Hospicing

...sitting with a system in decline, learning from its history, offering palliative care, seeing oneself in that which is dying, attending to the integrity of the process, dealing with tantrums, incontinence, anger and hopelessness, ‘cleaning up’, and clearing space for something new. This is unlikely to be a glamorous process; it will entail many frustrations, an uncertain timeline, and unforeseeable outcomes without guarantees. 

-Vanessa Andreotti 

A few years ago my father died in hospice care. It was a beautiful and tender period amid a sometimes gruesome process. I learned from the hospice caregivers that this was not the time or place to fight against what was happening or what was to come but rather, it was a place of witnessing, of acceptance and of offering care. I return to the idea of “hospicing” - from the word hospice, as an apropos foundation upon which to create my work at this time.

Hospicing as a point of view allows the horror and suffering to remain but recede into the background as space for tenderness and beauty is allowed. In hospice what really matters is loving kindness - acknowledging the reality of the suffering but instead of it being the focus and adversary, a tender touch and kind gesture are paramount. It doesn’t deny the loss and pain but refuses to let that get in the way of love.

So, the world burns and floods. People, animals, plants, even the air suffer. I witness this and have begun to address it with the recent sculptures. But lately and very quietly I’ve begun to yearn for something more nuanced and multi-faceted. It’s not quite like hope or some forced positive attitude but something more like this and that vs. this or that. How does one create an artwork which embodies the qualities of hospice? How does one allow for loss and suffering while simultaneously allow resilience and marvel? Perhaps there is little need to overtly address the suffering. Maybe it suffuses the work quietly, like a fading scent.

Invisible Flowers

Every day I see many people, most pushing shopping carts or other wheeled vehicles along sidewalks in the neighborhoods surrounding both my home and studio. These people are experiencing homelessness and often also experiencing something else, place-lessness. They move from place to place, temporarily stopping until they are forced to move again. 

I see shopping carts overflowing with a person’s possessions, people propped on crutches and slumped in wheelchairs on the streets and sidewalks of my city every day and night. But occasionally, I see these items, these tools of support, abandoned and discarded in the weeds, thrown into the river or simply left in the middle of the sidewalk. I began to collect the ones which were clearly abandoned or useless and brought them into the studio. They are now transforming into sculptural objects.  

The intention is to let them keep their raw brokenness but place them out of context and without humans attending to them. I also want to allow them to in some way “serve” or at least accommodate Nature as they have served humans previously. 

The issues those experiencing homelessness are very similar to the issues facing much of the non-human natural world in the face of climate change. All experience dislocation, invisibility, risk, uncertainty, fear, place-lessness, voicelessness and disregard. The parallels are clear between these two worlds.  How our society regards the value of a human life seems not so different from how society tends to value non-human life.  

With that in mind, I find it intriguing to allow these sculptures to exist in a place between overt social commentary and something more transcendent. I want them to toggle back and forth between topical concerns like homelessness/environmental issues or sorrow and loss, and something luminous and glowing like resilience, hope and restoration. As always in my work, I do not offer a solution to these issues but seek to remain a compassionate witness to this difficult time. 

Notes on Precision, Part 1

For the past few years my hand has relaxed, the paint and it’s subject become more suggested, less insistent and precise.  This relaxation has been deliberate and perhaps inevitable.

Many people who are aware of my work now only know it as it has appeared for the past 15-20 years or so.  There is a period preceding this work which most know nothing about.  This period predates websites and social media and because of that is less familiar.  It was marked by stained, unprimed canvases, radical shifts in paint application ranging from staining, to heavy, thick cracked and sagging painting and globs of gesso and precisely taped off and clean edged shapes.  Often, all within one canvas.  It was a period of learning the possibilities of what the materials could do but also an insistence on allowing the surface of the canvas be just that - a surface, made of cloth which held the impressions of paint in its many manifestations.  It was a not a ‘window”.  In some ways you could say I treated it more like a chalkboard - written on, erased, revised, written again, etc.

This era was a time of great upheaval in my community in San Francisco; AIDS was terrifyingly out of control, we had just entered the Gulf War and many were afraid of what terror that could unleash.  San Francisco had recently endured a very serious earthquake and the casualties of it were everywhere in displaced people and cracked unusable buildings and roadways.  Perhaps my work reflected this sense of upheaval, uncertainty and things broken.  

As time went on, my work also moved on and I found new places to live and work across the United States.  These new environments found expression in my imagery and new narratives found a voice in the work.  For a number of years the paintings continued to be opened ended but also started to contain more specific and concrete images.  Also, there were more literal landscapes and interior spaces depicted.  I found myself quite seduced by the possibility of creating believable illusions of objects in space.  I was never encouraged or really even trained in this way of art making so it was an exciting period of self-teaching and trial and error.  

As time went on, the images within the paintings became more and more concrete, tied to the seen and understood world and the painting surfaces grew less agitated and more subservient to the narrative and illusions I was so enamored with.  Simultaneously, my paintings were starting to sell more regularly.  (Perhaps a connection there?  Possibly.  More on that another time).  While my career was improving my personal life was becoming more challenging and uncertain and as I look back, I think something very interesting started to take root.  Rather than the work reflecting the turmoil around me as it did earlier in San Francisco, it instead became a place of certainty and precision - and alternative to my personal turmoil.  

Perhaps it was a salve, a calming tonic with which I could find some certainty and balance. In the studio creating very clear, clean and orderly paintings I could find some order.  Nothing terribly wrong in this. For many people, art making is the activity which helps them make sense of and feel stable in the world.  My previous meandering process turned into more of a straight line and the paintings reflected this new sense of clarity and order.  But, these self-made illusions don’t last for long.  Or at least for me they don’t. 

Notes on Precision, Part 2

NOTES ON PRECISION, Part 2

While the seduction of a clearly understood image coupled with a clever narrative held my attention for a long time, I began to grow dissatisfied with only that.  As is common with me, I grew bored and needed more.  I found that I could begin to quietly address my growing concerns for the natural environment in these paintings and I conjured up the description “allegorical realism” to describe them.  I wanted to point out the challenges I saw facing the natural world, in particular what I described as “the silent inhabitants” we share this planet with.  In this way I could use my illusory and narrative skills to reflect my concern with what was happening to my beloved natural world.

As I’ve said many times, I did not want to hit people over the head with a strident, environmental point of view but rather, through symbolism, allegory and even humor, slip in a subtle message about threat, imbalance and loss.  This was and continues to be satisfying.  However, as the years progressed so has my awareness of what is and is not happening in our response to the greatest threat to life on the planet - human caused climate change, resource depletion and greed.  Was it enough any more to create soft-edged fairy tales which sort of point to the issues?  Was it realistic to expect my deep sorrow and concern for the issues to be expressed via a quiet, precise illustration?  But, I also knew I didn’t want or need to create images filled with horror and despair.  Could there be a middle way?  

As I’ve considered this for the past few years I’ve wondered if my need for a precise and tidy image has become a self-soothing fantasy.  In other words, I can create an image which subtly points to an issue via clever symbolic mechanisms like fragile teacups, a tenuous house of cards, a bird or elephant balancing on a tightrope, etc.  This is the work many of you know me for.  I love these paintings.  But, on a personal level I have been wondering if the high degree of precision in which they are rendered is insincere.  By this I mean, am I using the tidiness of the imagery to create a soft edge, a buffer between what I know is true in the world and what I would rather have.  The world is most definitely NOT a tidy place.  By using my working methods to tidy up a corner of it - one painting at a time, I could feel a little better.  And, my audience would feel better too.  As to say, “it’s going to be okay, don’t worry.  Everything in this painting is digestible and maybe even soothing”.  But, it feels there there is a disconnect between the image, the concept and it’s execution. Given my past described here, it’s starts to feel disingenuous.

So, I find myself seeking some middle way.  A way of being true to my core beliefs and concerns as a citizen as well as honoring my beliefs as a painter.  I remain subject ridden - and gratefully so.  I’m also falling in love again with the paint as it finds it way onto the canvas - in unexpected and sometimes messy ways.  I remember thinking of the canvas as a chalkboard, always in flux and holding visible residue of it’s history.  I see the world outside and within as beautiful smoky mirrors from which I can glean a small phrase or a story which will find it’s way via paint on canvas.  The old work I described earlier remains alive within me, it’s always been there and so many years later is as alive and pertinent as it was when first realized.  It’s a very interesting and very difficult time to be in the studio.  This is a great adventure but as with all true adventures, there is a tremendous amount of not knowing.  Not knowing what is next or how to get there.  Which is not all that different from how I feel about being in the world right now - many choices, much not knowing and much to learn.

What or How?

Again, I feel as though I’ve used everything up.  Another bird and teacup??  An animal on a tenuous perch??  I’ve squeezed these ideas dry.  So, I look to others and how they find subjects or at least a starting point.  Peter Doig for example, he often starts with a photograph either taken by himself or found.  It’s only a starting point but it seems to get him into the painting.  Many  artists do this - Cecily Brown is another, her finished painting bear virtually no resemblance to the starting figurative imagery and yet it seems she needs to have that foundation to get going and ground the thing.  Why then am I so determined to come up with ideas and create from thin air?  Is that really realistic?  Is it necessary or helpful?  I’m starting to think not.  

Have I been asking the wrong question all these years?  Maybe the question isn’t ‘what shouldI paint’ but rather, how shall I go about painting whatever I choose to paint.  My journals are littered with decades of asking this question - what is the subject, where is the subject. etc.  Usually, the question was answered as I looked out the door or took a walk in my neighborhood.  No mythic scenes, no epic depictions, usually in the end, just things I know sitting around outside.  I’d find a topic and exhaust it.

So, instead of what  to paint it feels that I should and can paint everything.  A face, a tower, a fish, a boat, the stars, a tall tree, etc., etc., etc.  What ties these all together is far broader than a unified and predictable subject  but rather, my point of view.  This point of view is grounded in Love.  Empathy.  That sweet, slightly painful tenderness and vulnerability I feel as I walk in this world.  If I can be as quiet and truthful about this as I’m working, inevitably the painting will be infused with those attributes and THAT is what I’m painting.  The subject is irrelevant.

I know that if I can clarify my thinking - answering what my essential point of view is regarding my life, how I experience it and what I believe to be true, then the foundation upon which to build would begin to be clear.  I’ve done this before, probably less consciously and those foundations served me.  But, like a home, or a seed pod, a shirt or snake skin, I seem to  have outgrown the previous conditions and need to renew this process again.