:a limited edition

Points on Time

2013-03-14T10:41:00.000-07:00

Points on Time
Six pieces / 10x13 each
Grass, minerals, dirt, berries, dandelions

"I like to think of landscape not as a fixed place but as a path that is unwinding before my eyes, under my feet."
– Gretel Ehrlich

A key geographical question throughout the human experience has been, "Where am I?" In classical Greece and China, attempts were made to create logical grid systems of the world to answer this question. But it wasn't until the middle ages that the latitude and longitude system was developed and implemented. This system is written in degrees, using the symbol °.

These ten newly completed works represent an attempt to discover my sense of place through landscape. Place is latitudinal and longitudinal within the map of a person's life. It is temporal, spatial and personal. A layered location replete with human histories and memories, place has width and well as depth. Having returned to the U.S. after living in Germany, and having moved several times in the past 5 years, I have become increasingly aware of my desire to connect to a specific location. Working with raw materials from my local landscape and visually interpreting it represents a starting point for understanding my environment. The awareness of my immediate physical surroundings marks my current time along a continuing path.

at Lilify, Monterey through April.

PROCESS : Points on Time

2013-03-05T18:28:00.000-08:00

Prior to my showing of 6 new works in Monterey on March 2nd, I headed out with my daughter Paloma to work on one of the pieces. This particular "drawing" took me 2 days using clay, grass, dirt, and berries. We collected the materials and then I ground them into pigments using a mortar and pestle. I used a small piece of wood as a quill to finish the drawing on watercolor paper. Happy with the way this turned out.

Another attempt

2013-02-17T10:54:00.000-08:00

Time is running short, so the next day I head out again, this time up a remote trail in the hills of Napa. I find a spot in the long grass overlooking a bluff and decide to make this my studio for the day. I collect moss from a tree, grass and scrape reddish minerals out of a damp rock. I've changed paper and gone with a heavy watercolor variety which should help to speed the drying time.

Ground up, I'm pleased with two of the mixtures. Turns out moss does not translate well to pigment of any kind. I may use this as a sort of binder for the other pigments.

The first shapes are applied with the grass which picks up the dirt particles and separates in an interesting way on the paper.

Ok, this is going better. It's much warmer so the pigment is setting faster. It's a lovely spot with no one around and as time passes, I find myself more aware of the natural sounds and smells around me.

Hours have passed and it's coming along. I'll search for dandelions to make yellow and small purple berries I spotted on the way up to hopefully mix a shade of blue. This is will be first piece of the six natural works in the show.

New Works

2013-02-16T10:39:00.000-08:00

I have a show coming up the first weekend in March in Monterery at Lilify. For the past two months, I've been working on new pieces for the show. Six of them will be new works on paper using only natural elements created on site in varying locations around Napa Valley. The show is titled Points on Time and the work deals with locational identity, the mapping of time, and my wrestling with my current place and surroundings.

This is my first attempt at working outside with only natural materials. I take grass and put it into a small bowl and grind it into a green liquid with a pestle. I try using a paintbrush initially to apply the pigment, but don't like what I am getting. I decide to use the grass directly as a brush and the results are more natural and accidental.

After applying the first pigment, I pick up some mud and dirt buried under the grass and mix it with the grass. This mixture is applied directly to the paper and green pigment is added to the composition in spots.

Adding the green pigment back in creates some interesting lines and textures that represent what I'm looking at. The experience of struggling with the materials – finding them, physically grinding them and then applying them with my hands is very tactile and the process speaks to the struggle of me dealing physically with this place and land.

It is late in the afternoon and the sun is going down. It's getting dark and I'm getting cold. My hands are freezing and dirty. The light is changing rapidly as I wait for the paper to dry. It's going to be a while and there's an element of patience built in where I can't rush the process. I have to let the materials function as they are supposed to without my interference. It occurs to me that I have applied too much liquid pigment to the paper and there is no way it will dry in time. I realize I am going to have to attempt to carry the work about 3/4 of a mile to the car or I will be out here until 9pm.

Unfortunately, the transportation of the piece over hills and down trails caused the delicate pigments to shift and blur and now the piece is a muddy wash. I'm not sure I was going to be able to use this anyway, but it is now officially a study. Chalk it up to experience.

The Unbearable Lightness of Art

2013-02-15T10:49:00.000-08:00

It's been quite a hiatus from posting; we had an extended rough patch dealing with illness from late December on. Getting back to it now, preparing for a show in Monterey in March and starting to write again. More on this soon. In the meantime, here's a link to a great article on e-flux by Dieter Roelstraete on the nature of making art in our modern world.

On the Unbearable Lightness of Art

Christmas Journey

2012-12-27T20:58:00.000-08:00

Four images of Jesus' wanderings during his life created by Alicia and Paloma.
Ink on Paper, 11x14 each.

"Think of her courage, her bravery, her stamina and her
faith. No wonder the Lord choose this young teenage girl
to be the virgin vessel of the King of Kings. No wonder
the Lord choose her, for He knew her heart and that
despite hardships and even walking to Bethlehem, she
would go on.”

I recently ran across the above quote and had a rather unorthodox thought in response. It seemed interesting to me that when we imagine Mary’s and Joseph’s journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem it is always accompanied by a great deal of pathos and sentimentality. We see her slumped over on her donkey, Joseph leading her with heavy shoulders and bowed head, both of them shivering from the cold. Then, of course, we imagine the lowly stable that they found rest in.

Thinking about her journey in more depth, I came up with a different picture, one that encouraged me quite a bit. First, that Mary might have accompanied her father and brothers on the three annual festivals to Jerusalem and that walking was always the primary mode of transportation. Walking these distances to us are unimaginable, but to Mary and Joseph it might of been quite normal. I also realized that in her first trimester she walked to Elizabeth’s dwelling in Judea, as long a journey as to Bethlehem, and back. Did she make this journey alone? Did she have morning sickness? Of course we don’t know, but my thought is that being very young she probably had quite an easy pregnancy.

I’ve read in quite a few places that Jesus’ birth could have very likely been in September or October in connection with the Festival of Lights. Two thoughts came to mind here. First, Israel’s weather would have still be summer-like during this time. Secondly, the roads to Jerusalem would have been packed. I read that annual pilgrimages were times of great community. This might explain why there was no room in the inn. And, perhaps after sleeping on the road for the week’s journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph were actually excited to get a place in a stable.

These aren’t scholarly thoughts, and I’m not comparing my faith to Mary’s. But I like thinking of Mary and Joseph as ordinary Jews. Rather than being extraordinary vessels of bravery and courage, they had been prepared by God throughout their lives for this most important of their many journeys to and from Nazareth. (By the way, Mary and Joseph walked 400 miles to Egypt with a two-year old son! Nazareth to Bethlehem is only 70 miles.)

I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love,
because you have seen my affliction;
you have known the distress of my soul,
and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy;
you have set my feet in a broad place.
Psalm 31:7

-Alicia Laumann

Inspiration : Around Here

2012-12-06T22:56:00.000-08:00

Points on Time: three new ink works

2012-11-16T09:36:00.000-08:00

Points on Time :Point Reyes
Napa
St. Helena

Ink Block Prints on Paper
11”x14” each

“Most of us are separated from organic geographical communities; even fewer can rely on blood ties. We can only hope to find created communities or communities that are accidentally formed through place, workplace, and other artificial means. But most of us live such fragmented lives and have so many minicommunities that no one knows us as a whole. The incomplete self longs for the fragments to be brought together. This can’t be done without a context, a place.”
- Lucy Lippard / Lure of the Local: Sense of Place in a Multicentered Society

Recently, as I consider my current environment and living situation, I have become interested in the concept of timelines and how we visualize time across a linear scale. Historically, timelines were static images, and generally drawn or printed on paper. They relied heavily on graphic design, and the ability of the artist to visualize the data. Most timelines are now digital or interactive, but I like the idea of pictures being a marker: not just a point on a line, but representing a more complete experience with a certain time and place.

These three newly completed works represent an attempt to discover my sense of place through landscape. Having just returned to the U.S. after living in Germany, and having moved several times in the past 5 years, I have become increasingly aware of my longing for a less fragmented life. Visually interpreting the local landscape represents for me a starting point for understanding my environment and how I fit in to it. The awareness of my immediate physical surroundings also marks my current time along a continuing path.

Life from Little

2012-11-06T09:26:00.000-08:00

Driving around our little town this summer I started to notice the quirkiest little urban gardens. "Quirky," probably isn't even the right word; these gardens were ugly. There is nothing idyllic about them at all. One of them is my dad's who grew tomatoes all summer long in this dry, weed-overrun lot behind his house. I wish I had taken a picture of it because at one point there was a neighbor's sofa and a kid's pink inflatable pool unceremoniously discarded behind it. My dad, ever the one for efficiency over beauty, had taken Safeway plastic bags to tie up the vines to the tomato cages. I saw another such quirky garden planted in the tiny dirt space next to the front door in a large apartment complex. I don't remember any of the details about this garden except that there was an entire row of corn growing in it! And our neighboring apartment complex has a little community garden set up behind a row of dumpsters in the parking lot.

Through the days of feeling sorry for myself this summer because of yet another transition occupying all of my time, these gardens reminded me of how life can happen even in the most inhospitable of environments.

Over the last couple of months I have been kind of chewing on this thought daily. I've often wondered if Scott and I have the essential toughness needed to pursue our art in whatever environment or situation God places us in. And that bothers me.

Interestingly, and out of the blue, I recently ran across an article that just fascinated me. It was about Japanese families, most of which were living along the Pacific Coast, who were taken to Internment Camps during World War II. In order to make their lives more bearable in the arid and barren landscapes in which the camps were located, many grew gardens and built koi ponds. I even read of a family receiving a water lily via mail order.

So as a strange little project - a beginning in what feels like a time of barrenness - Paloma and I created a pond with use of a large planter from my parents’ garage. It's not fancy. It has three healthy gold fish and some water plants. It sits outside our front door against an old brown fence. I've gotten in the habit now of sitting on the door step with a pad under my butt and reading in the morning. It is the only place in our little basement apartment that gets direct sunlight.

The pond is a daily reminder to me that God is the one who creates something from nothing. It is also a prayer the God would give me some of that "essential toughness" that I feel I'm missing to go on doing what I love to do even when things aren't perfect.

By the way, my dad's tomatoes were the best we've ever eaten and we are still enjoying them.

Monterey: patterns and environment

2012-11-02T09:22:00.000-07:00

Photos and new outdoor works. Taken with a 35mm Minolta X-700.

New Portrait Store

2012-10-15T09:22:00.000-07:00

Most of my work lately has involved exploring shape and pattern and has taken me in some new directions in different disciplines. But prior to this, most of my work was portraits completed for a variety of publications and private commissions. As a result, I have a large archive of paintings and images. Some of the originals have sold over the years, but many are collecting dust in storage and the images, once licensed for a one-time use, are going unused and unseen.

I decided to put a portrait store up on Etsy. The store is called "The Second Face" and contains print editions of many of my favorite portraits over the years. They are reasonably priced, archival quality and ready to frame. This is the first time I've shown some of them and none of them have been available for purchase at this price. I will be listing some original paintings in the future.

If you want to check them out, click the below link. As always, I am humbled and grateful for any sales.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/theSecondFace

Process: The Promise

2012-06-19T14:30:00.000-07:00

The Promise
Oil on canvas
48 panels, 10 x 10 cm each

Completed as a dedication to Haus Betanian, our surrogate home in Germany for the past year and a half. The 48 individual canvas panels measuring 10cm square were joined together to create the complete composition. Eventually, a poster will reproduce the painting and the separate panels will be sold individually as part of a fund-raising effort for the Haus. Each panel will represent a puzzle piece fitted into the larger work and contains enough detail to stand on it's own. One of the most labor intensive works I've created and all in two weeks.

MUSINGS: Artistic Homelessness and Sense of Place

2012-05-23T13:59:00.000-07:00

In the Rhythm Section I wrote this month about the blessedness of homelessness (not, of course, minimizing the hardship of literal homelessness). In writing this, I began to consider my time as a dancer in Germany. I was happy "keeping busy" artistically while in Germany, but after pondering more deeply the idea of "artistic homelessness," I feel even more thankful for my time there. As a dance teacher and choreographer working traditionally, I am so dependent on outside resources. To teach and choreograph as I normally have done, I need students, space, dancers, costumes, lighting designers, etc. etc. I've always envied Scott in that he is never dependent on anything or anyone but himself for his productivity, though he would quickly point out the shortcomings of this approach.

Now I see that I experienced a kind of artistic homelessness. Scott and I knew pretty quickly that we would not be in Germany long-term, so the thought of trying to get started as I normally would have never even occurred to me. The totality of the change of "context" for me gave me the opportunity to flush out/ process many ideas that I've actually had for a long, long time. Before moving to Germany, I kept busy doing what I was comfortable with and never worked out my frustrations and dilemmas with the concert/ institutional dance
world.

I feel miles away from that world now. And, since I've realized the benefit of this homelessness I want to remain slow to re-imagine the future. Since I see our artistic futures dependent upon a collaborative company of artists, the future is even more unpredictable. I only scraped the surface of what I was thinking and reading about; I just hope that I can continue to press deeper. I'm excited and ready to get working again - without a roof over my head.

- Alicia Laumann

The Octagon: June 8-10

2012-05-18T08:15:00.003-07:00

It's been a while since I've done a portrait, but couldn't resist the chance to collaborate on a strictly fun project with a local German artist. We each exhibited 4 new portraits featuring 60's/70's era tough guys of the silver screen. Opening night was a fun event. Photos of the portraits and opening below.

2012-05-18T06:22:00.001-07:00

"Poets to not go mad; but chess players do...Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion."

- G.K. Chesterton

PROCESS: Equilbrium in Three States: Applied, Frictional, Normal

2012-05-01T13:37:00.000-07:00

My most recent video study exploring the seven redemptive names of God. Shot it in an abandoned warehouse in Leipzig, Germany in just two hours - all the movement is improvised using an open score (meaning, I didn't give myself any directives to help guide me). In fact, in the last shot my head is cut off a bit...but I had to catch my train home.

:Jehovah-Tsidkenu

I knew early on that I wanted to approach this name of God differently than the rest. This one felt more personal to me. For many, many years I have felt a sort of chronic unhealthiness in my understanding of being "seated" in Christ. A great deal of the way I come to God, indeed the entire way I do life, is through self-effort. If I love Him, I want Him to be pleased with me. Always.

The work takes a journey in three stages: the way I feel when I'm not resting in Him, the point of realization of my self-effort and lack of trust in Him and the way I feel when I'm resting in Him.

- Alicia Laumann

Process: New Patterns

2012-05-01T01:39:00.000-07:00

Process: Return to Auschwitz (4 days)

2012-04-30T06:13:00.000-07:00

Monday

I am sitting on decaying red leather seats on a train to Auschwitz. My mind is full of unresolved thoughts and impressions and I get the sense that they will only intensify. An idea has brought me back here, this remote town in middle of the Polish landscape, despite the many unvisited destinations still here in Europe which I will not see and possibly never return to.

Six months ago, I visited the camps at Auschwitz, trying to absorb the immensity of the place in less than two days. I had found a cord of inspiration in the visual textures on the existing structures at Birkenau, but it had come in my last moments there. I desperately attempted to capture them with my camera in the fading twilight, scrambling around barracks until the photos were unreadable and distorted by noise.

I am trying to make sense of my interest in what I saw there. So much of it is undetermined. My pre-trip attempts to read about Auschwitz-Birkenau and the Holocaust have felt premature, as if they have nothing to offer to me and what I will ultimately discover there in what I am seeing. I know of course that this is not true, and the unimaginable truths of the place will eventually weave with my own observations, but my sense is that I must get out on the land again and stay there. Let the place speak to me. Let my eye be guided in every passing moment.

I have been interested in the curious passage of time, the fleeting and harsh reality of our existence as individuals. How life clambers on like an impersonal, hulking machine, consuming all before it and pushing it behind without thought or recognition or trace of remorse. But existing in time are individuals and the mark of each person makes an impression on others during the course of his/her life, even if that life is tragically short. Something about that individual life leaves an indelible mark on it's surroundings, though its traces are almost certainly unknown to the masses. That mark can be beautiful and valuable or it can be appalling. But the point is that a mark is left, however tiny in the grand scheme, and thus cataloged in this vast impersonal time. Maybe this is why I'm back at Auschwitz; to explore the marks left there by individuals who made up this massive and incomprehensible part of history.

Tuesday

My hotel is on the outskirts of Oświęcim and I need to rent a bike to get to the camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, 4.5 km away. It's cool and cloudy. I ride over uneven and poorly maintained streets, past dark little shops with foreign neon letters painted on the windows. A little flag meant to advertise my hotel is mounted near the seat of my bike and as I ride, I realize it has torn a hole in my jeans. I attempt to tuck it under the frame, but it bounces back up defiantly. Good thing the hotel has a sewing kit.

My day at the camp is bit random, but I expected this. I capture whatever my eye is drawn to, fighting the urge to take "typical" photos and focusing more on the details - textures, patterns, wear. There are more tourists here this time of year. The wind gusts, but it's not cold. I stop and sit on the memorial steps and try to manufacture a profound emotional response. It doesn't come. I think I've become almost numb to the camp and the reality of what occurred here. I'm not sure this is an entirely bad thing as it may allow me to see something I wasn't aware of. It starts to rain. I wonder into the woods outside the gates and discover a beautiful bank of birch trees. Such beauty only meters from the barbed wire and concrete electrical fence. The division is profound.

I have taken over 170 photos, but do not know how I will use them yet.

Wednesday

I wake up with a sense of discouragement about what I'm trying to do here. I feel the experience should carry more weight. My hotel is too extravagant, it's anesthetizing me to my surroundings. I should feel more, right? Have a grand creative plan? What can I expect to bring to the story of Auschwitz?Bothered, I go have breakfast and open a devotional passage by Oswald Chambers. "One of the worst traps a Christian worker can fall into is to become obsessed with his own exceptional moments of inspiration. When the Spirit of God gives you a time of inspiration and insight, you tend to say, “Now that I’ve experienced this moment, I will always be like this for God.” No, you will not, and God will make sure of that. Those times are entirely the gift of God. You cannot give them to yourself when you choose. If you say you will only be at your best for God, as during those exceptional times, you actually become an intolerable burden on Him. You will never do anything unless God keeps you consciously aware of His inspiration to you at all times. If you make a god out of your best moments, you will find that God will fade out of your life, never to return until you are obedient in the work He has placed closest to you, and until you have learned not to be obsessed with those exceptional moments He has given you."

With that, I mount the bike and ride to the camp to do my day's work.

Thursday

It takes three days, but I've slowed down long enough to become aware. This is a frustrating and reoccurring fact; a testament to our busy lives filled with activities that stunt our perception. I spend two hours walking between the remaining wood barracks. None of them are open, but it's not a concern; my interest is in the exterior patina. I find them more interesting than before and without the pressure of time, I am able to see things in anew light. There is no one around. I take many, many photos, not exactly sure how or if they will fit into a body of work, but find myself convinced that there is potential for a future installation based on what I am seeing here. I shoot some short video clips. Sitting in the grass with my back to a rusted, barbed fence once alive with 5500 volts of electric current, I take an apple out of my backpack and with the first bite, realize that I am enjoying a luxury not available to a single inmate during their time here.

I document chimneys, wood grain, rubble. I'm seeing things in repetition and begin to find some glimmering thread for a printed series. I'm no longer rushing and have entered that elusive place of listening. I finish my day to a setting sun shuffling over the remains of Block 31, the "Kindergarten." Nothing remains but two chimneys and a low-lying exterior foundation, but what I find here strikes me. I get the sense that it's the reason I returned.

I think the temptation is to want to capture everything here, the enormity and pain and weight of it - to make sense of it all. I believe it's impossible. And so you are left with these monuments in different states of preservation all containing pieces of their own history, quiet and profound. They present the marks left by what happened in them, by the individuals who occupied them. Taken at a glance, they are impersonal skeletons. But on patient inspection, they are terribly alive.

Frohe Ostern! (Happy Easter)

2012-04-08T14:46:00.000-07:00

Process: That Leads To and From a Still Place

2012-04-04T05:52:00.000-07:00

This is Alicia's fifth in the series exploring the Seven Redemptive Names of God: Jehovah Ra-ah (the Lord my shepherd). Her process is the same; just her and the camera (and a bit of string). Her idea is to focus on the content and shot making with little or no editing. It's interesting to watch her attempt to create within the restraints of the camera. According to her, these video experiments are her interpretation of God's character, but perhaps, in the end, reveal more about her approach to God than God himself. The videos are beginning to represent a sort of loose self-portrait.

This work is the strongest in the series IMO. It is beautifully meditative and somehow accurately captures the local landscape and our spiritual / emotional response to our environment in Germany the past year.

Process: Extemporaneous 2 & 3

2012-03-21T06:21:00.000-07:00

ex·tem·po·ra·ne·ous: (1) : composed, performed, or uttered on the spur of the moment

In early March I had the opportunity to take a pilgrimage of sorts. I traveled 8 hours northeast to Herrnhut, Germany. In 1722, persecuted Bohemian Christians who had fled Poland were given this land and safety by Count Zinzendorf. This first settlement was named Herrnhut, "The Lord's Watchful Care." They are considered the first protestants and their efforts pre-date Martin Luther by over 100 years. The United Brethren, or who are known as Moravians in the US, have an amazing history of missional and incarnational living. Their story slowly unfolded itself over several days as I visited many still very active sites, including their meeting hall, a local museum, archives and God's Acre, the Brethren graveyard. I had a long chat with a local woman whose family has been in Herrnhut for many generations and went to a noon-time local prayer.

This video is an in camera-edit but I made some adjustments to the audio - it was just unwatchable. What you are seeing is the first Moravian meeting hall, which had to be rebuilt after the war. They purposely never thought of it as a church - church happened in daily life. That's why the room is white with no decoration. Nothing, my guide told me, is sacred in the room, including the green podium at the front of the room, and is meant to be used for all kinds of community activities. The benches are arranged tightly together to reduce the room between the brothers and sisters and are near to the podium to reduce the space between the congregation and the speaker. The second half of the video is God's Acre. Again, no headstones. Nothing must call attention to oneself. Zinzendorf was obsessed with the unity and the priesthood of the believers and thought about it and wrote about it and gave his life for it.

Click below for Extemporaneous video 3

From Herrnhut I traveled to nearby Leipzig, a post-industrial city with many interesting juxtapositions of abandoned, modern and traditional German style architecture. There I visited St. Thomas Church, a Lutheran church where Bach was Choir Director for nearly 30 years and where Martin Luther once gave a Pentecost sermon. The video above is my extemporaneous look at that experience. (It's okay to laugh - I did)

Just by way of observation, I loved getting to visit these two very different spaces - the Moravian meeting hall in Herrnhut and this Lutheran church. I couldn't help noticing the way that theology affects the way in which we come together as believers so profoundly. Of course, I know this from my some of my history classes when I learned about the different periods - Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque, etc. - but the immediacy of these two experiences produced a 1000 jumbled thoughts in my head. About what our gigantic stadium churches with jumbo trons speak about us and about the space in which Scott and I would most accurately represent the way we see God. And, most importantly, could this way take shape in a way that was not divisive?

Process: Wind Chime

2012-03-10T03:07:00.000-08:00

This is my second block print corresponding to the track "Wind Chime," part of the Coldfuture project.

The print is roughly ten feet long and six inches high. What I'm finding interesting is that I'm not particularly convinced of the final piece in composition, but I'm drawn to isolated portions of the work as they are "selected" out. It made me consider how I process information, music or otherwise, and how isolated moments or sounds effect the larger "composition." It seems that through music, one always comes away with an impression of the complete piece and whether that piece is pleasing or not. Is a song written with the end result in mind or is it something that takes form in the process of playing a progressive combination of sounds?

More images >

Musings: Conversation Pieces

2012-03-08T13:07:00.001-08:00

I am half way through a fascinating read: Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art, by Grant Kester. In the first chapter, "The Eyes of the Vulgar," Kester traces the history of avant-garde art from the particular view point of this tradition's assigning of value to the "intelligibility of the work of art." He summarizes his thoughts as follows: "Thus we encounter in the modern avant-garde a series of strategies designed to anchor the meaning of the work of art so thoroughly in the recalcitrant individuality of the artist, and to frustrate existing norms and expectations so completely, as to render it utterly unpalatable to the appropriate powers of consumer culture. The act of semantic resistance gradually becomes an end in itself and one of the defining characteristics of avant-garde art." His description of the evolution of modern avant-garde art from this perspective is what I found really interesting. (His point in laying this theoretical framework in this chapter is to later talk about process art as art work that creates a place for "discursive exchange and negotiation.")

What I was thinking about as it relates to this chapter is that so much of the art and dance that I've seen over the last 10 years doesn't, in my opinion, obstinately resist intelligibility nor does it exactly open up a discursive space. It is somewhere dreadfully down the middle.

Especially in dance, I feel many choreographers utilize all the strategies of the 60s John Cage-ian ideas to disrupt legibility but without a deeper under-girding understanding of why they are doing it. "Valorization of ambiguity" - as Kester puts it - is what all good artists should do; all authentic art is ambiguous. All the while, however, as a viewer, I almost always feel with much contemporary dance this nagging sensation that there is a very important message in the work that the artists intend to communicate. That if I was enlightened enough I might just get it. And I must admit that what I miss in contemporary art, what critic Michael Fried calls a "state of grace," is what can occur when one encounters an indifferent object. There is a sense of timelessness in its presence because I am not required by the object to enter into a dialogue with it. I am not needed to complete it. It's nice not to be needed.

I think these thoughts are important for us to ponder more deeply. Lately, we've been discussing how we would like to see our art function like Jesus' parables functioned. But didn't Jesus use his parables to frustrate the legibility of his teachings for all but those who had "ears to hear?" How is this any different than elitist ideas of art as only being able to be understood by a few enlightened enough individuals - something Kester talks about in some detail? Or is this just a fact of post-Fall humanity - a fact Jesus understood? Some people want to think hard and some don't? Some have the time to think hard and others don't? This troubles me.

-Alicia Laumann

Process: Extemporaneous 1

2012-03-02T08:40:00.000-08:00

ex·tem·po·ra·ne·ous: (1) : composed, performed, or uttered on the spur of the moment

Durlach, Germany
February 29, 2012

A week ago my wife began to take our camera with her during her daily activities and shoot footage improvisationally. Her intent was to capture images on the fly and then piece them together without any editing or post-production. She describes the process as a way to break out of an artistic malaise and return to some sort of productive groove.

While this is true, I see her shots as an attempt to process her identity as it relates to her location and transient life, something she wrote about previously. The seemingly random footage could be viewed as a metaphor for the various places, people and fragments of her life, which, when placed next to one another and not after one another, has the potential to create meaning. Living abroad for the past year, I also feel this footage gives a sense of dislocation - part of an effort to find a home, if this is even possible.

2012-02-28T14:59:00.004-08:00

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
~Pablo Picasso