A few comments about your posts from last week. Notice what I will term/name as intersectional issues that we are looking at in this second book: race, gender, social class, geography--all the ways they intersect. Those are theoretical lenses to look at something. Addictions, poverty, resiliences, recoveries, healings--lots to take in--and then think about our own lives as many of us are incorporating in our posts. Testimonies and witnessing are powerful ways to write and teach and research. Sobering, thoughtful and courageous. Sylvia posted about just being there--the simple act...and how "young peoples' experiences are overlooked or dismissed." I'm reading Christopher Emdin's For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood...and the Rest of Y' All Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education, Boston: Beacon Press, 2016. Sylvia's sentiment of dismissal is the thesis of his book. Haha posted about Blackman complicating realities and fictions and about keeping secrets and talking-or when to talk. Your posts reflect the tough reads in this book. Many posted about Sprinkle and the complicated layers of reading/living/acting/being/qualifying.
Sylvia posted about Blackman's self-dialogue--that can be a project--What/Who is/was your lesson--can be a project. Writing or thinking about issues not talked about. Secrets. Self-secrets. Self-fictions. Self-denials. Sylvia posted about excluding pain from life. Future and I went to Alpine, TX last weekend to retrieve some art. In our short 24 hour stay, I learned that the locals there take care of each other and the regulars that live there--eccentrics, the man in motorized wheel chair in the middle of a main street, and others. No one gets put away--but lives are valued. Interesting to see that play out. I met the mayor and talked with him for three hours at a local hotel.
Marc posted that he is used to Wordpress--then use Wordpress. Use whatever platform you are using. I only suggested blogger for anyone who doesn't have a website or online presence. Blogger is free. You don't have to use blogger. Projects-Raga thinking about a soundtrack--love that idea. David possibly exploring a social justice drawing.
It all sounds good so far. Keep in mind that you do not need to ask for permission to do anything. Or if something is suitable? Projects can be simple videos where you can talk about or record progress to date. You can post them on youtube. If it's just images, I am just asking that you provide us with some contextual information so we know what's going on. That could be done as a mini graphic narrative. Or a photo essay. That can be in words or texts. You will each create a Wordpress/blogger/website/online presence site where you can put everything. Does that make sense? It probably will be the beginning of something, with lots of open questions. Just documenting all of the introductory questions can be a project in and of itself. You do all realize that you are all brilliantly intelligent--you do, don't you? Because that is what I have been reading each week--beautifully constructed posts/responses to open-end questions. Your posts, comments, and questions have gone beyond any expectations I had. So thank you for helping me learn via your posts and comments about your connections between these artists and readings and your lives as teachers, artists, parents, partners, friends, etc.
Keep in mind, poetry counts. It all does. A dance. A moonlight performance (filmed via an iPhone. Some thoughts/writings/a few poems--some photos of you--and you have a semester project. So much has already been disclosed by many of you. That in and of itself constitutes a semester project.
Please keep in mind that schools, schooling and lives are always arenas of hope and struggle (William Ayers wrote that in On The Side of The Child). We struggle... Always great material for projects--all those doubts, struggles--and hope. We all get hurt and bruised as teachers and artists.It's real and it's not always friendly. Some quit. Some fade away. Some just stop caring or coming. As a few posted, it's exhausting.
As we finish the last third of Live Through This, it occurs to me that as we read these last stories, it's really about writing our stories--what do we feel safe writing about? What is possible? Not possible? Doable? Not doable? In the essay, "Silent Body, Speaking Body," Anonymous beautifully describes her dilemma as a teacher--and maybe our dilemmas as people--what she can't say in words she hopes others will see or pick up in her work. So, as you comment on some of the readings, make sure you include yourself in your posts as much as you can. Always "I", not "we." This research class was/is really about beginning to think about what is of most interest to us? To me? What am I interested in? Do I have the words to begin to explain what that is? If not, what are some words? Or, what are some images? And that is where the books came in--I hope, they helped show what others have tried to do. In the end, it falls back into our laps--what do we do? What will I do? What do I want to do--in terms of research--which means art or writing or performing or....
What questions remain or are you forming?
Rewriting the Script--"How on earth can you tell a story you can't remember?"
ReplyDeleteGage played with dolls (as did I as a child and adult). What saves you?
Living in a fantasy life where keep you away from the real life happening around you and you have to experience is always a solution that I think leads people to a world of art. It is a way to heal the pains which cannot get relive but with an unreal solution. How much is my imagination beyond the experiences and elements of my life and when they are ways to flee from the reality surrounded me? Do they help me to relief? Carolyn Gage in her childish world creates a story to escape from her own real world in order to heal the pains and torments but still I can see pains represented in the characters she has in her fantasy world where they are all victims. How can the hate that she has received from her sadist father and alcoholic mother disappear even in an unreal world? She abused and she left the real Carolyn in a real world and lived in a new life but still the reality follows her and has affected her life either fantasy and real.
DeleteI was very aware of the abusive environment and sense of lack of belonging that I felt all through childhood. It was not just home but the many different schools I attended, neighbors, and more. I was a talker and imaginative but retrospectively I realize now why I was. Much like the dolls I live in the world of hypothetical possibilities with other worlds to explore as well as create. I drew from preexisting licensed properties first and then that quickly became not enough. So I began drawing comics and ideas for comics not stop on everything I did. Homework margins became free canvas space to escape the world around me. Even though I am aware of it now I still do it though. I do it for other kids like I was who need the escape and/or the entertainment but I also still do it for my own escape. I can create worlds where peace and love always win in the end and corrupt self absorbed authoritarian elitist always lose. I tried to drown a lot of the hardships of childhood for a long time. While I don't remember all that hatred uttered from lips or the treatment I would undergo the message rings loudly. I tell the story of how you could receive great support of others and overcome so maybe it can take place for those that may not have the support. In the end it is at least better to make believe in support than to suffer with the reality you have none.
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DeleteGage,
DeleteI used to joke my family put the F in dysfunctional, for this reason I believe it's important for educators of small children to recognize physical and mental abuse in their students. I realize on top of everything else teachers are expected unrealistic demands, however when under age students are not with their parents or family they are with their teacher. I understand that is a lot of pressure on an educator, however who else do these children have to go to with their issues from home?
Cello Speak: Exploring New Languages for Madness-by Bonfire Madigan Shive
ReplyDeleteno more crying by bell hooks
Shives writes, "I realized early on that I would need to create a language for myself in order to understand what I was experiencing" (p. 175). "When you're young it's okay to invent your own realities" (p. 177). Can breakdowns be breakthroughs? "...we must accept that we are all in states of change" (p. 183).
bell hooks--trauma--"more than anyone can bear" (p. 187)
Google Judith Herman's brilliant book Trauma and Recovery
Herman states that trauma calls into question basic human relationships. "Trauma recovery is a protracted process: complete recovery is rare" (p. 188). hooks talks about words and "soul murders." What does it take for me to lose my capacity to feel?
Your thoughts on these essays in relations to your professional and/or personal lives? Or your current work?
Reading these essays makes me think about bounds between reality and imagination/ fantasy. How can I distinguish the domain of fantasy and what can be defined as schizophrenia? The real world that I deal with every moment suggests me an unreal one that I can live there simultaneously. But when the elements and creatures of the fantasy world come to the physical world and interpret with the real experiences, this mixture is a result of mental disorders or imagination that can create art? I have never had this kind of experiences only in my dreams. These experiences that I read for me is like someone tell me about her dreams. It seems they are living their dreams when they are awake. Dreams for me is a land that I can leave it once I decide and can remember as a pleasant memory.
DeleteLooking around my studio and my apartment there are gures and images everywhere of characters that fight evil and are good spirited warm hearted individuals with power to defend the weak. I guess I was weak but maybe I wasn't. I look back now and realize that through the moments of the worst abuse and pains I was creating with a fire. I could not stand up to the evil in person so I created those that did. Sure I loved those created by others as well... The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would have kicked his ass if they were not clear across the country in Manhattan. The heroes were busy elsewhere so where was mine if i didn't create it? I got thrown trough a slatted door and my hero could bust back through that space like it was nothing. I was once explored to have borderline personality disorder but quickly it became clear that I sought to control situations by being a character in the story. It was a phase that I would eventually leave behind. I also realize now that i didn't deserve what happened to me. I was blamed for acting out, for not doing as I was told, for questioning things, and for being.... a kid. It got worse because the abuse as well as neglect increased the imagination and creation so naturally I would see punishment from it too right? My work now is designed to assist children with giving them the characters I created to assist myself. I recognize that many students will be suffering in their everyday life and it is quite impossible for many to escape in school work. I intend for my work to give them education through character assistance so not only is the education easier to receive but it also an escape that places the student in another world of hope.
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DeleteShive,
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLXBXa3DKLg&feature=youtu.be
The passion behind her music and in the way she plays burns down like a bonfire. Amazing, just amazing. I would love to catch her on tour, however I don't see me going to Mexico anytime soon. I think all of us should develop a crisis/wellness plan, I couldn't help but feel her own plan felt like art to me.
Hooks,
DeleteFirst, I could not wait to read Bell Hooks, she is a pivotal icon in feminism hands down. After reading her part in Live Though This I often question myself why do people uncappable of investing emotional and physical time insist on having children? I don't know about the curriculum in high school these days, but the lame child development course I took didn't even scratch the surface in regards to raising children. I say this should be a high school requirement because not all of us come from the same cookie cutter, white picket fence, and mentally stable family background.
I can relate when Hooks states crying was a sign of weakness, the need to toughen up your children is a survival tactic to help them face the big bad world of discrimination and politics. This is no excuse for verbal abuse, but I understand why they took those drastic measures.
Self-Portraits by Nan Goldin
ReplyDeleteThis chapter stands on its own. Art stands on its own as a chapter. With an artist quote. You could do this. What would your chapter be about or look like? (And, think about doing this as a semester project--simple, personal, doable--consider taking your topic and ding it this way.
Your thoughts on this chapter?
This chapter was one of my favorites so far. I like what you said Dr. Check: “this chapter stands on its own. Art stands on its own as a chapter.” I agree with this idea. Most of the stories in this book seem to me as artworks embodied in narratives. This chapter was the same, except one should ‘see’ the story. As a visual artist, this was inspiring for me.
DeleteI think one can see and feel things in this photo that cannot be understood through words. This is the power of image; it tells untellable stories. Nan Goldin’s photos have a distinctive mood. I like the domination of cool colors, and creating blur edges in some forms. These make the images poetic, and even nostalgic for me. As if these were frozen moments of a woman’s life, long time ago.
In addition to the mood and rich visual quality of the images, there are references that make the photos narrative. Ambiguous narratives about “the time of change and trouble.” The photos seem dark and gray while expressing a passion for living and embracing the times of trouble. For me, the exact stories remain unclear, but such ambiguity doesn’t bother me. Not knowing exactly what the narrative is, make the photos more universal. Anyone can come up with a story, that is probably a part of her or his story.
In short, this chapter was one of my favorite. It was inspiring because I like self-portrait as a subject matter of creation. For the class project, I have also started making self- self-portrait using photography and video.
I have been going through the images of my gardens and trying to organize posts and such and what I might write. Naturally I see things as a comic or picture book playing out and I realize that a chapter like this acknowledges not all things have to be spelled out. I am rethinking my project in a sort of comic captioned post series as I migrate the project. The idea of open ended questions rather than explanations seems to be more appropriate as time goes on. I noticed we are all starting to post more rich and difficult questions than in the beginning. These images raise the questions with more direct drawing of conclusions but how might my garden reveal those questions? I realize I have chosen specific plants for specific memories. Small unnoticed details can scream of a past of torment and torture. The pain may seem literal in a rose bush but what is the mint then?
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DeleteGoldin,
DeleteAt some point we all have taken selfies of ourselves, we just don't put the context into documentary form. Nor do we post the pictures of ourselves during loss or disappointment, they are often fake smiles or taken during times of happiness. These fake selfies are not the first pictures taken either, to make the successful selfie it is often taken several times then filtered with the latest app. I came across this one day and I thought it was so powerful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW8BDgLpZkI
Silent Body, Speaking Body by Anonymous
ReplyDeleteArt as Prayer by Kate Bornstein
Live Through That?! by Eileen Myles
Which ones moved you? How?
“Slinet Body, Speaking Body,” was impactful. I have some friends that they did self-injury in the past, but it was hard for me to feel their feelings. The story illuminates many questions that have come to my mind about self-injury:
Delete“cutting aligned the mismatched reality, brought the chaos to surface and appeared to control it.”
“my body become the canvas of my rage.”
The above was two of my favorite sentences of the story. It shows to me an internal chaos, destruction, rage, intense emotions, etc. that is not comprehendible by the writer. She is not able to process them or even understand such feelings, but she needs a way to express them, to get rid of them. She cuts her skin to bring such intense emotion into the surface. Later, she finds a different way to deal with this chaos: dancing.
“Dance became more than just why I lived- it was the way in which I lived.”
The connection she makes between dance and embodying her internal chaos, rage, etc. is fascinating. I think this is a difficult task, to find movements in the body that manifest an incomprehensible feeling.
This story, I believe, also has profound psychological dimensions. It briefly mentions the writer traumatic past: being raped. It shows her journey of dealing with trauma, from harming herself, to transforming her trauma into dance and movement.
I remember a note by Freud in which he says artist have the capability of sublimating their trauma into something else, art. This is an amazing and mysterious transformation. I think art for many artists works like this. There is an internal feeling that cannot be expressed by words, but somehow can be embodied in form, sound, motion:
Anonymous spoke to me the most, however Kate's opening was very similar in a lot of painful ways. Inevitably at every school I would attend, Fat Fuck would become my nickname or some form of it as well as the physical assaults on my breasts and the claims I should like it because I must be gay. I attempted suicide a few times. A serious attempt had me digging with a knife in my chest that I survived because I passed out. I cringed from a hug from my mother a week later and that was the only way it was discovered. It was too late for stitches or real medical attention but then I wasnt trusted alone or means to harm myself. The abuse stopped for a few days but came back as it always did. I would stare at my chest. It became a reminder. What sex am I? Why did I fuck up and not finish? Was I so pathetic that I couldn't take the pain to end it? I wasn't the man I was supposed to be growing to be was I? Why are they there? I am an idiot. I am the crazy psycho son. I can't do anything right. A few months later as I was being yelled at for the perceptions of others, I threw myself from a car going 45mph. If I couldn't do it in private I had to take it more out of my control and be able to more easily finish it. I see this in others now that sometimes our enemies are the consumption within ourselves of controlling the pain and torture some how, anyway possible. My mother always would say the cliche statement "this too shall pass" It used to be a motto till I realized it was the constant. All I can be certain of is that I belong, maybe not here or now but I do, and I can make sure others get the message that they do too. You belong. I belong.
Delete***For some reason it's not letting me reply to individual posts, so I'm going to have to reply down here:
ReplyDeleteRewriting the Script--"How on earth can you tell a story you can't remember?"
Gage played with dolls (as did I as a child and adult). What saves you?
I can relate to what Raha said about constructing a world of fantasy and then transitioning into the world of art making. Akin to how Gage described playing with dolls as a laboratory for exploring social realities, I think I internalized a lot of what was happening as a child and processed it through creative experimentation. One thing that struck me about Gage's reflections was her empathetic interaction with her neighbor's unwanted doll. It seemed like there was a lot of behavioral redesign there, and that the constructs that she created and navigated through allowed her to exercise control over others' conduct. This seemed like a process that was healthy in that it allowed her to cope with adversity growing up. In addition, these tools (observation, reflection, assessment) seemed important to coping with feeling like an outsider to expectations of "normalcy" throughout her life. Oftentimes, I get the sense that my students are interesting in making work for similar reasons. I know for me art was a place that did not require me to conform to any standards, in fact it encouraged me to investigate my own capabilities and propensities. Because of this, I try to encourage students to believe in the validity of their own expressions while still exposing them to (ongoing) collective momentum of artistic expression.
No More Crying, Bell Hooks
ReplyDeleteCello Speak, Bonfire Madigan Shive
Your thoughts on these essays in relations to your professional and/or personal lives? Or your current work?
***Reply
I thought Bell Hooks' articulation of crying as an expression of grief was powerful. As I've mentioned before, part of my emotional maturation has been coming to terms with choosing to reject the notion of being/feeling as binary states. Today, I no longer see the constant mitigation of emotional states as suffering. Similarly, I used to see my work as either successful or unsuccessful; now I see it all as a continuous process. Moreover, as time passes I've been able to understand and appreciate different aspects of my endeavors, which has allowed me to produce work more fluidly due to a reduction of anticipation in its ultimate success or failure.
To me, Shive's use of musical expression spoke to the idea of the complexity of emotional experiences. In my experience, language can serve to constrain the intricacy of the self. "We live in a world that just wants to silence those voices, to medicate, to pathologize, and treat it as a psychotic episode that must be suppressed." (pg. 184) In this way, I think that labels can discourage healing/processing/creative expression.
Self-Portraits by Nan Goldin
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I like what Niloofar mentioned about Nan Goldin's self portraits being ambiguous enough to be universal/relatable. It was interesting to me that the first photograph's title was "Self-portrait in blue bathroom" and the second was "Nan one month after being battered". Not to be too literal, but I noticed that the first image (she photographed herself?) from a distance, showing her image "self-portrait" in a diminutive mirror, while the second (someone photographed her?) showed her battered, yet made-up face as a self portrait in the third person. To me this speaks to power within the act of capturing an image. In the third image the title almost seemed like a third-party declaration of her decline, and yet she is still the artist. Finally, the forth image's title returned to the use of the term "self-portrait", and showed a pensive-looking Nan vaguely staring out the window of a train sans distinct associations. I definitely appreciate the narrative and other information present in the progression of the photographs, but I also have gotten a lot out of reading the other artists' writings on their work; to read their articulations has been a refreshing luxury for me.
Art as Prayer by Kate Bornstein
ReplyDeleteLive Through That?! by Eileen Myles
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I thought that Bornstein's journey towards self-love/acceptance was really inspiring. Within cultures' delineated expectations, she was propelled by an inner desire to be true to herself. Even after sex-reassignment surgery was unsuccessful, which would be devastating to many, she was able to find joy and fulfillment in herself and her life. The reason this was significant to me is that I have come to realize that no matter what occurs throughout my life, I always have the power to respond to it in the way that I choose. In this way, I see making work as a response to environmental circumstance that equips me with interpretation not based on value judgements. I also appreciated Myles' story of actively wanting to live using the analogy of dental care. This ties in to my belief in the importance of seeing life/art as a process that unfolds over time in order to combat the urge to think/work in all or nothing terms.
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