Making the decision to apply for an MFA program really makes you critical of your work. Critical in the context of how you want it to demonstrate your skill and ability to articulate visually, critical in the context of how you hope it functions as a springboard or an example of how you intend to get from here to there. Critical of just about everything. You find yourself questioning what fits what doesnt, what you still need, and then if what you think you still need is really what you still need or are you thinking you make work you dont make?
Confused? I sure as hell am. My head is a clatter of what I have done, what it says and what I think I need to start working on in order to say more. Dealing with my portfolio is complicated because I feel I have two very separate styles or bodies of work.
In one corner I can be witty, whimsical, colourful and playful. I can draw charming animals, often anthropormorphized, and sometimes not. I can draw quick little one-offs and make them look nice. I can print a poster, simple in technique, solid in message. In fact all of these are demonstrations of printmaking one of it's originally intended purpose, a way to distribute a message, in large scale.
In the other corner sits academia. A body of work that says what words can't, demonstrations of labour, laiden with meticulous detail, and every piece saturated with intent. Although often still playful, they do not often present themselves as such. Their colour palate is less complex, less catching. They are woodburnings etchings that take hours to produce, they are lithographs rendered simply, and they are letterpress pieces that speak with wit while handing over criticism. They are slick, and they are well produced, every edge handled with care.
I often stare at these two ranges of work and wonder what I'm doing. How the aesthetics fit and how I can possess what I see to be two polar opposites of working methods. And I wonder what I will do when portfolio time comes, because I'll have to choose won't I? I'll have to seem coherant and present a style, so it'll have to be one right?
Between these two visual bodies of work sits another body, the body that links the two, and that is a sea of text. This sea of text is my written word, my project machine, the stuff that informs the rest. It is research. From experiments in lard, to introspection on a collection of magazine cut-outs, to explorations in culinary traditions links to personal heritage, to a critical look and potato biodiversity and the effects of monoculture, all of it---it is research and it is what makes these two avenues make sense.
Or so I hope.
It is my belief working in all aspects of printmaking is important; the print maker utilizing every possible function or purpose of their medium. I should be able to recognize the historical significance in using it for something as simple as a poster, wheatpasted for free or making zines. I distribute information produced at my hand and at my expense.
As an artist I am interested in process and message. As an activist I am interested in distribution of message. As an agrarian I am interested in land and it's creatures.
As a printer, I can make all of that work. But I can do it two ways and I can reach two separate audiences.
Hopefully urban agrarian artist activist is a desirable ploy for graduate school.
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sounds like you've figured something out. i propose a coffee/phone date. let me know when you're game.
ReplyDeleteI have a blog again. I ditched the other one. You sound torn, but you have a good sense of where you're headed. We should talk about the graduate school thing some more.
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