpiel, the schmooze, the politics and all the rest of it. He preferred an internalized life and an internal art process and leave it at that. In your home.

We had a long talk, in the presentation but then outside of it, about what it really means to exhibit, to put it out there and then, to get the ongoing variable verdict back. Personally, I think it is really difficult but necessary. I already know what being invisible is like and how far you get going that route, internally and otherwise.

More dahlias, September 19 2006

What a wise idea it is to plant Dahlias. They just keep giving until the first frost. They give so much that we are free to cut as many as we want and still there are more, giving us a riot of color as we ease into the cool weather.

Paros, September 18 2006

Yesterday the NYTimes had apiece in the travel section on the island of Paros. They say that is has changed greatly over the years and has becomes what Mykonos used to be: a glorious party central.

Well, there are certain things about Mykonos that Paros can never have: a whiteness beyond belief combined with the bluest of blue – in every street corner, in all of the churches, in the sea and sky. There’s a reason everyone passes through Mykonos if they can.

But I can believe that party-goers could move away from that and find another spot. It’s just hard for me to believe that it is quiet Paros, where I spent a bit of time 20 years ago.

I found a house I could stay at for 6 bucks a night, owned by an old Greek man. I also found this bar run by a very unusual American woman, who left it all behind (Wall Street career, etc) when she found out her husband was gay. The bar had a jukebox filled with punk singles.

The church the article speaks of, the one with the 99 doors, really supposedly had one hundred. The legend is that the one hundredth door is in Turkey and when the whole area is united once more, like it was in Byzantium, the door will return. I drew and painted the church several times (like painting above made while I was at the Art Students League).

One particular night was unforgettable: I was sitting at a café outside, having a drink, surrounded by other people but talking to one, when suddenly all of the power went out. Not just the lights in the café but all over the entire island. Everywhere I looked, no light. Just the sky and the water!

Candles were brought out in a flash. I guess this power shortage was a common occurrence and things went on as usual. Except of course they didn’t – everyone started talking to their neighbor. Everyone studied the sky. Everyone stood still. I sat there for hours till the lights came back on and I’ve never had another evening quite like that one.

More Baby, September 15 2006

Baby Smith sent me a box full of art goodies for my b-day. I mean this box was jam-packed.

I will share just a few of the pieces here: a cut-out from a National Geographic, a catalogue of sorts of her collage work and then this nifty pin with a card. Chambers is looking forward to her show in December.

Yet another one, September 15 2006

Surprise, surprise! The Oregonian tells us once again why we need the art of another white male! – providing all the justification they need to write nearly exclusively about their art (not so much them as personalities or objects but their actual work).

Over several months I have gathered every issue of the A & E section and the statistics might alarm you – or maybe not, as so many told me they expected nothing but misogyny from the O. (....and you see, I did not - so the slow realization has been very disturbing...)

Well, yeah, I guess they’re not exactly sitting around a table scratching their heads, thinking, gee, we need to write about all those women artists here. Nah. More like: “Hey! I’ve got a brilliant idea! We need to write about Henk Pander!”

Shosh at Lovelake

small obit, September 14 2006

Awhile ago (not sure of exact date), Skosh passed away.

I understand that Skosh was very involved in the Storefront Theater and that most who know him are what they call ‘old school’ here. All I know is that he was a great supporter of Lovelake, and while he didn’t get out all that often, he made it to most of those openings.

He liked to remind me of who was my enemy, not exactly what I needed on an opening night. But looking back, I think he was, in his own perverse way, complimenting me.

As I understand it, Skosh was the longest living person with AIDS in Oregon. Yet it was not the AIDS but lung cancer which finally got him.

autumn approaching, September 14 2006

In a moment, in truly a matter of hours, it became autumn. The clouds appeared and they may not go away for awhile. It is rather melancholy to me. The fall reminds me of new clothes and things for school but now my light has dimmed.

Moe Portrait, September 13 2006

I received a nice b-day card from Randy Moe yesterday. He will be doing another show of portraits later this year. The show will be called It’s a sad sad sad sad world.

Art for healing, September 12 2006

Months ago I mentioned that my work (see above) got collected by OHSU. Last night there was party for the artists and selection committee involved and it was a lot of fun. I had no idea at all of the scope of this particular project.

Sure, hospitals have art all over them. What OHSU has done though has created a much more considered project, right down to the space where the art would be shown. This is a special building (the Peter O. Kohler Pavilion) which will connect to the proposed Tram. My artwork is smack-dab in a place which is fairly quiet and serene now, but will eventually feel more like Grand Central.

The collection took months to amass and is installed over several floors, much of it surrounded by glass walls and light. I was able to meet several members of the selection committee who told me how their aims changed and clarified over time, as they began to realize more and more just what they were doing. One member said she had helped public spaces acquire art before, but the more she worked on this particular project, she realized how they were designing a space for healing.

Once this part of the criteria became more front and center, it changed a lot how they approached a work. “Liking” a work was only part of the equation. Optimism, vitality, rejuvenation, spirituality, color, light – very specific elements came into play. They looked at hundreds of pieces to be considered as a force in the healing process.

We all know how context can change a work and also, how the viewer completes the piece. It was so marvelous to see 60s/80s in this particularly open, radiant expanse. Finally it has a place to stretch out, something my paintings sorely need but rarely get. And I found that many people already had their own take on just what ‘60s/80s’ meant to them – not just in color but in an aggression tempered by optimism and aided by youth.

Area, September 5 2006

My favorite club by far has always been Area. When I tell people of this club I get a lot of blank stares, so I am very grateful that the New York Times did a great bit of writing and images on it.

This was not just a nightclub. It was an art experience and a place especially for artists, the best of the best and the weirdest of the weirdest. I am pretty sure that I was there the night the above photograph was taken.

I got into NY from SF late, sometime in 1985. Nicholas Hill, DJ at WFMU (known as ‘the Faucet’) picked me up at the airport and delivered me immediately to Area. It was Joey Ramone’s birthday party.

First thing I entered was a tunnel like something out of the surface of the moon. In fact the whole theme had this eerie distant planet feel to it. The first person I encountered was Christina Downing (pictured above), dancing on some moon rock. And God was she gorgeous.

The thing I remembered most about that night was how vaguely familiar many of the faces were, even though I was not (yet) a New Yorker. But the leap from 1978, when I was in London, to 1985 was not so far, and I’m pretty convinced that some of those people, who were now part of the Area scene (and of course supporters of the Ramones), were people I had run across in London 7 years previously. This kind of world was small, eccentric and very beautifully specific.

the comparison, September 5 2006

Jen Graves of The Stranger has slogged a nice bit about Portland, including some lovely pics of Alice Wheeler, soon to show at Chambers. Much of the following responses remind me of the age-old debate of who has what as regards Seattle VS Portland. I swear, when I was lived in 1979, people went on about this and they are still doing it.

Of course back then PDX was such a backwater, that the slogan hovering over the SF bar Vesuvio – we are itching to get out of Portland, Oregon! – rang very true. If that sign is still up there it is now a silly joke, because everyday I meet someone from San Francisco who has just moved here.

Every town is different. There is no competition. I love Seattle. Now that my Seattle Slough via radio is over, I will definitely miss it.

recognize and recompense, September 4 2006

The issues of copyright in art were launched in Abi Spring’s blog. These issues very quickly found themselves on the ground of ownership. In this particular case, an artist had an idea, an object and an activity. He asked others- anyone, really – to participate. Then someone not only participated, but took a photograph, blew it up large and used it as décor for a café (so I understand – I have not been to said café).

My first reaction was that as soon as the artist said: “Let us all do it” – he released some of his rights to whatever the outcome might be. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the photograph would have absolutely no meaning and context at all without the artist. It is not just a photograph or some kind of in - joke. It is a history, a story that needs to be recognized and told.

It is art history which tells me this. I thought of how other artists’ work had been so subjugated that it no longer not only belonged to them, but their careers were set a standstill because of it.

The story goes that MOMA had an exhibition of OP artists sometime in the 60s. British artist Bridget Riley arrived in town, passed by Bloomingdale’s and saw the windows full of dresses, all covered with her paintings (or rather, very much like them). She said to herself: “It will be decades before people will be able to look at my work again.”

And she was right. Her work no longer belonged to her but was reduced to a dress, a moment and a marketing tool.

I was there during the Indiana reign, only a child but I still remember: the L O V E mugs and stamps and posters. Just about everyone already knew the name Warhol by then but very few knew the name Indiana. But it was not images of car crashes that graced their coffee cups. Indiana (and many others) to this day say that he handled that whole thing wrong. All you need is Love (see above). And some credit and a paycheck!

I’ve always been more of a populist than many in the art world - thus activities like radio. And also felt that the art object is sort of owned collectively by us all in some way. But believing that art concepts and objects come out of thin air, to then be used as one wishes - is pure naiveté as regards the life and function of the artist. That can’t be recompensed so easily. I am sure both Riley and Indiana (either one) would agree.

Blue flight patterns, September 3 2006

Perhaps what I will remember most about the summer of 2006 is all of the times I slept outside. Again I was there last night, maybe for the last time. I awake to a patch of grey slowing becoming pale blue. Sounds of squawking down the street, where the birds congregate before they make their ascent. And then they crisscross over me, forming gliding flight patterns in strips of blue. I look up to the rooftop and see the Scrub Jays all lined up, staring at me. But the Stellar Jays are more adventurous and will take the peanuts from a bowl I have strategically placed about a foot away from my head.

September, 2006

September should be an interesting month. Brendan Clenaghen. Sean Healy. But enough of the boys! Let us ready ourselves for the Alice Wheeler Blitz.

(Though to be fair, I like those two artists and have had Brendan on Artstar Radio before. Sean Healy will be my guest the on 25th of this month.)

Alice is a photog extraordinaire (real film, real darkroom) of the here and now of the Northwest. Starting out with Kurt Cobain, she documented the wayward, the fleeting, the tender and the little bit funny. Sort of what we find around all in these parts, and that is whether she shoots place or portrait.

Place: a multi-layered ‘scape of varying shades inspired by James Lavadour.

If you want to see her talk about her work, this interview (scroll down) of several years ago that was broadcasted on TV in Seattle. Or you could wait for my interview on Artstar, pre-recorded but scheduled this coming Monday. She's the last bit of my Seattle Slough...

Of course the excitement is doubled by who she is showing with: Jesse Hayward, inventive in his mix of paint and sculpture, you might be surprised by this exhibition at Chambers. Absofuckinglutely clean, ‘fine art’! (He's also presently in the Oregon Biennial at the Portland art Museum.)

The artists share a high level of vitality, energy and chops. And as to this ongoing saga of conflict of interests, no one pays me for Artstar. I get to do just what I want with that project.

More recent entries: August 2006