interdisciplinaryness

“For it is when art acts as an agent of transformation that we may correctly speak of it as a gift.” -- Lewis Hyde

IN ONE WEEK!

INTIMATE COMMISSIONS WORKSHOP at the Human Rights Art Festival, led by Catherine Mueller

Isn't it fun to receive a gift? They say giving is just as good as receiving.  What might happen if we thought of our art-making as gift-making? What if we thought of our gift-making as dialogue? If we curated our making processes such that art could be made for another, ANY other, via a few simple steps? IC is radicalizing the art making and sharing process by doing just that. Come experience these simple steps and see what might be possible for you. IC is an ongoing dialogic art project, developed and facilitated by Catherine Mueller + John Borstel.

Saturday, March 4 3-4:30 PM Dixon Place Tickets: $5 in advance, $10 at the door

Video link to Rayer Ma’s Moonbelly

“The challenge for me was to consider what it means to make a gift for a familiar stranger.”

-- Rayer Ma, on responding to Lynne Scott Constantine’s Lyrical Dossier

This is last of nine posts sharing art and discovery from the inaugural round of Intimate Commissions, which took place in Summer 2016. Intimate Commissions is an exploration in artistic research in which artists create work for each other inspired by each other.

LYNNE SCOTT CONSTANTINE’S LYRICAL DOSSIER:

How did you get your  name?

Each of my names has its own little story.   My first name, Lynne—a variant of Lynn, a Welsh name meaning “lake.” I’m the opposite of Welsh  (three-quarters Italian and one-quarter French), so  I’ve always wondered where the name came from. Sadly, my parents are long gone, and I never thought to ask them. But after some research, I’ve decided  that my mother named me for Lynn Fontanne, an extraordinary actress who, with  her husband Alfred Lunt, often collaborated with my mother’s all-time  favorite actor and playwright, Noel Coward. Fontanne, Lunt and Coward enjoyed  their reputations for being scandalous; their most notorious collaboration  was Design for Living, a play about  three artists in a ménage-a-trois. But why the –e, you ask? The add-on “e”  was a special connection with my mother, whose name was Anne-with-an-e. She  always got particularly annoyed when people spelled her name without the –e;  but I also believe that she thought irritants made you stronger.   My middle name, Scott—another name from the British Isles, but this one I chose. It’s my wife’s birth middle name, a family name from her mother’s  side. When we got married, we decided that we wanted to be obviously  connected through our names, but I didn’t want to give up the early place in  the alphabet that a last name starting with a C gives you. So she took my  last name, and I changed my middle name to hers, and both of us agreed to use  all three names. – Then we found out how difficult it is to get people to use  all three names. (More irritants, so I guess more strengths.)  

My surname, Constantine—my father’s family name, although it wasn’t actually the name of his family in Italy. They were “Cosantino”—but someplace along the way, perhaps a misreading at Ellis Island, a few letters morphed. I still  get many variant spellings and pronunciations. (Yes, more irritants. I’m  strong as iron.)

What are ten things you  consider beautiful?

1. The moon—even when it’s not visible in the sky, it has a  presence and a pull.   2. Silence—it invites dreaming.   3. Pi—an unending and nonrepeating decimal born of trying to fix the  ineffable relationship between a square and a circle.   4. Pencil shavings from a long-point sharpener—curved, elegant wisps of wood that signify intent and (potentially) creation.   5. A sleeping dog—what else is more reassuring that all’s right with the  world?   6. The human body—so fragile and yet so tough.   7. Certain poems: Yeats’ “A Drinking Song”; Adrienne Rich’s “Phantasia for Elvira Shatayev”; Anne Winters’ “The Displaced of Capital”; Gwendolyn Brooks, “Boy Breaking Glass”; all of Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric; all of Anne Carson’s Decreation; a poem I once wrote; many  others.   8. Ripe mango—who ever imagined that the world could produce such a flavor?   9. The final trio in Der Rosenkavalier,  as the Marschallin withdraws—a perfect melding of three female voices.   10. Justice.

What’s the story behind  one item you carry in your pocket/purse?

Whenever I can (like when I’m not flying), I carry a Victorinox Swiss Army Explorer knife. I received it as a gift twenty years ago, and it’s never far from me. Aside from the surprising number of uses I find for its 16  blades and tools, I like the feeling it gives me of being prepared for  anything. I was kicked out of the Brownies (for insubordination!) when I was  8 or 9, so I have always feared that I didn’t learn some secret set of  lessons about preparedness. Consequently, I have a first-aid kit on every  floor of my house, a disaster kit in my car, and my Swiss Army knife with me  always.

FROM THE GIVER/RAYER to the RECIEVER/LYNNE:

From your words I learned that you have a beautiful way of experiencing this world. Thank you for sharing this with me.

FROM THE GIVER/RAYER IN RELATION TO THE GIFT:

I am surprised how many similarities there are between my own  profile and Lynne's, especially the part about what we consider beautiful.  There are a few things I wish I had more time to learn about (the literature  she named for example), and I was concerned that some aspects of my  interpretation could land as superficial.

The challenge for me was to consider what it means to make a  gift for a familiar stranger, or any person for that matter. I didn't want to  pretend that I could understand another human being simply by reading her  three-question profile. I decided that I would use her thought process (via  the dossier) as an inspiration and put myself into it. I want to have fun  with the process and leave lots of room in what the visual could mean, to  whom, and about what it could be evocative.

FROM THE RECEIVER/LYNNE IN RESPONSE TO THE GIFT:

What a delight--I loved the visual inventiveness of the piece; it made me feel happy that my dossier could invite such a creative response. I especially enjoyed the way that total flights of fancy were held together with bits and pieces of the items in my dossier.

ANNOTATION from the RESEARCHERS:

On my initial viewing of Rayer’s video my first thought was: “Oh, wow, this is really out there. I recognize the moon as the first item from Lynne’s list of beautiful things, but a lot of this other stuff seems random.” Entertainingly random and full of surprising juxtapositions, I should add, but hard to draw meaning from at first encounter. Then, through Rayer’s deft build-up of voice-overs and sound effects, I heard something beautiful and quite familiar. I couldn’t place it for the first few seconds, but soon recognized the trio from the end of Der Rosenkavalier – item 9 from Lynne’s list – accompanying a jostling moon rover and colliding planets.

That sent me back to the video pursue a kind of scavenger hunt for references to Lynne’s Lyrical Dossier. Some are delightfully oblique “do you want some more brownies?” in the sound sample of two men talking, paralleling Lynne’s confession of being kicked out of the Brownies as a child. Some seem informed by leaps of logic that might mean one thing to an artist, another to a viewer – until you gradually discern that the obscenely viscous mass is that’s being kneaded by fingers at the end is the ripe mango from Lynne’s list. Others are more overarching: numerous references to the humors and functions of the human body (Lynne’s item 6) and a theme of circularity that captures Lynne’s moon, pi, and pencil shavings with a drain, navel, and craters.

I’m really struck by how Rayer describes her strategy: “I didn't want to pretend that I could understand another human being simply by reading her three-question profile. I decided that I would use her thought process (via the dossier) as an inspiration and put myself into it.“ To assume another’s thought process as an artistic path: what an interesting and nuanced challenge, what an intentional act of empathy and witness, compared to simply reflecting back content. Of course it makes me ask, comparing Lynne’s dossier to Rayer’s video, “What is Lynne’s thought process and how is it reenacted in Rayer’s?” I’m not sure I know. In fact I see more contrast than similarity. Lynne displays a narrative thought process while Rayer displays a process of non-linear, clustering associations. But I do feel that though the act of “putting herself into” Lynne’s process Rayer accessed the undertow, the subtext in the dossier’s list and narrative. I’m not surprised that Lynne was delighted by it.

Video still, from Reverie

“Our business in living is to become fluent with the life we are living, and art can help this” – John Cage, as quoted in Reverie by Lynne Constantine for Alexis Immarino

This is the eighth of nine posts sharing art and discovery from the inaugural round of Intimate Commissions, which took place in Summer 2016. Intimate Commissions is an exploration in artistic research in which artists create work for each other inspired by each other.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mo3gwl23y198oby/Reverie%202016.mp4?dl=0

The above is a Link to Dropbox folder containing Reverie, a Video Poem made by Lynne Constantine for Alexis Immarino.

ALEXIS IMMARINO’S LYRICAL DOSSIER

How did you get your name?

I am named after my father's grandfather. My brother is named Anthony and my parents liked the idea that he and I both would have matching initials.

Neither of us have middle names.

What are ten things you consider beautiful?

1) Tea Tags

2) Sugar Packets

3) Falcons

4) The color peach

5) The word for rolling or tumbling down in Italian

6) Candied citrus

7) Retired rock quarries

8) Tuxedo cats

9) Purple lipstick

10) Merce Cunningham

 What’s the story behind one item you carry in your purse/pocket?

I have been collecting tea tags and/or sugar packets since I was in high school. I save each and every one that I or my dearest friends use.

My husband is so kind, he always takes them out of my pockets when we DO THE laundry. I catalogue them all in tiny boxes. I have been actively collecting them since I was 17.

FROM THE GIVER/LYNNE TO THE RECEIVER/ALEXIS:

At first I was simply amused and intrigued by the quirky nature of some of the items in the dossier. My work is often research based, so my next move was to research the dossier items that were unfamiliar to me. As I wound deeper into the history of sugar packets, tea tags, retired quarries and other arcana, the picture in my mind of the dossier's subject grew more complex.

I decided to try to share my experience of the unfolding mystery of this person, who began as nothing more to me than a list on a page but who soon was a lens through which my world came into a different focus. To reflect this experience, I built a video tone poem, wrapping footage that I shot in my favorite park in London with footage I found in my research and with a scripted sequence recreating one item from the dossier.

I had a blast doing this work.

What a great way to build community and to build serendipity and randomness into collaboration!

INTIMATE COMMISSIONS is an exciting experiment in bringing artists together to inspire each other.

FROM THE GIVER/LYNNE IN RELATION TO THE GIFT:

Thanks for leading me toward new knowledge about many subjects I've never heard of! I hope you enjoy the video I have made for you.

FROM THE RECEIVER/ALEXIS IN RESPONSE TO THE GIFT:

The piece was more illustrative of me than I anticipated, more portrait-like. It was crafted in a manner and with such care that captured strong elements of my personality and my loves/cares and creative inspirations and influences. The aesthetic was oddly unlike my own in a way that was wonderful to see. Like an odd (if it had been made by me) and beautifully made self-portrait made in a parallel existence! It was quite thoughtful. It made me think of something like a future me gotten hold of old notes in my journal.

[What stood out was] The PLAY and the seeing of myself rendered in a media and aesthetic not all my own but that was derived and driven by my own description.  Seeing myself in the eyes/mind of someone who has never seen me.

[This project] engaged a spontaneity, play, and an opportunity to travel an idea directly through to someone---- a joy!!

ANNOTATION from the RESEARCHERS:

As John and I continue to distill the essence of what Intimate Commissions is and provides, we have recognized witness as an important aspect of this project. What is it to bear witness to another? How can we bear witness through art?

In the video tone poem she has made for Alexis, Lynne makes literal and lyrical associations between her environment and aspects of Alexis’ dossier, as if seeing the world anew and through Alexis’ eyes. Through her layered observations we learn about both her and Alexis. When she reflects on the story of Alexis’ history collecting tea tags and sugar packets, she isolates the simple detail of how Alexis’s husband removes these items from the pockets of Alexis’s clothing before doing the laundry, thereby adding to her collection. It is this simple gesture of taking care, “to be simply loved,” that impacts Lynne the most. It is what we all seek in this life.

“I began to see the artist I was making it for.”

 -- Alexis Iammarino

This is seventh of nine posts sharing art and discovery from the inaugural round of Intimate Commissions, which took place in Summer 2016. Intimate Commissions is an exploration in artistic research in which artists create work for each other inspired by each other.

KAMILAH AISHA MOON’S LYRICAL DOSSIER:

How did you get your  name?

My parents found these names--they have both Arabic and Swahili  origins and together they mean "the perfect life." High hopes they  had, lol.

What are ten things you  consider beautiful?

Women laughing and experiencing pleasure, full moons, Caribbean  beaches with white sand and turquoise waves as far as the eye can see, my  friend Aracelis' poetry, magnolia tree blooms as big as a child's head,  sunsets on the hill of Sunset Park in Brooklyn, watching babies experience  things for the first time, dancing to good music with friends half the night,  velvet singing voices that make my spine tingle, first snow of the season,  tulips

What's the story behind  one item you carry in your pocket/purse?

I carry lavender oil in my purse for an instant lift of my  spirit by dabbing it on the hollow of my neck.

FROM THE GIVER/ALEXIS to the RECEIVER/KAMILAH:

Turquoise waves as far as the eye can see. White sands, magnolia blossoms, the first snow and tulips. Digital Illustration made from hand-drawn sketches. I would like to send along a print as well. So keep your eye out in the mail.

FROM THE GIVER/ALEXIS IN RELATION TO THE GIFT:

I began to see the artist I was making it for, in a way. I wanted to create something that could illustrate/ make visible the things they found beautiful.

I chose to create an illustration that I will also send as an  accordion book. I created a fat stack of drawings of objects and things from  her dossier and then continued to draw from that initial stack to create more  stylized versions of those sketches. I created multiple color palettes and plugged  in several versions before settling on the set I sent.

FROM THE RECEIVER/KAMILAH IN RESPONSE TO THE GIFT:

I thought it was interesting what stood out to the artist from the answers I provided, where she gravitated. And seeing these things composed in an illustration together that couldn't be so in real life -- tulips in snow on the shore of a Caribbean ocean. Like yeah, why not?

ANNOTATION from the RESEARCHERS:

Of all the artists participating in this round of intimate commissions, Kamilah Aisha Moon provided the shortest Lyrical Dossier. I like to imagine that this reflects her discipline in poetry, a form where concision and essence matter. As she reported to us in documenting her experience, it also reflects her desire to keep her response spontaneous: “When you answer these kinds of questions with the understanding that others will be forming some sense of who you are from your answers, curating that best self can eclipse being authentic.”

It’s interesting how the directness and concision in Kamilah’s dossier elicited similar qualities in Alexis’s art present. With its reiteration and development of certain forms and images across its span, I see a kind of poetic rhythm in Alexis’s series that matches the stream of associations in Kamilah’s list. It may just be fancy on my part, but I see a Japanese parallel in both cases. Kamiliah’s list reminds me those passages in The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, where the author/diarist, a 10th Century court lady, collects a catalog of impressions under a heading like “things worth seeing,” “adorable things,” or “things that should be short.” Alexis’s illustrations call to mind Hanafuda, the Japanese flower card game, where suits correlate to months of the year, the cards differentiated my smaller and larger variations on a given flower of the season.

So I wonder: When we observe parallels like this between Dossier and Art Present within these Intimate Commissions, are they the result of like inspiring like? Do they reflect these choices Catherine and I made in pairing artists with others we thought might be sympathetic partners? Or is it just my own capacity for making meaning and the ways we can make connections between any two pieces of artistic evidence?

An image of the object described in Zeke Leonard’s LYRICAL DOSSIER.

This is sixth of nine posts sharing art and discovery from the inaugural round of Intimate Commissions, which took place in Summer 2016. Intimate Commissions is a venture in artistic research in which artists create work for each other inspired by each other.

Sound File: Click HERE to hear the poem read by the poet.

POCKET KNIFE

                                   for Zeke Leonard, by Kamilah Aisha Moon

A little boy just starting

to need razors carved

himself into a man

with a new name.

 Sometimes a name

is anchor transformed

into mantra.

 The old self timbered

and composted,

the new one coronates

himself with the last letter

of inherited language, learns

fluency with his hands

to convey every utterance

of souls.  God's strength

 sharpens, whittles excess to let what's pure rise in bas-relief

against the hills and valleys,

splitting all from each

husk and shell

once ripe and sweet.

 Knowing when & where

to cut is the key to making

the most of every dash

between private dawns

and dusks--

 ask any prophet, carpenter

how a transcendent life

is crafted and he or she will say

 If I'm not useful, I am nothing.

I'm always ready with my tools

to be the best instrument I can.

 “This project was permission/a reason to do what we used to do all of the time freely as children in community with each other.” Kamilah Aisha Moon

 Zeke Leonard’s LYRICAL DOSSIER

How did you get your name?

I was born Matthew Beaumont Leonard in 1973.  That name originally belonged to Matthew Beaumont, who was the son of Elliot Beaumont, a mill worker in Huddersfield, England in the middle of the 19th century.  Elliot brought his five children and new wife to America in 1851, his grandson (named Elliot after his grandfather) was my father's uncle, and I was named after him.  But I didn't like it.  So in the summer of my fourteenth year I went to summer camp.  On the first day, the cabin counselor was going around the cabin saying each kid's name and where they were from: "Johnny from Greensboro, Billy from Lexington."  He came to me and said, "I know you are from Winston-Salem, but I don't remember your name.  Give me a name."  "A name" is different from "YOUR name," so I said the first name that popped into my head:  "Zeke."  I have been Zeke ever since.  I have graduated college and graduate school as Zeke, I have been married as Zeke.  It has become my identity so completely that I am sure I will be buried as Zeke as well.

What are ten things you consider beautiful?

Trees

Wood

Making

Music

Community

Thoughtfulness (in the sense of being thoughtful about and aware of one's actions and words)

The music of the spheres (in the way that nothing is random, though they may seem so to our myopic selves.  Chemicals combine and planets move and plants grow and so do we in ways that follow such beautifully connected sets of rules.)

Logic

Growth

Teaching

What’s the story behind one item you carry in your purse/pocket?

When I was ten, my parents gave me a pocketknife for my birthday.  With it was a letter, and three decades and more later I remember the first two lines, written in my mother's lovely, regular, slanting long-hand:   "We are giving you two gifts for your birthday:  One is this knife, and the other is a gift of trust."  It was my first ever pocketknife, and since then I have never felt right without one.  I feel antsy flying these days because I can't carry my pocketknife with me. That first one was a Swiss Army knife, which I lost backpacking a few years later.  Since then I have carried a succession of pocketknives every day.  I do not like the big ones that look like they are made to be used as weapons, because I have no desire to use it as such.  This is a tool, an edge tool that is used for slicing fruit and opening letters, for cutting packing tape or as a quick impromptu wood scraper in the shop, if there is not one near by.  It opens boxes and cuts a slice off of a hunk of cheese, it sharpens pencils to a crisper point than one could get out of a pencil sharpener.  In fact, the smallest blade on this one, called a “pen knife” I keep especially sharp just for sharpening pencils.

I use this knife to make a particular point with my students.  We talk a lot about value in my classes, about how we ascribe value and how we measure it.  I like to take out this little knife, made in the fifties by the Imperial Knife Company in Providence, Rhode Island.  I tell them that it belonged to my Grandfather and that he gave it to me before he died, and I ask them about value.  How would they ascribe value to it?  Them I put it back in my pocket and take it out again.  I say, “Look at this knife I got at the flea market.  I only paid three dollars for it, but it’s pretty good.”  I ask again about value.  The object does not change, the materials and the materiality do not change, but the context is everything.  So it is a useful tool in a lot of ways.

Since that very first pocketknife on my tenth birthday, I have never yet had the perfect pocketknife.  I have had several good ones, but none has been the Platonically ideal tool.  I keep looking for it, which is another way that it is useful:  It reminds me about the human search for perfection.  It is a good way to stay humble.

From the GIVER/Kamilah, in relation to the gift:

I think objects are always great portals into memory and often become metaphors that symbolize experience. I loved how he presented himself and I wanted to reflect that lyrically in a poem.

[What stood out is] how much you can sense someone with very little information.

From the RECIEVER/Zeke, in response to the gift:

[I’m] Floored.  It is so beautiful, and pointed and apt.  Really a fantastic piece, and one that I treasure.  It is printed out and hangs on the wall in my shop now.

[This project is significant because of its] encouragement to fail, to try new things.

ANNOTATIONS FROM THE RESEARCHERS:

One of the potential challenges in assembling a diverse community of artists within a single project is a concern about how some artistic forms appear to be more equipped than others to create meaning across distance. Poems are contemplative, language-based offerings, yet having known Kamilah since high school I was confident in her ability to animate her offering and to respond wholeheartedly to this undertaking. Her inclusion of the recording of her reading the poem added an unexpected layer of dynamism and intimacy to this exchange. Additionally, per Zeke’s observance and the gift he made noted in the previous post, the participating artists are under no obligation to do what might be expected of them. Kamilah could have created a dance, a sculpture, a word-slam-sound-file, if that is how she felt compelled to respond to the dossier she received. That being said, her poem, filled with language that allows for multiple layers of meaning, directly and lyrically engages with several aspects of Zeke’s dossier.

 Sound File: HALO SONG, for Chehalis Hegner, composition by Zeke Leonard

“I don't think I've ever made a piece or art or even cooked a meal, or done anything that wasn't dedicated to another person in one way or another.”

-- Chehalis Hegner, reflecting on the “Audience of One” phenomenon.

This is five of nine posts sharing art and discovery from the inaugural round of Intimate Commissions, which took place in Summer 2016. Intimate Commissions is an exploration in artistic research in which artists create work for each other inspired by each other.

CHEHALIS HEGNER’S LYRICAL DOSSIER

How did you get your  name?

My parents had looked through tons of baby name books and were  at their wits end at the end of August in the year 1961.  Three days  before my birth, my mom (Betty) had her first glass of wine in 9 months as a  way of decompressing...or something! Feeling a bit tipsy she noticed the road  atlas on the coffee table in their Chicago basement apartment. She opened it,  closed her eyes and drunkenly dropped her finger on the state of Washington,  exclaiming: "let's call her that!"  Her finger landed on the Native  American town of Chehalis.

Over the years I was always told that my name meant "Shifting Sand"  but recently my husband did some research and discovered that my name  actually means "Beating Heart," which I like much better. When I  was a kid no one could say or remember my name, so I got the nickname  "Halo." [but that's another story...]

What are ten things you  consider beautiful?

1.  The scent of blooming lilacs at night at our farm.   Especially by moonlight.  2.  The moments behind a lens with another person and seeing their  aliveness...which connects me to God.  3.  Cantering bareback on a horse (though I haven't done this in many,  many years)  5. Witnessing seeds grow into harvestable sprouts in 10 days...doing all  kinds of gymnastics to reach the light. Just like us.  6.  Music. Intoxicating music.    7. When the west light streams into my farm studio -- it appears the color of  honey.  8.  The scent of Arthur's skin on his cheek, really close to his nose.  9.  Taking outdoor showers, looking onto the emerald fields at the side  of our dumpy yellow farmhouse.  10. When, all around us, the wild turkey's drop down from their pine tree  roosts --knocking down branches and creating a most confusing situation.  Surreal and most lovely, perhaps a once in a lifetime occurrence, but I can't  find them anymore when I look.

What's the story behind  one item you carry in your pocket/purse?

The item is a 1" button with text on it that says:  "Munchkin Nein."  It was given to me in Stithians, England by  the British Automata artist Paul Spooner. He and his wife Sue (and many other  neighbors in their little hamlet) lived for many years with a very icky pair  of neighbors. They were so awful that after the nasty couple moved out, the  neighborhood created an annual celebration commemorating the day of their  departure.  They make a button each year. I didn't get to go to the  party, but Paul gave me a button. This was for year number "nein."  I put it on my bag in January of 2015 and it's been there ever since...I  appreciate it because it reminds me of sweet, drunken, and wonderful times  with the Spooners ...and their excellent sense of humor.

FROM THE GIVER/ZEKE to the RECIEVER/CHEHALIS Your "10 Beautiful Things" list yielded such beautiful, evocative phrases I just used that as the generative material for this.  What fun!  I hope you enjoy, and that your face is always turned to that western sun!

FROM THE GIVER/ZEKE IN RELATION TO THE GIFT

It was daunting to make something for someone that I did not know. I usually have more time with people for whom I make, so it was a little nerve-wracking to have so little information.

I started out thinking that I would make my recipient an object, as objects are usually my stock in trade.  However, I am also currently working on a song-writing project, and the phrase in her dossier "shifting sands" was so evocative that I chose to follow that.  Crafting a song is similar and completely different form making an object, and the parallels were illuminating.

FROM THE RECEIVER/CHEHALIS IN RESPONSE TO THE GIFT:

I was SO moved by the experience. I felt a bit thrown off by the sense of this being FOR ME. I felt a bit shy listening to my song. The whole thing kinda melted something inside. I was also responding to the fact that no one has written me a song in many years. It reminded me that I am a songwriter too (albeit a very LONG hiatus). It got me thinking that it would be meaningful to make a return to music if I could find the time to do so. I wanted to call my person (Zeke) right away and say thank you, but I couldn't because of being on the road and such. As I said when I wrote this to you [Catherine and John], you have initiated a process that will be so good for the world, as it touches each individual. It also confirmed for me that I am not alone in my experience of "the audience of One." I don't think I've ever made a piece or art or even cooked a meal, or done anything that wasn't dedicated to another person in one way or another. It's the way that we say "I love you." I felt a bit constrained in making something for a person I didn't know, but that challenge felt so fresh and wonderful. I honestly feel I want to make something else for her because my attention was diverted in so many different directions at the time of making.

This whole thing felt "wholesome." There are so few experiences that involve strangers that are this lovely. There's usually so much song and dance before one gets to say "I love you."  I admit I struggle with trusting others from time to time...somehow not knowing who I was making my art gift for felt liberating -- because this project gave me the opportunity to care about someone I didn't know -- I still have to process more about why that was so meaningful to me, but it was.

 ANNOTATION from the RESEARCHERS

In one of the Big Ideas posts that served as prelude to sharing the work and commentary that emerged from the current Intimate Commissions project, I named several qualities that characterize work that is made for an Audience of One: devotion, communication, empathy, the cultivation of delight, pleasure, and emotional engagement. I suggested that the general impulses and intents of artmaking in general are thrown into high relief in an Audience of One context. Within the “blind date” nature of our Intimate Commissions structure, I wondered: “How many of the principles of audience of one will hold when all you know of your receiver is what you’ve learned from their responses to a lyrical three-point questionnaire?”

In light of that question, it’s interesting to note both Zeke’s challenge in making something for a stranger with “so little information,” and Chehalis’s welling of strong emotion in receiving the gift. Something moves across that barrier of not knowing the other person that makes evident the devotion, communication, and empathy that I wrote about. Zeke shifts from his first impulse to make an object, his “stock in trade,” to write a song instead, which makes a surprising link to Chehalis’s own dormant discipline of songwriting. I think the resulting connection is a combination of how much a maker really can perceive of a recipient through the simple, deep questions of the Lyrical Dossier and, as in reading omens or casting a tarot, the human penchant for reading significance into the random. We are the meaning-making species.

ORLANDO for Stephanie by Chehalis Hegner

“Is it even possible to give the sky to another?” -- An excerpt from Chehalis’s letter to Stephanie

Read the full letter here.

This is fourth of nine posts sharing art and discovery from the inaugural round of Intimate Commissions, which took place in Summer 2016. Intimate Commissions is a venture in artistic research in which artists create work for each other inspired by each other.

Stephanie Lavon Trotter’s LYRICAL DOSSIER:

How did you get your name?

Stephanie was one of the two names that my parents sought to name me, depending on my gender. Christopher was the other. Stephanie was also the name of the nurse practitioner who I would see in my youth at the pediatrician's clinic, a colleague of our doctor, Dr. Harlor, who I saw until I was eighteen. I guess my mother thought she was a good person. She met her through her first pregnancy with my older brother. It is strange to be named after someone like that, someone in your life's periphery.

Lavon is a family name. It is a joke that everyone's middle name is Lavon. I share it with my cousin, Lindsey Lavon, my mother, Jill Lavon, and my grandmother, Hazel Lavon, who went by H. Lavon because she didn't like the name Hazel. And this is a lovely memory because it beckons the voices of my great aunts talking about my grandmother, calling her Lavon.

Trotter is my father's name, taken by my mother. The Trotter's litter the Oregon coast, and the southern Willamette Valley. I continue to be a Trotter in my marriage, but that is another story.

What are 10 things you consider beautiful?

The depths of Friendship.

Joy or contentment expressed on a face.

The immensity of the natural world.

Hand-holding.

Silence.

Very old buildings/structures/architecture.

Scent of the outdoors, particularly: cedar, fir, or oak moss.

Agricultural land, that creates patchwork designs and stretch for acres.

Tears.

Sound/music that stirs emotion.

What’s the story behind one item you carry in your purse/pocket?

Pocket-sized notebook. I'm getting a little worried about getting older, this quality of aging and health that begins to pull at one's memory. I long for old things: for hand-writing letters, talking with the mail carrier, keeping a paper date book, leaving the house without being tracked down, and sitting without the hum of electronics or the impulse to stare at my phone. I'm feeling overwhelmed by time and how drastically it is divided equally among demanding parcels, the least amount for me and art and love. This notebook holds the momentary thinking and scribbles of my brain, as scattered and random as the notes on the page. This notebook reminds me of the things that I love, and need, and desire, and wish. This notebook, like most, is becoming an artifact of this current collection of moments in my life.

From the GIVER/Chehalis about her gift to the RECEIVER/Stephanie:

There really was no lengthy internal discussion about it. It was just "yes!"

From the RECEIVER/Stephanie in response to the gift:

It is precious. How can it not be? I was gifted something, something invaluable. Something made just for me, about and from me. But also beyond me. It was a connecting point between two strangers, and our respective life experiences. My gift responds not only to the things I deem beautiful, and a sense of me, but evokes the World, the ominous future, the solitary sense of humanity, a common struggle and uncertainty. It is comforting and infinitely extraordinary as an art-object. To others it might seem like a photograph, but to me it is deeply personal.

I wanted to participate in INTIMATE COMMISSIONS because I have a personal interest in investigating the audience I create for, an audience of One; the word “Intimate”; creating work based on constraints or directives designed by another, time-frames/deadlines; and reconceptualizing (or maybe intending) my practice and work as a Gift instead of Commodity or Accolade.

ANNOTATION from the RESEARCHERS:

As we delve further and further into the process of publicly sharing these Art Presents, my awareness of the level of intimacy expressed within them deepens. Additionally, how this intimacy is expressed in increasingly diverse forms.

Here, layers of intimacy and personalization abound. Not just in Chehalis’s inclusion of her son as a model for art-present but her four page, handwritten letter to Stephanie about the image, the process of making it, and the maker herself.

Additional resonances include how this letter was written in a notebook, subtly echoing Stephanie’s annotated object: the notebook she carries to write down random, vital thinkings, a flashback to old-school practices so often lost in our digital age. The expanse of the photograph paired with the detail of the letter; the attempt to include a sky, and how it must be a very specific sky; the evocation of an entire other, “Christopher,” who Stephanie would have been if she had been born a boy (and who is to say she is not in some ways now this person, regardless); the capacity of art to allow us to express and become another – all these things encompass the unbound nature of this kind of commission.

Both these giving and receiving artists have an interest in pursuing the precious. Not the treacly precious that has us coo and awwww insincerely, but the precious that really is about acknowledgement, individuality, the singularity of a moment in time, the specificity of one’s efforts and the courage of another’s expression. Both artists are representing the fleeting nature of any moment, and art in its best articulation attempts to capture moment, to materialize the ephemeral, of our selves, our feelings, thoughts, experiences.

Stephanie mentions her wish as participant in this project to reconceptualize her work and practice as gift instead of commodity or accolade. What Chehalis created for her accomplishes a reconceptualization of Stephanie herself, made manifest in a gift, as expansive, encompassing, imagined, inspirational.

Sound File: FOR NICOLE Composition by Stephanie Lavon Trotter

 “Stillness: Need it, seek it; think it is a game changer within creative chaos.”

--Nicole Salimbene, one of ten things she considers beautiful, as described in her Lyrical Dossier

This is third of nine posts sharing art and discovery from the inaugural round of Intimate Commissions, which took place in Summer 2016. Intimate Commissions is an exploration in artistic research in which artists create work for each other inspired by each other.

NICOLE SALIMBENE’S LYRICAL DOSSIER

How  did you get your name?

I am named after a soap opera character who was on The Edge of Night in 1969. My mother,  an unwed 19-year-old college student, lived with her parents and attended a  small junior college in Southern Colorado. On the night my mother and father  were going to tell her parents that she was pregnant, my father decided to  take off for Canada to dodge his draft notice for Vietnam. He made it half  way before he decided to turn around, return to his parents’ home, and answer  the call. Instead of Vietnam, he ended up in Korea doing a desk job for his  two-year term. During my mother’s pregnancy, she and my grandmother watched a  lot of soap operas together. They decided they liked the name, Nicole, as well  as her character, which they said was strong.

What  are ten things you consider beautiful?

1. Grace: In all its forms. But I find it most beautiful when it  comes as an    unexpected and unrequested gift that is beyond  imagination.    2. Joy: Seeing it in others, sharing it, feeling it. Joy is more than  happiness—when joy is able to be present even within sadness—to me that is  beautiful to witness and to experience.    3. Silliness: Joy so great that it can’t be contained, so it morphs into  silliness—wacky unself-conscious fun.    4. Wabi-Sabi: Japanese concept—beauty in what is imperfect, decaying or  transient.    5. Nature: Everything about it—wild and tailored. I especially think vast  open spaces are beautiful—the desert or any vista that allows me to see far  into the distance.    6. People with courage and wisdom: When people recognize they are being  called and are able to act from their heart even if they are fearful and  vulnerable.    7. Containers: Anything that is held with intention.    8. Elegance: When all the details clearly express the essence.    9. Stillness: Need it, seek it; think it is a game changer within creative  chaos.    10. Love.

What's  the story behind one item you carry in your pocket/purse?

In December, I started carrying a small bell, first in my pocket  and now in my purse.  A dear friend suggested it to me after telling her  how busy and overwhelmed I was feeling. She suggested I carry the small bell  to remind me to be still, even just for a second—a sonic reminder to find the  still space within.

FROM THE GIVER/STEPHANIE to the RECIEVER/NICOLE

Nicole, I hope that this gift can be another sonic reminder to find the still space within, even as it moves and flows around and throughout you. Thank you for this gift –to be inspired by you– to create something.

FROM GIVER/STEPHANIE IN RELATION TO THE GIFT

As I meditated on these words, reading them over and over again, I began to recall certain words or things. I was also thinking in terms of my form and practice; sound and improvised sonic responses. Naturally, a sonic object--a bell--became my fixation and I built a sound piece around that, and an overall desire to create (as I do for all of my audiences) a personal sense of Space and Time.

FROM THE RECEIVER/NICOLE IN RESPONSE TO THE GIFT:

It was funny because I had recently asked a sound artist in my studio building to work on a bell piece for me to use in one of my installations. We have sort of dropped the project for the time, since I am not sure yet how to use it. Receiving a soundscape as a response to my lyrical dossier confirmed for me that I really need to spend time with the element of sound in my life and in my work.

 ANNOTATION from the RESEARCHERS

As Stephanie’s gift to Nicole goes out to a wider public, I have a recommendation for receiving it. Before settling down to listen, you might commit first to the thing it will provide, as Stephanie describes it in her paraphrase of Nicole, which is “to find the still space within, even as it moves and flows around and throughout you.” You might listen with headphones or ear buds, for optimal sound quality and focus. Slow down first and then listen, and let its ambient, shifting, sustained and gently swelling soundscape remind you that most of the voice of a bell speaks after it is struck, and that the ringing of human song is actually the resonance of the cavities of the body – literally the spaces within us.

This gift prompts me to two speculations and two stories, which I’m able to share because I’m lucky to know both of the individuals in this Intimate Commissions pair, even though they didn’t know each other before this exchange.

I.               I wonder if the thing we need most as a gift is that which we have a rich capacity to give to others but have trouble imparting to ourselves. I say this because the thing that Nicole suggests she needs, that “reminder to be still, even if just for a second,” is something I know her to be richly capable of delivering to others. She does this through the contemplative qualities of her art (see her gift for Desmond in the previous post) and through the wonderful workshops she leads connecting the practice of visual art making to meditation and reflection. She builds ritual into these workshops, which always entail use of thoughtfully chosen art materials and inspirations. And when she needs to signal participants to wrap up their work or change focus, she doesn’t raise her voice to call out to us; she strikes a singing bowl – the same sound source we hear in Stephanie’s composition. Literally and figuratively, Stephanie has given to Nicole the thing that Nicole offers out so generously.

II.             We think a lot about shaping a gift to the wants, needs, and tastes of the receiver. At least I do, and it tends to hang me up and make my gift-giving stressful. I puzzle over whether I truly know my closest intimates in my attempts to figure out what they would want and fear that my gift will fall flat. But I wonder if the best gifts are those that are also true to the giver. A case in point is Stephanie, because her soundscape for Nicole is so true to her own art as I know it, encompassing her wisdom of the power of sound and concerns for holistic practice.

HOLY WATER, created by Nicole Salimbene for Desmond Beach

“I often think about him, and hope that his wishes and dreams and goals are coming to pass.”

-- Desmond Beach, excerpted from his Lyrical Dossier

This is second of nine posts sharing art and discovery from the inaugural round of Intimate Commissions, which took place in Summer 2016. Intimate Commissions is a venture in artistic research in which artists create work for each other inspired by each other.

Desmond Beach’s LYRICAL DOSSIER:

How did you get your name?

My father’s first cousin was looking through a name book and suggested my first name to my mother. My father and my father’s father and me all share the same middle name: Turner.

What are 10 things you consider beautiful?

The look on a child's face

My grandmother's hands

My mother's smile

A rainy day

The sunlight during the Fall season

The ocean and lakes

People participating in worship services

The color blue

Cultural ceremonies/rituals (i.e. funerals/weddings)

Witnessing someone create (i.e. an artist, a chef, a baker, or a dancer dance)

 What’s the story behind one item you carry in your pocket/purse?

I attended a conference for high school teachers and students. I went to one session that was about making a ripple in your pond or lake. The participants were broken down into groups based on gender and race. We were asked to hold a rock in our hand and to make-a-wish and then place it in the middle of the circle. Once everyone had placed their rock in the center, we were then asked to take a rock of someone else. I selected a rock of a 15 or 16-year-old male student. We were asked to take the rock as a gesture of support for their wish or goal. I have been carrying around this young man's rock for the past six years. I often think about him and hope that his wishes and dreams and goals are coming to pass.

From the GIVER/Nicole about her gift to the RECEIVER/Desmond:

I responded emotionally [to the dossier], since I felt connected to the responses on a personal level. There was one particular connection that took my thinking in a more personal direction than I would have thought I would bring to the piece, which I loved.

From the RECEIVER/Desmond in response to the gift:

I was blown away by it. It totally connected to my sensibilities of rituals and symbolism. I was not expecting what I received. I don't even know what I was expecting to receive.

[INTIMATE COMMISSIONS is] an exploration in making connections with someone you have not physically met.

ANNOTATION from the RESEARCHERS

Not knowing Desmond or Nicole, either personally or through their work, it is a compelling task to sit with their identities, ideas and output via this forum and consider various connections and parallels. Certainly the detail and intricacy of Nicole’s sculpture speaks to references to rituals and rocks in Desmond’s dossier. But what strikes me more is the challenge this project outlines in making something meaningful for someone potentially wholly unfamiliar. The dossier ideally provides ample material from which to create art, but also to create art that might be meaningful both to GIVER and RECEIVER. For me, the story of Desmond’s receipt of the rock/hope/wish of an unknown young man, his continued carriage of said rock, resonated most. Nicole’s use of this detail is entirely hers, allowing expansion and reflection within her practice and herself.

I interpret Desmond’s statement, “I don’t even know what I was expecting to receive,” to reflect an awareness of the depth of possibility in a project like this, and a realization that it is impossible to predict the actions of another. A kind of spacious subjectivity sets in. We cannot help but look at another’s dossier, artwork, etc., through our own lens. And yet, if this project eases the tightness with which we might unknowingly cling to that lens, the capacity for surprise, for pleasure, appreciation and dialogue grows in us.

Below, details from HOLY WATER

Video created by Desmond Beach for Rayer Ma

“A miracle ointment to rub on my temples, tiger balm is my secret remedy for all sorts of daily discomforts. No matter how far I go, I can’t help smelling like my mom. A scent is a gift, an invisible presence that spreads and heals.”

--Rayer Ma, adapted from her Lyrical Dossier

This is first of nine posts sharing art and discovery from the inaugural round of Intimate Commissions, which took place in Summer 2016. Intimate Commissions is a venture in artistic research in which artists create work for each other inspired by each other.

RAYER MA’s LYRICAL DOSSIER

How  did you get your name?

My sister was just starting to play the  piano when my mom was pregnant with me, about the same time The Sound of  Music was getting popular on TV in China. The resounding Do-Re-Mi gave my  mother the idea to name her second child with the second note of the scale,  Ray, “a drop of golden sun.” Coincidentally, the lyric also draws a phonetic  connection with my sister’s name containing the character “Sang” (pronounced  as sun-g). In Chinese, the character Rui (Ray) denotes auspiciousness and  heavenly fortune. I am hoping to live up to the name, to all blessings that  went into my birth despite the one-child policy, to my parents’ will to live  against the institution, to earn faith and respect for their own destiny.

What  are ten things you consider beautiful?

Butter and jam; summer fruits; airplanes on  night skies; deep sea; moss and boulders; fresh clay on river beds; thoughts;  tantra paintings; morning fog; silence.

What's  the story behind one item you carry in your pocket/purse?

I always carry a small jar of tiger balm  with me wherever I go. A miracle ointment to rub on my temples when I get a  headache, to dab lightly near my nostrils for stuffy days, and to slather  behind my neck for a soothing breeze, the tiger balm is my secret remedy for  all sorts of daily discomforts, a staple among my other herbal concoctions.  Overtime, friends begin to associate my scent with the cool, minty smell of  tiger balm. Some even became converts, reaching out to me at moments in need  of sensorial clarity. Proud of my many original essential oil mixes, I am  secretly disgruntled that tiger balm, one that I didn’t make, ends up  standing out and is coming to represent me. With the same degree of  triviality, I remember as a child complaining about my mom’s tiger balm that  always perfumes the air about her. Truth is, now I am taking her place and  continuing her tradition. I can’t leave home at ease without that gold-lid  jar in my pocket. I can’t refuse to identify with something I need the most  and has always come to my rescue. Living abroad away from home, I have  travelled much farther than my parents, gone to places they never had the  luxury to experience. But no matter how far I go, I can’t help smelling like  my mom. People say you can’t smell yourself. It must be true; I no longer  notice the tiger balm when I put it on. Thanks to my friends who remind me  from time to time, I know now that the comfort I wear is not to be taken for granted.  A scent is a gift, an invisible presence that spreads and heals. It’s a gift  to be like mom.

FROM THE GIVER/DESMOND to the RECEIVER/RAYER

Hello Rayer, I had a great time creating your gift. I hope you enjoy what I have made for you. I tried to capture the ideas of childhood memories with your mom and the mystical powers of tiger balm. While working on your present, I kept thinking of the relationship I have with my mom and the things I do because of her habits and nature. Peace and Blessings, Desmond

FROM THE RECEIVER/RAYER IN RESPONSE TO THE GIFT:

My gift seems to have a very specific purpose and aesthetic (of meditation) and I really appreciated my maker for creating that space. I was pretty confused though because there weren't any instructions so I didn't know how I should approach the video. It happened so that when I was opening the gift, I wasn't in the right place to sink into the mood and atmosphere it is trying to create. I wish I had known how to enter the gift.

ANNOTATION from the RESEARCHERS

As we’ve received the artworks created in this initial round of Intimate Commissions, it’s been interesting to note how the maker’s inspiration usually draws more strongly on one of the of the three Lyrical Dossier responses over the other two, though which one varies. In making a video for Rayer, Desmond directly references the Tiger Balm in her “item you carry” story, but some of the mood of moss and fog and wet clay among her “beautiful things” also seems present.

Though our matches of givers and receivers were intentional, they tended to be more intuitive than analytical. In light of that, it has been interesting for Catherine and me to observe the connections that emerge between the artists we paired. Knowing Desmond a little bit, I was surprised to discover that video (one of Rayer’s disciplines) was among his media, and how the looping, layered sequencing created an impressionistic, absorbing time/space not so distant from Rayer’s own work. Is it synchronicity, an outcome of our curatorial choice, or a reflection of the empathy that emerges through a gift-making intention and the maker’s focus on the Dossier responses?

Rayer’s response raises some interesting questions as we think about the nature of art as gift exchange. While a gift can be lived with and enjoyed repeatedly, the moment of receiving happens only once. Do we need preparation and, as Rayer suggests, instructions for that moment? We take focused time to make a gift, what focus do we place around receiving? How might giver and receiver both contribute to that moment and what can we do as curators to nurture it?

An oft-annotated object of mine: an outdated iPhone 4 with cover art by one of my nephews.

Each participant in this round of Intimate Commissions filled out a LYRICAL DOSSIER and responded to the LYRICAL DOSSIER of another participating artist. These LYRICAL DOSSIERS contained three precise but open-ended questions:

1)    How did you get your name?

2)    What are 10 things you consider beautiful?

3)    What’s the story behind one item you carry in your pocket/purse?

John and I chose these three questions deliberately. We have individually and collectively used them as prompts in other work and noted how fruitful they can be. The challenge with INTIMATE COMMISSIONS was how to settle upon what information to collect and share about the participating artist such that the making/responding artist has juicy, inspirational, evocative content to consider. These three questions lend themselves to a certain kind of storytelling as well as a lyrical stepping into an encapsulation of self.

Our first question is a variation on one that investigative playwright Anna Deavere Smith often cites as certain to elicit a story from practically anyone, “Do you know the circumstances of your birth?” Focusing in on the name seems to particularize and personalize the query even more. Every name contains a story, even the supposedly simplest anecdotes. Monikers carry weight, are entry points into our identity.

By no means do the 10 things we consider beautiful define us, and they likely change from day to day. However, they provide a lens into how we might engage with the world: see it, respond to it, articulate its bounty. This listing offers a multitude of particulars from which worlds can stem.

Annotating an item from your pocket/purse is like a mini anthropological dig. It is often not so much the object that matters, though they range from the seemingly ordinary to the profound. It is the presenting artist’s relationship to the thing that matters more than the thing itself. We learn about you when you tell us about how you carry around your 2nd grade library card, long tattered and expired, or the cell phone case covered with the art of your seven year old nephew, or the rock from the pond where you went skinny-dipping last summer.

This layering translates into what the work we make tells the world about us. Our offerings ideally lend themselves toward a dialogue regarding identity, interest, purpose, appreciation. A great deal can be shared in a simple annotation about a rock. I begin to understand what you value, treasure, preserve.

John and I have also long shared an interest in how the mundane is elevated into the extraordinary, a particular gift of the artist. Via storytelling, presentation, context, etc., lint can become a transformative material, resurrected from its common status as discarded detritus. A tiny plastic horse can embody the dreams and conundrums of its animator.

Catherine and I have been deliberate in naming our current project “Intimate Commissions.” I explored the “intimate” dimension three weeks ago in my post about the power of the audience of one. What about that word “commissions”?

I acquired my way of thinking about commissions through my long association with Liz Lerman. Over her career as a choreographer she has made plenty of works that were driven by her own intrinsic motivation: passion for a subject, the imperative to address a question, or the drive to explore the implications of a particular artistic technique or structure. At the same time she credits commissions for taking her work and methods to places they may never have gone otherwise. Commissions are extrinsic; an outside entity requests a work that addresses a topic or meets a need: Create a project for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, that brings us together to understand the role of our Shipyard in the civic and economic life of the city; for the 60th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials, make a dance that examines the power and limits of international justice to address human atrocities; you’ve made a piece about genetics – now please make one about physics. Because they deviated from the path that Liz thought she was on, such requests often became the springboard into fresh discoveries and new creative phases.

The power of commissions, assignments, and directives in my own artistic life has been palpable and constant. The first assignment I received from my first photography teacher was to make a self-portrait, a prompt that set my path for years to come. The opportunity in 2010 to be paired with a writer to make art for the gallery show, “This Is Our Body,” led to a complex and sometimes uncomfortable exploration with many new elements: managing collaboration, working with words unlike any I would devise or even choose if left to my own devices, staging thrift store underwear in public places, and encountering the pamphlet as art structure. Most recently, Catherine’s directives helped me expand into video, play with new combinations of text and drawing, and to push how tiny or minimal I could make my work. All of these effects were due to the power of outside influence.

Intrinsic motivation has been studied and affirmed as an important factor in education and creative development. Autonomy and a sense of personal agency will usually trump external incentives in driving people to achievement. But I believe there’s a complementary power to the extrinsic, most often manifest in the way a commission can motivate you to go in directions you wouldn’t have anticipated. It is this power that Catherine and I discovered in our own directive exchanges and are seeking to tap through the basic premise of the Intimate Commissions project, where another artist’s answers to three evocative questions (focus of our next post) become the basis of a new creation.

As we asked ourselves why directives had had such a potent effect on us, Catherine identified their unique influence as the challenge to artistic practice. Commissions, of course, leverage us to reach for the external to meet the expectations of an outside agency. But simultaneously they impel us to reach deeper into our own modes of working and thinking, perhaps because these practices are all we really know in the face of a commission that someone else has dreamed up. Leaning into practice to help us find an answer to an extrinsic call helps us understand and better define the tools, the values, and the preferences that are unique to us. Through commissions we both stretch our scope and deepen our command of the voice that is distinctively ours.

Ultimately there’s a place where the intrinsic meets the extrinsic. Liz Lerman says that when you learn to listen, commissions are everywhere. Each new encounter or unfamiliar experience can suggest an artistic engagement or aesthetic response. Perhaps this is not so different from the spiritual leaders who tell us that each being we encounter, even those that are difficult or challenging, can be a teacher or guru to us.  It also suggests a kind of artistic entrepreneurial thinking, as you recognize the needs of the world, the scope of art, and your own potential in bringing them together. You hone your sensitivity to extrinsic influence as you gain command of your innate practice.  

Image: From Body Tracts, a collaboration between John Borstel and Greta Ehrig, commissioned for “This Is Our Body,” 2010.

#john

#Intimate commissions

VOYAGE - Triptych - A John Borstel + Catherine Mueller Collaboration

This past week, I was having tea with a dear friend and colleague from the UK, here in the US to pursue some artistic research for upcoming performance projects. We vigorously discussed many topics during our time together, one of which being the absurdity of certain performing artist grant applications. We noted that these applications, often written and evaluated by non-artists, were particularly focused on the GOALS of our projects, and if we could not articulate, predict, or justify clear goals, our projects were not deemed eligible for funding.

I’ve noted the challenge of this in multiple conversations with John as well. It’s not that artistic work doesn’t have goals, that artists are a bunch of experiential dilettantes running around doing for the sake of doing. It’s that artistic work often begins with questions that then lead to answers. What these answers are at the start of a process are often unpredictable and therefore difficult to articulate. We can only speculate, and if our speculation doesn’t match the specific tenor of a governing body’s expectations, if we cannot guarantee our outcomes, we are set aside for someone who appears to have a clear, present and assured purpose.

My British friend and I lamented this weird equating of Art with Goal, and how art doesn’t create goals in the typical way we define them. My art will eliminate poverty! My art will eradicate injustice! My art will teach you about misogyny, history, farming, peace, war, sexuality and/or beekeeping! My art has such purpose!

Instead, art lives in a bit of a blurrier space, one that intentionally allows for interpretation, dialogue, consideration, reflection, and emotional responses including joy, laughter, pathos, surprise, outrage, and quiet.  A space where expression, form, aesthetic, language (visual, physical, textural, textual, musical, etc.) is important. Art is as much often about the journey as it is about   the arrival. The governing bodies of academia, Broadway, publishers, institutions, galleries and museums prize and capitalize on the outcomes of our experiments, and as we have each said many times before, these accomplishments are not to be disregarded, but are also not to be toted as the only evaluators of an artist’s worth, impact or effort.

One of the most treasured aspects of this collaboration with John is its prioritizing of this process oriented space. It has bled into nearly everything else I do, most notably IFCAP and the PLABORATORY. It influences how I talk about acting to my acting students, how I guide other artists through project development and artistic discernment.

While our collaboration focuses on process, we do not then simply neglect outcomes. We’ve made a lot of interesting and exciting things during our time together. Instead, we allow that multiple outcomes are possible via our proposals, alleviating the pressure so often felt to get it right or solve the problem or prove ourselves with each effort. Process can be product. We simply have to loosen the paradigm that so firmly grips our consciousness.

Intimate Commissions is a structure designed to engage in both process and outcome. It is not all about the THING YOU MAKE. It is also about how you make it, how making whatever you make from the specific inspirational resource you have at the start (plus the multitude of resources you already contain via your ongoing practice) informs your previous, present and future making by way of reflection and opportunities for self-awareness.

Throughout our directive exchanges, personal growth abounds between John and myself, individually and collectively, as we have come to treasure and trust the other’s sense of what we make and how we might challenge, embrace and expand that making in ourselves and in each other via our collaboration.

We are curious what collaboration affords the individuals engaged in it. Intimate Commissions distills the possibilities of collaboration into a single exchange as a way of illuminating what might be possible when we really step into a dialogic space and how diverse yet still informative dialogue can be.

The outcome is not sacrificed in this arrangement, but the artist isn’t either.

Catherine and I will soon be sharing the results of our inaugural Intimate Commissions project, in which nine artists have signed on to create work inspired by the “lyrical dossier” of one of their fellow participants. This venture has its roots in a series of directive exchange projects that we created for ourselves, starting in graduate school and continuing for two additional rounds, as documented on this blog (see #TinyCulture and #directive exchange). The core principles of these directive exchanges were a collaborative of two, personalized assignments created with the idea of inspiring or prodding our partner, and the fulfillment of these directives with the idea that, while others might eventually witness the outcomes, the source of the assignment was also the primary audience. An audience of one.

In the course of this research, we somewhat stumbled into this idea of audience of one, which emerged as one of the more powerful aspects of the exchanges and one we wanted to replicate and extend in designing Intimate Commissions.

As we stumbled, audience of one felt like a discovery, but it is an old, old idea, which probably goes back the very beginnings of people making things. I suspect that art in the intimate form of offerings made by one person for a single other may be just as old as art in the broader communal context, if not older. Whether it manifests as a pair of hand-knit mittens that warm both by their physical properties and as talismans of the giver/maker’s nurturing love, or as the sonnets of Shakespeare, which gain their intimate voice from the fact that they were evidently composed in the context of intense personal relationship, the audience of one phenomenon is both a universal human experience and a microcosm for the power of art and making in general.

What makes it powerful? Audience of one focuses intent. The maker who knows they have the undivided attention of a recipient, and who channels their own attention to the act of making within an interpersonal context, commits an act of devotion that can operate above the noise of the bigger crowd, the culture, the marketplace.

To make something for one other person offers a certainty of context that highlights the possibilities of meaning, and the communicative dimensions of making. Every relationship has its unique terms of mutual regard and affinity. Audience of one commands empathic expression within these terms.

Audience of one actively seeks to move, please, and delight. Our giving is contingent on the other’s receiving and so we strive to cultivate reception by eliciting the positive response of the receiver. The gift is more than the object; it is the sensation that the object inspires in both giver and getter. Audience of one functions in keen awareness of this sensation.

What qualities have I just named? Devotion, communication, empathy, the cultivation of reception, delight, pleasure, emotional engagement. None of these qualities is unique to the context of a one-on-one art offering. Indeed, they might be useful aspirations for any kind of art or any size of audience. But the audience of one context offers a unique intersection for playing them out and for intensely focusing them. Audience of one is the impulses and intents of art-making thrown into high relief.

Interdisciplinaryness is inaugurating a unique project: INTIMATE COMMISSIONS. This combination of potluck, Secret Santa exchange, and online art salon has engaged a select group of artists to each create a work in response to an autobiographical LYRICAL DOSSIER supplied by one of their peers in the group. The artists are diverse across form, discipline and geography. They have just received these commissions and are now in an exciting period of MAKING that will produce a collective body of work and process soon to be featured on this blog.

The savvy InterD reader may recall that this project was first envisioned in 2015 in response to a Call for Action by Apex Arts. A proposal was submitted but ultimately not selected for support from Apex.  However, since that time, it has gathered momentum in our minds as a proposal of merit, facilitating further investigation into key precepts that inform our making here at Interdisciplinaryness: Witness, play, and the power of the audience of one. It also presents ample opportunities for fun and connection to many other art-makers throughout the world.

Please stay tuned to INTERDISCIPLINARYNESS over the next few months as we offer further background and philosophy of INTIMATE COMMISSIONS and share the work, process, and reflections of the participating artists.

I use the word critique a lot. In my work with Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process, I often call on it to label the general category of activities for giving response to art and other things people make. I’ll also use it to name the activity central to arts learning where makers put their work forward for reaction and dialogue that advances understanding of technique, process, and aesthetics.

Some people flinch at the words critical, criticism, and critique, and clearly anything with that “crit” root can be problematic. Crit literally sounds like a whip cracking, and its family of words seems so associated with sting and shame of fault-finding. Others parse the variations among these words, citing criticism more as negative opinion-giving, critique as something measured, analytical, context-conscious, and theory-based. Criticism bad; critique good. Okay – but I’m getting a feeling we may have a vocabulary problem.

A contrasting vocabulary is the idea of formative and summative assessment, terms I’ve been hearing as I work increasingly with partners in the education field. Central to formative assessment is the idea that the making, learning, and teaching are all in process and the act of looking at work and responding to it are integrated on the path toward a final outcome, (which can then be measured through summative assessment). Formative assessment is geared toward improved learning and teaching with the idea that the maker will return to do more work on the project under consideration informed by what they’ve discovered.

Central, then, to the idea of formative assessment is the notion of work in progress. That’s an idea I’m passionate about. It’s true that sometimes the words “work in progress” are spoken with a tone of apology or condescension, the phrase used to describe an effort that falls short of our expectations or to beg indulgence for something incomplete or unresolved. But based on my experience with CRP, I’ve gained a very different perspective. Now when I hear the phrase I think about potent inquiry and the power of open process. I think about exhilaration of broad exploration and the freedom of not yet needing to have all the answers. Now when I hear “work in progress,” I actually think about progress.

I’m beginning to think that the word critique sets up some expectations that really defeat progress in the processes of shaping art work and learning. When, in my own teaching of photography, I say “we’ll do critique” then use Critical Response Process, my students at first seem disoriented, then disarmed, then energized by what this particular mode of dialogue and reflection offers them. Rather than a judgment of the work, the artist gets to hear the meanings it elicits. They have to formulate their own questions, and respond to specific questions others frame. What results is less a measuring and evaluation of the work in question than a continuation, an amplification even, of the creative process. It is actually more formative than critical.

Is combining text with photographs enough to make an artist an interdisciplinarian? No more than combining words and melodies as a songwriter does, or music and movement as choreographers usually do, or action, image, and script the way filmmakers do. And I guess that’s my point: there are many art forms that are thought of as “single discipline,” in which lone artists or groups of collaborators actually use the synthesis of forms, with their contrasting modalities of thought and expressive power, to create works that are potently communicative. Interdisciplinary? All of the above.

Text and photos are especially on my mind these days because I am teaching another round of my Works and Pictures course at Glen Echo Photoworks. I’m rediscovering the truth that I always encounter when I immerse myself at this intersection: When combining text with images there’s no one sure formula or simple set of protocols that makes it work. Many different successful approaches can produce vastly varied outcomes, as is demonstrated by the five artists I asked my students to consider emulating for their assignment last week:  

Lalla Essaydi (see image at top of post) is a Moroccan artist who stages images in which Arabic script covers every visible surface: walls, clothing, human skin . The medium is henna, and the message is about the transgressions of male and female domains into one another in a gender-compartmentalized society.

Duane Michals challenged, then altered, the standards of photography in the 60’s and 70’s, reintroducing staging, narrative, and beyond-the-frame speculation into the form. He often writes titles, poetry, and stories directly onto the borders of his prints, always with more-than-the-sum-of-the-parts results.

Martin Wilson painstakingly shoots film to build sequential texts that add up to image/language poetry.

Clarissa Sligh spans time, form, and memory in work that often draws on family or historic photographs. Photo, book, installation, sourced texts, original writing, artist, audience: all the borders are blurred.

Tony Mendoza puts stories under photos. Each could stand alone, but the effect is compounded in work that is cocky, humorous, and poignant.