THE EYE OF THE STORM: VERMEER IN BOSNIA

This article was originally posted on my Radio Userland blog on Sunday, October 2, 2005. 

This summer, I created a special “artist’s table” for our local coffee house, Prime Roast. The owners, John and Judy Rogers (who also happen to be our good friends!) commissioned artists who were also regular customers to create “art coffee tables”. When the final table is completed, there will be a grand reception. I hope to post images of my table soon. (UPDATE: See all the images of my table at the end!) (Yeah, they’re out of order, so you could start from the bottom and work up…)

Last night, we had friends over for Bad Movie Night, a tradition where we find a terrible movie, invite friends over, have tacky (but yummy) snacks (jelly beans! caramel corn!), and talk and joke about the movie as we watch.

They had seen my table, and loved it! We got to talking about where I got the inspiration for it. (Bear with me, this is a meandering journey!)

Years ago, I read an article in THE NEW YORKER magazine by Lawrence Weschler. It was an excerpt from his book “Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet Of Wonder:  Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology“. You can read about this book here. 

The book is about an odd and intriguing “museum” called The Museum of Jurassic Technology. You can explore this unusual work of performance art here: 

http://www.mjt.org/

It’s a real building, with exhibits, in a strip mall in Culver City, CA. I hope to visit it someday. (UPDATE: We DID visit it a few years ago, and it’s even more fascinating than I imagined! If you go, go with an open mind, no judgement, and READ the exhibit information. Jon is pretty sure he saw Mr. Wilson while we were there!) It’s a fascinating mix of real and faux scientific exhibits, and inspired the “History of Coffee Part I” collage tabletop I made for John and Judy. (UPDATE: Judy told me a few years later that a customer came in regularly for weeks, sat at “my” table, and read every entry. Then they announced that everything on that table was false. I told Judy to tell them that almost 3/4 of the entries were TRUE!)

While searching for the link to send to people, I came across a second book by Mr. Weschler. Here is the Amazon entry for “Vermeer in Bosnia : Cultural Comedies and Political Tragedies“:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679442707/

The first essay on the author’s musings about Johannes Vermeer (Girl with a Pearl Earring artist) and his world, juxtaposed against Weschler’s coverage of the War Crimes Tribunal judging the atrocities committed in Bosnia in the 1990’s.

Now, scroll down that Amazon page to the customer reviews, and read the review by G. Bestick of Dobbs Ferry, NY. (UPDATE: That review can’t be found anymore, and I’m so grateful I captured it here!)

This passage especially caught my heart. Weschler writes about a war crimes judge who retreats daily to a local art museum to restore his soul after gut-wrenching court sessions:

“Weschler shows us that Vermeer’s greatest achievement was to imagine a world of stillness and serenity at a time when all of Europe was being torn apart by national hatreds and religious persecution, and then to will that world into existence through his art. Those magnificent paintings are more than technical triumphs; they are triumphs of the human spirit. The distance between Vermeer and the murderers, rapists and torturers on trial is heartbreaking. Weschler makes us see Vermeer in a new light, and makes us feel in a new way the unique burdens of being human.”

Just a beautiful essay, one that speaks deeply to the artist in me today.

Art can be beautiful, but not always.

Art can inquire, and expose, and provoke. It can arouse us to look and think deeper on the world.

It can also offer respite and restoration, and peace.

It can ask, “What if?”

What a delightful journey Google and Amazon took me on today! I’m ordering the book now.

And now for the coffee table images!

NEWSLETTERS 101 #17: Share an “Aha!” Moment

My biggest “aha” moment was what put me on the path to becoming a “real” artist. Still powerful. Still works.

12/15/2020 by Luann Udell

This post is by Luann Udell, regular contributing author for FineArtViews. She’s blogged since 2002 about the business side–and the spiritual inside–of art. She says, “I share my experiences so you won’t have to make ALL the same mistakes I did….”  For ten years, Luann also wrote a column (“Craft Matters”) for The Crafts Report magazine (a monthly business resource for the crafts professional) where she explored the funnier side of her life in craft. She’s a double-juried member of the prestigious League of New Hampshire Craftsmen (fiber & art jewelry). Her work has appeared in books, magazines, and newspapers across the country and she is a published writer.

Was there a moment when everything changed for you? Share it!

(4 minute read)

One of the taglines in my Fine Art Views (and elsewhere) is this:

“I share my experiences so you won’t have to make ALL the same mistakes I did….”

Yep, I’m hoping it made you laugh a little. But I am also here to reassure you, that when we have our own “aha!” moment, aka “the Eureka effect”, that miraculous gift of insight where we see what’s really going on, what the solution is, how to move forward from a stuck place, it’s good to share it.

It may be just what someone else needs to get out of a hole today.

Here’s one of my favorites I love to share. It’s about fear. How fear can dominate our lives, inside and out. How it can paralyze us.

And ironically, how shallow it can really be. (Yes, pun intended!)

This story is over 15 years old, and the fear I described was already almost 15 years old. If my husband hadn’t cajoled me to take a dip in the lake on that hot summer day, I might still be holding that fear in my heart.

My intention in sharing this story was to encourage others who are in the same boat. Paralyzed with fear, palpable fear. Impossible to ignore. Only “diving in” (figuratively and literally!) helped me get to the bottom of that scary lake. (Again, pun intended.)

As I linked to the Dublin Lake story, I found another related story in the sidebar, entitled “Breakthrough”. Here is where a bunch of fears, and one random comment, came together into one beautiful solution.

Now my latest insight, that came from revisiting my old blog, today:

Radio Userland was an early blog hosting site (now-defunc) site. I wrote on it from 2002 to mid-2007. (I couldn’t even access it for ages after I left, until my techie husband recoded all the urls into something I could get to easily.) (Thank you, sweetie/love of my life!)

In five years, I got maybe three comments. THREE.

Was it because I was a terrible writer? Or an uninteresting writer? I’ll leave that for you to decide! But I do know the platform had its drawbacks, for me.

It was hard to comment. I don’t even know if I could have responded to those comments. I had no way of knowing how many people visited my blog. I never thought to ask the ones that did, to share it with others.

So: No comments. No likes. No way to measure “hits”. No way to know if anyone ever even read anything. No way to know if what I wrote, helped someone else.

And yet, I wrote. I process hard places in my life, through writing. So I wrote for myself, first. I love having had all those ‘lessons learned’, insights, and free advice.

I love it when I come across them again.

Because I still need them.

As a good friend said a few years ago, “I love all my life lessons! I love them so much, I learn them again, and again, and again.”

And when I share them with the world? Priceless. As in, “free” because you get to read them here at no cost to you.

And “priceless” as in “powerful”, as in “if it helped me, and when I shared it, it helped you, then that has incredible, endless value.”

Is it coincidence that I had this realization so soon after last week’s article, on how the numbers ultimately don’t matter?

I don’t think so.

So consider sharing an insight that helped you move forward in life. An insight that helped you find your way in the dark, towards the light, and a mug of hot milk.

If it helps even one of your subscribers do the same, well, that’s pretty cool.

One suggestion: Stick with the positive, or at least end on a positive note. Not all life experiences are good ones. But when we learn something fundamental, something beautiful because of them, that inspires hope.

Of course it okay to share something we’re struggling with right now, too: Health issues, difficult life events, etc. Believe me, if you’re going through something really hard, someone else out there is, too.

And it’s okay to just gritch now and then. (That’s a word from an old high school friend, a blend of “gripe” and “bitch”, and I love it almost as much as “blort”.) In fact, it might be an opportunity for readers to make suggestions or express sympathy, which may or may not help.

But just knowing they care can mean a lot to us, too.

But don’t be too much of a Debbie/Danny Downer, either. Yeah, we all have our moments, but we also all have enough on our plates.

What is one of YOUR favorite “aha!” moments? Try it out on us, in the comments!

If you enjoyed this article, if you enjoyed this article, share it! Link back to it here on Fine Art Views, or my blog at luannudell.wordpress.com.

If someone shared this article with you, and you’d like to read more in this series, visit my articles at FineArtViews.com.

WAYBACK WEDNESDAY: ART vs. CRAFT: I’m Losing

I’ve decided to publish a blog post on Wednesdays, republishing posts from my now-defunct and hard-to-find blog at Radio Userland.

Hence, Wayback Wednesday!

Yes, it’s just by chance that this blog post first appeared on a Wednesday. 🙂

If you’d like to see the original post (and others!), click on the title below.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

ART vs. CRAFT: I’M LOSING I’m feeling bipolar lately. My mood has been up and down, sometimes all at once. SAYING I need to rethink how to get my artwork out into the world sounds very brave and confident. In reality, I just want to hunker down and run away.Today, in between making horse sculptures for some stores, I followed a link to an interesting blog called “Redefining Craft” which you can see here: http://www.redefiningcraft.com/ I really don’t speak academese, so I skipped through some of his entries until I hit the one for February 8 entitled, “Art vs. Craft: Who’s Winning?” In this entry, Dennis Stevens posts two images, one of a Nike shoe on a stick, and one of a mask by glass artist William Morris. Or rather, according to Mr. Stevens, “non-artist” William Morris. It turns out the Nike shoe is the image that provokes and enlightens, while Morris’s work is merely a hijack of another culture’s imagery for his own gain. Wonder what Mr. Stevens would say about my Lascaux imagery? Oh, well, at least it’s possible that Lascaux IS my cultural heritage. It’s possible some of my ancestors were French. But I have to admit, I felt a certain dismay that as a craftsperson, I’m in danger of being left on the side of the high-culture highway for lack of having anything potent or portent or important to say. Doesn’t help that I also recently watched the movie “Art School Confidential” which you can read about here: http://imdb.com/title/tt0364955/ It’s a movie about a young art student at college. He finds his beautiful work is totally ignored by his teachers, his peers and the art world while pretentious, self-aggrandizing crap is revered as “true art”. The kid eventually passes himself off as a serial killer so he can attain his ultimate goal of being a famous artist. (Because as soon as he’s arrested, his paintings sell like hotcakes.) There’s one thought, and one thought only that moves my heart gently back to its rightful place. I didn’t deliberately choose any of this (except for one thing.) I didn’t deliberately manufacturer the message of my art. Call me lazy, call me shallow, call me a clueless craftsperson or a non-artist. All I know is, ten years ago I felt like I was dying inside. And when I hit the lowest point in my life, I make one of the most important decisions of my life. I decided to make the stuff that made me feel human again. I tried a lot of different things and a lot of different techniques until I found the ones that felt…that resonated…the most with what was in my heart. It just FELT right. Of course I have great hopes for my artwork. And of course I want people to buy it. And of course I hope to be recognized for making beautiful things. But I didn’t choose what I do to attain that. It chose me. All the discussions about art vs. craft, about what makes great art, and who is a “real artist” make my head hurt. They always have. In the end, I’m left at the end of the day with one question. Did I make something I’m proud of? And did I put enough of myself into it that it calls to other people? And did I do at least one thing to get it out into the world for others to experience? Okay, more than one question at the end of the day. But these are the questions I CAN answer. I’ll leave the more academic questions for wiser people than me to answer.

Re-Do on the To-Do List

Friday, October 01, 2004

This post originally appeared on my Radio Userland blog. I love to reread them, they seem just as ‘fresh’ and useful as the day I wrote them! (5 minute read) I start most mornings with my schedule book (a student composition book with daily to-do list) and my journal. I try to start with my journal, because as I write, the process helps me sort through the to-do’s and establish real priority. A to-do list is great for making sure you accomplish what you set out to do in a day, but they have a few drawbacks. First, it gets cumbersome to constantly move unfinished tasks to the next day. It doesn’t allow you to easily set daily goals vs. weekly, or even longer-term goals. Everything seems to have the same urgency. “E-mail Tiffany about wings” seems as crucial as “mail past-due insurance premium.” Also, no matter how much you accomplish, there’s always something you didn’t get to. So you never feel you really “finished.” And then there’s the feeling that tomorrow, it starts all over again. This morning I wondered if I instead I could view the day as an opportunity to fill certain “cups” of my life that need care and attention. One cup, “family”, was easy. Jon and I had had a great morning. So I needed to make sure I spent time with my kids later after school. “Make chili with Doug and Robin” (they love to help me cook) and “movie night!” went at the top of my list. (You know you need to cook more often when you make a pot of soup one weekend and both your teenage children THANK you profusely….how embarassing!) Under “friends”, I made a note to e-mail my friend Tiffany to see if she could meet for wings and a beer, our weekly Friday ritual. And to call another friend I hadn’t seen in a few weeks, to see if we could get together. “Professional” cup next. “Clear a space so I can do card project for Katherine’s book”. I stopped and looked at that entry. “Clean the studio!!!” has been on my to-do list for weeks. (see blog for 9/30) Breaking down “Clean the studio!” into a smaller step (“Clear a table”) was a good strategy. But I needed something else today. Life’s been overwhelming lately, and I just wondered if there was another way to look at all this. I remembered the “Handmade, High Tech” conference (see blog CRAFT IN THE DIGITAL AGE entry in April 2004.) One of the speakers, Lynn Martin Graton, Traditional Arts Coordinator for the NH State Council on the Arts, talked about how differences in how language is used can reveal fundamental differences in culture. She said, “If I want to say, ‘Warp the loom’ in Japanese, it actually translates to something like, ‘In order for the cloth to be woven, the loom will be warped.’ It’s a totally different way of viewing the action needed and the person who acts. The loom has its own importance, its own part to play. It’s not just about YOU, the artist.” (paraphrased greatly) AHA! If I say “Clean my studio”, it’s a huge task that lies on me and me alone. I must accept total responsibility for doing that. There may be very American, can-do solutions: I can suck it up and do it myself. I can get friends to help (barn-raising!) I can hire someone else to do it, putting a value on my time and/or deciding how I want to spend my time. And my favorite, ‘you can accomplish anything–even eating an elephant–by taking many small bites one at a time.’ It’s how I’ve accomplished everything I have in the last five years, breaking every monumental task down into more manageable little steps. But what if we’re in a place where even these strategies just seem too overwhelming? What if we could speak Japanese sometimes? What if we could tap into an even softer, Zen, wholistic, mindful approach occasionally? What if I recognize that, if I do my part, then the creative “thing” will do its part? What if I could trust that process? I rewrote the task: “If the cards are to be made, a space must be cleared.” It’s still the same action resulting in the same conclusion, but the perspective is different. It’s still up to me to take the action that makes it happen. That table won’t clear itself! (Oh, I WISH!!) But now I have a partner in the process, so to speak. I started with the analogy of a baby, but that got too labored (ouch! Sorry…) But like a baby, certain things have to happen in order for the baby to appear. Once started, the baby pretty much develops and grows on its own schedule, and appears in its own good time. But certain things have to happen, and a place has to be made. Martha Graham’s famous quote, in part, acknowledges this: “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.” Blocking the creative act can be as simple as not making a place for it. The creative process is a dance between you (a conduit and a source of action), and a partner (the creative force that needs to appear). The result, whether its a card project, a song, a poem, a garden, a painting or a child, comes from that dance. Once that creative thing is in the world, it takes on a life of its own. It can be seen and experienced by others in their own unique way. Some people will be inspired by it, some will be angered. Some will be moved to tears and others will wonder what all the fuss was about. That’s why the rest of the quote goes on to say it is not the artist’s place to judge it, just to make sure it gets out into the world. So take another look at that to-do list. Look at the ways you may have unconsciously taken on more than you need to handle with your art. Start with the small but critical step of making room for it, literally and figuratively. Then step back and see what happens! I’m off to clear a table now.