Thursday, February 2, 2012

early work/journals

I went to the Francesca Woodman exhibit at SFMOMA one rainy day a couple of weeks ago. I really wasn't ready for the flood of feeling that show brought up for me. I would site Woodman as an early influence of mine, especially when I was in my early terms at Art Center. But instead of my work, it brought up all these feeling of being a young artist and the questioning and lack of acceptance of my own process. There are quite a few parallels within the way we printed and loosely in subject matter (although I was not such a self portraitist as she). I remember getting such grief for printing small. I forgot she printed small as well. It is funny to think of now, when all these things have been figured out to some extent. Or maybe it is just that confidence and sureness in my work and vision is unquestionable now. But those feelings were so easily and unexpectedly excavated at that show. So today I share a couple of pages from my creative journal with you all. All early work of a young unsure artist. My journal was my place to do anything. And for years no one saw them - they were for me alone. I feel like starting one up again. It is invaluable to have a safe place for oneself to just create. What do you do just for yourself that nurtures you creatively?




3 comments:

  1. Beautiful! I love Francesca Woodman's work too. Thank you for sharing this glimpse of your journals.

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  2. i was so moved by that exhibit, i've gone twice and will probably visit again before it closes. i picture her very much as the character i'm writing now -- that time in late adolescence when identity is slippery and how artmaking is reflective of that.

    i make a lot of funny charts and diagrams about characters and stories in my notebooks with lots of arrows and circles and cryptic notes about act 1 and act 2 and act 3. that nurtures me (i do it a lot at art exhibits) in between writing and revising...

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    1. agreed Erica, a really powerful show. So interesting and exhilarating when art and design is moving on such a level. and loved hearing about your charts! I painted the stage sets for an opera in my journal once upon a time...when I was still dancing and couldn't quite separate from the thought of performance I had wonderful dreams that meshed my two worlds...

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