Body in Words

In the process

2012-03-04T13:04:00.001-08:00

"Art is a privilege, a blessing, a relief." Louise Bourgeois

In the past, I believed that I needed to make art in order to survive. That sounds kind of dramatic, but for a time it felt true. I haven’t felt this way for a while and this change has left me to wonder why I choose to continue to make art. It is certainly a difficult path with few worldly rewards. Hmmm… worldly rewards. Perhaps that helps to answer the question right there. I have never been someone who is motivated by many of the things that push people through life like money, fame etc., so it makes sense that these things would have little importance in my drive to make art. So, if it’s not a matter of life and death and its not a matter of worldly validation, what is it?

Fortunately, after rolling this question around in my mind for a while, I finally forgot about it and returned to my work. I decided to go back to my practice, but to return with a more open mind and less expectation. I chose not to work toward a particular exhibition or with any career strategy in mind, but rather just for the pure joy of the exploration. I haven’t worked in such an open and playful way in a very long time (probably not since I was a child) and it has put me back in contact with why I love being an artist so much, which is simply because I love the creative process.

A recent outcome of the art process in collaboration with Jorge Calvo

There is a lot of talk and speculation about creative process although I don’t think I have really understood and was able to define what it is for me until now. What I have found is that the process of making art is about exploring what it means to be alive and how I integrate and perceive the world. I am like a private investigator, poking around the crevices of life, taking notes in my mind and translating into images what is impossible to understand about being human and living in an animal and social existence simultaneously. Sounds lofty, no? Well, it really isn’t. I think, it is what most people think about on some level, but don’t consciously process. My mind and body just happen to go in this direction and it is a gift. It doesn’t need to be a matter of life and death nor compensated by the external world because the pure joy and fascination of the process is life itself.

"Art is a guarantee of sanity." Louise Bourgeois

So, on that note, I just wanted to share some pieces of my creative process. What constitutes an effective creative process is certainly different for everyone, but this is what I have found to be essential to me.

1. Being alone. This is not very glamorous and is not for everyone, but it seems to be one of the most fundamental pieces of my process right now. Being alone allows me to relax and gives me a chance to experience without having to think so logically. When I do, ideas bypass my conscious mind and come easily. The results are a lot stranger and more challenging than when I am trying to think of ideas. It can be hard to spend so much time alone, but I notice that it is exactly when it gets hard and I want to leave that things get interesting.

2. Dancing. This not only lifts my energy, but allows space for my body and mind to wander. I can access another part of myself in movement.

3. Talking to friends. Conversations with the right people support the development of ideas. Jorge is the person I speak to the most. He is very supportive, but even more importantly than that I learn a lot talking to him. He doesn’t only comment on my ideas, but expands my horizons.

4. Spacing out. This is hard for me to do because I always feel like I should be actively doing something, but doing “nothing” is one of the best ways to have ideas pop into my head. Spacing out can include: sleeping, watching Star Trek, taking a bath, staring out the window etc.

5. Working at home. At the moment, working at home has been incredibly beneficial. For the past few years, I have felt that I needed a studio- that I needed to get out- that I needed to go to a residency and these things have been beneficail at times, but right now, being in my comfortable home is bringing back to myself and my ideas

6. Consistency. Doing something everyday- no matter how small has made a huge difference. This started with doing a drawing a day a few months back as well as keeping this blog and dancing on a regular basis. Recently, I started doing a video a day and the energy the process just keeps getting stronger and more fluid.

Thanks for reading.
Be well,
Michele

Movement Language

2012-02-29T07:59:00.000-08:00

I have been having a lot of opportunities recently to communicate with people through movement rather than with language. As a society, we put a great deal of emphasis on the importance of spoken language. For the most part, I am a big fan of language and do believe that our ability to speak connects us to the world. In fact, I think our personalities are formed by how we use language or perhaps whatever personality we are born with creates the groundwork for how end up using language. In either case, our relationship with language is important, but what about the language of the body? Does our movement or lack there of play a part in who we are in the world and the ways we relate to others? Recent experiences have helped me to reconnect with the richness of this kind of communication.

I have a group of friends that I meet with every few weeks and we talk, a bit, but mostly we experiment with movement as a way to express ourselves and relate to each other. This past week we met and I was fascinated to see the difference between how we relate to each other when we speak as opposed to when we move.

When I met my friends this past week we began by talking. I remember seeing a lot of worry in one friend’s face. She was distressed by a relationship in her life and spoke about that. I remember thinking that her body looked tense and she seemed distant. Another friend said that things were going really well for her although she looked kind of miserable, another tactic that people tend to rely on to get by in life and another friend was engaged in the being “super busy and doing a million things at once” paradigm, yet another survival technique that doesn’t do much for interpersonal connection. Personally, I didn’t want to be there in the first place and felt a big detached. We talked a bit although the words seemed to only to take everyone deeper into our personal distractions. Ultimately, we were just a bunch of disconnected satellites sitting in the same room.

After a bit of muddling around and general confusion, we decided to focus on a newer member of our group and create a kind of welcoming ritual for her. We all sat on the floor and I decided to put my back against this member’s back to give her some support. From this position I wasn’t able to see anyone else in the group, but as the music played I just swayed with my friend and let myself relax. After a while I turned around to see what the rest of the group was doing and I was amazed. This once stressed out and fragmented group of women were now a pulsating collection of energy flowing together. Their faces had completely changed and their energy shifted. All the thinking, worries, working things out and trying to make sense had fallen away and they were left with the rhythms of their beings, rich colors of their corporeal bodies and a deep connection to their spirits and each other.

I am seeing this kind of transformation with movement, rhythm, beat and sound in many places in my life. This isn’t about being a dancer of being “good” at movement, its just about accessing a part or yourself that functions outside of language. At times, I think that I function much better in this space and I have a feeling a lot people do as well. I wonder what the world would be like if all of our interactions relied a bit more on using our bodies and movement to communicate. I imagine we would make some deep connections and it would look really wonderful as well.

Video Improvisations

2012-02-19T20:49:00.000-08:00

Hi Friends

Just wanted to let you know that Jorge and I launched a new collaborative video blog today. The blog is called Video Improvisations and we are going to try to post a short informal video a few times a week without thinking about them too much. As of now, I will shoot the videos and then send them to Jorge to make the sound. There are no real rules or regulations to this process. Our collaborations have always been organic with a continuous flow of ideas moving back and forth between us and I imagine this blog will build on this fluidity.

The video today is called Ma and was inspired by a link that Jorge sent me this morning about the Japanese concept of Ma (negative space).

The purpose of this project is to loosen up and just enjoy the process of creating and discovering, so follow us or check back every now and then and watch us play.

http://michele-jorge.blogspot.com/

Inner Warrior

2012-02-19T08:30:00.000-08:00

All Blacks performing the haka

I love the haka. I can watch the New Zealand rugby team perform The haka over and over again and each time I feel deeply moved. I am not much of a rugby fan nor am I a scholar on the Māori people, but still there is something about watching these men with thick necks chant and pound their chests that feels very familiar and energizing to me.

The haka is a traditional ancestral war cry, dance or challenge practiced by the Māori people of New Zealand. It is a posture dance performed by a group or men women or children, with vigorous movements, stamping of the feet and chanting. The New Zealand rugby team's practice of performing a haka before their matches has made the dance more widely known around the world.

I didn’t know about the Haka before Jorge showed me a video on You Tube and immediately I could feel the power of the ceremony. There was clearly something more meaningful going on than preparing for a rugby match and when I read the translation of the chant it become apparent that the players were manifesting a deep inner strength. I think we tend to rely solely on the physical strength of the body in order to be victorious, especially in sports, or the intellect in the more traditional world, but the haka expands the places where and how power can be found. Through their stance, gesticulations, facial expressions, use of their voice and the action of doing this ritual as a group, the players manifest a belief in themselves, their community, ancestry and a conviction that they have a right to be standing on the earth. This intensifies their physical strength and ruby skills and probably has something to do with why the New Zealand ruby team is #1 in the world.

These are Maroi men performing the haka with a

translation of this version of the chant

Well, I don’t have a strong sense of ancestry, personal history dating back before I was born nor an abundance of physical strength, but the elements of the haka have been really useful to me, not for playing rugby, but just for living my life. I am not Maori, so I don’t choose to copy their ritual, but recently, through movement, particularly movement that engages in resistance or opposition and by exploring sound deep in my gut, I have found that I too can access this kind of inner force and fierceness.

This is a visualization of my inner lion-

at least for the moment

On some level, we all need to be warriors to get through our lives. In contemporary society we have many modalities to help us find the strength and grounding to survive. A lot of these methods rely on words, thinking and the skills of the logical mind, but I am finding that the body holds much of our untapped resources and energies that can connect us to our animal nature. Here we find the part of our being that roars, defends our ground, pushes our energy forward with fierceness and believes we have a right to stand our ground on this earth. I'm finding it a good place to turn to for strength. In any case , it's certainly better than relying on coffee to get through the day.

Love Color

2012-01-31T11:05:00.000-08:00

I have been doing a drawing-a-day since September and aside from discovering how much I love the drawing process, I have come to realize how much I love color. There is nothing more fun for me than to sit down with my soft color pencils and fill in the white spaces, match, overlap, blend and swim in the colors.

Here are some recent drawings:

Inspired by one of Jorge's dreams

My inner Lion

From a book about contemporary African masks

The great Leigh Bowery

Laughing at Death

Bulto from New Mexico

Darker shadows

2012-01-07T05:24:00.000-08:00

"To exist one need only let oneself be,
but to live,
one must be someone,
to be someone,
one must have a BONE,
not be afraid to show the bone,
and to lose the meat in the process."

-Antonin Artaud

Jorge recently introduced me to a choreographer named Ann Van den Broek. The piece, which he showed me called Co(te)lette (which means "chop" as in pork chop), is about women, their bodies and sexuality.

There are 3 female dancers in the 148-minute work and they move non-stop the entire time. The movement is physically and emotionally demanding and I found the work quite astounding and powerful. I appreciated the intensity of the piece and its lack of pleasure and entertainment value. It’s not a work that is concerned with making the audience comfortable, but is rather showing the human body and specifically the female body in the confines, demands and constructions of social space. You can watch a film of the performance on UBU.

Watching the performance made me think of Antonin Artaud and his Theater of Cruelty. For Artaud, the theater isn’t a place to drift off into fantasy, but rather it is a place of harsh sounds, movements and images that were intended to sort of “attack” the audience and wake up them up.

Drawing by Artaud

I am deep admirer of Artaud’s ideas and on some level subscribe to his intention although over the years as my work has changed I see that it isn’t driven as much by that kind of aggressive energy. Watching Co(te)lette made me miss this profound darker expression and although I am not the angst-ridden person I once was, I am also not a GAP ad. Rather, I think what was once angst has been transformed into a deeper understanding of the human condition and I know there is a place for this unsettling passion in my work. As I continue my practice, I want to continue to nurture the more gentle and sensual parts of my work as well as make space for the darker shadows.

Pastel by Michele copied from an illustration by Henri Michaux
when he was under the influence of peyote

2012- A Time of Change

2011-12-31T21:02:00.000-08:00

I don't suppose this is the kind of change the Mayans were predicting, but you never know.
Wishing everyone all kinds of magic in 2012.

Looking for a home

2011-12-18T17:51:00.000-08:00

The news here is that I am still deep in my cleaning and purging process. All is going well although I still have some large sculptures in my storage space that I would like to set free to interact with the world. Personally, I don’t enjoy keeping my work in storage and would much prefer to find someone who loves the pieces to give them homes either temporarily or permanently. Like people, sculptures need love to keep them alive.

The last time I placed a sculpture was my goddess who is now a permanent resident at the Rowe Camp and Conference Center in Rowe, MA where she plays a big part in their community and workshops.

The goddess in the woods of Rowe Camp and Conference Center

Students for one of the workshops on the goddess

I am hoping to create a similar situation with these sculptures below. So, take a look at these pieces and feel free to send the images around to anyone you think may be interested. They are all life-size and are made of rebar (steel bar for the armature) and structolite (plaster-like building material) or Bondo (a kind of plastic used for car repair). A few of the pieces can go outside and other cannot. I will be taking the figures out of storage in the next couple of weeks to show them around to whoever is interested.

Mother and Child, full view and detail.

structolite, rebar, chicken wire. Life size, indoor

Two Figures, full view and detail.

structolite, rebar, chicken wire, lights. Life size, indoor

Some of the subject of these works is a bit challenging, but I know that for the right person the content will be perfect. The terms of owning the work will vary with each situation depending on what is negotiated. Please feel free to contact me at speaking@hotmail.com with inquiries and to see more photos.

This was the original context for the figures below although the large gold

figure already has a home, so the other three figures need to be placed.

They can go together or separately.

Receiving Figures, Bondo, mirror. Full size, outdoor or indoor pieces

Seated Figure, structolite. Full size, outdoor or indoor

It was just time

2011-12-07T15:44:00.000-08:00

For the past couple of weeks I have been engaged in a major cleaning. More than a cleaning, it’s been closer to a profound purge. I have been wanting to do this for years, but somehow I could never make it happen, but as my birthday rolled around last week and I turned 45, my body sprung into action. I have no idea why, but apparently it was just time.

It amazes me that it has taken so long for me to do this. Clearly, if it was just about cleaning I would have done it ages ago, but it's become stunningly clear just how much weight objects, photographs and clothing hold. Aside from the fact they take up space and clutter our lives, they can also keep us glued to past memories and self identities that are no longer relevant. The obvious action is to just let these objects go, but like most issues of the human psyche, what is obvious is not always what we do- or should do for that matter. Everything in its time, as they say.

This struggle with the weight of the past has been a big subject in my art. I have often worked with images of luggage in an effort to somehow articulate the experience of what it is like to be burdened by psychological weight and more recently have worked with images of what it may look like to let go of this weight. This is one of the videos I made about releasing the baggage. At the time I made it, in 2008, it surprised me that I could makes something so playful about a subject that really wasn't very funny at the time. I am glad that I now can sit back and enjoy the humor.

Crossovers and connections

2011-11-28T14:55:00.000-08:00

Some people say that Andy Warhol stole ideas from everyone around him and never made anything original. It's true, he was surrounded by a community of creative, brilliant people who gave him ideas and he used those ideas, but I don’t consider that stealing. Rather, I think he just did what we all do; he looked around, got inspired by his world and then made something unique from it.

We do this all the time. I think that who we are and what we create is somehow a reflection of the people we know and things we have seen. We inspire each other and it is fascinating to become aware of these connections and crossovers.

Yesterday, my friend, Deborah Soffel posted on her blog, Grapes and Greens, that thoughts of my artwork inspired her as she took photographs on a recent walk through the Rockefeller State Park Preserve. Deborah is a chef who has a very informative and elegant blog about vegetarian cuisine. It was interesting to follow her thought process, which took her from taking a walk in the woods, to reflecting on my artwork, to Moroccan spices and finally to related recipes. I was very moved to see how my images had stayed with her and inspired her vision that day. Visit Deborah at http://grapesandgreens.blogspot.com/

The other exciting sharing of ideas is with my friend Yvonne Garrett who is a writer. About 2 months ago we decided that we would each do a project a day in our chosen medium and then share what we made at the end of the month. After the first month, we decided to switch to a blog format and post daily. This has been a very interesting and indirect form of influence for me. We don’t respond directly to each other, but it curious to see the abstract relationship between our works. Visit our ongoing open studio at Project A Day. http://micheleyvonne.blogspot.com/

What others see

2011-11-20T10:00:00.000-08:00

These are just a few of the photos I received in response to my post last week. I got so many that I just chose a few that I thought looked nice together and will post the rest at another time.

It was a pleasure for me to receive these images and to see a little bit of what other see in their daily lives.

Yvonne, NYC

Robyn, Hawaii

Barbara, Schoodic Point, Maine

Jorge, NYC

Mehmet. Cappadocia, Turkey

Carrie, Another Green World

Jay, Egremont, MA

Tigre, NYC

An invitation to look

2011-11-10T03:57:00.000-08:00

Walking down the streets of New York is one of my favorite activities. I am always looking up at the buildings, archiving the sounds in my head or watching the pigeons fly. I probably look like one of those tourists who walk too slowly, but I’m no tourist, just a New Yorker who is something of a flaneur. Although I have lived in Manhattan for a long time I remain endlessly interested and curious and I keep looking.

Bird's eye view flaneur

The other day when I was coming home from the gym, walking my normal route, an odd little figure above a nail salon stopped me in my tracks. It seemed to appear out of nowhere. I must have passed this nail salon a hundred times before, but never noticed it before.

Although this figure is clearly out in the open, it felt somehow hidden and discovering it felt very personal and private. The image does not look familiar to me- perhaps it is some kind of religious figure, but that is not important. To me, it’s just an angel, an angel I discovered and I get to include him in my walk everyday now. My world got a little bigger and more magical.

It was wonderful to pay attention to my everyday environment and to discover something new. This leads me to invite you to join me to do the same. Whether you are in NY, LA, Mass or Turkey, keep your eyes open and see if you find something new in your daily. If you wish, take a photograph of it and send it to me. I thought it would be fun to collect these photos and then post them on this blog. So, if you discover something new and feel like sharing it, just email the photograph to me at speaking@hotmail.com

Contact with new life forms

2011-11-02T11:16:00.000-07:00

Exploring motion

2011-10-26T12:55:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking a lot lately about how much I enjoy movement. When I was in Turkey this summer I took a lot of video of myself responding to the landscape through my body. I didn't plan any of these shoots, but just stopped in places I liked while I was hiking, set up my little camera and started moving without any specific plan or purpose.

I decided to start playing around with the footage this week to see if I could make it into something. Part of me wants the movement to be part of some kind of bigger story, but the more I work with the footage, the more I get the feeling that it is just movement about movement. Perhaps there is some other content there, but I am not clear on what it is yet. As for now, I am having fun playing around with a new editing style.

Friend of yours?

2011-09-30T20:42:00.000-07:00

As I continue along with my drawing-a-day project, I am coming in contact with a cast of characters that haven’t inhabited my artistic community before.

I rarely watch television, but lately when I am trying to relax I stream Grey’s Anatomy on Netflix. Exactly why I find watching a soap opera about doctors and hospitals relaxing is beyond me, but still I do and as I have been staring sort of blankly at my computer screen, I have become interested in the faces of the actors. (The figure on the right in the drawing above was inspired by Dr. Bailey's face, for those of you who are familiar with the show).

I start with the face and then create clothes, situations and related friends to accompany the character.

Since I was enjoying this so much, I started to expand my influences to magazines and other places in my life.

This woman came from and advertisement in the recent issue of Time Out and I think the guy just came to mind from going to the gym, which is an interesting world onto itself.

For the face on the left I used a photo of myself that was created by my iPhone application FatBooth. The face of the figure on the right was inspired by Dr. Burke from Grey's Anatomy. We make a nice couple.

Stay tuned- more to come!

In the process of not thinking, thinking flows.

2011-09-26T19:15:00.000-07:00

My friend, Yvonne, who is a writer, asked me to do a project with her in order to support each other in our creative process. For this project, she is going to write a poem a day and I am going to make a drawing a day. At the end of the month we are going to share our work and discuss what has happened for each of us individually and then see if there is any kind of connection between our work.

We started this a week ago and it has been great for me. Firstly, it is wonderful to just have the commitment to draw everyday and create that consistency in my life. Secondly, whenever I start to draw my mind opens up and I find myself solving problems and moving forward on many other projects and practical situations in my life that have been a bit stagnant. That has been a surprise to me and so have the images I have been drawing.

In the process of not thinking, my thinking flows. This is my first week of drawings and flow.

All images ©michele beck. Do not reproduce without permission

Route 666

2011-09-23T17:31:00.000-07:00

One of the most exciting parts of my road trip in the Southwest was the drive on Route 666 (which was renamed to US 491 too avoid the obvious connotation). I took this route on my way from Farmington, NM to Cortex, CO. The highway took me through the vast landscape of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.

Distances are long in this part of the country, but this road seemed particularly flat

and endless. The speed limit was 75 mph, but it hardly felt like I was moving

It was a about a 3-hour drive to get to Cortez and by the time I got there I was exhausted. It wasn't the drive that was tiring, but the experience of being in the presence of the immense rock formations and feeling so small and vulnerable.

I arrived in Cortez in the early afternoon. I had planned to do a hike, but ended up laying in bed at my hotel. I needed to bring everything down to my scale again.

While I lay huddled up in my room this is what I wrote:

"Its very emotional to see this landscape. The Ute pueblo was just amazing. Its almost scary being in those kinds of wide-open spaces. I am not used to that kind of vast emptiness that is sporadically inhabited by these massive rocks. I almost feel like I am lost at sea and have no way to ground myself. For some reason I keep having an images of being on the Titanic when it is sinking. The horror of being a tiny being on a huge structure that is being consumed by a massive ocean is terrifying for me to comprehend. Its hard to explain, but it is very overwhelming to be in the physical presence of this majesty. It is something that can't be felt or understood from a photograph. It's a truly physical experience that happens in relation to these objects."

Some Shadows

2011-09-21T14:34:00.000-07:00

Shadow, performed September 16, 2011 in Broolyn, NY.

My friend Yuki asked me to participate in a benefit in Brooklyn to raise money for Japan. I decided to use the costume I had made in Turkey and see how it would transform and adapt to this new location.

Jorge helped me think of ideas and we decided to use a flashlight to illuminate the performer (me) on stage and play with the shadows created by the light. For sound, we chose to use a small transistor radio and we put the radio between stations so the audience would hear static. I had the radio underneath my costume for the duration of the performance.

Jorge suggested a movement inspired by a homeless man he sees in his neighborhood in the East Village. The man is a hunchback and spends his day propped up against a wall asking for money. It was very difficult for me to hold my body in this position since I am not trained dancer nor am I particularly strong, but I tried to channel all of my butoh training and did the best I could.

I was happy that I chose to the performance although in the future, I don't want to improvise to this extent. I need to have more of a plan to help me focus my mind while I am performing. Also I want to go back to doing more peformance-based video work. The live performance is exhilarating, but I like the effects that I can create with video. In either case, I plan to work more in the future with the elements I explored in this performance and particularly the shadows. Like most of us, I have a lot of them already, so it may be helpful to give them a visible life.

Shadows and spirits

2011-09-07T12:38:00.000-07:00

While standing with my sister under the setting sun in Chaco Canyon, I noticed my shadow and it reminded me of some of the petroglypths and pictographs I had seen on the rocks during my Southwest trip.

Una Vida Petroglyphs, Chaco Canyon, NM.

Canyon de Chelly, AZ.

I wondered if the people who made the petroglyphs had been inspired by their shadows. So, I took some photos to see if I could made some shapes worthy of a petroglyph.

Using my rudimentary Photoshop skills and images from Canyon de Chelly, I mixed some of my shadows with the petroglyphs already on the walls.

Just like home

2011-09-05T19:05:00.000-07:00

We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started… and know the place for the first time.”
~ T. S. Eliot, 1888-1965

The reason I originally chose to go to New Mexico was to see the Bisti Badlands. I saw a photo of Bisti in May while I was still at the Babayan residency in Cappadocia, Turkey. I was searching the internet looking for landscapes that I could possibly love as much as Cappadocia and the first image that came up was of Bisti and I was inspired all over again.

Not many people go to Bisti. It’s very hot and desolate with wild gusts of wind that make you feel like you will be blown right off the earth. There are no services, water, information or gift shops - just 45,000 acres of barren shale hills and surreal rock formations with no shade and no relief.

As for me, I really loved it. I found it dramatic and beautiful and somehow strangely comforting, almost familiar. Within moments I was happily climbing on the rocks, sculpting my body into the landscape and imagining all kinds of ways I wanted to move, different costumes I could wear and how I could film and edit these impromptu performances.

I had a large piece of orange fabric with me that I had bought earlier in my trip while I was in the Española area. The orange was perfect in this colorless terrain and I began to play around with the fabric, responding to the strong winds and openess of the landscape.

It was hot and I didn’t have the time I needed to work out my ideas, but happily my sister was there and she took these photos of some ideas in process. Fortunately, she is a really great photographer and her images inspired me further.

I plan on returning to Bisti. It is very close to Chaco Canyon and I have the idea to camp at Chaco for a month or two and use that time to explore these two locations in greater depth. In the meantime, I am researching other badlands, petrified forests and great sand dunes. The exploration continues.

The Secret Sits

2011-09-05T08:34:00.000-07:00

Chaco Canyon is a relatively remote Ancestral Puebloan (Ansazi) site at the end of atreacherous gravel road that seems to have been made to purposefully destroy the shocks on your car. Despite this obstaclethat has discouraged many a tourist, my sister and I put our rental car to thetest and braved the elements.

Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon

Asopposed to Mesa Verde or Canyon de Chelly, which also have very fine examplesof the cliff dwellings, petroglyphs and pottery of the Ancestral Puebloans,Chaco Canyon is more difficult to access, is less built up to serve the comfortof tourists and maintains a sense of mystery and intrigue that sets it apartfrom the other Anasazi sites.

Doorway at Pueblo Bonito. Chaco Canyon

Ateach of the Anasazi sites I visited I listened intently to the guides in hopesof getting a clear understanding of the Ancestral Puebloans. At Mesa Verde and Canyon De Chelly, theguides spoke about how the Anasazi grew food, built their houses and what thepetroglyths might have meant. On the whole, the Anasazi were portrayed as a peaceful, agrariancivilization that made beautifulpottery, had spiritual ceremonies in their kivas and mysteriously disappearedone day.

Kiva at Casa Rinconada (looks bigger in the picture than it is)

AtChaco Canyon, the Anasazi became more complicated as the park ranger there shared a darker narrative with us that included the prospect of slavery, torture and cannibalism. This was mixed in with stories about ritual, agricultureand a profound understanding ofthe stars, so it wasn’t all dark, but at least it started to become morethree-dimensional.

Pueblo Bonito

Ourranger at Chaco was G. B. Cornucopia, a truly delightful man who had come toChaco as an amateur stargazer and is now a ranger who lives in the park. We spent quite a long time with himfor a tour of Casa Rinconada. G.B. shared many theories about the Ancestral Puebloans and completedeach of these speculations by smiling mischievously and saying “Butreally, we don’t know.”

Fajada Butte- considered to be of ceremonial importance to the Chacoan people.

And we don’t know. The Ansazi didn’t leave behind many clues to help archeologist andanthropologists to uncover their civilization. This kind of lack of information easily leads to theconstruction of more attractive and peaceful histories and the suppression ofless attractive qualities like cannibalism.

G.Bconcluded his talk with a poem by Robert Frost:

We dance round in a ring and suppose,

But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

There is a part of me that tends to like to know “the truth” or some version of it,but every so often it is good for me to remind myself that truth and reality are not only derived from scientific investigations or from "experts". That is simply how our culture comes to a consensus in this moment in time, but if there is anything that can be learned from looking at ancient cultures, it is that there are many more ways to coming to understanding, to create history and know the "facts".

The World's Most Fabulous Object

2011-08-25T19:09:00.000-07:00

In the fantasy film Time Bandits (Terry Gilliam, 1981), a group of dwarfs steal the map with all the holes in the space-time fabric from the Supreme Being. They use the map to fall through the holes of their present reality and travel through time and space. Their ultimate goal is to find the epic treasure, “The World’s Most Fabulous Object”. On their journey, as they are walking through a barren desert, they run into an invisible wall. Unable to go forward, the dwarfs argue. During the argument, one of the dwarfs throws a rock that hits the wall and shatters it like glass. Behind the wall is the Fortress of Darkness, where “The World’s Most Fabulous Object” is to be found.

No, I didn’t see the Fortress of Darkness or a group or rowdy dwarfs while I was driving around New Mexico, but after driving over the Chuska Mountains from Canyon de Chelly in Chinle, AZ to Farmington, NM, my sister Robyn and I came upon a stunning rock formation called Shiprock. Neither of us have ever seen or heard of Shiprock before nor did we know that it is a sacred place for the Navajo, but there was something about this rock formation that made us jump out of the car to get a closer look.

This is not something I normally do. I tend to be a bit lazy unless I am really inspired, but something about this rock gave me a jolt of energy. I guess there is a reason why it is sacred to the Navajo. I can't explain what, but there was definitely some kind of magnetic power pulling me there. Look at me go!

The thing that grabbed my attention first was this crazy, massive wall of rocks in the middle of the desert landscape. I have never seen anything like it before.

This wall in the middle of nowhere immediately reminded me of Time Bandits. And not that this means anything, but when we were coming down the Chuska Mountains and saw Shiprock from afar, we stopped to admire it and on the side of the road we found the remains of sheep.

Now, look back at the still from the movie on top. It looks like the dwarfs past very similar bones on their way to the invisible wall.

Strange coincidence and also strange that the Shiprock looks a little like the Fortress of Darkness, which of course it isn’t, but perhaps my sister and I did stumble upon one of “The World’s Most Fabulous Objects”.

The map used by the dwarfs in Time Bandits to find the holes
in the space-time fabric. One of them must lead to Shiprock.

Chroma the Great- in stereo

2011-08-14T07:45:00.000-07:00

One of my very favorite books as a child was the Phantom Tollbooth, a magical story about a very creative and very bored little boy named Milo, who goes on an incredible adventure fueled by his imagination.

Along the way he meets a cast of amazing characters, each of which have something to teach us about the fragility and irrationality of what we consider reality. One of the characters, Chroma the Great, is a conductor.

This is a still image of a video they made from the book
The illustrations in the book are better.

When Milo meets him he is leading an enormous open-air orchestra concert of over a thousand musicians. Chroma waves his arms and the musicians seem to be playing their instruments, although Milo doesn't hear anything and this is because Chroma isn’t creating sound, rather he is creating all the colors of the world when he conducts.

I have never been much of a fan of sunsets. Not that I had anything against them, but I never really understood why people loved them so much. Ghost Ranch, where I am staying, is about 21,000 acres, but the lodging is located in one area that has an enormous central field that is completely empty of any structures. Towards the east are some large rock formations and towards the west is nothing for miles. So, since this is a meditative environment, I have been sitting in this large open space in the evenings from about 6:00 pm when it is still light until about 8:30 pm when it is completely dark, to slowly watch the sunset and now I am a sunset junkie.

To the east at about 7 pm, I see the last glimmers of sunlight illuminate the orange and reds of the rocks.

When that light is gone, I turn toward the west and see how the setting sun sculpts the clouds and the sky, creating a vast array of blues, reds and golds.

It is magnificent, dramatic and somehow very loud. I never thought of a sunset as being loud before, but it hasn’t been just a visual experience. The light and color start taking up auditory qualities and fill the vast expanse of the central space.

I didn’t realize this until yesterday when the sun had completely gone down. Standing below the dark sky (and yes, I was standing for some reason. I guess it was incredible enough that it seemed appropriate to stand), it was strangely silent like the sound had been sucked out of the air or some otherworldly musical performance had just been completed.

It seems that Chroma the Great has been hard at work. Having completed his conducting for the day he retired to bed, turning off the color and the associated sounds. Tomorrow he will start again with a new sunrise symphony.

Entering Abiquiú

2011-08-13T08:21:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Abiquiú on my way to Ghost Ranch this Thursday. Abiquiú is only about an hour drive from Chimayo, but it feels and looks completely different.

As I was driving down the highway the landscape started to open up and I began seeing some of the images that I had imagined I would see in New Mexico. Large wide-open expanses, billowing clouds and rocks of deep red, orange, purple and yellow. (I didn't take any pictures since I was driving)

My first stop was in the little town of Abiquiú and like most of the little towns I have stopped in, there seemed to be nothing there. Honestly, I find this very intimidating. Half the time I can’t even figure out where the town is. I am just driving down a bumpy dirt road and I only know I am in the town because I recognize something I saw in a guidebook.

The adobe St. Thomas Church in Abiquiú

Well, I was early to check into Ghost Ranch and had nowhere to else to go, so I gathered my courage together and wandered into a house with a bunch of wooden signs nailed to the front porch that said things like: welcome, gallery, artist studio, woodcarving, tour guide, map , etc. Chances are I figured I would find something I needed there.

Inside I met Napoleón Garcia, an Albiquiu elder, who talked up a storm and managed to sell me a book about his life and memories of fellow resident of Abiquiú Georgia O’Keeffe. I bought the book because he talked to me for so long that I felt obligated, but it’s actually a pretty interesting book that recounts the early Spanish and Native American history.

Napoleón is native Genízaro, or “Hispanicized Indian of mixed breed”, a group I have never heard of before. There is a lot to discover about all the different people who have passed through and presently inhabit this part of the country. When I asked Napoleón about the relationship between the Indians, Anglos and Hispanics he told me that everyone respects the other and gets along fine. He also told me that Andy Warhol was Georgia O’Keefe’s husband. I think he was joking, but still, it's good to take thngs with a grain of salt, so I took the map he gave me of Abiquiú and took a short walk around this quiet and very private village.

Meeting house of the Brothers of the Penitente Morada

I always wanted to come to the desert and during this walk I felt like I finally arrived. I thought a lot about my time in Cappadocia while I was walking around. This desert is similar to Cappadocia in the sense that there are a lot of rocks, very little vegetation and the sun is very strong and yet, it looks and feels very different. The shapes and colors are nothing like Cappadocia and the desert here has a very distinct smell. I think it’s the sagebrush. The silence is very different here too. It’s not just that it is quiet, it’s more like sound is suspended or maybe I am suspended somehow. I’m not sure yet, but I will know more as these next weeks carry on.

More passion and devotion

2011-08-12T17:03:00.000-07:00

These are just some more images of things I really loved seeing at the Santuario de Chimayo

To die with the sacred joy of having done no harm

to oneself or to another single soul

I found the obsessiveness of devotion very moving. These are only some of the crosses that people had left all over the complex.

I loved seeing the belief, the longing and the hope.

Perhaps a spiritual experience

2011-08-12T16:14:00.000-07:00

During my stay in Chimayo I visited El Santuario de Chimayo numerous times. The first time I went I found it overwhelming, so I took it in a little at a time and spend most of my last day in Chimayo wandering around the complex.

The Santuario also known as the Lourdes of America, is a pilgrimage spot, where people travel long distances by foot to be cleansed by the act of the journey and also get some of the sacred red dirt found in a hole in the floor of the church, which is believed to have miraculous healing powers.

I dug out some of the dirt from the hole in the floor and put it in a little plastic container I bought in the gift shop. Perhaps it will help with the pain in my hip.

http://chimayo.us/Points.html#Santuario

I found being in the church complex a very powerful experience. As I sat in the main chapel I started crying.

Altar in the main chapel

I then went to the Santo Niño Chapel and started crying there and I began to wonder if perhaps I was having a spiritual experience.

The Santo Niño Chapel was recently redecorated.

Everyone says its really tacky (which it is), but I liked it.

So, I spent some time to try to figure out what all this emotion was about and I realized I wasn’t having a religious spiritual experience, but rather an artistic spiritual experience. The reason that I loved being the Santo Niño Chapel was because it reminded me of something I would make or would love to make- just a big crazy, obsessive- and yes, tacky, immersive installation. (Sorry, no photos allowed in the church and the ones I found on the internet aren't very good.)

In the main chapel I loved the colors and craftsmanship that seemed more fueled by passion and devotion than by a need to get a straight line. The whole place looked like a theater set to me. I particularly loved the bultos that were placed in niches and incorporated into the reredos (the wooden screens lining the walls of the chapel).

I also saw these at San Miguel Mission Church in Santa Fe, which is considered the oldest church in the United States (and perhaps one of the only truly interesting things in Santa Fe in my opinion).

Churches are supposed to be homes for the soul and as my art is my religion, these particular spaces gave me a real sense of home.

Interview

2011-08-09T21:08:00.000-07:00

Right before I left for this trip to the Southwest I saw an interview on Charlie Rose with the documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. Towards the end of the interview he and Rose spoke about what it means to interview someone. Morris said that he sees interviewing as a form of discovery. Rather than going into an interview assuming he knows who the person is and using the interview questions to get his subject to say what he wants, Morris sees the interview process as a form of exploration. As the interviewer, he opens a space to allow the interviewee to come to him so he can learn who his subject is.
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11808

I arrived in New Mexico a couple of days ago and since I have been here I have been thinking about what it means to be here for the first time. I realize that I have come with some expectations since I have read a lot about this area and spoken to many people, who live here or have visited. This has led me to think that I know what I will find. I also came with the intention of making a project and to some extent recreating the structure of my Turkey trip. And although none of this is inherently bad, I am not sure any of it is very helpful either.

Over the past couple of days all I have found out is that this is a really different place for me and I don’t know what it is. So far, it hasn’t been anything like the way it was described to me or like pictures I have seen. It will take some time to understand all that is going on here. So to this end, I can start my interview now. I don’t know what I will find, so I will listen and watch, put my expectations aside and give New Mexico the space to unfold.

Homesickness

2011-07-26T09:56:00.000-07:00

Homesickness from Michele on Vimeo.

Inspired by Homesickness by Rene Magritte, 1941
©Michele Beck & Jorge Calvo, 2011

Visual poetry

2011-07-18T09:11:00.000-07:00

I have never been someone who spends time looking at and appreciating plants although when I was hiking through Cappadocia, I became aware of the fragile plants and flowers that somehow manage to thrive in the unwelcoming terrain.

I especially liked these little flowers that bravely stood alone in this harsh environment.

Since I have been home I have been having a lot of conversations with my friends about the difficulty of living in the abrassive environment of NYC and the world in general. The people I love all seem to be very sensitive, brilliant and gentle individuals who have a different kind of rhythm and a way of perceiving reality than the majority of the world. I am no different and it seems that we are all trying to fit in somehow or at least survive in an environment that somehow doesn’t support our rhythm.

As I have gotten older I am giving up the judgmental mind that I grew up with that always told me that I needed to change in order to live a "life". For all these years my mind has been babbling on, telling me that I need to be: stronger, more organized, more aggressive, more verbal, more physically fit, more social and less sensitive. Less me in other words, but I don’t think so anymore. I see my friends and I think they are beautiful. They are like these flowers- graceful, delicate, with exquisite colors and designs, braving the elements in their own unique way.

The world need us- this quiet army of individuals who can stare out the window of a train for hours, make friends with the stray cats, have trouble translating our thoughts into words, but naturally transform the world into visual poetry. The world needs our colors otherwise, it would just be bunch of big dusty rocks out there.

Sacred spaces

2011-07-16T19:48:00.000-07:00

I’ve been home for about a month now and it’s been strangely challenging coming back to New York. Not because of the jet lag, but more due to the culture shock. Airplanes have allowed us to cross huge distances with relative ease, but I don’t think our bodies and minds are as quick to transition. Well, at least mine aren’t.

In any case, I am starting to feel myself back in my NYC life and have already began to plan a new trip in August to New Mexico. Being in Cappadocia helped me to realize how meaningful certain types of landscape can be to me and I am going to New Mexico to see if some of the terrain there will inspire me as well. I do feel though that there are a couple of more things about Cappadocia that I want to share before I sign off on that adventure to start the next.

So, on that note, here are some images of a phenomena I saw quite often while visiting the churches in Cappadocia. The photos show some examples of the excessive vandalism of the paintings and frescos at many of the sites.

As I said in an earlier post, many of the eyes of the saints have been scratched out. There are many theories about why this happened although no one really knows for certain. Most people say iconoclasm, religious beliefs or fear of spirits as some of the reasons. I am guessing that most of these are true to some degree.

Although the more I looked at the destroyed frescos I could see that not only the eyes were scratched out. There was also big gashes in the walls, violent looking cuts to the surface as well as more recent graffiti. Clearly a lot has been going on throughout the years in response to these images.

I don’t know when or why these marks were made. What I did see though was a lot of feeling and emotion. These spaces clearly gave people a free space to express something visceral and deeply personal.

Like the skin of our bodies, the walls of these caves, display the marks of time. And just as our bodies tell the stories of our lives, these churches are the collective body of everyone who has passed through, archiving the history of multiple civilizations. In this sense, these churches truly felt like sacred spaces.

Hand Cloud

2011-06-24T22:29:00.000-07:00

This video is a mixture of footage shot in Cappadocia.
Sound mixed from Jorge Calvo's sound files.

Cats of Cappadocia

2011-06-22T21:26:00.000-07:00

More or less against my will, I became attached to the cats who populated my daily life while I was living in Ibrahimpasa.

One of the resident cats at Babayan Culture House

Mother and daughter from the street family

I live in a relatively small NYC apartment and I have 3 cats. Simply put, this is just crazy and although I adore my cats, I was looking forward to being cat-free for a month when I was in Turkey. When I got to the Babayan Culture House I greeted the cats who were living there and also the strays who came by for food and then more or less ignored them. Unlike city cats who are really bored a lot of the time and focus most of their attention on their human friends, these Turkish cats had very busy lives, so it didn’t seem to be a problem for them if I just went about my business without offering them special attention.

Even with their busy lives they had plenty of time to relax...

be extremely affectionate....

and pose for photos.

One day towards the end of my stay, I was in the building with the studio spaces sorting through the large plastic drop cloths. I picked up one of the sheets and it felt a strangely heavy, so I shook it and 2 newborn kittens fell out.

I had never seen such small kittens before and I wasn't sure what to do, so I ran and got Paul to help. He found a little box for them and we made a cozy little nest for the kittens to sleep in. The mother wasn’t around and I was very worried that she had abandoned them, so I waited in the studio for most of the day, coaxing her back into the space so she could bond with her children. Eventually she did come in, took on her mothering role and I spent my last days at Babayan feeding the mother and watching over her and her babies.

In spite of my wish to be cat-free for the month, I became very attached to this little family and looked forward to receiving pictures and updates as the little ones grew up.

Unfortunately, I got an email last week that the babies were missing. Nobody knows what happened to them. Maybe an animal took them- or a person - or the mother moved them. Everyone who was there did an extensive search, but they were nowhere to be found. Being far away now from Turkey, I just felt sad that these kitties I had cared for were gone and that this piece of me would not have the opportunity to live on at Babayan. It was a sad reminder to me of the fragility and impermanence of life. "All that arises fades away", the Buddhists would say. And although I know this is true, its always surprising and unsettling to see just how true it is.

Things left behind

2011-06-17T19:52:00.000-07:00

Ibrahimpasa is filled with abandoned spaces that were once homes, places for animals, storage and work spaces. Some of them are completely empty and many others still contain the belongings of the people who once lived there. I don’t know the specifics of how or why the inhabitants left, where they went to or why they left their things behind, but it seemed very curious to me that the town was filled with these time capsules of people’s lives.

Willemijn told us about an abandoned cave that belonged to an older couple she knew. The husband had died 7 years ago and “they took the wife away”. Those are the words Willemijn used to explain what happened to the woman. I was not completely sure what that meant although it did bring a lot of disturbing images to mind. In any case, Ailie and I visited the house the following day to explore further.

As you can imagine, it was strange to walk through the relics of someone's life and even stranger to think that these things had been laying around for 7 years. I tried to imagine how all these baskets, ropes and containers had been used and this was especially difficult since I don't know all that much about daily rural Turkish life. In any case, it seemed sad to see these object that had been meaningful laying around in disarray.

Walking through the house and looking at all these object left behind reminded me of when I sorted through my mother's belongings after she passed away. These objects that she loved, that gave structure and meaning to her life were suddenly meaningless. It was very hard for me to throw anything out and I took a lot of her things home with me in an effort to stay close to her, I suppose. Although the result of this was that I ended up with a lot of things I didn't need that took up a lot of space in my apartment.

“The light of memory, or rather the light that memory lends to things, is the palest light of all. I am not quite sure whether I am dreaming or remembering, whether I have lived my life or dreamed it. Just as dreams do, memory makes me profoundly aware of the unreality, the evanescence of the world, a fleeting image in the moving water.”
Eugene Ionesco

Just passing by

2011-06-14T04:46:00.000-07:00

The day before I left Cappadocia, I had a chance to take a car ride with Ailie and Mehmet down to the Ihlara Valley. The drive took a little over an hour and brought us through some very beautiful countryside. I had done this drive before although I was the one driving, so I didn't have the opportunity to really enjoy the surroundings. This time though, I purposefully sat in the back seat, so I could quietly stare out the window and let my mind wander. I really loved the houses along the way- the little ones all alone in the huge expanse as well as some of the newer ones and their designs, so I started to take pictures. Mehmet noticed I was taking photos and offered to stop the car so I could take the pictures properly, but I declined. It was really fun being in motion and trying to take the photos- sometimes getting them, sometimes missing them and always being surprised by how they came out. I was simply enjoying the pleasure of just passing by and receiving what that brought me.

Bodies in space

2011-06-11T10:48:00.000-07:00

This is a short video that Ailie kindly shot for me of the installation. I decided not to edit it too much for now in order to give a sense of how all the parts of the installation relate to each other in the space.

My cave for a day

2011-06-10T12:52:00.000-07:00

Quite naturally and with great pleasure, this installation came together today. As I continued not to think and analyze, I was instead presented with surprises, mysteries I could not explain and laughter at some of my choices as I installed this morning and invited a small audience to experience the work. Understandably, Paul felt it better not to invite the local villagers since they do not subscribe to image making and may find this room filled with human forms quite disturbing.

notice the figure in the upper left

In any case, here are some photos. One of the powerful aspects of the installation was the sound created by the wind blowing the plastic, which covered the windows, as well as the constant changes in color and light intensity as the plastic moved, which you cannot experience in these photos, but at least they will give you images to spark your imagination. I also want to sincerely thank Paul and Willemijn of the Babayan Culture House for their support in making this project possible and Aili Schmeltz a very talented artist and lovely person for taking the photos.

The thoughtful audience

Developments in white

2011-06-08T22:15:00.000-07:00

I went to my cave yesterday to play around with some of the elements that I have been making since I have been here and would like to include in my installation.

I played around with the clay figures

They seemed to fit in the space rather naturally although I wasn't really excited about them in terms of being the foundation for what was going to happen in the space.

I moved the white figures around and put the big one of the floor. The ground is very dirty and I felt sad leaving him there so as I was leaving I hung him up next to the main altar-like arch

Something really made sense to me having him there, so I hung up another one on the right side. They reminded me of a strange figure I had seen in the monastery/ hospital near Ortahisar.

I was really struck by the appearance/ disappearance quality of this figure. Its something that often comes naturally to me in my own work and probably why I chose a fabric to work with that is the same color as the surrounding environment.

So, I put on my costume to see what that would look like

and things really started to make sense to me. I went home and started thinking about how I could orchestrate these pieces together and then I realized that thinking about it wasn't helping me, so I had a really nice dinner, relaxed and went to sleep. I half-woke up a number of times during the night and kept having images and ideas about the figures in the space and then when I woke in the morning I knew how to include video in the installation. The installation became cohesive and clear to me.

This has been a great process for me (and more complex than my simple summary of it). Not only in terms of making the art, but in terms of becoming clearer about how I make art and trusting that. In school I learned to analyze, conceptualize and basically use my brain to direct my art and defend it. I went to school a while ago, but still these ideas have stayed with me, probably because it is a way of working that is common in the art world today, which is fine although it doesn't work for me.

This has been a long term conflict for me although it seems to have finally found a resolution. I guess I had to come all the way to Turkey to come back home.

The Project Begins

2011-06-07T10:33:00.000-07:00

During my time here I have always had it in the back of my mindthat I would make a visual project before I leave. I have not had any particularidea how this project would manifest, all I seemed to know is that I love thelandscape and I hoped that somehow the shapes, forms and materials around mewould be incorporated into my work. I consciously chose not to push this process, but just to take in the experience of being here and see what happens.


Doing what comes natural- making figures

So, without any specific idea in mind, I just did what I do naturally, which is make figures. During the beginning of my stay I went to the town ofAvanos, which is famous for its pottery and clay, and bought 30 kilos of theirred clay. I made a few figures and then they started to multiply.

Growing family

Now growing in size

It's very relaxing for me to make these figures- sort of like knitting. In the process, I become very calm, quiet and focused, so I just kept going. I did not plan how the figures would look or made a conscious decision for them to all be the same. At different points, I thought of changing the position, but then I felt more comfortable staying with the same position. The only thing that changed were the positions of the hands. After I starting making these I saw the Whirling Dervishes perform and I was influenced by their hand and arm movements.

A new family

More recently I started sewing these figures out of a fabricthat I bought at the outdoor market in Urgup. I purposefully didn’t bring any materials with me because Iwanted to use what I could find or purchase locally. I also made a costume for myself out of the same fabric, which I need to do a little more work on.

Yesterday I chose a space for the installation. It is one of the old abandoned cave houses behind where I am staying. It's not far away, but it is a bit of a trek to get there- through a narrow passage, over rocks and under very low archways. All of this of course only adds to the drama.

The space is so strong and beautiful that it is hard to think of working with it, but I will take my figures there tomorrow and see what happens.

Some Forms -moving-

2011-06-01T22:51:00.000-07:00

sound by Jorge Calvo

As Surreal as Reality

2011-05-30T12:39:00.000-07:00

Today, Viivi and I walked through Pigeon Valley, which took us from the town of Uçhisar to Goreme.

The images I saw today were incredible to me. Each of the valleys in Cappadocia are a little different, each with their own unique rock formations, but the ones in Pigeon Valley are the ones I had come to Cappadocia to see.

The photos look surreal although standing there, in reality, the landscape doesn't look any more real.

The pigeon houses were really beautiful. In some cases, we could still see some of the red designs painted on the outside windows to attract the pigeons.

The valley is full of these pigeon houses, although I haven't seen many pigeons around or at least enough pigeons to warrant all these houses. As I walked through the houses, that had rows and rows of holes to hold the pigeons, I thought about all the pigeons that once must have filled this valley. This is a little video in homage to all those beautiful birds who once played such an important role in people's lives.

World Underground

2011-05-25T05:40:00.000-07:00

“It’s purgatory.”

Sitting on the roadside in the town of Mazi drinking tea, I was speaking with Ihsan, a native of the town who became fascinated by the local underground cities as a young boy and is now an expert guide on these futuristic constructions from the past. He was referring to the Mazi underground city when he ironically commented on the unique experience of being held in its claustrophobic limbo.

Just another hole in the wall: one of the entrances to the underground city.

Underground cities, are scattered through out Cappadocia. It is guessed that that they were used by many different peoples since the Bronze Age primarily as places of hiding and living. The one in Mazi is a particularly amazing because it is tourist- free (for now), well excavated and quite large. Having Ihsan as our guide, Viivi and I were able to get a real feeling for what it may have been like living in and maneuvering through this circuitous labyrinth.

Ihsan and Viivi going through one of the tunnels

In short, it is cold, pitch black and cramped- kind of like being in a coffin or maybe something like being a mole. I barely stood up straight the entire time we were there and when we moved through the tunnels that connected the rooms, I was nearly crawling on all fours. It made me wonder what the people who used these cities looked like and how they adapted their bodies in order to move around.

Ihsan leading Viivi down one of the tunnels using a rope

One of the passages taken with a flash

The most interesting and unexpected part of the tour was when we had to climb up one of the ventilation/passageways in order to proceed to the next room. I had seen these tunnels before and often wondered how people were able to move in a vertical direction hanging onto the crevices carved into the sides of the tunnels. Fortunately, it wasn’t as impossible as I imagine. Here is my nifty artist rendition showing how we climbed up the tunnel:

For me, being in the underground city was something between being on an episode of the Flintstones, underground with Kirk in Star Trek, being lost in the movie Gerry or being trapped at the end of the movie The Vanishing (the 1988 version). This is to say, it was something between comedy, romantic adventure and deep, basic human anxiety. A little purgatory and a little adventurous freedom. In other words- complicated- like the rest of Cappadocia.

Sounds of the city

2011-05-21T13:18:00.000-07:00

These are the sounds of the outdoor food market in Ürgüp. As you can hear, the market is a wonderfully noisy and bustling place except during the daily prayers. There are 5 daily prayers in Turkey that are heard over a loudspeaker from the closest mosque. In Ibrahimpasa everybody just goes about their business during the daily prayers, so I was surprised to see the entire market in Ürgüp freeze and some people raise their hands in a position of prayer when the chanting started. Total stillness and silence and then the moment the prayers stopped, the market came to life again.

transforming and fading

2011-05-20T04:27:00.000-07:00

My guide book described Devrent Valley, also know as Imagination Valley, as one of the high points of a trip to Cappadocia, being that it is one of the best formed and most interesting clusters of rock. Considering I had found everything I had seen up till now truly amazing, I couldn’t imagine what Devrent Valley had in store for me.

Viivi and I were dropped off at the top of the valley and gazed out over the landscape. Looking at the site my first thought was that the formations didn’t look so interesting. Other sights we had passed along the road looked much more spectacular, so I was a little disappointed to start, but we were there, so we walked down the hill and entered the site. Stepping foot amid the rocks, my perspective immediately shifted. Once I was surrounded by these massive, organic forms and felt enveloped by their presence and energy, I began to understand why this was such a special place.

I spent some time in the valley, looking at, smelling and touching the rocks. After a while, I felt inspired to dance, so I did a little butoh and then sat down for a long time to look closely at what I was seeing.

impromtu butoh- good entertainment for tourists

For a while I just looked at the rocks as abstract forms, which was very satisfying to me and then I let my mind start to make associations and the rocks began to look like animals and people. Like looking at clouds, the images kept transforming and reinventing themselves and ultimately it felt like the whole place was moving.

Here are a couple of funny clusters that have become famous due to other people's active imaginations:

This is the famous "camel rock"

There is also a "Napoleon" rock.
Viivi says she sees Napoleon in this one.

Using my imagination to see people and animals in the rocks in the valley reminded me of how I gaze at clouds and see things. The difference being of course, that the rocks are static- they don’t change like the clouds, or do they? One of the really fascinating things about the stone in Cappadocia is that it is very soft and in a constant state of disintegration. Everything- the rocks in Devrent Valley, the walls of the cave room where I am living, the cave communities- everything is constantly being transformed by touch, wind, sun and rain. This natural erosion is what created this amazing landscape in the first place and it is also keeps it in constant motion, being reshaped and re-formed in each moment. And ultimately, it is what will make it disappear.

Round Trip

2011-05-18T12:09:00.000-07:00

I had the wonderful experience yesterday of walking from my town, Ibrahimpasa, to the next town, Ortahisar. I have never had the opportunity to walk from one town to the next before and it made me really understand what Werner Herzog meant when he said (and I am paraphrasing)- "If you have to do something important, you should walk there, no matter how long the journey." Although this statement always made sense to me hypothetically, I really came to understand just how powerful it is to undertake a long walking journey in order to reach a destination. It is a truly powerful experience to finally descend on a new location with your body completely alive from the physical exertion and your senses stimulated from the smells, sights and temperature of your surroundings. And Ortahisar is such a magnificent image to behold that it made sense to make this kind of a grand gesture of a journey in it's honor.

Ortahisar

The 'kale" or castle that used to house the entire village

But the pilgrimage wasn't over there. After arriving in Ortahisar, we continued our journey through the village in search of a rock-cut complex called the Hallaç Hospital Monastery, which was once thought to be an infirmary. This isn't a widely visited site, so it was a bit of a journey in itself to find and involved walking through valleys and fields and some areas littered with garbage, but finally we arrived at this stunning site, that had no other visitors except for us.

The complex is made up of a series of rooms with some very beautiful and simple painted designs both outside

and inside

and in the last room, I discovered a very strange figure on the wall. Since the figure is made out of the same material as the wall, I didn't see it at first, but then the image suddenly popped out of the stone like a ghost or spirit. It was actually a little scary- kind of like being watched without knowing it. From what I have read, nobody seems to know the significance of this figure nor seen it anyplace else in Turkey.

I was pretty exhausted after the very long walk to get to the Monastery and my friend, Viivi, offered to take the bus back home with me, which seemed like the reasonable thing to do, but it just didn't feel right to get on a bus at this point. After such a magical day, it felt more appropriate to complete the circle, so we turned around and walked back home.

©nature

2011-05-17T11:12:00.000-07:00

These are images from in and around the Goreme Open-Air Museum, a vast monastic complex composed of monasteries carved into the stones, each with its own fantastic church.

The inside of the churches are decorated with an interesting mixture of religious frescos from the iconoclastic and post iconoclastic periods telling the New Testament stories. I particularly enjoyed the iconoclastic images that used symbols painted in red oche to tell the stories.

There is an interesting phenomena where a lot of the faces of the saints have been scratched out. I was originally told by a guide that the iconoclasts scratched out the eyes and faces of the images although last night my host at the residency told me that this vandalism was a result of the Treaty of Lausanne and when the Greeks had to leave Turkey they scratched out the eyes of their saints so the images would not lay their eyes on anyone else and then I recently read that they eyes were scratched out by local people suspicious of the 'evil eye'. Well, in any case, it is very odd to see a series of images with the faces or eyes violently destroyed.

Scattered through the valley were some more pigeon houses. These structures were built in order to collect the droppings of the pigeons and use it as fertilizer. Very impressive in terms of the true understanding of recycling.

And here are a couple of other fantastical rock formations.

I find it fascinating that all these amazing shapes and forms were all made by nature. They are not the remains of engineering innovations of a great civilization nor do they have some kind of deeper symbolism or meaning, but are simply the result of volcanic explosion, time, weather and erosion. Bizarre, mesmerizing and perfect - with no help from us.

Another time in another time zone

2011-05-15T13:49:00.000-07:00

Village of Ibrahimpasa

So, here I am in Turkey, in a very small traditional village called Ibrahimpasa. This town seems to be relatively untouched by the modern world, even though it is located right inside the region of Cappadocia, which has become a big tourist destination in recent years. Ibrahimpasa does not have the more famous underground cities, fairy chimneys or cave monasteries that have made Cappadocia a destination for bus loads of tourists, but the landscape here is still stunning and since tourists don't stop here there is the added bonus of being able to experience rural Turkish life and traditions relatively intact as though no time has passed.

Cappadocia in Central Antolia is often referred
to as the cradle of human civilization

My reason for coming to Ibrahimpasa was to attend an artist residency called the Babayan Culture House and to make a new project while I am here. (Interestingly, the residence looks as beautiful in person as it does in the pictures - something that has never happened to me before in my life- and that is my cave room on the first page- it's really nice!). I first visited Cappadocia in 2005 and the organic, surreal formation of the landscape reminded me so much of my sculptures and drawings, that I felt it important to come back and spend more time here. I have never had the experience of feeling so personally connected to a landscape and for this reason I sought out a residency in this location. I will be here for a month, so for now I am just taking it slow and acquainting myself with my immediate surroundings, getting some much needed sleep and making plans of how I want to proceed.

Honeycomb Pigeon Houses- seen through out Cappadocia.

It’s been interesting walking around this little village and learning a bit about the customs here. I had read a little about the relationship between men and women in the rural villages in this area, so I was somewhat prepared. The men and women seem to live very separate lives, with the women doing a good amount of the physical work. I’m not completely sure what the men do. So far I have only seen them gathered in the tiny town square drinking tea. Apparently, the women are very friendly and open to speaking to foreign women and a number of other artists who have attended this residency were able to incorporate the women into their projects. So, this is a little treasure I was not expecting and am looking forward to exploring. I can't take any photographs of the villagers just yet because it would be impolite, but hopefully I will soon gain their trust.

A next door neighbor. Very friendly guy.

For now, I am just trying to learn a few words of Turkish so I can communicate a little and trying to acclimate myself to the feeling of being so obviously an outsider. This isn’t something I have to deal with when I am home and although it isn’t something I particularly enjoy, it's good for creating perspective and understanding a bit of what some of my friends who are minorities deal with at home.

Coming into Focus

2011-04-11T19:43:00.000-07:00

Michele Beck& Jorge Calvo, Flower Aye, 2003

Over the weekend I went to see the orchid show at the Botanical Gardens. Orchids are so exquisite that they don’t need to do much except exist to grab people’s attention. For some reason though, the Botanical Gardens had a set designer and the CEO of an advertising agency for the theatrical industry design the show this year, which they called The Orchid Show: On Broadway. I guess you would have to love Broadway shows to enjoy the extravagant displays and songs from Broadway musicals over the load speakers. I’m not much of a fan, but even for my friend who loved some of the music, still the aural and visual spectacle took away from the quiet and awesome beauty of the flowers.

In any case, I was there, so I decided to ignore the Broadway theme and just focus on the flowers. They were beautiful and like everyone else I took out my camera and started shooting a ton of photographs of the flowers. I love taking photographs, especially when I am uncomfortable. The camera allows me to control my surrounds and create a better composition than the reality that I am in and it allows me escape. Unfortunately it wasn’t all the easy to take photos at the orchid show amid the swarm of visitors snapping away. You would think that people would be calm in a botanical garden, but actually there was a lot of tension and anxiety there. I guess that is inevitable in NY somehow and I don’t think the blaring music was helping much either. So, in any case, I decided to step back and look the old fashioned way- with the naked eye.

I was a little disappointed to put my camera away and I wanted to make my visual experience without the camera just as powerful, so I made a conscious effort to pay attention to what I was seeing. At first, I realized just how much there was to see without the camera to crop my field of vision. Everything was a super-wide shot and I had to consciously compose my fields of vision. Did I want a close-up or a medium shot? Where did I want the light to come from? Did I want to focus on the colors or the shapes? And what was I seeing anyway? Slowly, I could sense my whole relationship to the room change. I started to feel my body moving through the room and I became connected to my environment in a completely different way. Rather than being located in the the camera, I was inside the space of the conservatory. In a sense I shifted from inside to outside.

When I got home, I was thinking about this shift and it reminded me of the experience I have when I put down my iPhone and stop checking my email or texting. The cell phone is an enclosed space that blocks out the world around me, but when I choose to put it down I become a part of my surrounding. I can be sitting in the middle of a crowded restaurant, but once I open the phone, I am inside a little black box in my own private world and I don’t think I am the only one affected this way.

There is a very interesting interview with the performance artist Marina Abramovic on PBS that I saw this week. Her work is all about the potential of the physical body and the power of being present in the moment. In many ways, her work is incredibly simple and yet this simplicity can be devastating. Overall, there is no technology, just her, her body, time and energy. In the interview, she says that so much is lost due to our focus on electronics. For an example she says that we haven’t developed our potential for telepathy because we rely on mobile phones to communicate. Well, before cell phones we didn’t use telepathy much to communicate, but the point is well taken. We are a culture that is addicted to and distanced by mediation. We do not value (or we are scared of) the power that can be found in our bodies and minds when we are truly present. I can understand that, after all it is a big and overwhelming wide-shot and that can be too much to hold at times.

Before my friend and I left the conservatory, we were standing and staring at some plants in a corner of the room. She said to me, “Look at that amazing tree”. I didn’t see a tree. I looked at her and I saw that we were looking in the same direction, but I had no idea what she was looking at. It took me a little time, but eventually my vision adjusted and suddenly I saw an exquisite and delicate tree with branches like lace come into focus.

Pockets of Silence and Weightlessness

2011-04-04T06:15:00.000-07:00

I found these figures yesterday in the park outside of the Japan Society. The park is a long rectangle and creating 2 lines down the park were silver figures on one side and the identical figure in a rusted metal on the other side of the park.

Whenever I see figures like this, I feel like they have a soundless and still energy that welcomes me. It's a respite of silence and weightlessness from a noisy city and busy mind.

Each of the figures was of the same person. They have no specific details to the body although they did have faces. I would have liked it better if their faces were blank. That would have given me even more space to enter the world of these figures.

One of the book I was reading about Native American dolls said that dolls are "life in miniature". I think that like these figures, they are life in contemplation.

Passages- back and forth

2011-03-28T21:18:00.000-07:00

While I was scanning some slides today, I came across this installation I created back in 1993. It is a funeral I had made for some stuffed animals from my childhood that I was having some trouble getting rid of. I felt bad throwing them in the garbage because on some level I felt like I was throwing away something that was alive, so I had decided to make a funeral for them. It was ritual for me to be able to let go of them and also put to rest memories of the past.

Passages, 1993

I really enjoyed making the installation although I am not sure if it had the outcome I was looking for. I think I still have the stuffed animals in my storage space.

Passages, 1993

But still, I think the ritual is important. It's a metaphor and it is as real and effective as we believe. I guess I didn't believe fully enough. Or I just wasn't ready to let go.

Coming to Life

2011-03-23T11:05:00.000-07:00

Michele Beck, 2004

When I was young, I had a monkey named Zippy that I took with me everywhere. He was my best friend and confidant and he was always there no matter what. For me, Zippy was real and it never occurred to me to think otherwise. As adults though, we understand the use of make believe in a child’s development and also know that we need to make a differentiation between stuffed animals having lives and reality. In general, it is our cultural consensus that objects or beings which are not human like plants, animals, dolls, rocks etc don’t have souls or spirits. This isn’t a worldwide view though and there is a long history of religions and indigenous people who subscribe to animism or the belief that non-human entities are spiritual being or at least embody some kind of life-principle. This is usually for a religious purpose, but I think it is an idea that can be further expanded.

Although it is not part of my upbringing, it makes sense to me to have a porous boundary between spirits/ energy, objects and people. This isn’t because I am spiritual or religious in the regular sense of the word. I have been reading about dolls and ritual in other cultures and I am starting to relate this to my own figurative sculptures. My little paper figures are born out of my inner life and in that sense I am transferring my self and my energy into the object. Sometimes I make life size objects, which are still dolls and then I also make costumes, which I perform in and bring the doll to life. In this case, my energy goes into the doll when I make it and then the energy of the object is transferred on back to me when I put on the costume and become the figure.

Paper figures, 5 inches, 2010

blue figure, life size, 2010

Blue Moon, performance, 2010

I like this play between objects and performance, miniature and life size and transfer of energy. This can also be found in religious ritual and education for many cultures. For instance, the Hopi and Zuni American Indian kachina rituals.

Drawings of kachina dolls, from an 1894 anthropology book.

The kachinas are supernatural beings who personify nature the clouds, sky, storm, trees, etc. and take two forms in the material world. Most well known to us are the kachina dolls, which represent the many different forms of the spirits. These dolls are made by men to give to their daughters to educate the children about the kachina and their meaning. The other manifestation of the kachina are the men themselves who dress in kachina costumes for the many yearly ceremonies to ask for rain, grow crops or other issues important to the daily function of the community. So, there is the kachina, which is the spirit, the performance, which gives body to the spirit and the doll, which represents the kachina miniature form for the purpose of education.

The transformation from spirit to object to performance reminded me of my own interest in working with animate and inanimate figures. In one particular performance called Orange Echolon I sat on stage wearing an orange costume so that I resembled the life-size doll, which was sitting next to me. For 45 minutes, as the audience entered the theater, the doll and I sat perfectly still. Since the furry orange costume covered me from head to toe, I could not see and it was difficult for me to breath. It was very claustrophobic at first, but I was able to manage this experience by breathing deeply and practicing everything I had learned over the years in meditation class. I could hear what was going on around me, but I remained separate from it in my own internal space and once I was able to reach a meditative state, it was strangely soothing. After 45 minutes the sound element of the performance started and I did a short sequence of movements that completed the performance. After the performance was over people commented to me about their confusion as to what was real and what was not. Some people assumed that the figures were 2 people in the costumes and they said they thought they saw both of the costumes breathing.

Orange Echolon, 2009

I really enjoyed the instability in perception that the performance created. My work is not about supernatural powers like the kachina dolls and performance are although it is curious to think about my work in terms of the transfer of energy from objects to human beings and then back again to objects. The confusion between what is real and what is not engages the viewer to question their perceptions and I think this opens the space for there to be a possibility that inanimate objects can have spirit and energy. In the end, who is to say what real. Like the story of the Velveteen Rabbit, if, as a child, I loved Zippy with my all my heart, perhaps that was enough to make him real. And if the energy of this love is still part of the fibers of his being, perhaps he still is real.

Zippy with Dr. Ramirez, 2011

Spirits in the concrete

2011-03-15T13:44:00.000-07:00

Is there a spirit world? Do energies exist beyond what we see?

For most of my life, the answer to these questions have been “no”. Occasionally, I tried to think this way without much luck. I see other people gain a lot of comfort from incorporating a spiritual dimension into their lives although when I have tried it out myself, it always felt a bit fake and fabricated. Recently though, as I have been reading more about prehistoric figurines, shamans, ritual and trance, I am starting to find some connections between the existence of an invisible, spiritual world and my art and life, which makes some sense to me.

I recently watched a BBC television series called How Art Made The World (available from Netflix) that discussed a hypothesis to the meaning and origin of cave painting developed by the South African archeologist David Lewis-Williams. He looks to the cave paintings of the San people of Southern Africa in order to understand earlier cave paintings such as those at Lascaux. He postulates that this type of art is spiritual in nature relating to visions experienced during ritualistic trance-dancing The unrealistic animals, humans and anthropomorphic figures seen in the cave paintings are evoked during a state when the body is no longer in the everyday world, but had reached an altered state. It was interesting watching the program and seeing a shaman chant, convulse and pass out and have the narrator say that this is where the images come from.

Rock painting, and drawing, of San trance dance

I don’t remember anyone saying anything like this when I studies art history at New York University. Shamans entering alternative realities were not part of the discussion in the classroom then. Like the history of the United States, there is a lot of information left out of the discussion. Privileging a more European perspective, we talked more about measurements, timelines and some psychology as a way to understand and explain the history of art.

I am accustomed to looking at art in very concrete ways and I think much art today is made from this very tangible, verbal place. In the contemporary world, art is about concepts, ideas, and money, leaving little room for dreams, spirits and altered consciousness. Ultimately for me, it’s about finding an equilibrium. As a community, we are out of balance on this issue, but I would like to find a way to incorporate some spirit into the concrete.

Fila dancers

2011-02-09T11:20:00.000-08:00

I found these image on the web of Fila dancers, a genre of Senufo masquerade costume found throughout the Kufolo region in Africa. The burlap sack that covers the kafigeledjo figure is closely related to the costumes used for fila. It's interesting to see objects come to life and move around.

The term fila is literally "dye-painted cloth," a patterned textile associated with madebele and Sando divination. When performing the masquerade, referred to as a "divination cloth masquerade" or "amulet masquerade," a Fila dancer wears the textile sack-style in a manner that recalls kafigeledjo's bodysuit. Underlying this formal affinity, the design and the symbolism of both representations are dictated by local divination systems. Fila masquerades are commissioned as part of a Sando diviner's prescription for a female client, to placate bush spirits she may have offended. She must arrange for someone to perform silently as a Fila dancer at funerals as a form of offering for the rest of her life. It is impossible to say whether kafigeledjo figures influenced the costume of Fila dancers or vice versa. Whatever the origin of the imagery, to some extent they may be considered inversions of each other: one represents a wild force that has been subdued and harnessed as a means for unveiling and punishing transgressions, while the other embodies a hopeful appeal directed toward such an entity for social and spiritual harmony to be restored.

Photo source: Eliot Elisofon Field photographs, 1942-1972

SIRIS Database: http://www.siris.si.edu/

http://www.randafricanart.com/Senufo_Kafigeledjo.html

He who speaks the truth with no mouth

2011-02-07T20:06:00.000-08:00

Senufo, Cote d'Ivoire

This is one of my favorite figures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It is titled Oracle Figure (Kafigeledjo) and I’m not sure when I first saw it, but every time I go to the MET now I have to stop off in the African wing and see this little figure. I have brought friends to visit him because I assumed everyone would love him as much as I, but mostly people get a bit unnerved in his presence. I guess this is understandable. I realize it is a figure that can easily be placed in the creepy department, but I feel strangely comfortable with him. Standing in the display case at the museum this figure is a mere 32 ½ inches tall (82.6 cm), but his presence looms large as he steals all the attention away from the other nearby objects. I feel a lot of power coming from this figure and it may be a bit of a dark power, but I don’t feel that this energy is dangerous, destructive or something that I need to step away from.

19th-20th century

When I see an object I love I will briefly glance at the title card, but to be honest, I am not all that interested in finding out what the figure is and what is means to a scholar or the institution that owns it. It is often enough for me to feel intrinsically connected to the object. But I also love language, so at some point, there is a value and pleasure for me in trying to articulate what the attraction is. To this end, I decided to read about the Oracle Figure in the catalog for the show Art and Oracle: African Art and Rituals of Divination, which was on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2000. It is a short description because like many of these sacred objects from other cultures, there just isn’t information available, but still it was interesting and there were 2 things in the description that reminded me of my own work and interests and probably explain a bit of why this figure feel familiar to me.

“A hybrid creation that lies outside the realm of anything recognizable in nature, this oracle figures deliberately provokes anxiety through its shrouded anonymity and the sense of suffocation and entrapment it suggests. Such works and the ritual practice in which they are used are both know as kafigeledjo, a term that is variously translated as “he who speaks the truth,” “tells the truth,” or “saying true things.” The figures give visual representation to invisible bush spirits and function as divination devices.” Excerpt from the catalog

The sense of suffocation, which comes from the figure being enclosed in a bodysuit that covers it’s head was the first thing to catch my attention. I hadn’t consciously noticed this before. Obviously I could see it, but it didn’t register to me as something stressful. I have often put myself in bodysuits that cover my entire body and head for different performance pieces I have done, so its not particularly disturbing for me to see.

Orange Echolon, 2009. I am in one suit. The other is a doll.

Blue Moon, 2009. Sound by Jorge Calvo

Figure, 2004, 8 in., paper & buttons

After these performances, one of the comments I get from the audience is how anxious it made them feel to see me contained inside the suit and I am questioned as to how I could possibly tolerate being in the suit for such long periods of time. Strangely, I don’t mind being in these costumes, in fact it is oddly comfortable even if it is a little hard to breathe. The containment of the suit makes me feel safe and becomes a meditative space that grounds my performance. The suit also takes away the distinguishing features of my identity found in my face and details of my body, leaving an ambiguous being that is understood through movement and energy. I see this in the Oracle Figure. This figure is crude in its form. Its just a block of wood with some fabric on it, but I can feel the body underneath the cloth. It is a static object, but I can feel it moving and breathing. It has presence and character. The shroud does not connote entrapment or suffocation for me. Instead it makes the object's identity more open, accessible and moves the figure away from everyday beings into the spiritual realm. I see the Oracle Figure as a medium who is holding and transforming weight and experience.

The other piece of information in the catalog that was interesting is that “Kafigenledjo divination is used to uncover misdeeds, false testimony, and culpability.” Somehow in the ritual this figure aids or forces people to speak the truth. This isn’t something I would think of by just looking at the figure, but after I read this, it made sense. It’s not a sweet or gentle figure, but a raw and direct figure. Not very easy or pretty, but very meaningful and real. Telling the truth can have a similar quality. I am not referring to factual truth, but deep inner truths, the kinds of truths that are buried deep down that we tend to try to ignore. Speaking the truth can be unnerving, but speaking the truth is also one of the greatest confirmations of our being and existence. Its how we identify ourselves and free ourselves from feeling like we have a huge boulder strapped to our neck, which is what the Oracle Figure has. This figure represents the weight and oppression of being silent and denying realities. He is a doorway to walk through rather than a demon to haunt us. And I think for this reason, the Oracle doesn’t seem menacing to me, but feels like a a powerful figure, at once beautiful and ugly, that can help us along if we choose go with him and can cause us a lot of pain if we choose not too.

What it means to speak and the experience of figuring out our own personal language that expresses our reality has been a big part of my life and work. One of my earliest videos deals specifically with this idea. In my video, Alphabet, many topics are touched on like the meaning of language, control and education, but essentially I made the video as a way to express what it means to me to really speak- to speak beyond the words and sentences that are given us, to speak from our bodies and unique inner beings. Perhaps this is is my Kafigeledjo ritual

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On The Importance of Getting There

2011-02-05T18:24:00.000-08:00

Easter Island aka Te Pito O Te Henua (The Naval of the World)
Enormous monolithic human figures called moai
Open sky, fierce ocean, barren landscape

Easter Island is a place I have been wanting to go for a long time. It’s far away. Very far away…. from everywhere. Whether you are in Sydney or New York-it doesn’t matter - it’s just as far. A tiny island, only 15 miles long and 7 miles wide (only 2 miles longer and 5 miles wider than Manhattan), it sits way out in the South Pacific Ocean and is the most isolated inhabited place we know of. On the island are 887 moai in varying stages of production, many still lying on their sides in the quarry. I am fascinated by these moai. It’s been a dream of mine to be able to stand next to one of them and be awed by their presence.

I am currently in the preproduction phase for a documentary project that will take me to Easter Island. Mostly this feels really exciting, but sometimes I start feeling a bit tired and I think- “Oy, (big sigh) - its such a big trip. Is it really necessary to shlep all the way out there? So many people have already done research on the island - why not just look at their pictures and read their stories? I am sure that I can get the information I need from that and I can always go to the National Museum of Natural History if I need to see a moai.”

Well, this does speak on some level to a part of myself that likes to rain on my own parade, but more importantly, I think it brings up some questions about the importance (or not) of first hand experience. Being part of this media generation where so much experience is mediated through television, photography, movies and the internet, at some point it seems that perhaps these secondhand experiences are really good enough, not to mention cheaper and in many cases more pleasurable. No jet lag, no bad hotels or bad food and I can keep my fantasy of what Easter Island is like intact because I would have never experience it directly.

This past week I showed a video called Ways of Seeing to my new media class at the New School to introduce them to the impact of technology on art and our lives. Ways of Seeing is a 4-part BBC television series from 1972 narrated by the amazing author John Berger and is based on his book of the same name. In this first program Berger talks about how the invention of the camera has changed the way we see and experience images. Because the camera can mechanically reproduce and easily disseminate images, the original looses its value. In the program he uses European painting to demonstrate his point. So, for instance a famous painting like the Mona Lisa has been seen by all of us so many times in magazines, on television, postcards and on the internet. Does the meaning of the painting change depending on which of these contexts it is seen in? Is there in fact any need to go and see the original? Does the original have any value other than its market value?

You can see the whole episode on You Tube, but here is a short excerpt:

After listening to my students discuss the program, I realized that the answer to these questions are quite personal. For me, it is not necessary to see the original Mona Lisa. I am not a painter and I am not moved by the quality of a line or the stroke of a brush. From my perspective it is just a famous picture and I can just as well see the Mona Lisa in a reproduction. Easter Island and the moai are another story for me though. Space and materials, context and form are very powerful for me in terms of objects. I think that experiencing the physicality of the objects, the smell, water and wind of the environment are essential for understanding what these objects are and finding out what I want to say about them.

This makes me think of philosopher Alphonso Lingis' book Dangerous Emotions. In the chapter called The Navel of the World, he talks about his experience of traveling to Easter Island. He watches the tourists and archeologists, thinks of all the reading he did before arriving on the island and concludes that the only way to understand the moai is by being there and paying attention to his experience.

"On Te Pito O Te Henua (Easter Island) it was clear to me that the passions turned to fathomless distances that raised those stones into giant statues were drawn from the upsurge of the volcanos themselves, that those vacant eyes reflected the radiance of the skies, that the song of the winds and the seas was on those lips and that those great stone faces and their raiment held the color of the ardent lava and the restless oceanic depths." (Dangerous Emotions, pg 22)

So, in other words, it's worth getting there.

Beginnings

2011-01-26T21:43:00.000-08:00

For over 20 years, I have been creating figures in welded steel, plaster, cement, paper, drawing and in live performance. I am endlessly drawn to the Moai on Easter Island, African healing figures, the female idols from the Cycladic Islands and Butoh dance among other things. As I have gotten older, my interest has not diminished and the way my figures look has hardly changed and this has led me to wonder why these objects are so important to me. I also wonder why I feel so connected to statues from other cultures and keep looking at them over and over again. These questions then lead me into a whole array of tangents and I thought this blog would be a good opportunity to explore these inquiries and also to create a dialogue with others who has similar interests with curiosities and information of their own to share.

So, I thought I would begin with a little background about myself and my art:

I am one of those people who always wanted to be an artist. There was no particular inspiration, epiphany or person who pushed me in this direction. I think visual expression was just the way I communicated and making things, dancing and singing was how I loved to spend my time. My family did not want me to pursue art, so my path has been a bit circuitous, but by the time I was in college I had some options in my studies and was able to take a sculpture class one semester. I don’t remember much about the specifics of the class, but I do remember the life-size figure I made of chicken wire stuffed with newspaper and covered in plaster. I used my own body as the model, wrapping the chicken wire around my legs, arms and torso to get the proportions, which is the way I still work today. I had no training in sculpture and no idea what I was doing, but this just came to me naturally. The figure was a basic form with no defining features, sex, or race and yet this figure had a very strong presence and identity.

I remember how good it felt to make this figure and show it to the people in the class. It was my way to communicate and it was a lot more effective than words.

After I graduated from school with an art history degree I got a studio and kept making figures for a number of years.

I loved being immersed in the process of twisting wires, forming chicken wire, cutting steel and welding. Making these figures was a survival technique for me at the time. Although I was able to talk, words failed to express my experience, but these figures were able to speak for me.

After about 3 years I decided that the figures were missing something and I chose to go to graduate school for sculpture. Graduate school was a good thing on some levels and not so good on others. In school I was able to take the ideas that were in my figurative sculptures and expand them into performance and video. I was able to develop my conceptual thought process, interest in language and connect my work to the contemporary art world. This was all useful and positive, but my figures got lost somewhere in there. It was hard for people to accept them as "art" and as a consequence I pushed them to the side.

In 2005, after having focused on making performance-based videos for over 5 years, I missed making things and I started making small figures out old newspaper and wrapping them in packing tape to secure the form. Working with my hands like this was completely different than making video. Video happened more in my head and these figures came out of my body. I was not thinking or trying to understand what they meant or how they will fit into the art world. My hands were just moving and I could feel energy and movement flowing through my body. Making these figures was no longer a survival technique as it had been when I was younger. I was surviving just fine and have no trouble expressing myself verbally. I didn't need my art to do that for me anymore and yet, it still seemed really crucial to me to make these objects.

I made a series of figures over a period of 3 years or more. I really adored them, but never felt like I could show them to anybody. I put them in my closet, put them in a box, in storage, took them out, put them back in, gave some away and regretted that and finally decided to try to find a way to exhibit them. They have clearly been a source of conflict over the years although this past summer I happily displayed all of them in an exhibition. I have about 50 of these little figures and each of them has a custom made box. You will probably see similarities between these figures and the figures that were frozen in time at Pompeii.

Victims of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii, Italy, 79 AD

More information on Pompeii's frozen victims from the BBC

I hadn't seen the figures from Pompeii before I made my figures, but it makes sense that there would be such a strong connection. The figures at Pompeii are frozen in time at the horrific moment of their death. I don't suppose it can get much more raw than that. Although my figures are not about death, they are about expressing very basic and raw moments of existence that exist beyond language. For whatever reason, I think I make these things because that is a more comfortable place for me- much more comfortable than what happens in daily life.

But more on that later. For now, this should suffice as an introduction to who I am and some of my interests. I will leave you with the latest video I made, which may seem a bit like a tangent, but is actually completely related in terms of subject matter. This video is a work in progress, but I am excited by where it is going. My friend and collaborator Jorge Calvo made the sound for me.