When you cut yourself, see how the blood sits, pools, and flows on your skin.

25 April 2012

The combination of looking at Tumblr and posting to Pinterest has become a way of looking at looking. What do I like to look at, and why? I’ve been writing my observations for each image. It becomes about looking at how an image functions, and in some ways at how vision and perception function – mine, at least. There are obvious and strong threads of interest and attraction. Here’s a composite of some recent pins, to entice you. Find more at pinterest.com/jmrozman.

In July I began a post in which I wanted to talk about pots as signifiers, in the semiotic sense. (I first wrote that I wanted to talk about them as signs – and they are that, too. I offer no explanation.) Here’s the writing from July, nearly unedited:

So I’m sojourning in Ohio, doing architecture work for the summer. Glory be.

A modest transplant, for just a few months. I packed my clothes: for work, for not-work. A few books, some art supplies, my camera and computer and alarm clock. But somehow raised the question: what is home? What makes a place feel like home?

I left the art on my walls in Illinois; it’s an ever-shifting collection of my own works and arrangements of things. I understand them slowly, by living with them. It was time to start again.

And yet the question imparted another set of functional requirements that can only be understood by experimentation. I’m living in a home, somebody else’s home. I brought a box of pots, favorites. Somehow this was supposed to remind me – but of what? What and where is home?

At some moments, a pot takes the place of one not present. This points to home as constructed of associations. Well, maybe sometimes it is.

The house where I’m living is someone’s home. She’s a cool lady, a couple decades my senior. It feels like a home, and it’s a home that’s easy for me to be in. Pleasant, a little cluttered. It evidences someone else’s life, the mark of her hand, the mark of her self, as homes are wont to do. It’s a life to which I’m sympathetic, and I’m comfortable there. It’s a temporary thing, of course, and an improvised one. Is it possible to be at home under such conditions? Is it possible not to? In the last couple of years, I’ve found myself at ease most anywhere, and equally at home, and equally aware of the impermanence of my presence. I venture no explanation.

So how do my own marks of home fit in? They have their place. My big summer teabowl, one I made – I drink a pile of green tea from it, most nights. It’s become part of a new ritual. Vessels are holders of space and makers of place, ones you can take with you.

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Vessels also belong to memories. Of people, of events, of interactions, of relationships – we’ve moved on, we’re still in touch – each object has an indexical relationship to my life, as I remember it. Function transcends utility.

Tonight I took a photograph for Pots and Life – the first, and maybe not the last – that involves no handmade pottery. I ate and sat and pondered that. It’s not only about the pot, not only about its role and about its material existence, but also about the ritual. Tonight I performed the ritual of preparing and presenting a meal. I performed for an audience of one, and honored and celebrated said performance by enjoying the meal.

A plated meal, a solitary evening. Why the photograph? It isn’t only the quiet, it isn’t only the slowness: it is every other careful meal in my memory. Writing this, meals from my last years in Chicago start to flood my memory. What I meant to write about were dinners when I was a kid – family dinner, six o’clock, every night. Mom nearly always cooked – occasionally, as a treat, we’d order pizza. I know now how unusual that was, on all fronts. And strung through the years are the twinkling memories of bigger family dinners, with grandparents and extended family – as I reminisce about people and places and occasions. (Even more unusual is a family that’s loving, that gets along.)

So there you have it: food, pots, meals, rituals, memory, community.

Food and cooking notes for tonight:
Salmon teriyaki, jasmine rice, green beans, sake, green tea. Dessert, to be made later in the evening: fried banana. Teriyaki sauce is easy: 7 parts each soy sauce, mirin, and sake, and one part sugar. Just buy them, they are good indefinitely. Buy some seasoned rice vinegar and you’ll be set for making sushi rice, too. (Yes, I can do that too.) Japanese soy sauce tastes different than Chinese, but most people have Chinese soy sauce around, and that’s fine to use. Cooking is not an exact science; consider the proportions as a guideline. Bring the mixture to a boil, stir to dissolve the sugar, then reduce (keep stirring) over medium to low heat. Tea: loose tea is still amazing, but use cooler water – if the tea goes yellow, the water is too hot and you’re getting tannins in your tea, which is what makes tea bitter. The lower the temperature, the longer the steeping time. If you like bitter tea, though, go for it. Temperature: 140-165 degrees is what they say; I just use water that’s uncomfortably hot to touch, but not scalding. Fried banana: probably not so Japanese. Slice a banana into 1/2″ slices. Brown some butter in a heavy pan. Once the pan’s hot, set the slices on the butter, try not to stick them to the bottom of the pan, and slide them around now and again. Once brown on one side, flip them. Chopsticks are good for this (really, they’re good for most cooking things, if you can use chopsticks… and they don’t scratch nonstick pans, either). Brown the other side. Butter keeps the banana from sticking. Cooking the banana brings out its sweetness, but cooking it too long will get it mushy, which isn’t as nice – hence the heavy pan. When the second side is brown, you’re done – move the banana and a little butter onto a dish, sprinkle with brown sugar, and enjoy. Enjoy with ice cream, if desired. Do not burn thyself, particularly not with sticky sugar. It would be unpleasant.

(A word on numbering: the July post is Vol. 15. There are several photos from between then and now that I’m not posting at present, and tonight’s photo – included here – is Vol. 20.)

Do we recognize beauty when we see it?
A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Some thoughts on the experiment itself. People have played the violin in a train station before; some are better than others. And most people passing through a train station’s entrance can’t linger. (What about performing in a central part of the station, where people wait?)

This piece raises questions about perception and value… questions that lay pretty close to my art practice. I enjoy doing art in the “wrong” context, taking it out of expected places. Part of the fun is in the humor and beauty that comes with something unexpected. But, precisely because of context, people may well walk by. What do I qualify as successful, then? I guess, for me, it’s leaving something that people enjoy. They may label it “art” and they may not, and that’s fine with me.

Some references:
Video here.
One article at dclist.com.
The big article at the Washington Post website. Darn thoughtful. Please read.

How are people when they are trying to act natural? I first came across Reneke Dijkstra (REH neh kay DEEK stra) in a Taschen book of women artists. It’s been hard to describe what connects: honesty and vulnerability are words that come to mind. Her compositional strategies come to mind, too. As a group, they could be viewed as a study of people having their pictures taken. The images are simultaneously beautiful and ordinary (why might one think those are mutually exclusive categories? Perhaps it’s difficult to apprehend both at once?)

Couple of links:

Found and watched this interview from the Tate, recorded in 2003. It’s 111 minutes long and made in 2003. Watch here: Tate video link.

There’s a well-written article on Dijkstra here that summarizes her work and biography – also worth a read.

So: some observations and things learned and discovered:
Things that are beautiful to look at are still beautiful to look at. I still have a thing for some kinds of photographs. People – artists – can make it (financially) by doing a pretty diverse group of things; this is encouraging. Art really can be anything. Some things I connect to, and some I don’t: what is magical to one person may not be magical to another. It’s mostly in the imagination. My fondness for certain kinds of old and aged things (pretty connected with my time as an architect and doing historic restorations) has faded. Using materials in a way that transforms them, so that they’re not just materials, is hard. I found a weird and beautiful seed pod the other day. I have a deep desire to look and look and look at it, but no desire to incorporate it into art (though maybe I will photograph it). I still have a crush on printmaking, and alove for some sorts of collage, and some sorts of drawing. Built-up markmaking can be delicate and powerful at once. I am not as drawn to tight modern design as I once was, or I need some imperfection, quirkiness, and variety. Same-same-same has become too rigid of a structure. It’s hard to experiment open-endedly (see: blue skies research) when one is also expected to make successful work (whatever that means). Studios can be minimal or cluttered; full of inspiration or a clean blank slate.

Lots to see and read – check out inthemake.net for yourself. To tempt you, here are some images/artists from the site that I enjoyed:

Yvonne Mouser

Ali Naschke-Messing

Collaboration by Jennifer Starkweather and Amanda Hughen

Linda Geary

Chris Duncan

These are some thoughts and observations in response, based on my last sixteen (nearly seventeen!) months in an academic art setting.

Craft for craft’s sake isn’t valued at present by the academic world. It’s more about what is conveyed by those decisions – not just in material and process, but in every choice.

Book and paper arts have the same image problem as clay. The medium might not be the whole of the message, but it’s certainly part of it.

An intimate understanding of material and process, as values go, seems to have been laid aside. I’ve got mixed feelings about this. Before I continue – I’m reflecting on being in studio classes with seniors. It seems like the rules are broken before they are learned. There’s a freedom in not knowing the “right” way to do something, but that knowledge is also a valuable foundation… it’s a foundation that takes years to develop, and it takes some time to depart from it, too. (In architecture school we had to follow the ‘rules’ unless we had a good reason not to, which seems like a good compromise. At least you could get something competent but unremarkable that way. Incompetent and unremarkable work is difficult to critique.)

At the graduate level, mastery of materials and process is assumed – or at least an ability to iron out one’s technical problems.

Within 2-d, there’s a sense that paintings are somehow higher-art than drawings. That was part of a discussion this week – but the way that that classmate’s drawings conveyed her subject matter had an ability to open up questions that her paintings never would. I hope she keeps with the pencil drawings; there’s a beauty and sensitivity to their physical existence that helps open a dialogue.

It seems like choices in medium can be immune from criticism, and instead treated as pre-existing limits for an art. A lot of my classmates are painters. Part of why they paint is that they like painting (as potters like clay) and they use painting as a constraint in “using art to talk about [insert content here]“  At the core, they paint because they like painting, and compromise the desired content in the process. “Because I like it” seems to be enough of an answer to the question, why this medium? I don’t understand why that criticism isn’t raised more frequently.

Painters can be just as deeply in love with their materials and processes as potters. I’m not drawn to painting, and I do not understand their romanticism about paint. My appreciation is growing, but it’s just that: appreciation. Being around painters has helped me to understand how non-potters see pottery.

My best guess at why painting continues to be more noble than mud is that the history of mud is utilitarian and the history of painting has always been more exalted.

Intellectuals in academia seem to dominate the academic conversation, and the presence of art critics and historians seem to ask artists to rationalize and historicize themselves. It’s a lot easier to make work that starts in the rational and ends there.

I have professors whose quiet voices say not to worry about all that. At the end of the day, we should do art for ourselves, and at the end of the day, we have only ourselves to answer to. This provides a bit of grounding in what can be a very heady world. (After all, intellectualism is fun!)

It’s still hard to imagine talking about pots in this context. It’s easy to see why people make smart pots (snappy, highly decorated, think Christa Assad and Matt Metz) rather than dumb pots (dumb in a beloved way, not stupid: think Warren MacKenzie and other potters making unremarkable but masterful stuff). It the pot an object for contemplation or is it something to use? How can use be brought into an academic discussion?

Finally, a future forecast: I think it will be easier in five, ten, maybe as much as twenty years, to talk about pots in the context of their use. Art is moving toward an emphasis on social practice and relational aesthetics. Pottery can be dragged back into the fray as a player in those interactions.

Summary
The town was founded by one utopian group – the Rappites (followers of George Rapp, and we might compare them with the Shakers). When the Rappites changed locations, budding idealist and reformer Robert Owen bought the town. His community attracted like-minded others and included a bunch of learned people from Europe and the Eastern US. The social experiment only lasted about three years, but the town has been continually inhabited, and still exists today.

Location
New Harmony is located in the far southwest tip of Indiana. Google map.

Founded by the Rappites:
Historically it was founded by the Rappites. Followers of George Rapp, they’d come to the States from Germany, first settled in Pennsylvania, then moved to Indiana seeking a milder climate. Rapp believed strongly “in the power of the individual to communicate directly with God and of his right to interpret the teachings of Jesus for himself.” They came to the States to escape outside interference and be free to live by their own principles. They lived by example: members of the community gave their belongings to it, and worked for the good of the community. They believed that the Second Coming of Christ was immanent, and many lived celibate lives. “The Harmonists should not be regarded as dull utilitarians or religious fanatics. They enjoyed comfortable living arrangements and good food, grew beautiful flower gardens, and were passionately fond of music.” (quote from Don Blair in Harmonist Construction, published by the Indiana Historical Society)

Description of Harmonie IN:
They also built an amazing town when they came to Indiana in 1814, and called it Harmonie. One- and two-story houses, four large meeting houses, two churches, two schools, and a bunch of other shops and buildings (including two breweries and two distilleries!) They solved the problem of the high water table (excellent for crops, not so good for malaria) by digging a system of canals. Other innovations show an intimate understanding of the environment and of how the materials and processes they used would behave over time. My inner architect-and-idealist is thrilled because good design really did solve a lot of problems, and it solved them through systems rather than individually.

Well built houses – many of which still stand, 200 years later, though many have been modified heavily, too:

- Ventilated basements to avoid rotting foundations and settling
- Detailed chimneys to avoid leaks
- Double-walled houses and insulated interior walls results in good performance in terms of sound, heat, and fireproofing.
- Use of mortise and tenon joinery – creating moment (ie, unmoving) connections throughout.
- Interaction of structural members meant that houses were braced to resist deformation in all directions
- Standardized house construction – standardized parts made at mill, many identical houses built with a degree of craft that is found in furniture and cabinet-making.
- In short, if you have a deep appreciation for craft, you should be falling all over yourself with excitement.

Reflection on building methods:

The construction details of the houses reflect not just a close understanding of nature and materials. It also reflects that, as a society, care and craft was valued, and reflects a value of stewardship: they built not just for their own, but also for the use of generations to follow. (Particularly interesting since the Second Coming was anticipated.) We’ve talked about utopia as an end point and as something that is not present, but, at least in terms of the physical problems of building, the Rappites solved those problems, and did it elegantly.

Robert Owen
Robert Owen bought the buildings and surrounding land from the Rappites around 1824 and renamed Harmonie to New Harmony. His motivations? In general, he was concerned about the industrial revolution and how increasing mechanization led to high unemployment. He was convinced that the environment makes the person, and that the person himself was blameless. His response was to increase education, particularly for youth, to reduce working hours, and to increase wages. He came to the States after his ideals, combined with his atheism, weren’t well received in Europe.

Founding principles of New Harmony
Owen gave an address on 27 April 1825. In it, he proposed a change from the dominating selfish system to an enlightened social system, in which all worked for the good of the community. He believed that the individual system – which included capitalism, the industrial revolution, and the conditions he’d seen in Europe and hoped to alleviate – made people “vicious and miserable” and that under it “virtue and happiness cannot be attained.”

Among his goals was to make circumstances that would form men of upstanding character. New Harmony was a test – of whether educational and cultural opportunities would form and re-form members of the community. Through New Harmony, which he envisioned as a transitional community, he hoped individuals would “give up the old habits acquired under the individual system, for the new habits requisite for the social and improved state of society, for which we are now preparing.” He believed that the social system would produce “real wealth, virtue, intelligence and happiness.” (quotes from his 1825 address).

In a speech given July 4 1826, Owen mentioned some other values that I repeat here. He made a declaration of mental independence. His belief was that mental liberty would allow the removal of all crime. He challenged his listeners to be self-sacrificing for the sake of the greatest (communal) good. He spoke of three evils in the world: private/individual property, absurd and irrational systems of religion, and marriage, which was founded on property and religion. This group of evils, for Owen, is compounded by ignorance, superstition, and hypocrisy. He also spoke about marriage. He suggested that people marry for happiness, to those for whom they have the most “esteem, regard, and affection” and suggested dissolving the marriage when these cannot be retained. The best chance of a lengthy marriage would be among people from equal wealth and educational backgrounds, and who know each other well.

The Constitution
Members who joined the society would sign on to its Constitution.
“The Society is instituted generally to promote the Happiness of the World.” Its purpose is to improve the character and condition of its members. All members would be of the same rank, and work for the good of the community. It would be run by committee: Owen would appoint the first leaders, and after a year the community would appoint other leaders. The community would be 500-1500 people in size, and as it grew, groups would buy land and start their own self-governed communities. Members would serve the society as they were able (per age, experience, and capacity). All would receive equal credit for their labor, and credit was exchanged at the store so that all could be provided for equally. Property was owned in common, though members signing on would bring furnishings for houses that would be provided. Religion was not compulsory, nor was atheism: all faiths were welcomed.

The Ideal Architecture
The first New Harmony was, as mentioned, thought of as a transitional community, where people would leave their old selves and ways behind and adopt community-oriented, rather than individually-oriented, habits. Owen envisioned an ideal city plan that, reads not only as an expression of efficient planning, but also as a diagram of values.

At the center would be the public buildings, including the kitchen and mess, worship, governance, and education buildings. They’re joined together by cloisters and arcades – covered walkways. Among and around these buildings are areas for exercise and recreation. Beyond that, living spaces, interspersed with storage. And beyond the outside walls were the agricultural lands.

The end of the experiment
So, that’s the society that moved in to this ready-built place. It didn’t last long – only two or three years. A telling quote on why all this idealism maybe didn’t work out:

“It seemed that the difference of opinion, tastes and purposes increased just in proportion to the demand for conformity. Two years were worn out in this way; at the end of which, I believe that not more than three persons had the least hope of success. Most of the experimenters left in despair of all reforms, and conservatism felt itself confirmed. We had tried every conceivable form of organization and government. We had a world in miniature. –we had enacted the French revolution over again with despairing hearts instead of corpses as as result. …It appeared that it was nature’s own inherent law of diversity that had conquered us …our ‘united interests’ were directly at war with the individualities of persons and circumstances and the instinct of self-preservation… and it was evident that just in proportion to the contact of persons or interests, so are concessions and compromises indispensable.” (Josiah Warren, Periodical Letter II, 1856)

How is utopia conveyed?
In Owen’s addresses, it is an ideal to be worked toward.
The Rappite architecture is utopian in its construction and detailing. In saying this I’m setting utopia as a long-term community-centered model that exists in opposition to a short-time-span individual-centered model. Also different than the balloon framing that overtook Chicago and the cheaply-constructed suburban homes that sprung up in the 70s. Ownership may be part of it, but the extreme degree of craft and problem-solving is truly remarkable.

Why is the utopia needed, or to what does it respond?
For the Rappites, it was an escape from religious repression in Germany to a place where they could live more freely and simply. (Also note that they moved away from industrialized areas in the process.
For Owen it is a response to the increased mechanization of production, and the inhumane conditions, unemployment, and lack of education that came along with it. The goal was to improve labor conditions, and thus to benefit people, who, Owen believed, were improved by their surroundings.

How is it established, maintained, contested, reworked?
For the Rappites, by building towns and moving to them. Don’t know much about whether it was contested or reworked, but suspect that the group fell apart for other reasons. They lasted a couple of decades.
For the Owenites, the utopia was established by Owen, and its governance was constantly contested and reworked. The negotiations themselves are unknown.

Significance of form?
I wrote a bit about the idealized architectural plan as a diagram of values. Many qualities in common with Thomas More’s Utopia, like self-governance, even common eating spaces. Children would be raised communally from age 2 to 16, at which point they could elect to join the community.

Inclusion / exclusion?
Owenism sought the equality of all, but colored persons weren’t seen as equals – they were excluded. Maybe it seemed like too big of a transition for Owen, who was already trying to abolish age and class distinctions.

Julie’s observations and questions

- There wasn’t a lot of discussion by Owen about labor – instead he focused on education. The easy contrast is with the Rappites, who were evidently quite industrious. It seemed that work was part of their way of life. I wonder what, if any, role that played in the demise of the New Harmony experiment.
- The Owenites moved to a pre-built town. I wonder how that changed their sense of ownership.
- Utopias tend toward order; at what point does the order become constraining?
- Is it possible to design a flexible social system that is utopian?
- What ideals must be shared for a utopian community to work? Can it work without religion?
- Thinking about monasticism as a mode of sustainable community (which may not be the same as utopia).
- The notion of creating the ideal environment is implicitly one of sheltering from the outside world – the contrary notion would be to try to equip people and invite them to grow in character in order to deal with a less-than-ideal environment. Utopia is a naturally isolating setup.

It’s no secret that I like white, so when I came across Willy De Sauter – probably through Tumblr – I wanted to see more. His primary materials? Chalk on wood, chalk on wood. Occasionally on cardboard or polystyrene. It was hard at first to understand the materiality of these things through photographs – so, at least through the internet, his work became about what happens with light and space as these planes are installed in a space.

Black and white photographs call attention to themselves as photographs, and raise questions about how materiality codes as photographs. Which is the art: the stuff, stuff in context, or the image of the stuff in context?

(This is a detail shot from an installation.) This photo – and seeing the surfaces a little better – added the dimension of material and process. Which makes me think of some work I particularly enjoyed:

Winter work on a 23′ sailboat. (Long story, let’s just say that she’s not mine and I love to sail this boat.) Fifty-plus hours of washing, sanding, painting, waxing, buffing, varnishing, oiling, and general cleaning. Damn she looked good when I was done. But mostly I’m thinking about the waxing and buffing – to a mirror finish. In this photo she’s on her trailer, stored for the winter, and dwarfed by bigger keelboats on their cradles. I only wish that I had photos from when I was done, because it looked so good. So, my question: what makes the work worthwhile?

Looking across all his works becomes a discussion of what these chalked-wood objects – yes, I’m claiming that they’re objects – can be, as their context and orientation changes. There are thick planes, and there are volumes, and occasionally there are volumes made of planes (wherein the planes are recognizable as such). Here they are simultaneously painting and landscape. The wall works become much less engaging than the landscape, which suggests diagrams, cities, buildings.

“Less engaging” isn’t a judgment of quality but an observation: as paintings, these works become part of the scenery, part of the stage upon which the living occurs. (A lot of my works have been addressing the living, itself, but I am interested in other peoples’ living, in setting a stage for living, in making place. My studio space this semester has been an ongoing experiment in making place, and is worth considering as such.) I wonder how De Sauter’s work changes with context. How do his works exist in someone’s home?

I like the idea of making a polished chalk surface. Of course. But I might do it directly on a wall.

Bleeding Piece I:

I cut my ankle in the shower, while shaving. I watched my blood run until the water was too cool to be pleasant.

Performed in the evening of 18 January 2012.

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Bleeding Piece II:

When you cut yourself while shaving in the shower, watch your blood run until the water is too cool to be pleasant.

Additional instructions: May be performed in another location. Another duration of time may be used. May be performed, or not performed.

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