Art Fair
On Wednesday we wandered around the art fair. The first time I went to the art fair a couple years ago, I was utterly amazed. My experience of fairs like this comes primarily from Gold Rush Days, the big fair Wickenburg, AZ has every year. Their craft area is in general more about kitsch and country than art, though there is sometimes wonderful western things. My mom got an awesome new engagement ring with gold nuggets instead of a diamond. At any rate, I’ve been seriously impressed by the quality of the art, and the originality, at the art fair in Ann Arbor. This year, expecting that, I could be a bit more discerning. Erik and I were kinda sad that the wall art category was overwhelmingly dominated by pictures of the same corner of Europe.
That said, Hussein Saidi was my favorite artist. He uses mixed media to completely capture movement and emotion. I was transfixed by the stories within the scenes. I could imagine so many different scenarios that might explain the moment created in front of me. Every time I reexamined one of the pieces, I saw new detail and new stories. I also loved the way he uses flings of white paint for rain, as well as the recurring umbrella motif.
It did make me wonder why I have seen many artists, like Aaron Douglas, render images of black people without distinguishing features. I think I have decided it is in part because history and slavery stripped the identity of so many black men and women. In trying to understand slavery, we so rarely have sources that name and give character to black individuals. Yet, artists can recreate scenes which those unnamed individuals might have moved through (I am thinking here of one of Ujama’s pieces that to me told the story of a couple fleeing slavery). One of my favorite images, though, had nothing to do with slavery.
While also at the art fair, we stopped in at the library and I picked up a book of poems, In Praise of the Unfinished by Julia Hartwig (translated from the Polish). This one perfectly captured some of the thoughts I have about myself:
A Sigh
How I loved you things that are superfluous
boundless love friendship sacrifice virtues
met so rarely and paid for so dearly
how I cried over every betrayal every
disloyalty and every abuse
How I loved you things that are unnecessary
paintings words flowers and lovely faces
each blossoming meadow sunsets and dawns
how I loved you almost to excess
and how vexed I was you are superfluous
Frightening and revealing
Last night Bible Study was supposed to talk about Abraham’s deal with God over Sodom. I missed it, but I’m still thinking about public versus private justice. God had to teach Abraham that he had to think beyond saving his nephew Lot from the justice that Sodom deserved to thinking about what the city as a whole needed (at least ten righteous men). It seems to me that where liberalism often fails is at the point where grand sweeping symbols of justice meet real realities for individuals. Thus, “integration in education is all well and good till you make my children go to school with their children” said mothers and fathers in the famous struggles over busing in Boston.
I ran across a hideously perfect example of this while listening to an old This American Life episode today. It is called Matchmakers, if you want to give it a listen. There is one story recounted by a young NY city actress who worked out of college as a “nurse” in the FAO Schwartze baby adoption center bringing seven year olds their very own life-like doll to love, care for, and read to. About a month into working there, someone on MTV got a doll from there for her daughter and suddenly the slow season turned into the flippin’ hot season. Dolls flew off the shelves and into small arms until suddenly……there were no white dolls left. Mothers tried every which way to ask for a doll that “looked like my daughter,” some more PC than others. The “nurses” were instructed to tell the mothers that there was a wider selection available on the website. This particular nurse challenged her co-workers to say “whiter” without getting caught.
Finally, the mothers started buying some of the “minority” dolls. The Asians went first. Then the Hispanics, until finally only black babies were left. Black babies and the one baby that the nurses were supposed to take care of while it wasn’t busy. That baby was white, but had been malformed at the factory. The nurses bet on which would go first–the white deformed doll or all the black dolls.
Finally a mother charged in and demanded “where are all the white dolls!” She wouldn’t be dissuaded with the website line, so she demanded the display doll (which was hardly a new doll. It had been mistreated throughout the fall by the nurses as a kind of game when things got slow). The daughter did not promise to love, care or read to the doll and wanted to name it “stupid.” The mother forked out 120 bucks anyway and off they went.
Perhaps this hits me because I always wanted the dolls growing up that didn’t look like me (when I wanted dolls, which wasn’t often). I had a beautiful brown boy baby that my mom made and a few brown and black skinned friends of barbie.
But the bigger question I see here is how we as individuals make choices to “protect” our families that in congregate perpetuate stereotypes and discrimination. Probably the clearest example of this is the fact that the type of school system factors into the price of a house, and thus school systems tend to be segregated by income. But the story also frustrated me because of things like the NY Times survey reporting that the majority of whites in this country think race relations are all hunky-dory, while a majority of African Americans emphatically do not. Working in a white-majority school, I face that attitude all the time, but I’m not sure yet how to help students think about race in different ways. Sometimes teaching the history behind things is actually unhelpful because it causes students to just say, aren’t things so much better today.
Theater Geeks Rock!
grateful
I’m very grateful for a profession where I can tend my plants and play with my cat while still reading, writing, and talking to interesting people.
How does feminism meet the reality of childbirth and cooking?
On Anne of Green Gables by slate.com: “The outlines of Anne’s life may not resemble the models of feminine success as it’s conceived of nowadays. By the series’ end, she has put aside her dreams of writing. And she channels into family life a large part of the energy that might have fueled her as an artist. Critics have argued that Anne’s choices undermine her status as a “proto-feminist.”
“But what this argument misses is the inherently progressive nature of Anne’s indomitable alertness, whose power is hardly diminished by the fact that she trains it on her children and the world rather than the blank page. She continues to meet, with her full self, mundane contingencies and tragic losses. If this isn’t an overtly political stance, it’s capable, if properly contemplated, of inspiring one.”
On the “Ethics of Eating,” Speaking of Faith with Barbara Kingsolver
How does being a locavore work with the drought of time in our society?
Ms. Kingsolver: But my work life is profoundly consuming and often difficult and frustrating. But it’s so interesting to me when I’m in Europe and spend time with my Spanish friends or Italian friends, and they are working people too. They’re women who are working in offices or, you know, they’re editors or are laboratory scientists. And as soon as they’re out of work, they head straight for the market. And they go down to see what fish has come in or what greens do they have now at this season.
And even at high-powered business lunches with editors in France—this has happened to me so many times—these women in their fashionable shoes and business suits will stray from post-colonial literature over to the subject of mushrooms. And, you know, and there’s no shame in their enthusiasm for cooking. They feel that cooking for their families is a really important part of who they are.
This, I think, is that, at the heart of the problem for a lot of us, anyway, I think I belong to the generation of women who grew up thinking that walking away from the kitchen was walking away from some kind of slavery, you know? It’s how we think about it.
Ms. Tippett: Yes, you’re right. If we thought of cooking as this great pleasure that we could look forward to at the end of the working day, I suppose that would change it.
Ms. Kingsolver: If it—if we look at it as family time, as entertainment, as a spiritually enlightening even, you know, if we look at is as a destination rather than a rock in the road I think we would do more of it. And not every day, maybe not on Monday nights, OK, but definitely on Saturday.
Is Photography art? (When I do it)
I put in another application today for a part time job. On the application form they asked me what were the five most important things in a work environment. Never officially having been in a work environment, I had to ponder this carefully. I listed a few normal things and then I thought about Sweetwaters and about Plum Market. They are both pleasing to the eye. So I wrote “An aesthetic workplace.”
As I walked away, I wondered if using that kind of a word was a good idea. Then I thought, it is not in fact very informative. Doesn’t everything have an aesthetic? And I looked at a bunch of construction cones in an empty lot and thought ironically, “see, that is a construction aesthetic.”
But then I looked again, and saw the rusty diamonds created by the old fence that framed the Blind Pig. And I thought, what a great view of Ann Arbor; I wonder if I had my camera if I could capture this vision I am having.
That little thought gave me an answer to a question I have often pondered–what could make my picture taking into art? Our world today is so inundated with photographs, it is often unclear to me what makes a worthy image and what is simply a souvenir. But I thought, if I could capture that split-second image I had of Ann Arbor through that chain link fence, I could present my internal vision of an aesthetic place to others. And sharing my own personal vision is the beginning of art, I think.
Bad Night
Those with cancer chart the course of their disease on blogs. I guess I can chart the course of my depression. I hesitate to do so because it is so, well, depressing, and I dislike foisting that on my friends. But I also desire the release beyond just telling my journal.
I had a terrible night last night. Utterly unprovoked. The day was a beautiful day of chores done, tennis and swimming outdoors, and working on a craft project. But, that was part of the problem. So I guess there were two triggers–one, the self-loathing arising from my mushy-bourgy self, and forgetting to take my medicine yesterday morning (which I didn’t discover till this morning).
Everything I seem to love is mushy-bourgy. We have visited many apartments over the last few months, most of which were low income type places (similar to where we lived before this apartment). And always I felt a piece of my soul crushed by the ugly surroundings, the noise, the people packed on top of each other. So, we’re moving to another nice apartment complex shielded by a strict set of bourgy rules about noise and mess.
Let’s see…what other parts of my soul do I find mushy-bourgy.
I love coffee shops. My father started to go to independent coffee roasters long before the rest of the country caught on. In Colorado, there was one tucked off on a side street off of the old downtown (somewhat run down, somewhat still cool). The main point was the coffee roasting–behind the counter was the great copper basin where the roasting took place. In a separate room there were a few sparse tables and a raised countertop with stools. I remember sitting up on one of those stools with some type of non-coffee drink, pretending to read the paper while my dad actually did. Today, I still love coffee shops, minus Starbucks which is really too comercial, but there is still no other more iconic image of mushy-bourgy than paying exorbitant rates for coffee drinks.
One of my favorite shows these days is “So You Think You Can Dance.” A Reality Show! The horror! I love to watch the evolution of young artists across the season. I also love seeing the range of choreographers they find from the professional dance world. This season a couple of street hip hop dancers have mastered lyrical and ballroom dance. And this dance (active verb?…wrenched, twisted, touched my heart). Through the grainy youtube quality I just ached at the beauty and the heartache. It followed me to my own bed and I too was tortured by the impossibility of sleep. I’m sure others watching this will think it is the epitome of silly romanticism.
I also enjoy silly Americana………the Ann Arbor Fourth of July parade where part of the town marches down the street being cheered by another part of the town. No fanciness, just a lot of families and a lot of liberal politics and a lot of earnestness.
Art flicks
home decorating
tv
mysteries
ny times and npr
gardening
independent restaurants
hiking, biking, jogging
novels
crafting
pacifism
helping friends
dinner parties
laughter
international travel (doing it and hearing about it)……………..how much more mushy-bourgy can you get than demanding friends show their slides? I suppose it could be topped only by a slide projector rather than powerpoint. Though come to think of it, powerpoint is pretty mushy-bourgy.
Trader Joes and Plum Market
monogamous marriage
environmentalism
Garrison Keillor
So why does it matter if these things I love are so mushy-bourgy? 1. Real moral choices come not from armchair radicals, but by stepping out of one’s comfort zone (channeling high school youth group here). What does it profit a woman if she gains the whole world but loses her soul? 2. None of these things improves any world other than my own. None of these things fight poverty or racism or hatred or sin. 3. All of these things lead me to espouse interracialism, which as far as I can tell is usually roundly despised as the automatic, easy choice of a white person. Certainly it was despised by Carter Woodson, the father of black history and the man my black professor idolizes (that’s too strong a word, but can’t think of another).
4. Do these things shield me from the real essence of my dissertation? I have found a group of women remarkably like myself–they espouse interracialism and the possibility of individual friendships transforming racial attitudes (when asked at my senior thesis defense how I thought racism should be fought, I said something remarkably similar to that). They travel internationally. They enjoy high culture, card parties, and intellectual/cultural salons. They pursue graduate degrees. They are diplomatic (as opposed to caustic or, some would say, telling it like it is truth telling). All those verbs should be in the past tense, even though I feel like I am living alongside them right now.
5. As Adam put it Thursday, we should just not choose mushy-bourgy to make the moral choice today. 6. I would like to be a counter-cultural intellectual.
Simply put, I am pretty convinced Jesus would despise the mushy-bourgy, and thus he must despise me.
But does all this self-hatred spur me to action, to change my ways? Evidently not, leading to further boughts of self-hatred, sobbing in the night and taking too much insomnia medication (meaning I can’t safely drive to church).
I’m sure some of you will think “Get a Grip Lauren! If you’re that unhappy with yourself, just do things differently!” Believe me, I know. I tell myself, “Get a Grip! Get a Grip! Get a Grip!” and sometimes it works. Right now, it doesn’t.
Can poverty trap those with minds longing for education?
Here is an article about the phenomena I mentioned yesterday–someone longing for an education but too poor to pursue it. It has the added benefit of also discussing how small donations like a goat (by a church!) can actually change someone’s life.
Review of Hancock
I enjoyed Hancock more than most superhero movies. I hadn’t read any of the reviews, so I was surprised to come home last night and find my own opinions of the movie echoed in the New York Times Review. The one thing they didn’t mention was how the “Super Angry Black Man” was so nicely reformed by sweet white man for polite society. I wish there were a way for our society to accept angry black people without making them comfortable for bourgy society.
Frustration
Academic writing is often horrendous to read. Style-aids suggest using “active” verbs.
When I attempt to use active verbs, it comes across as too Victorian or romantic. My prof thought I was channeling the voice of those I was writing about, who are also quite romantic. I do tend to pick up verbal or physical tics, so that may be the case. But I also feel haunted by my 13 year old self. How depressing. Now I must pick my way through my chapter to make it at once well written and more academic. Two others had already told me this, but I guess I had hoped my prof would see it as “lively” writing, or some such nonsense.
Editing is so painful. I just went through the first ten pages or so and marked almost every sentence “awkward.” Not terribly helpful, I know.
While packing the other day I came across a journal I had written in undergrad. It was full of “to be + adjective” and primarily one or two adjectives at that (wonderful, terrible). It was (wait for it) terribly depressing. Maybe careful attention to the wording in my chapter will somehow slay the ghost of my younger self and lead to clarity or improvement.
I must also cast out all the internationalism bit…perhaps into a standalone article, perhaps into the black oblivion of saved files never opened. I wish it could be an article, but I fear I don’t have the background to write it properly. It is one thing to have a few paragraphs in a chapter on things one has not studied in depth. It is something else entirely to submit an article to a journal for which one has done very little secondary reading.
I have envisioned another five chapters, as well as an introduction and conclusion. If they each take 3-4 months to research and write and be read………….and even then suffer from my ludicrous writing. Yep. Feeling a tad overwhelmed and like going on the job market this fall is a huge stretch.
