binary... or is it something else...

OK. when I look at my work, the hanging tapestries, I see two sides. An organzied, intentional side and the other side. The other side is what I think feels like to be inside my skin.

But is it binary?

Binary is boring.

It would mean the viewer is on one side or the other. But there is another option. You can line up with the side of the fabric and look down both sides. Kinda like a Damien Hirst sliced shark. There’s a place in those that the viewer can stand and the entire animal disapears.

So is it binary? Hope not.

I don't like endings

These large tapestries take a long time.

The beginning is a bit like going on an adventure. Will I finish? Will this be the one that breaks me? How hard will this one be to finish? Lets get the yarn out. Find the cup of needles. Count, recount. Start. Restart.

Then the middle creeps in. Discipline. Sit. Find a podcast. Stitch. Follow the pattern. Celebrate the moving to a new page on the map. Celebrate the sections completed.

And then the end. I don’t like the end.

All of a sudden, its here. The end. The part where I stitch the hem. It takes 2 days. Then look at it. I usually find a section I walked away from. Stitch for a few more days. And then its no longer mine. I need to let it go as an object. It exists, but I don’t get to work with it daily. It’s no longer part of the conversatrion with my hands.

It looks like MADEtheUSA: Tobacco is almost done. Shes a biggee, like 28 feet or something. Those leaves took discipline to get through. More than other projects. The pattern is more complicated and nuanced than earlier pieces. As I work on the roots, the disconnected little stitches floating in air… I don’t know if I am ready. But I need to be. So hurry up and stitch, bitch.

damn...

In designing the Statue, Bartholdi incorporated broken chains and shackles to represent newly achieved freedom. Originally, the sculptor planned to place the chains in the Statue’s left hand, which instead became the position of her tablet. Bartholdi opted to place the chains and shackles at the feet of Lady Liberty to symbolize Liberty breaking free from bondage.

I WAS USED...

I was used. I think it was by something bigger and better and intentional than I am aware of.

I got a permanent order of protection this week, which has the normal physical barriers. This one has added points that include SOCIAL MEDIA. I actually got an order of protection that includes social media harrassment, in more than one bullet point to! It covers sooooo much.

This was not easy. I made a lot of mistakes. Looking back, each mistake made the case stronger. It was like I was meant to fail to get it right.

My daughter broke up with her boyfriend 18 months ago. The boy immediately figured out her email passord and took control of her emails and all social media accounts connected with it. And he made it known he was in control. It was disgusting.

First time I went to ask for help, I brought my child (who the order really protects) to the court. I did not want to get a lawyer. I did not want to put my daughter through defending herself. I did not want to put my daughter in a place where she had to defend herself with the boy in the room. I kept showing up to court without a lawyer and without my child. The case got connected to something big the other child had done, so there were a lot of people in the room to protect and hold the other child accountable. I ended up praying that what I did was enough, and the other child would stop.

My local police said I could try to get order of protection, but they don’t cover social media. And that was this other child’s medium. I was fucked. I could not protect my child.

The other child did not stop. I went back to get a temporary order. I got it. And then I missed the court date, so I lost it.

September… other child was at it again, on social media harrassing my daughter. Went and filed a temporary order of protection. This time, it was set up so that it was me against the child. My daughter could have a lawyer represent her.

I got a lawyer. I really really did not want to. It felt really powerless to have to ask a lawyer for help to protect my child. I had to find the money, not knowing how much it was going to cost in the end to go through a system I knew nothing about. It was a sign that things were really, really bad.

And this past Monday, I got it. An order of protection that clearly, several times covers social media. It was made clear in court, that if its violated, there is no conversation, there is no hearing. If broken, the consequence is 6 months in prison.

It breaks my heart that the consequence is so life altering. Yet, my child is protected for 1 year. One sweet year is a lot for a teen. And then we see again.

The part that takes my breath away, is that the third time, the judge slowed down, and that is where the language was created to include social media. That was the ground breaking moment. Once that was in place, others had to show up, had to do their jobs, fight, but the moment I was part of something bigger than me or my child was in September. I didn’t see it until 5 months later.

return to stitching

While installing at Rockefeller Preserve, The fabric is like skin. It is a barrier. One side is like the outside of skin, the thing everyone else sees. The other side is like the inside. Only the being inside the skin knows what it feels like.

thinking about

We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Thats the Preamble to the US Constitution.

I have found myself listening, reading it every day. Here is the vision of our country. Are we living up to it? What got in the way? There is a way forward.

Love as a way forward

Unlike other movements for social change that require joining organizations and attending meetings, we can begin the process of making community wherever we are. We can begin by sharing a smile, a warm greeting, a bit of conversation; by doing a kind deed or by acknowledging kindness offered us. - bell hooks

I have been feeling overwhelmed lately. Overwhelmed with demands of being a daughter to aging parents, a parent to a college student in a demanding study program, a parent to a teen with mental health struggles, a partner and wife, and most important to me… art.

It feels like there are all these different sections of my life, all which need to be assessed. Somehow in that, I need a vision for the year, clarity on my why, and a deep desire to recognize my communities and strengthen them.

I accomplished a lot last year. I don’t know if I want to do the same thing this year. Last year, I made two huge costumes for parades. This year, I am just not feeling it. But I do have a desire to see people, and to have intense times of joy.

I am also learning… slowly… that joy is the resistence we need to get through this time as a US citizen. The people and communities I admire, they sing, they dress up, they bring joy as a fuel for their fight.

A dear friend reminded me this morning that we as citizens, as people who identify as Americans are going through a reevaluating of what we were told our country was, and how it actually works.

Being American is part of my identity. My parents remained citizens of their birth country, and my sister moved back. I do not identify with being Dutch. Interesting how I am just now learning that the first slave ships to this land flew the Dutch flag.

I am reading bell hooks “all about LOVE”. I am doing it slowly and with my antriracism group. The quote above stopped me. Maybe the phone calls, the protests, the organizing is important. Joy will be our fuel. What if it really, really starts with a kind word, a warm smile as we go about our day?

Little objects...

I have a small piece in a local gallery. Its a really big deal to me.

See, the thing is, its 25 local artists in a tiny, sweet gallery. Although the gallery is small, it is good. Really good. In this show there are artists that are known world wide. There is one that had a sold out show in Chelsea this year.

And I am hanging in the same space. Well, my little pieces are.

I have done a lot of work this past year. I have stretched where and how I show. I transported and installed a 72 foot high tapestry. I have taken over fields with an image of slain child. I installed and showed Flower Crown series for the first time. I made a huge costume for the Coney Island Mermaid parade. I have developed and invested a series for living spaces. And I made these litlle wall objects for quiet corners.

With this show, this small wall my piece hangs on, I feel like I belong. I feel like I am an artist. I feel like I made it. I was surprised to have the thought. I didn’t realized I felt like I didn’t belong. I’m surprised that such a small piece can have such a huge thought. Feeling like I belong is what I have been searching for my entire life. Its one of the foundation blocks of my career. I am excited to see how this changes things. I wonder if its a small thought that like a seed, grows, strengthens and takes up space. I’m curious how it changes things.

Onto next year, onto blooming!

winner, winner, chicken dinner

Art Prize is not over yet. On Friday night, the winners will be annouced. There is a lot of money - $125,000 to the grand prize winner. The other winners win a good chunk of change too. Its a competition, and that element twists things. It makes it fun, and it also … raises the question why I make art.

Viewers can vote for one artist per day. It is super fun to see people hold their phones up to the QR code near my piece and vote. Its great that I connect with people not for money, but to engage them with the work and my ideas.

I want to win. I like competition. It helps me get out of my comfort zone. And the money would validate the time and effort I put into making art. Gosh, I’d be a WINNER!

Really, I have already won. My goal for the show was to connect. On Saturday, I spoke with viewers for 5 hours without a break, and I thought maybe an hour had passed. Not bad for a first timer, huh? Its validating to have people look at my work, and talk about it and hear people’s thoughts. I have spent the last few years focusing on valueing what I make, raising the bar on the work I do. The engagement I got this weekend confirmed that what I do matters. What I make is good.

There is this voice in my head, “If I really valued what I make, i need to engage in getting money for what I do”. How the heck do I put a value on any of this?

Winning the prize would change that conversation. I can change that conversation too. Maybe its time.

Creator: Joel Bissell | Credit: Joel Bissell | MLive.com Copyright: Joel Bissell | MLive.com ©2024

moving on up...

I am writing this in the middle of August 2024. In a few weeks, I will fly out to Michigan with the tapestry that took me 2 years to make. It is yarn cross stitched on debris netting, and it is 72 feet high by 15 feet wide. That’s like 3 two story houses! I wanted to see if I could make it. I did. I made it with the vision of hanging in a huge local mall. The mall a was cool with hanging it as we were coming out of COVID. which is when I started it. I thought it would take me 4 months to make. Two years later, the piece was done, the mall’s business was fine, and they didn’t want to hang it anymore. It was February 2024.

I took a pause on it. Good friends sent over connections to their local malls, or told me they saw a space perfect for it. I prayed. I hoped. And I decided to listen to advise I was given years ago: the universe has 3 answers to requests: yes, not now, or I have something better. I put my bets on something better.

I applied to ArtPrize in Michigan. I’ve been following Kate Gilmore for years. She won the prize a few years ago with a fantastic piece. ArtPrize is a huge art festival in Grand Rapids with some great cash prizes. There are awards for viewers most liked as well as curators picks best in show. It gets a ton of visitors. Turns out over a miliion. Yes, a million! Grand prize is $125,000! That is a LOT and says a lot about the scale of this festival.

In April artists apply. In May, venues apply. In June the great pairing begins.

To travel and take on the task of installing in a place I have never been, to pay for the travel, for the hotel, the instal costs.. .that was a new level for me. I decided I would only go if I got in the Convention Center which is the center of the festival.

I got in.

Then I decided I would only go if I got the center of the Convention Center. It wasn’t worth it to do all that and be put in a corner.

I got the center of the Convention Center.

I bought my tickets. I booked the hotel. Each time I ask about guidelines for installing, Ed emails back, this is what we do, we can hang this. I have to let go. Show up and let go.

So now, in early September, I will fly out with the art stuffed into a bag. I will go to the center and deliver the bag. When it comes out of the bag, it will be the first time it has been viewed in real life by more than my husband and I. Holy tamole. I will bring extra underwear.

And then I will fly out the end of September and with a million viewers, see the piece.

Please join me on this adventure.

NEW SERIES: UrHERE (cotton bole)

I have started work on a new series. It will be a collection of 4 or more pieces. These will be 30 feet high, 15 feet wide, yarn cross stitch on blue debris netting. They are meant for indoors to be hung from the ceiling, 6 inches off the ground. Still. Like walls. The blue references the sky and gives a light to the piece.

The pieces are 4 times larger than the common human body. It is meant to be looming at the same time draw the viewer in, and then draw the viewer to look through.

Each piece will be of a plant that helped fund the independence of the USA. Because of cotton, sugar, rice and tobacco, the United States was able to fund its independence. Those crops were harvested by people whose ancestors still have to fight for the right to vote in this country. It is why I am on this continent.

Because AI is a part of our immediate experience, these images are sourced from AI program with prompts to create images with roots, leaves, stems and flowers. In the past I sourced several images to make a single image with these elements. This series will use AI to do that. Because there are many images of flower and leave of the plants, and few of the roots, the images are really interesting to look at. They do a reflect a collective unconsious of what these plants look like.

I am starting with cotton. It is a fantastic image with the bolls (cotton balls) inserted in the root ball. The boll is not singular like in reality, but mimics a flower with 5 leaves. The flower of the cotton plant can be pink, and this image has a beautiful pink cast. I love this image and can’t wait to see it bigger than my body.

detail of source image for new series

Most days I play with different prompts to find images that are inspiring. I understand how dangerous AI is. It is also reflective of what we create images of. People with 3 boobs and 2 penises I don’t find interesting. Seeing how we view nature through the images we create and collect is.

The title comes from thinking about how I, how we got here.How agriculture, slavery, need for autonomy created this nation. How this nation has forgotten that.

goal: solo show

I envision a solo show.

Walk in.. totem like cross stitch plants, ai plants, plants that reference how USA became USA.. cotton, rice, tobacco, sugar…

then a look at whats around us. how we are in the world.

then a look within. sacred space.


another idea… drugs, plants from drugs

But this show.: u r here.

outdoor: human, the other,

the outer: nation, community..

the edge: quiet, reflective, bringing in (reflections series)

the inner: identity, light: flower crown

fabric panels: how do they fit in?I love them.

different space: scale

outdoor: hills, continents

public: building

home: body

private home (bathroom): hand

inner: thought, emotions

entry 5: LAND+MARKS

FAIL!

It’s not going the way I thought. The image is not coming through.

I realize what works with the debris netting pieces is that the image is recognized first, and then the elements get discovered. Right now, it looks like a small field of xs in a circle shape.

I wanted to do a portrait of myself. A friend very kindly said “you can get away with it looking like a moon”. You can kind of tell by the photos below. In person, the image is not discernable at all. For it to work, it needs to be much bigger. I am limited with the amount of tiles I have, and the amount of time to work on it by myself. I will have to find a solution.

The pieces look great as the grass and weeds soften the piece and it look like its sinking or becoming a piece of the earth. There is a beauty to the piece in its presentation. I am excited to share it. Just gotta figure out how to get the overall image to be identifiable.

Maybe its not a portrait. Maybe another image can do the work - the message that I am looking for with the portrait. How to acknowledge my whiteness, acknowledge people that walk this earth. What am I acknowledging? Something that collectively we have chosen, committed to burying, shaming. The opposite of shame is pride. I am poking at white pride. The breaker is humility. What is an image of humility that can acknowledge the pain that whiteness has caused on this land?

My approach is that I am going to try making a different self portait with just hashes - a leg of the X. Maybe that will give enough variation to give details so it starts to look like a face.

Failure, or an art not coming out the way its envisioned, is the exciting part of art. At the start of a project, grand ideas of what it will look like motivate and thrill. At some point, the piece takes over. It feels like failure. It sucks. The artist needs to step back and let the piece tell the maker what to make and that can take a while. Its like having a conversation with a dream. I am there.

I am still committed to the idea. I will figure this out.

entry 4: LAND+MARKS

Today, I went to Rockland Center for the Arts and started creating my own portrait. I don’t know if it will work. It may not be recognizable at all. Oh well, I learn more from failures than success.

What’s different about this project is that it all happens in public. Typically, the trial and error happens in the safe, sacred space of the studio. This series, I need to make it on other peoples land to figure out what I am doing. So much of this project is upside down, inside out. I know I will get to where I want to go, but I am figuring out stuff in such a public way. Each time I will get better, but I don’t know how bad the failure will be.

I wonder if its connected to the theme of the project - my whiteness. By having to do this all outside the studio, my safety shell is removed. Last week in my (unlearning) racism group we had a dialog about a comment I made about trying to leave my whiteness behind. A black friend stated that she would never ask anyone to come as anything less their entire selves. For me I was clear - “My whiteness is a protective (egg) shell that keeps me safe, but at the cost of connection and my full humanity.” So doing art on other people’s land is a physical act of removing a safety shell so that I may make a mistake or even worse, a mess in public. It’s out there for the world to take a photo of and share - which I will do regardless of the outcome.

Today I was struck by how much suffering my comfort causes. How many people have deeply painful lives so that I may have cheap clothes, disposable anything. By making my image on the land, I am coming back to the land. I am acknowleding my presense, and connecting to the Earth. I make many mistakes. I am sorry. I don’t know what I will change, it all feels insignificant today. It starts with an acknowledgement. Maybe I can share this ritual with someone else. Instead of coming in with anger, may I come with grace. May I come to share.

me starting something….

entry 3: LAND+MARKS

Some projects are not as done as I think. This is one.

I am committed to doing a portrait at Garnerville Maker Faire in mid May. Its a crazy cool space that is behind the gallery, like a secret garden. It is split in half. Half is flat, with grassy moss over pebbles and then there is a retaining wall and the land slopes up to a fence up above.

I sat with the space, meditated and asked for an image to come. The author of BIBSY came up. The author is local and it is a story of our area and how black folk came to settle here. It would be an opportunity to support another artist. But the image isn’t clear. I don’t know if its because the viewers sight line is bizarre, that there are essentially two unique spaces, or that this subject is not the right one. I have been sitting with it for over 3 weeks now.

The thing is, I am willing to engage in conversations, and I want to engage in conversations with white people, but I don’t want the subject of my art to take the heat. The conversation needs to come back to me.

And I don’t want to tokenize the subject. So that leaves me with subjects that want to promote their image, and are ok with connecting their image with what I am doing. I am still in the starting phase of this project, and am still learning how to engage people, and the significance of the work.

It became clear to me that I need to do my own image. I planned on using my own image as practice over at a local art center. I want to make sure I can create a reasonalbe likeness - and that the perspective does not skew the image to the point of ridicule.

So I will use my own image for now. And the work is about my whiteness so it makes sense in a way. Its just that I have been looking at my face for so many years - its not that interesting.

I will trust that the next step will come when I am ready.

COLOR MATTERS

I want you to see this. Pantone picks a color each year. It influences any field where color is chosen. This year, the color is PEACH FUZZ. Looks a lot like Crayola FLESH crayon from my childhood.

In a year where we have a white supremist running for president that is not a coincidence. COLOR MATTERS.


LAND+MARKS

It was around a two years ago that I had an idea.

Since George Floyd’s death, through zoom, I have been meeting with an amazing group of people - half black and half white. We uncover, learn, and see the racism of this country. It started with over 300 people, and had 40 or so for a while, then we were a group of 25 or so committed friends. And now we are expanding.

A year ago (June 2023) I met my friends in real life in DC. We walked for Missing and Black, and visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture. People came from all corners of the continental United States to eat, connect and live together for a few days. Something was changing within us. It was no longer about meeting every other week and reading books. We started stepping up and speaking more. Each of us in our own ways. Being an artist, I realized if I was going to do it for real, it would be through art.

I visited the Smithsonian Money exhibit and the National Museum of the American Indian on my own. I knew it was part of what the work was going to be about. Enslaved people were used to make the money needed for this country to be independant from Great Britan. The more sugar needed… the more were enslaved. So currency and how it is gets manifested was something I needed to see. It is the metaphor for what we value. At the National Museum of the American Indian, I learned that our nation was always intended to exist alongside the Native Americans. It is in the contract between the Pilgrims and American Indians. There were founding members of our nation that fought vehemently to honor that contract.

It needed to be white. I am white. I wanted to connect with the Earth. I wanted to have a dialog with people about the Earth we walk on. It needed to be able to morph. Elements were to be created, used in one image, and then reused in another way, like water. The final product could not be owned as an object. It needed to reference cross stitch. It needed to be big, I wanted to engage hills. A sort of molded stepping stone was the starting idea.

This project is different than anything I have done before. Connecting with people has been a magical part of this. I knew what I wanted, but I didn’t know how to create it.

I was at Charlotte’s opening (she was still alive) and saw two Makers (Erin and Mel) that I love bumping into. I asked their advise on getting a 3d printer to make these stepping stones, Erin said no… what I needed to do was cast resin. He grasped the idea immediately just by eavesdropping my conversation with Mel. So months later, the tiles were developed with my Maker friends, and I learned to make a mold in their garage. I have been casting the TILES ever since.

entry 2: LAND+MARKS

made it to the end of the month.

every day, work at least an hour.

Reflect on this past week: Listened to Cornell West panel. He is running for President. There was no conversation about his candidacy. There ended up being a debate about whether to invite Native Americans to the table in the conservation about gaining land as a means to become liberated. The elder had said it was important to include them in the conversation. This elder is Black Panther member and has been doing black liberation work since… the sixties possibly. There was a 40 year old man, very active in a western state in empowering youth, specifically boys by connecting hunting, fishing and other outdoor sports.

The 40 year old, countered the argument and said take care of our own first.

West said, we cannot define who our own are. We have to come at it with love.

Friday… conversation with local artist (KB) . Asked her to visit the current piece, and I found the courage to say what I really want to do. I really want to do a portrait of Sean Harris at Riverhook. KB said it would be more powerful to use the name. That when one passes, the connection to the living is in their name. That the name holds power.

Was left this weekend wondering if I need to go directly to the names. Why is the portrait important? Why is marking the land with the portriat more important that the name. Is what I am doing to start a conversation with white people, specifically white women about racism? I feel like the portrait returning to the Earth is powerful. The name is spoken, the image integrated. How to bring the name forth?

ACOR mentor program. We had to bring in an artifact of ourselves to give insight into who we are. I brought two things. One a photo of a reflection of a photo of my grandmother in plexiglass block, and the other a postcard of the African American Museum in DC with the signatures of my friends that went with me. To share the postcard meant I was showing up to the group with my identity now as a white person working on anti-racism (or even clearer: straight up racism- getting clarity on it).

I showed the postcard. This is the first time I am showing up with that identity. Have to show up as an anti-racist now. I am accountable to the work.

Entry 1 : LAND+MARKS

Day 2 of install at RoCA. Had a bunch of snow yesterday, so the sculpture was covered in 6 inches of snow. The section that was done before the snowstorm was raised like a scar on the earth. or a recognizable bump. I began by shoveling the area where I wanted to insert TILES. I think I’ll call them tiles. Pavers sounds like they are meant for walking on. Segments isn’t right either. so TILES for now.

Felt great to engage in the routine that I developed in creating the RESILIECE piece the past two years: Witch Daily podcast and The Daily podcast, and then silence.

What struck me the most was that as a white woman, I am starting this project, and I am literally blinded by white. The tiles are white, the marking string is off white, the bins for the tiles are white, and the snow is blinding white. How appropriate to start this project - the part where I commit to making the images, and I start by having to acknowledge how white the world is. How I have to push the whiteness, lift it, toss it, to get to the working area below.

Chani Nicols podcase came on. Something in the planets is making for a time that basically summarizes in a different way what I am trying to do. I committ to listening to it the rest of the week each day Maybe then I can paraphrase it. . It was about this is the time to come together to build the world we want. That its connected to our deep friendships we have made in the past. Its about vision and meaning and art.

Aware of the thoughts I don’t want to engage in: This needs to teach something. I don’t know how to talk about racism. I have to be careful talking to white people. I may never show if I acknowledge that this is about my whiteness and I don’t have a lesson. I don’t know what I am supposed to talk about. Who the hell am I to talk about race? I don’t want to endanger black people, or make them angry. Who am I to ask to do a black portrait on the earth?

My response to those thoughts: This is about processing what I am learning. The work will change as I do, and that is what I am looking for. Teaching implies I know something someone else doesn’t. This is my whiteness showing up. Just keep going Kris. This is about being in the world. This is for my black friends in Racism Group, to show up the way I do, as an artist. This is about figuring out what the world as a white woman.