"So What?"
I was asked this question recently.
I didn't know what to say.
I said nothing.
If I am asked again, I would say;
'If a gardener plants a nut, that grows into a tree,
does a squirrel ask so what?"
Friday, May 30, 2008
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The most difficult question for me has been simply, why do you make art?
I am not sure if there is an answer. It cant be, because I like to, or because its cool, or fun. When I was younger I thought I would pursue architecture, or biology, herpetology, or professional skateboarding. I thought it would be great to raise birds or turtles; which is somewhat of a creative process, but there is something that I was born with that forces me to interpret the world through my hands and eyes. It is somewhat of a condition or disease that I cannot really escape. Regardless if I have to be a brick mason, I will go home completely exhausted, hardly able to move and I will draw and fabricate the objects that I have been thinking about all day as a means of escape and obtainment.
Questions
My hardest question (which has come both from others, but most often from myself), is similar to what others have already posted thus far: Why do I do what I do? Five years ago, I was asked this question before a fiction reading--I said, "I just like to tell stories, I guess." But if that was ever true, it isn't anymore, and that has made the question much harder to answer.
Because I don't like to tell stories. I like words. It isn't the story, the what happens next of it all, that fascinates me, it's language--sound and rhythm and the un-fixedness of meaning. So I write because I like language? This has always seemed insufficient (and perhaps linked to the problem of saying "I am a writer" rather than "I am an artist," because really, who among us isn't a writer, in the sense that we are able to write, and exercise this skill?). Really, I don't know the answer to this question. I would like to say it is because I was destined to, I can't do anything else, but I suspect deep down it may be because I make myself do it, because hard as it sometimes is, and much as I sometimes don't want to, there are questions I still haven't answered, and ones I haven't asked.
I forget this often in graduate school, when the next deadline or assignment is looming, when I have 24 freshman research papers to grade. And it's hard sometimes, to make myself. But I always come back, again and again, because the one thing I think I know is that I don't want to stop.
Because I don't like to tell stories. I like words. It isn't the story, the what happens next of it all, that fascinates me, it's language--sound and rhythm and the un-fixedness of meaning. So I write because I like language? This has always seemed insufficient (and perhaps linked to the problem of saying "I am a writer" rather than "I am an artist," because really, who among us isn't a writer, in the sense that we are able to write, and exercise this skill?). Really, I don't know the answer to this question. I would like to say it is because I was destined to, I can't do anything else, but I suspect deep down it may be because I make myself do it, because hard as it sometimes is, and much as I sometimes don't want to, there are questions I still haven't answered, and ones I haven't asked.
I forget this often in graduate school, when the next deadline or assignment is looming, when I have 24 freshman research papers to grade. And it's hard sometimes, to make myself. But I always come back, again and again, because the one thing I think I know is that I don't want to stop.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Hard question
I've been thinking all week about what I would write for this post, and I think in the end it's really a question of honesty, both with all of you and with myself. This first year of grad school has been rough stress-wise and challenging work-wise. It has made me question myself and my goals, and has led me to the following hard question: Does being a costume designer make you happy?
Hard to say. Sometimes the show can break your spirit. Sometimes it's all the outside stuff that happens with living and going to school that does it. I'm certainly not ready to throw in the towel on theatre by any means, but I would say I'm still working on the question of what I want to be when I grow up. If I had to answer that question, I would say I just want to be happy. So I guess I'm still working out if theatre is the path that will lead me there.
I had one professor in my undergrad who said that theatre design is pretty much hell on earth, and if you could see yourself doing anything else in the world, you should probably do that. Hmm...
Then again, he was a bit jaded. I think maybe the thing to consider is that I can't wait for life to present me some great revelation about my future, but rather to make it happen myself. With that in mind, it is another piece of advice that came out of 'MFA Kabarett' that I will remember dearly for a long time: You have to fall in love with the show. If you don't, your design will suffer.
So, I figure there's nothing like being in love to make you happy, and maybe that will be the key next year and forever.
Hard to say. Sometimes the show can break your spirit. Sometimes it's all the outside stuff that happens with living and going to school that does it. I'm certainly not ready to throw in the towel on theatre by any means, but I would say I'm still working on the question of what I want to be when I grow up. If I had to answer that question, I would say I just want to be happy. So I guess I'm still working out if theatre is the path that will lead me there.
I had one professor in my undergrad who said that theatre design is pretty much hell on earth, and if you could see yourself doing anything else in the world, you should probably do that. Hmm...
Then again, he was a bit jaded. I think maybe the thing to consider is that I can't wait for life to present me some great revelation about my future, but rather to make it happen myself. With that in mind, it is another piece of advice that came out of 'MFA Kabarett' that I will remember dearly for a long time: You have to fall in love with the show. If you don't, your design will suffer.
So, I figure there's nothing like being in love to make you happy, and maybe that will be the key next year and forever.
Hardest Question
Can you see yourself being happy doing anything other than music?
I spent many years pondering this question which now seems easy. No. The desire to make more money and have a more "normal" lifestyle could not trump the spiritual and intellectual rewards of performing and teaching music. Because of this realization, I decided to start work on a doctoral degree here at OSU.
I spent many years pondering this question which now seems easy. No. The desire to make more money and have a more "normal" lifestyle could not trump the spiritual and intellectual rewards of performing and teaching music. Because of this realization, I decided to start work on a doctoral degree here at OSU.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Hardest Question?
I think we were supposed to post something like the hardest question we were ever asked. There have been many, but here's one:
If you could wake up tomorrow one of 3 things: you could wake up as a director of a film and have to face the challenges of organizing your crew and calling all the shots to make sure that everything gets done properly or if you could wake up as an actor on the set of a film and have to face the challenges of preparing for your role today - mentally getting into the place you need to be to deliver your dialogue and get into your character and taking direction about what worked and what needs to be fixed or if you could wake up as an artist and face the challenges that would come to you in the studio - deciding how to go about working on something, how to talk about something, or how to begin or finish your newest work...which would you choose?
If you could wake up tomorrow one of 3 things: you could wake up as a director of a film and have to face the challenges of organizing your crew and calling all the shots to make sure that everything gets done properly or if you could wake up as an actor on the set of a film and have to face the challenges of preparing for your role today - mentally getting into the place you need to be to deliver your dialogue and get into your character and taking direction about what worked and what needs to be fixed or if you could wake up as an artist and face the challenges that would come to you in the studio - deciding how to go about working on something, how to talk about something, or how to begin or finish your newest work...which would you choose?
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Trisha Brown Rep- Sololos
Sololos showing schedule:
May 27th @RPAC 12:30pm
May 28th @OVAL (Rain Date) 11am
MAy 30th @ Sullivant Hall Atrium 10:30am
Wish to see you there!
YF
Monday, May 19, 2008
"...explore the space!"
Extroformalist Potentialities: Form, Variation, Effect
I will be presenting my exit review at 3pm tomorrow (Wednesday) in the Gui Gallery on the first floor of Knowlton Hall. You are all welcome to attend, anyone can come. I'll be discussing a potential trajectory for practice in the context of art and architecture. You can come and mock my ignorance in art!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
FRIDAY may 16th
Caitlin, Amy, and I will be discussing poems and short samples of our work in Hopkins 052.
See you then--
Sara
See you then--
Sara
Friday, May 9, 2008
Point A to Point B
I refer to beginning and end as Point A to Point B because for me that is what is important. The beginning is a thought. The end is when that thought is no longer important and I have moved onto a new thought. So rather than refer to it as an end. I will refer to it as Point B. The next point on a journey that has multiple beginnings but no end.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Begin and end
The beginning is hard to trace. I can understand an epiphany but beyond that immediacy it becomes grey. I don't enjoy the process of painting, but I have fallen in love with it's economy. When those feelings of anxiety and rank have calmed, that I would say (if it exists) would be closest to the end.
a circle's round it has no end...
For a possible explanation of how I begin and end here is my statement that hangs out with my piece:
Loud patterns and vivacious colors run throughout the clothes I wear as well as in my work. The articles of clothing become pieces to the greater whole, the outfit. I hoard ceramic commercial slip casting molds, much like I sift through the clothes in my closet. The finished accumulations of final cast objects are equivalent to shirts, sweaters, socks, and pants when they are put together. In the work the appropriated forms are placed into a copious arrangement of bright colors and combinations of pattern. Each individual part is monochromatically glazed in a shiny, candy-coated surface to complement the sumptuous and entangled congregation. They are packed together like a puzzle to satisfy my desire to arrange and organize with ultimate control. By this I mean, I dominate them by stripping their singular identities and positioning them so they are facing the same point like a crowd at an assembly. In this installation, the flock's locale in the space is near the stairs, which gives the viewer a range of vantage points.
*apparently I made up the word monochromatically, Steven Colbert was right it feels good.
Loud patterns and vivacious colors run throughout the clothes I wear as well as in my work. The articles of clothing become pieces to the greater whole, the outfit. I hoard ceramic commercial slip casting molds, much like I sift through the clothes in my closet. The finished accumulations of final cast objects are equivalent to shirts, sweaters, socks, and pants when they are put together. In the work the appropriated forms are placed into a copious arrangement of bright colors and combinations of pattern. Each individual part is monochromatically glazed in a shiny, candy-coated surface to complement the sumptuous and entangled congregation. They are packed together like a puzzle to satisfy my desire to arrange and organize with ultimate control. By this I mean, I dominate them by stripping their singular identities and positioning them so they are facing the same point like a crowd at an assembly. In this installation, the flock's locale in the space is near the stairs, which gives the viewer a range of vantage points.
*apparently I made up the word monochromatically, Steven Colbert was right it feels good.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
FRIDAY may 9th
this Friday May 9th, we will meet down at the historic Lazarus building at the new OSU Urban Arts Space. Chris, Lisa, Rain, Eileen, Mike and myself have our MFA thesis shows up. the Arts Space is located at 50 W Town St....basically at the corner of Town & High. enter the side of the building off of Town, the Arts Space door will be on the right.
it's pretty easy to get down there by bus. the no. 2 will take you there and almost drops you right in front. get off at town & high, it follows the stops at broad and then state (for location reference). allow for at least a 20 minute ride if coming from campus. (that's my guess...someone else can chime in)
if driving, i suggest parking in a structure vs. on the street. it'll save a bit of money... the meters are highway robbery and only take 2 hours worth of coins.
see you then.... -meredith-
it's pretty easy to get down there by bus. the no. 2 will take you there and almost drops you right in front. get off at town & high, it follows the stops at broad and then state (for location reference). allow for at least a 20 minute ride if coming from campus. (that's my guess...someone else can chime in)
if driving, i suggest parking in a structure vs. on the street. it'll save a bit of money... the meters are highway robbery and only take 2 hours worth of coins.
see you then.... -meredith-
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Beginning and Ending
Beginnings, for me, are usually the result of an obsession that finally gives way to a sentence. Most often, it's a scene I can't get out of my mind--a moment that was either transformative or characterizing of something/someone important to me. I'll play this scene again and again, and then I'll find myself telling a friend about it. (Oral communication is really the key to any of my written work; I almost always have to work out some complication in speech before understanding why I feel urged to the page.) The storytelling turns into a search for insight. If there's enough energy, I'll work on the issue for a long time, much to the chagrin of my company, perhaps, until I stumble upon the line or question that demands the memory be turned into art.
I suppose, then, that beginnings are the catharsis part of art-making for me. How cliche.
I tend to write slow. While some of my peers can dash off an essay or story or poem per week, it often takes me months to complete a single piece of prose. Every day, I start at the beginning and revise until I come to the white space that still needs filling, and then I slowly fill it, sentence by sentence, day by day. It's sadly not uncommon for me to spend an entire day working only to end up with one meager paragraph. It's also not uncommon for me to delete that paragraph once I overcome whatever roadblocks the piece presents. Very rarely does an essay or story come with the grace and inevitability of a waterfall, just flowing out onto the page of its own momentum. Though some writing sessions seem propelled by something other than me, the cynic inside remains convinced that some days are just good, and others, well, not so good. The acceptance of this has been hard. But I no longer worry that a bad writing day is a signal of the end of my career.
Endings are another matter. The beginning of a piece always carries with it the implication of the end, and so I cannot begin without looking ahead to the resolution. It's the only part of prose-writing I attempt to plan, even though my "planning" looks an awful lot like insomnia. While my beginnings are born of urgency and possibility, rather than careful assessment of an issue, my endings try to be more calculated. This does not generally work. Even when I'm so clever as to come up with the scene that will refract the opening just so, this cleverness hardly ever results from my nights toiling over how to exit the story in which I've come so far.
Stephen Dunn once said of sleep: "how hard I'd try when I couldn't,/how it would come/if only I could find a way/to enter and drift without concern/for what it is." I find endings to work similarly. The best ones are usually surprising. Their finality comes in the sentence I never expected to write, the sentence that overturns the insight that brought me to write in the first place, the sentence that does something wonderful and frustrating at the same time: makes me rethink my beginning.
I suppose, then, that beginnings are the catharsis part of art-making for me. How cliche.
I tend to write slow. While some of my peers can dash off an essay or story or poem per week, it often takes me months to complete a single piece of prose. Every day, I start at the beginning and revise until I come to the white space that still needs filling, and then I slowly fill it, sentence by sentence, day by day. It's sadly not uncommon for me to spend an entire day working only to end up with one meager paragraph. It's also not uncommon for me to delete that paragraph once I overcome whatever roadblocks the piece presents. Very rarely does an essay or story come with the grace and inevitability of a waterfall, just flowing out onto the page of its own momentum. Though some writing sessions seem propelled by something other than me, the cynic inside remains convinced that some days are just good, and others, well, not so good. The acceptance of this has been hard. But I no longer worry that a bad writing day is a signal of the end of my career.
Endings are another matter. The beginning of a piece always carries with it the implication of the end, and so I cannot begin without looking ahead to the resolution. It's the only part of prose-writing I attempt to plan, even though my "planning" looks an awful lot like insomnia. While my beginnings are born of urgency and possibility, rather than careful assessment of an issue, my endings try to be more calculated. This does not generally work. Even when I'm so clever as to come up with the scene that will refract the opening just so, this cleverness hardly ever results from my nights toiling over how to exit the story in which I've come so far.
Stephen Dunn once said of sleep: "how hard I'd try when I couldn't,/how it would come/if only I could find a way/to enter and drift without concern/for what it is." I find endings to work similarly. The best ones are usually surprising. Their finality comes in the sentence I never expected to write, the sentence that overturns the insight that brought me to write in the first place, the sentence that does something wonderful and frustrating at the same time: makes me rethink my beginning.
Friday, May 2, 2008
How to begin and end
Beginning: I have a fortune cookie message in a small frame on my desk that says, "A job well begun is half done." I got it six or seven years ago, and its gone with me from an executive assistant job at a science museum to program director at an art college to here. As someone who has struggled with procrastination throughout my life, this little phrase has helped me avoid many of the inevitable all-nighters that go with meeting academic and professional deadlines. Thanks, little fortune cookie.
Also, when I'm really dragging my feet out of fear or uncertainty to start a project, I hear Bob Newhart's voice in my head. What he says comes from a skit on Mad TV where he played a psychotherapist. A patient comes into his office, complains bitterly about her boyfriend and how bad he makes her feel. He listens patiently, and then asks if he can offer two words of advice that will fix everything. She eagerly awaits his advice. He takes a deep breath, and then shouts at the top of his lungs, "STOP IT!" And then over and over again, "STOP IT! JUST STOP IT! STOP IT!" So, when I complain to myself about not knowing where to begin, Dr. Newhart reminds me to get over myself and just get on with it.
Ending: Beginning is much easier for me; I've got all kinds of beginnings all over my studio, and as my husband will attest, at home as well in the form of countless half-read books and half-finished home projects. I have about seven different journals that are half full (our yet-to-be-born children will have a field day trying to get it all into some sort of order when I'm gone); I just love writing in a fresh notebook! It's not that I will never finish these things; I do. But I realize that I need to have several things going at once so that when I get stuck on one, I have another to go to. All of these things influence one another, weaving a rich and interesting web of ideas.
So, how do I end? When I see the final piece, stroke, element, page. It's like music: there are certain notes and chords that signal the completion of a piece. Without these, the audience is left in suspension, not knowing if it's over or not (in the right piece, this can be the perfect way to end). The fadeout is another method of ending for music. I think I just "hear" the final touch needed, and stop. There is a sense that to go any further will ruin the piece or set it off on another path that would need to be followed for a long time to reach another conclusion. Sometimes I chose to keep going if I've got the energy; otherwise, I end the first piece and do my favorite thing with the new idea: begin again.
Also, when I'm really dragging my feet out of fear or uncertainty to start a project, I hear Bob Newhart's voice in my head. What he says comes from a skit on Mad TV where he played a psychotherapist. A patient comes into his office, complains bitterly about her boyfriend and how bad he makes her feel. He listens patiently, and then asks if he can offer two words of advice that will fix everything. She eagerly awaits his advice. He takes a deep breath, and then shouts at the top of his lungs, "STOP IT!" And then over and over again, "STOP IT! JUST STOP IT! STOP IT!" So, when I complain to myself about not knowing where to begin, Dr. Newhart reminds me to get over myself and just get on with it.
Ending: Beginning is much easier for me; I've got all kinds of beginnings all over my studio, and as my husband will attest, at home as well in the form of countless half-read books and half-finished home projects. I have about seven different journals that are half full (our yet-to-be-born children will have a field day trying to get it all into some sort of order when I'm gone); I just love writing in a fresh notebook! It's not that I will never finish these things; I do. But I realize that I need to have several things going at once so that when I get stuck on one, I have another to go to. All of these things influence one another, weaving a rich and interesting web of ideas.
So, how do I end? When I see the final piece, stroke, element, page. It's like music: there are certain notes and chords that signal the completion of a piece. Without these, the audience is left in suspension, not knowing if it's over or not (in the right piece, this can be the perfect way to end). The fadeout is another method of ending for music. I think I just "hear" the final touch needed, and stop. There is a sense that to go any further will ruin the piece or set it off on another path that would need to be followed for a long time to reach another conclusion. Sometimes I chose to keep going if I've got the energy; otherwise, I end the first piece and do my favorite thing with the new idea: begin again.
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