come and meet my ancestors!

Wypominki Kobiety will be debuting on June 13th at White Rabbit Galleries

How long would it take me to make 7 large-ish paintings, write a book about them and throw a gallery exhibition? Last June, I could not have guessed, but it turns out the answer is just about every bit of 365 days. One revolution ago, I applied to the Ohio Arts Council for a grant with an idea that was probably overly ambitious- I was going to try my hand at narrative art and, true to myself, I was going FULL GONZO.

I started my career in 1996, when I accepted my first commission, just months shy of my 17th birthday. As I approach 30 years as a professional artist, I know that narrative has always been my weakness. I’ve spent my career railing against the idea that the painting is some deep, profound reflection of the artist’s personal story. Yes, the artist will always be present in the art- how we think and what we feel will always influence everything we put to canvas. From subject to materiel to style, each painting reveals the hand of the artist. A mentor of mine, Charles Goslin, warned me, “do not try to hide who you are in the art. Your hand will always give you away.”

There is this idea though, that the viewer is somehow entitled to what I think or to be entertained by a story I am telling with my work and I have pushed against it for decades. At galleries, guests would ask, “what does this mean?” And I would smile sagely, responding, “I wondered what would happen if I turned a red bucket into a guitar.” True and false. Or true and evasive, at least… but I never wanted my art to be about me. I desperately wanted to my viewers to make their own stories out of whatever I had on offer.

(The Bucket in Question)

I recognize that artists are curiousities and as somewhat public figures we do place ourselves in a position to be asked many questions- about us, about the art, about meaning. I have tried my best, with varying degrees of success, to guide my viewers to their own conclusions. I’ve invited people to make up their own stories about my work, asked the eponymous “what does it mean to you?” I’ve demurred, offering the most surface levels of my own motivations: yes, I like circles very much or it was a Red Day or sometimes I just imagine something and I want to see if I can do it.

As middle age begins to pass me by, I have begun to feel a shift. Some things happened in my life that were both raw and healing. A reconnection with an old friend (one of the few who will remember that first death in my life which wounded me so badly and permanently.) The continuing progress in my ultimate dream of getting out of the system and into a monastic life. A shattering trauma that left me with what appears to be a permanent disability. I began to feel a longing to speak up along with a renewed connection to my heritage, to my woman-ness.

So I decided to start telling stories. I could have never taken this risk in time and cost if it weren’t for an ADAP grant from the Ohio Arts Council. The funding allowed me to buy as many supplies as I could need, travel to look at Neolithic relics, commission the book printing and help White Rabbit Galleries pay for the opening reception. I did gave up a lot to make this happen. I have barely competed in a bicycle race in this past year. I have not traveled unless it was for research. I spent hours and hours and hours alone in my studio with my thoughts, my ancestors, my sketches of bits of rock and bone carved by the very earliest artists. I wrote and edited and imposed myself upon literary friends for writing support. Gradually, the project began to take shape. A narrative blending the stories of my family, the myths of the Old Country, the Neolithic expressions of femaleness and me. Me, the lynch pin.

Me, the thoroughly isolated spinster standing barefoot in the back yard at 3am, staring up at the Milky Way searching for signs that the things I feel so deeply really are real. Me, listening to the deep Ohm of the cosmic microwave background hoping to hear the voices of the people I keep inside me. I read somewhere recently that if you really love someone, you will live with their ghost forever. I wish I could give credit to that, but I cannot remember regardless of the enormous gratitude I feel for being given freely this brilliant idea. After all, this project started with the statement: Inside me, my mother and her mother and her mother and her mother before, all the way back to the first mother.

I hope that you will be able to join me at the opening reception for Wypominki Kobiety, but if not, thank you anyways, truly and tearfully, for joining me on this journey. And for listening to my stories. Here’s to us and to another revolution around Sol- it is not guaranteed, which makes it all the more precious!

Wypominki Kobiety will open with a party on June 13th at White Rabbit Galleries in Barberton Ohio. It will run concurrently with their annual juried show, Down the Rabbit Hole, for the duration of the month. WRG is open to the public Thursdays through Sundays and is located at 571 W Tuscarawas Ave. Barberton, OH 44203