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Falling in Love and the Rules of Art

Here is how I fell in love with my husband:

We were in Frank Roth’s painting class at SVA for our first critique. Frank asked someone to begin and Sean volunteered, starting with the phrase, “I like …” Incensed, Roth interrupted him and screamed, “I don’t care what you LIKE. I LIKE my fucking raincoat. Critiquing art work is not about what you LIKE.” And with that he threw his cigarette on the floor and stomped it out. I immediately felt my heart drop with empathy and love for the eighteen year old boy sitting on an art horse across from me.

Though I was a full merit scholarship winner at SVA, I struggled my last year. Most of the instructors I worked with told me that my work was too personal (since then, the art world has taken a dramatic turn in the opposite direction, but back then if I wasn’t making some sort of political statement or painting black squares on canvases, I was shit out of luck). I left SVA a little bit heartbroken, but still in love with that boy.

I did not create any art for several years after I graduated. I did not see the point. It was not until my first son was born, weighing two pounds, that I started to paint again. I had no where else to go with what I was feeling and painting gave my voice a place to breathe. The paintings I did then are still my favorites.

This morning, a former student, a former FAVORITE student of mine, objected to the fact that I posted photographs of my family on Behance. He did not believe them to be art. They are “unskilled,” and not “creative,” and “I would never go to a gallery to see a family album.” I am grateful for his feedback, for his response, and am not at all suprised that these photos made him (a man who spends his career creating really skilled, gorgeous photographs) angry. “They are not,” he declared, “art.”

Now in my defense, it’s not like I just posted a random shots of my kid’s soccer game or my husband’s 40th birthday party. I did not post random snapshots that just belong on Facebook or in my iPhoto library. I documented the survival of my one pound baby over the past sixteen months, his relationship with his three siblings, and his brief moments on my dying grandmother’s lap. I digress, it does not matter. It’s okay that he didn’t like them. It’s okay that they aren’t good enough for him to be moved.

When I graduated in 1993, a painting instructor said, “I don’t know why you bother. You are just one of those girls who should move back to the midwest, squeeze out a bunch of babies… You’ll never “make it.”

What I have learned over the years is that art, for me, is not about “making it.” What does that even mean? It, like art, is a relative term. I have found that people create art every day in all sorts of ways (a perfect cupcake, a photo of a dying grandparent, a mug that might fit neatly and squarely in the palm of ones hand) and that what it boils down to, for everyone, I think, is sharing evidence of how one sees and experiences the world.

My favorite book when I was a child was The Bear’s Picture, by Daniel Pinkwater. In the story, two fine and proper gentlemen (penquins) tear apart the work of a painter (the bear). The refrain in the story is, “I don’t care,” said the bear, “It’s my picture.” I still need to repeat that mantra sometimes, when someone is critical of my work.

Today I looked at some photos by a man who searches beaches for perfect grains of sand and then enlarges them about a zillion times. They were so cool, but they are art because of his search, not because of the end result. Does the world NEED to see these photos? Is there a sense of urgency or dispair about them? No. Are they beautiful? Sure. Does that matter? No.

In the long run, I am not particularly interested in debating the age old question, “What is art?” but I will say this to anyone who doubts that they are a creator:

If you are creating something that moves you, something that you want to share with the bigger world, if you are creating something that is raw, that deals with your heart, that deals with the day to day or the world at large or the universe or God or something as small as a grain of rice, if you are creating something that matters to your own landscape, your own way of being, and if when you create it you feel a release, you feel satisfied, you feel hungry for more, you feel validated, you feel like crying, you feel exhausted, you feel elated, then you are creating art. And if that art does not fit into someone else’s ideal or someone else’s rules or someone else’s SHOULD, it’s okay to let that bruise your heart a little bit. If it does, you should keep creating. It means you are an artist.

I think back to that Frank Roth critique often. He was right. Like has nothing to do with whether a piece is good or bad, but Like has everything to do with why it was created in the first place. It’s taken me forty years to learn that and to learn that Pinkwater’s bear probably did care, he just learned to cover his buttons. 

(Source: picklestothemoon, via carousels)

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urbanlovedailysubmissions:

Pepper Love. My awesome sister, Kelly Mizer, sent in this photo of a pepper heart that appeared in her stir-fry.

Kindred spirit

(Source: f-a-u-n, via carousels)

Perfect timing, stumbling across this post.

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preview to a novel (maybe)

I dunno, maybe it’s a short story. I started it almost two years ago. Maybe it will never evolve. Maybe it will be amazing. Preview the first two pages here:

Late February rain poured down on top of last week’s snow. As Kylie drove she remembered what it was like to clean dirty chalkboards with fat yellow sponges. It seemed to her that the winter rain was trying desperately to give the ground a fresh start.

Everything about this time of year seemed desperate and melancholy. Two weeks back, when Wisconsin was hit with a tease of spring, a few brave birds had started to sing in the morning. Their songs went away with the uninvited storm that followed. And now rain. Rain that hit Kylie’s windshield with loud, rhythmic splats. A nervous driver to begin with, Kylie tried to imagine octopus tentacles, like the wheels of a plane, emerging from her snow tires, sticking to the icy road: suction cups to keep her from sliding.

She was distracted by the squeak of her cheap windshield wipers and the faint smell of vomit, chicken tenders, and apples, which still lingered despite her efforts to replace the floor mats after Ben threw up last week. Kylie turned on the radio and soon the sound of Cat Stevens replaced all other sensory information and Kylie stopped thinking about suction cups, icy roads, the cars in front of her, the cheap wipers and, instead, sang “ooh baby, baby,” over and over again, mindlessly.

She decided to take the long way to Ellen’s house. At least that’s what she told herself. Really, she just felt too scared to cross three lanes of busy freeway traffic and was content to stay in the slow lane. Even though she didn’t like the mental task of driving, she did treasure the time alone, the space to feel like herself, to linger with private, albeit silly thoughts: deals on Expedia, dream vacation spots, where Olivia’s other mitten might be, the time she tripped in front of that realtor last week. These random thoughts seemed to come untangled the more she drove, as if her car were pulling a long ball of yarn and that by the time she arrived at her friend’s house, all of her ideas would be a neat, red line instead of a jumbled nest.

Kylie had never been to Ellen’s house before and by the time she arrived, red yarn pulled taught, salty car washed clean, she felt so introverted and so very comfortable with her aloneness that she did not want to go inside. The house was in the suburbs: a doctor’s house. A row of wet, black, nameless mailboxes were clustered together, with no indication of which house belonged to which address.  They were the kind of mailboxes that boys in the movies gleefully hit with baseball bats. A tiny part of Kylie wanted to run over them.

Her mind drifted again to how the other guests attending tonight, six total, would all be going to Mexico for spring break. She did not feel jealous. Instead she thought, “I’m too fat for Mexico anyhow,” and stared straight ahead, fingering the candy she brought to share, wondering what to do next.

Kylie felt glad to be invited to the gathering, welcomed, yet most of her didn’t trust that she wasn’t the square peg, the one everyone kind of hoped wouldn’t show. Her own, probably imagined, yet still there, insecurities that started in kindergarten and remained, thirty-two years later, like little pebbles of gravel deep her bones, filled her with doubt about what her next move should be.  A little bit of imaginary yarn crumpled up inside of her stomach.

As soon as Kylie had entered the cozy kitchen, she felt more comfortable. For as long as she could remember, it was the anticipation of events, rather than their actual occurrence, that filled her with apprehension and the tiniest bit of self loathing or self pity or an odd combination of both.

It happened all of the time: “Don’t talk too much. Remember to listen a lot. Don’t interrupt. Ask others how they feel,” constant reminders to herself, filtering through her car rides, her morning showers; repeated, eager whispers in her ear as she wrapped presents, washed dishes, bathed children.

These thoughts were noticeably absent when Kylie cooked or when she was at the shop.  Kylie had been a member of a jewelers coop since it first opened seven years earlier. Four artists shared studio space above their small storefront, “Wish,” and Iris Plum was the proprietor of the adjoining organic bakery “Comfort”.

Their stores were nestled in the middle of a small, cobblestone block, across from a bank and a high end restaurant named Turtle House, which catered to the local, affluent business class, mostly lawyers, as there was a big firm just half a mile away, and to the not-so-affluent teachers, from the private elementary school around the block, at which Kylie’s three children attended.

Also on their street stood Willow, a spa, and a small Italian deli, famous for its hot sandwiches and its gelato. The one and only flavor-of-the-day was posted each morning and handwritten by Juliana Sorenti, whose perfect curly, blue script decorated the white board precisely at eight a.m. For Kylie, seeing it each day was like a little prayer. She needed to see the flavor, to say it inside her head, before starting the day. For her the flavors were like the word, “Go.” They pushed her out of the gate, ready to work.

In addition to reading the flavor of the day, Kylie looked forward to reading the sign in front of the church, just around the corner. A white A-Frame Catholic Church, St. Ambrose, was the only other business with a parking lot and Kylie frequently, when it was nicer outside, sat at the small picnic table hidden in the back of their lot.

As for the sign, Kylie could never tell who arranged the letters or when they did it. Each Monday, something new was posted against the yellowing sign in big, black block letters. Kylie imagined two nuns, in the dead of night, changing them: one held the flashlight while the other fished around for the alphabet, wondering what to quote this week. Kylie chuckled at this week’s new sign: GOD LOVES YOU WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT: both a threat and a promise.

The irony of it wasn’t lost on Kylie the next morning. She had just dropped Noah, her eldest son, off at school, loaded with a giant duffle bag and heavy down sleeping bag, as his eighth grade class was leaving for the annual winter camping trip. She had been frustrated with him this morning because he didn’t want to bring his winter boots, as they were a size too big. He packed his old ones, three sizes too small. She insisted that he bring them both (whether he like it or not) because he would be hiking for hours and boots that were far too small would just plain hurt. Noah didn’t care and sat, staring blankly at Sponge Bob Square Pants on TV, lost in his own morning void, as Kylie tried to jam two pairs of giant boots into his bag, muttering to herself that “This is why I have to buy a new duffel bag each time you go somewhere. This is why the zippers always break. This is why you need to tell me ahead of time when things don’t fit,” and on and on.

It isn’t how she wanted to spend her morning with him. She wanted a good goodbye. Instead she spent the short ride to school offering him a generic script: “Have fun. Be yourself. Trust your instincts,” It was like she was a living random quotes Google search. Noah kissed her when he got out of the car, “Bye Mom,” and Kylie felt a lump, the size of a cherry pit, form at the base of her throat, and knew it would stay there until he was back home, safely off the bus.

Noah had taken trips before, both through school and at summer camps. Kylie never really got used to him leaving and often wondered if one day, when Noah was much older, married even, if she would have the cherry pit in her throat.

So it was with a bit of a heavy, guilty heart that she entered Wish Monday morning. Mary, their assistant and retail manager, was already at the counter organizing a new shipment of jewelry boxes, labeling each tiny box with clear stickers. The stickers were labeled with the names of the coop artists: Kylie’s Wish, Eric’s Wish, Lauren’s Wish, Zoe’s Wish.  The white on white design of the box was embossed with a tiny wishbone in the center. Kylie was glad to see the white boxes, a sign of spring, as they have red boxes from December first thru Valentine’s Day. She liked they cycle of this, season’s changing, and their customers, by now, were used to the rhythm of this too, and always looked forward to the red boxes.