we're in a little museum show

So, I was asked about six months ago if my husband and I would like to be included in a show at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art called Artists and Their Children. I thought it was nice that they included us. My husband is an artist too. We didn’t come up with a plan and just figured it would evolve. Which it has. And because this is a fun opportunity to showcase the beautiful mess that is our family’s creative life, I wanted it to just be playful. So for six months I silently curated the flotsam and jetsam of creative offerings that churn out of the day-to-day. Most things are not actual art objects but instead are creative solutions to homemade toys, which is to say—weapons. I think necessity is the mother of invention and if you don’t give your five year old a light saber he’s gonna make one himself.

I was asked to speak to the docents about my work which really was an honor and made me feel silly as I had to create a PowerPoint presentation and I never have done that before. I felt like a complete doofus but luckily there was another (and very talented and funny) painter there named Randy Slack so we helped each other get through it despite our nerves. Here is an excerpt from what I said:

My work has always been about the unspeakable, wordless beauty of being alive. And it still is. But now instead of emoting mortality and the transcendent, I focus on the beauty of having the privilege of being a mom—of being a witness and a shepherd to my children.

I went through the tunnel of Art with a capital A and have arrived instead on the shore of Life. I am much more interested in Life than Art. And I dare say that where I am now is a place of craft and not even Craft with a capital C—just a little c—a happy, messy little c. That little c for me is about community, connection, creativity, contentment. The Modern Craft movement, of which I am a part, is an inspiring community of like souls who have reclaimed the life of making things with their hands: knitting and sewing and all the lost handicrafts. For hundreds of years these creative outlets have been at the heart of home and family, but were mowed under by the industrial revolution and the decreasing price of goods.

Around mid-century, when women could finally dress their families more cheaply at Sears than they could actually sew for them, the handmade movement effectively went dormant. I think it would have stayed that way, for it is still more expensive to make our clothes and sew our quilts and knit scarves by hand (way more expensive). But the trans-generational communication and connection and the community that walked silently along with these handicrafts couldn’t stay asleep any longer and in the past ten years we have seen a vibrant explosion of people of all ages returning to these simple arts—these arts and crafts with a little a or c. We are the army of the little a.Very, very few people on earth have the opportunity to show their work in museums such as this one but legions and scores of people without art degrees are making happy, meaningful, connected lives all over the world by working with their hands and making little gestures towards reconnecting with the creative spirit that many people lose after childhood—the simple ability to create for oneself an artful task and then follow it to completion—the sense of accomplishment of having made a simple, small thing.

I don’t really believe in art with a capital A anymore even though I am an artist with a capital A and even though I always wanted to base my life around art with a capital A and even though I was trained in Art. Now I believe in art with a little a: the trying, the creativity, the bootstrapping, the believing in oneself, the playing around, the being willing to fail, and the absolutely beautiful mess of it all.

That is why I didn’t ask my family to make art with a capital A for this show even. Art with a capital A comes loaded with expectations, judgements, performance anxiety, comparisons, insecurities, narcissism, misaligned priorities, intellectual and cerebral dislocations and meltdowns, conceptual quagmires, and general BS. and I’m not saying this is true for every artist or that it will still be true for me even in a few years. But right now, I am so content to make messes and to fail and to not glorify every creative act to the state of completion of gallery-readiness or show-worthiness, but to let them just be small creative acts that make my life rich and meaningful and allow me to express in the moment the overwhelming joy and gratitude that lives in my heart.

See the show at SMoCA in the Young at Art Gallery from November 30, 2011 – January 23, 2012.

Our offerings include my son’s handmade duct tape weaponry arsenal, my daughter ‘s
lovely Cy Twombly-esque drawing, my husband’s chainsawed juniper wood sculpture with
a stick coming out of its eye, and my lego sewing machine, puppets, and a painting.

Duct tape makes the world go round: light sabers and a g-u-n made out of a vinegar bottle…

Randy Slack’s awesome painting of the Jackson five. See more here.

My favorite of Randy Slack’s paintings, the ethereal, washy, painterly Mona Lisa.

December 4, 2011 Art, Book, Creativity, Design, Family Author: carriebloomston

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