thank you, John Updike

(User error, this was not posted on the day it was written)

Yesterday morning I read about the death of John Updike in the NY Times.

During the day I received this beautiful email from a list serve:

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and he does it without destroying something else.
-John Updike, writer (1932-2009)

Updike was one of those writers I just "got" before I even understood a thing about literature or literary criticism. There was something about his poignant way of writing about the everyday and the mundane that made me tingle with recognition. It was melancholy and acceptance mixed with hope.

Its been years since I last read his work so I enjoyed reading some excepts online today. This one in particular grabbed my heart.

"A barn, in a day, is a small night. The splinters of light between the dry shingles pierce the high roof like stars, and the rafters and crossbeams and built-in ladders seem, until your eyes adjust, as mysterious as the branches of a haunted forest."

From the story “Pigeon Feathers.”

Thank you, John Updike.

decluttering

The papers on my studio wall are starting to curl. The installation is up. Time to take down the support work and start again.

As much as decluttering might be about getting organized, today it feels a lot like the disorganizing theory. Every time I try to put something away I unearth a forgotten idea. Progress is slow.

Next up: prepare for a collective show called "Connective Tissue" with other artists from Chelsea and East Boston, MA. The theme is right up my alley. What are the objects, values, or the common denominator that holds us together, as individuals and a society? I did a lot of thinking about our common denominator a few years back with the erythrocyte series ('02-05) and the primordial series ('03).

Can't wait to get started! I've got a giant canvas ready to go...

disorganizing

I'm writing from the train, on route to NYC for a meeting where I'm expected to present creative programming ideas in response to input I'll gather a few hours before the meeting and from data I'll interpret on the spot.

I sometimes think of my job title as the "human synthesizer". I just take it all in, sniff the air, and spit it out in an orderly fashion. The ideas are all there...they just need to be encouraged to organize.

What differentiates me from a computer? Apparently neuroscience can't yet definitively tell us. But there is a theory of self-organization that I'm learning about in The Creative Mind.

The author postulates that during the creative process the brain begins by disorganizing, making links that have not been previously linked. "Out of this disorganization, self-organization eventually emerges and takes over the brain." (Pg 78)

So maybe I'll take a nap at the lunch table and give my brain some time to disorganize...and just hope it all gets pieced back together in time! (See the Jan 15 entry for an example of my bad luck with rushed deadlines and putting the pieces together.)

is it done yet? 'cause I can't stand to look at it

The creative process is ugly. My paintings are ugly for about 99% of their gestation.

Here's a glimpse at a painting that I really struggled with but ultimately added to the Something's Gotta Stick show because of its relation to the soft sculptures. It went through many painful iterations. Images below are from a camera phone so colors are blown out. No excuses. It's U-G-L-Y.





The final step was to put on my favorite WHITE-falling-circles layer as can barely be seen in this installation shot (also from my camera phone). The circle shapes are repeated on the wall with cut out white paper.


A note on the origin/inspiration for the shapes from "One Month, 21 Days":

Friday, 12.26.08 – Impermanence, interconnection, and random behaviors of subatomic particles. Bubbles in my paintings can be spherical, decoration, holes, etc. Objects take on the shape or quality of the viewer projects. They are subjective. Light can be a wave or particle. All is a matter of probability.

small packages/small spaces

I took in a sharp, shallow breath when I first entered the gallery space at The Artists Foundation. I knew my project/exhibit room would be small...but this was tiny!

I'd made a mock up of the two 6' wide gallery walls in my studio and sized the work accordingly. But I didn't, or couldn't, take into account the feeling of the low ceilings. The gallery is the size of a bathroom. A 7' ceilinged bathroom. Without water. Or tiles. Ok, its not really like a bathroom.

The "good things come in small packages" phrase rattled around my head as I unpacked my things, but I wasn't buying it. My co-exhibitor seemed to be just as shocked. His response was to edit his 50 pieces down to 30.

I stubbornly charged ahead. Trusting that what I made on the studio walls would certainly work in the gallery - despite how tall it's ceiling was. Instinctively, instead of editing, I kept adding MORE. The same way I add layer upon layer in a painting until it is "done".

After about eight hours of just sort of futzing around and getting lost in the space (yes, that is ironic) I realized it was all OK. I'd created a little private corner tucked away from everything. An almost meditative space. It cries out for a giant pollen sculpture to sink into. (I'll have to start looking for another sweat shop; my assistant is on strike.)

So, maybe I do believe good things come in small packages...or small spaces...or from small brains.

It may all be true but I warn anyone who is claustrophobic and thinking about coming to the opening this Saturday to think again. A better time to come might be Saturday, February 7 from 12-5 pm when I'll be gallery sitting (perhaps meditating if it's slow).

WHAT:
1. Opening reception:
Saturday, Jan. 24, 3-5pm

2. me waiting to see you:
Saturday, Feb. 7, 12-5pm

WHERE:
Artists Foundation @ The Distillery
516 East Second St. 1st Floor
Boston MA 02127

The show is open every Saturday 12-5 from Jan 24 through Feb 14; by appointment (call 617-464-3561) or if you know the right people...I'm giving private viewings on Fridays and some evenings (kate(at)kategilbertmiller(dot)com).

the creative brain

I just picked up Nancy Andreasen's book, Creative Brain. In the hopes that there is an explanation for how/why I come up with ideas.

While getting ready for the installation, I hired my mother to help assemble pieces of the soft sculpture pollen spores. At a dinner party she explained her deplorable sweat shop conditions and was prompted to explain exactly why I wanted to put pollen in an installation. After a bit of explanation, a guest said ,"Oh. Is this like a Yoko Ono thing?" My poor mother.

I glanced at one page in the book that said creative minds don't work in isolation. "...the catalytic substrate for that process is often interaction with others and intellectual exchange of ideas." So one might argue that my ideas are the product of nurture - years of loving support and the exchange of silly creative ideas.

Thanks mom!

Believe

I am currently in the township of Buckingham, a picturesque Bucks County PA exurb of Philadelphia dotted with stone barns, McMansion farm homes, neo-colonials, and fast-driving cars that always appear just-detailed or right-off-the-dealers-lot clean.

I find this place fascinating for the number of thought-leaders it produces and attracts. If you grow up here and don't become a world renowned architect, environmentalist, tile manufacturer, guy who kills your friend while lost in the desert, self-selecting museum curator, or travel author you at least know how to: 1.) power into narrow sloping corners like a race car driver while expertly avoiding herds of deer or 2.)Sing the Philadelphia Eagles fight song from the bottom of your Yuengling beer. (For my artist friends, the Eagles are a football team.)

Today at three pm EST the Eagles play for a shot in the Super Bowl. Their song will ring through the fields and streams, "Fly Eagles Fly..."

I will watch the game paying particular attention to the commercials and fan experience. Especially intriguing is their collective enthusiasm for one thing - victory.

What would it be like if regions or cities picked their favorite artists and held an art-off? Too many flags and challenges would keep the game from ever being completed. And that's if anyone could ever agree on a set of criteria or ground rules. Process or product? Realistic or conceptual? Two things I know are for sure: 1.) the commercials would be outstanding. 2.) if the shock of it didn't kill them, artists would greatly benefit from the public support.

One of my favorite recent football commercials is a Payton Manning spot (for God knows what; Visa?) where he's cheering on average workers and their activities. In one frame he is in a museum chanting, "ART, ART, ART!"

This has become a defacto fight song for me and code among a few close friends for "just keep plugging away" or "I don't get what you're doing but I still support you anyway".

Many times during the creation of Somethings Gotta Stick I had to brush the dirt off my knees, give myself a pep talk and keep charging ahead...but on a different route.

Maybe the creative process and football aren't that different? You can't succeed if you don't play and you won't succeed if you don't believe.

Today I Believe in Green and always I'll believe in ART, ART, ART!

Author's not to CCD III and NEM III: "Originality is the art of concealing your sources." -Benjamin Franklin

I never knew

Tonight after Januaryistmas (a super delayed Christmas/New Years/Presidents Day celebration) was over my father-in-law hugged me and said, "I never knew you were so much fun!"

Apparently for the last 10 years I have managed to repress my Christmas-induced childish side that loves to air guitar to Trans-Siberian Orchestra Christmas music.

Meanwhile my husbands' step niece was getting chewed out for her Dirty Harry routine in school: "You dirty twits aren't fit to be second graders". You can't make that kind of line up! But you can add to it..." Go ahead, make my recess."

So what does this have to do with my installation? Not much, except for these two Everything I Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten principles:

1.) Don't take yourself so seriously that your family doesn't really know who you are for the first 10 years

2.) Say what you think, but keep your insults proper.

In other words, don't wait for the right time to do or say what you want.

I've been wanting to make a life-sized hair drawing for years now (maybe 8?), and to push the technique further. I started the practice in 1998. Today, I learned about yet another artist using hair in her work and taking it far beyond where i've ever gone.

The life-size hair drawing I made for the installation was a success for me because it fulfilled a dream (check) and I got it out of my system. Now I can move on to other things. Like shading with cross hatched hairs, perhaps? Or branching into "performance art" with the T-S Orchestra...

What are you wanting to say, do, or try?

need an idea? step into the shower

Like millions of people across the globe I start most mornings with a shower. (Technically coffee and journalling come first.) And while in my little cubby of steam and hot water my brain kicks into high gear; inspired by the white noise of the water and possibly the lavendar infused scalp massage.


These 4-5 mins are my only hope at brilliance. Most days I emerge from the shower with a random, useless question which'll have me on google for 30 mins, a made up weird-al-yankevich-style song, or a plan of attack for controlling the chaos at work.

Occasionally I'll discover an idea that really sticks.

For one month I wrote down these thoughts and ideas. I even recorded a few of the showers. Shower ideas and recordings are part of the "Something's Gotta Stick" installation.

To hear a 30 second MP3 excerpt click this link: SHOWER

starting strong

"You started strong," said my friend about the blog.

Yes. Writing and fiddling with photos was a nice distraction to actually working in the studio. Then, when the juices were going, paint was moving, and the deadline to install loomed, "update blog" moved ever further down the to-do list.


So now trying to be ever vigilant, I stopped by the gallery after work to photograph the show and start pushing the opening (sat 24 3-5 pm). But the door was locked and I am leaving town for a week.

That's the challenge. Now comes the creative process. Market an installation without words and with new tools. (I'm writing from a Blackberry in a pickup truck on I95).

Each day I vow to add one entry to describe the installation or process.

Tonight I start with this: PIECES. Pieces of a whole. Falling to pieces.

Each spore sculpture is made of 56 pieces of fabric, at least as many seams, and countless polyfil micro beads.each about 1/16" diameter.

I nearly fell to pieces when one of the seams burst an hour before finishing the installation. But it was beautiful to watch. Those staticy little buggers flew out and began colonizing the mountains of spore spikes. Drawing my attention to the power of the collective and yet another scientific principal to mess with my installation. Static!

Question:Can you draw with static electricity?