One of the (many) repeat programs I�ve been listening to on (the now semi-crippled) CBC was one about �cuddling� with Shelagh Rogers. No, not cuddling with her, but with her moderating a discussion. And yes, you can imagine she would be a big cuddler. But the upshot of the discussion was basically that (most) women are much more comfortable cuddling with each other, even sitting face to face, legs up, on a couch with feet in each other�s laps, than men would be. And this was very obvious to me at a dinner party I went to this week. Hugs and kisses all around with the women. We even ended up sitting in the hostess� washroom (bathroom, lavatory, toilette depending on what country you are in) talking. I don�t remember how we ended up there, but it was a pleasant, large room and we congregated and chatted as if it was just another Nova Scotia Kitchen Party, but not in the kitchen.
One of the guests at this party asked me how to start an abstract painting when faced with a blank canvas. It was to be his first. He didn�t know if it would be better to start with a concept or just paint what he was feeling. Of course, I told him not to be concerned about a concept. Some people work better that way, but if it wasn�t natural to him, not to impose one where it didn�t want to be.
I�ve never, personally, been attracted to working with concepts. But when I see people�s work that embodies sociological ideas, I am very moved, feel challenged, admiring, yet still, know that I cannot do that with my work. Definitely I want my paintings to transcend the very personal, intimate beginnings, the personal internal conversations that generate the first marks, but if they stay there, it would be disappointing. A good piece of artwork transcends the personal, reaches beyond what we think and know.
I suppose that is why Susan Feindel�s work was so fascinating. I went to hear her talk last week about her work that is now in an exhibit entitled Scan at Dalhousie Art Gallery (until October 2). The exhibit, which explores the marine environment, includes paintings, videos, bookworks and mixed-media installations. The work examines the fragile structures off the Scotian Shelf and the impact of human presence there, including the severe tracking marks left by trollers, these marks becoming strong imagery in her paintings. As well, she includes actual soil from the places of her investigations. The curator, Susan Gibson Garvey comments �how the sensuous and tactile nature of the work itself acts as a counterpart to its clinical and scientific sources, creating a poetic tension between what is known, what is sensed, and what is impossible to know.�
Susan Feindel and I had exhibited together (along with Wayne Boucher) at the Agnes Bugera Gallery in Edmonton last March. Her work in that exhibit was abstracted landscape. Knowing the background of her marks and color choices does help see the message, yet the emotional impact was evident even then, before I knew the history of her work. And that is what makes good art.
Posted by leya at September 19, 2005 09:54 AM