2012-05-15T10:35:45-04:00 lifetype-1.2.10_r6971 http://www.normadvorsky.com/blog/rss.php?blogId=8501&profile=atom Copyright (c) tag:blogs.artspan.com,2012-05-15:34119 2012-05-15T10:35:45-04:00

Some kind of unknown future retains it’s luster for me. I cannot imagine knowing where I’m going artistically, but often would love to have a firm grip on where I’m going ...

Painting Some kind of unknown future retains it’s luster for me. I cannot imagine knowing where I’m going artistically, but often would love to have a firm grip on where I’m going verbally - would love to have a finely tuned knowledgable & articulate brain machine! Not knowing, or should I say, ‘IS’ not knowing, the source of much art making? The underlying quest. Not what to say, but how to say it. Which is it, score first, libretto next... or vice versa. I’m into a new series  of paintings & can only catch a glimmer of what they are about. This alternately feels like standing on the edge of a loose-rocked cliff, or being poised to jump into a backyard pool off the low board. I’ve never been a sketcher and aways felt rebellious in my early drawing classes commanding sketching & sketch books. Purposeful drawing fulfills something else entirely. In writing classes I have, & wrongly I’m sure, somewhat rejected the notion of outlines.  I guess many fiction writers change what they had outlined as they go forward. How glorious to know where you are going, to be definite about what you want to say! Though I have in the past, been so caught up in what I wanted to say that I ended up losing the how. Other times the two jive, linked cars pulling into the station together. I watch & worry over the new paintings. And yes, this time, ask what they are about. I watched a lovely documentary over a week ago, about the original horse whisperer; Buck Brannaman. He consulted to Robert Redford on the movie of that title, but he is the real deal & a deeply special man. I’m paraphrasing; ‘It’s not about learning to be a better cowboy. It’s about life, living life in a certain way & (huge) dedication. Chase what you should be chasing.’ I cried when I heard that. Wayne White said in an interview on CBC radio about 3 weeks ago, ‘Never discount anything you do in the studio - Be ready to be a soldier. If you’re an artist - go down fighting. tag:blogs.artspan.com,2012-05-09:33957 2012-05-09T11:50:22-04:00

What is being an artist? If the art works do not sell, does making it have value? Often, but certainly not always, concurrent to not selling, is not being seen. I make a distinction here between ...

Art Industry What is being an artist? If the art works do not sell, does making it have value? Often, but certainly not always, concurrent to not selling, is not being seen. I make a distinction here between showing, & being seen. My work has been in 3 shows, since November 2011. The first was solo, from which I sold 2 pieces, then eventually 2 more. The other two were group events, one expensive to participate in, and most likely I’ll never have the money to do so again (sold the car to pull off March’s event, among other reasons to sell the car!), sold nada. And this past weekend, showed, on special past the dead-line invite to submit to the jury, 6 pieces at The Art Gallery of Hamilton Spring Sale. I made them no funds. I made me no funds. This is discouraging. Really disappointing. And made my internal self-negating blinds come down for 2 days so far, and we shall see. I’d love to quite frankly get rid of the pieces, move on from them. And hey making a living is good too. Somehow in my self-questioning & most likely self-indulgent down, a story came back to me, from 1974. Perhaps partially inspired from reading Calvin Tomkins’ excellent book on Robert Rauschenberg. As I’ve mentioned here before, I went to OCA for a year. I was 19. In first year it was mandatory to take a class called: Analogue & Notation. I did not know what the fuck this meant...   all year. The professor quite liked me nonetheless, I did show up etc. But he couldn't get through to my bird brain. Or maybe he liked me because when he took a bunch of students to his cottage for an over-nighter, I was the first of several people to throw myself into the creek in the middle of the night. Stoned &/or drunk and naked and young. I might mention it was early spring. At the end of the year the assignment was to present 'ourselves', a self-portrait, using what we had learned. I was up at my uncle's farm for the weekend, though I lived in TO. An idea came to me. I mixed something cement like, can't remember what now, and made a soggy until it dried, approximately 1' wide by 6" deep, free-form raggedy base. Into that base, I embedded strands of thick hay from a local field & made a straw house, with roof etc. all very rough, but clear. On Monday I brought it in to him. I believe his name was Jim. It was a My Fair Lady moment... 'By george, I think she's got it!' He was thrilled. Life altering & I didn't even know it then. tag:blogs.artspan.com,2012-05-01:33747 2012-05-01T14:22:20-04:00

I danced in my sometime kitchen this week - it may be missing a bit of counter in a kitchen island kind of way - but it makes for a decent dance floor. My swan dive into happiness. I hurt my ...

Art Industry I danced in my sometime kitchen this week - it may be missing a bit of counter in a kitchen island kind of way - but it makes for a decent dance floor. My swan dive into happiness. I hurt my foot this winter, just woke up with not to be ignored pain in the arch one morning. Now months later, because I was busy painting & planning to come to Ojai & being excellent at denying, I have been dealing with it. At first I thought this would be a week’s break or so... Recently diagnosed, months (ugh) later, as an over-use ‘athletic’ injury. Yes, I confess I was full of fitness beans at the time, feeling Strong! Good! Fit! So post podiatrist-assessment here in Cali where it clearly wasn’t over, merely letting myself go, like a lawn going to seed, the words were: Rest it. Every evening; Ice it. Take Ibuprofen. Elastic wrap it. Put it up.  All of which is slowly working. After about 8 or so days of tending to this foot I was in my Ojai studio space - music coming from the kitchen area and I walked in probably to make tea (apparently my art making is fueled by tea) & Bob Dylan of all people to dance to, called me up - the foot was getting better. I was celebrating a glimpse at recovery & my imminent release from foot binding. I swirled & bent & turned to ‘Blood on The Tracks’, the whole album & I was giddy with delight to be reconnecting with my self, my physical self which affects all of my self and my art production. One of the most powerful films I’ve ever seen; difficult, & so beautifully and sensitively rendered is Julian Schnabel’s  ‘Le Scaphandre et Le Papillion’. It sits with me for its' pure artistry and for the telling of a phenomenal story of one man’s paralysis. We are of mind & body. Chuck Close paints on, even after his 1988 spinal artery collapse. But in an admittedly quick internet search, I cannot find much on his actual transition phase, except, & this most likely is the important part, in hospital care, a studio was set up for him to paint in. A life-line was thrown & caught. I am somewhat, & hopefully temporarily, physically held back. This affects ALL of me & what I do & how I feel.  I want to jog in the mountains, and even downward dog has been discouraged for now. I’m wearing socks and sandals!! Albeit a hardy pair of sandals, with a decent arched foot and steady sole, socks acting as buffer to friction, chill & the stretch of leather. I am thankful to be here in Ojai, land of greying hair, instead of Montréal mon amour, the land of my street-smart self. And then, two nights ago, still nursing the foot injury, (am fat and dumpy now too) and my laptop computer slid ever so slowly, but unstoppingly, from my 2 sissy hands... where? onto my fucking foot!!! Ice ice baby. AND back to the studio with you too! tag:blogs.artspan.com,2012-04-24:33539 2012-04-24T14:05:56-04:00

http://vimeo.com/38224424 sigh. and move on. Love these 3 artists & what they have to say, Kai Chan who I have the most physical familiarity with. Heather Goodchild and Lyn Carter is um, ...

General http://vimeo.com/38224424 sigh. and move on. Love these 3 artists & what they have to say, Kai Chan who I have the most physical familiarity with. Heather Goodchild and Lyn Carter is um, perfect? LOVE her work. Work-envy is me. **** Collisions on the information highway Not a completely thought out blog. More like an, I’m painting my kitchen back-splash now, blog... I have been wrestling with an idea that came to me just a few short weeks ago: We are in the midst of an art, artistic, artist (visual) revolution. Monumental change. I defy anyone to predict beyond the next few years, what it all means, or what happens next. We are early 20c dwellers looking up in complete awe & wonderment that someone is flying above. Only we do not have any awe & wonderment. Let’s face it when so much of everything is declared; ‘Awesome!’ so much of everything is not (awesome). We are if nothing else, immune to change, not individually. Individually we may protest a new version of ‘windows’, or a new cell phone or the much bigger events of flagging health, or  having to change living locations to leave war behind, or cultural prejudice, or to find a job, etc. But collectively, in the collective unconscious, change is not only inevitable, but upon us at such an alarming rate that change IS us. It is not longer the next thing we get on with/go to. It is a state of being, a flurry of flux, a rampant viral onset of permutation. We cannot really see it happening as we spin ever on. There are more ‘artists’, an almost cloyingly vague term, ‘visual’ which I will stick with as my meaning for ‘art’ in this blog, everywhere than ever before. There are more creative makers, inventors, doers in ALL media, than ever before. Web art, video art, clay art, fibre art, painting, drawing, etching?, printing? gicleeing, assemblage, installation of some or all of the above ETCETRA. If this is not a mixture of fabulous & terrifying, & does not strike a kind of gobsmacking fear & joy into our art-driven hearts, I don’t know what does. But here’s the thing! We are an incredibly visually educated population, in many, I know not all, parts of the world. Accountants, GPs, corporate business shakers... a whole group of book-bound, science oriented, etc, people, who barely lift their heads in recognition, are becoming visually educated. Yes, in a different way than seeker-artists but nonetheless, (if not them their offspring), through traditional avenues; magazines, store fronts, adverts, zeigeist, but mostly technology; google, digital cameras, websites, you-tube, vimeo, It is ubiquitous. Apples hanging over the fence for the taking & seeing whether hungry or not. I am further inspired in my thinking by the use of the expression ‘digital tsunami’, used in Christina Zuck’s article ‘Picture This’ in the latest issue of Frieze magazine. It arrived in my mailbox as I grappled with these thoughts. This is a huge topic, artists are everywhere. Everyone is an artist. I look forward to its’ development. Cannot see it. And I will be dead when it pulls into it’s nameless unknown speed-travel station with the correct definition for this particular art era. Blogging is the new collage & installation. It is about language & the dynamics of language, and interpretation of course as well. Possibly just when it means more, it begins to mean potentially less. Art permeates our lives. tag:blogs.artspan.com,2012-04-17:33347 2012-04-17T14:04:31-04:00

1st: get thee to The Bohemia, my Ojai cafe spot. macchiato. doble. rich tasting, perfect amount of milky froth so as not to overtake the inner workings of mouth & grey cells. Blurry-me, I ...

Art Industry 1st: get thee to The Bohemia, my Ojai cafe spot. macchiato. doble. rich tasting, perfect amount of milky froth so as not to overtake the inner workings of mouth & grey cells. Blurry-me, I pull up to the counter for the fix. stir the foam gently in. sip. O sweet salvation. here I am again. 2nd: In 1973 I was accepted with much enthusiasm and a long multi-professored interview process to OCA (now OCAD in Toronto). My multiple stuff laid out before them live with some photos of sculptural pieces. They did not pronounce on the spot but I received my glowing acceptance(any acceptance would have been) in Montreal by mail, shortly thereafter. Ontario College of Art, I made a T-shirt & wore it while parading between studios through its' artsy-corridors, pushing the ‘f’ over, it read Ontario College O Fart. Unfortunately I was most likely the only one passing gas... I left 2 weeks before finishing first year to plant trees & save the planet in BC. Hard to call it mistake #1, there were so many. In any case, I went to Toronto & OCA, found a job as a part-time cashier. Found an apartment to share with another female student, a dive above Honest Ed’s neon flashing light. We inherited the alley cat with the place & undoubtedly it’s flea family. I picked up a dog (today we’d say ‘rescue’, yeah actually I needed this head-strong matted toad eating terrier to rescue me) and I waited for the salami. My brother, the genius, poor bugger (apologies said with great affection to same), all hopeful eggs were poured into the basket of him, as a young ‘genius’ male. Six years my senior & gone off to the US for university and post grad schooling & to get away... Our mother sent chocolate cake & salami. I was there, part of the adoring circle of mother & ‘little’ sister, prepping packages of love & family, off to his new life. Sustenance. From Toronto, approximately 6 years later, I recalled the sending of salami to my Montreal based career-driven mother. I mentioned it to her, I cajoled her. Finally I begged for the frikkin’ salami. Of course my ‘want’ had nothing to do with Hungarian mystery meat. Less than a week before it’s unannounced arrival, I declared myself vegetarian. The thing arrived in the mail. My Ukrainian-Canadian flat-mate recognized a good thing & put off her venture into meatless-ness for a few more days. My mother sighed in utter exasperation on the other end of the phone line... 3rd fast-forward, spring-ish 2012 Still swirling in my I-must-produce-phase, I arrive in Ojai & start to supply the new working space. Paints, brushes, paper, canvas. I order freshly stretched canvas to my size specs, finding the commercial kind too slick & plasticky. Spending more money than I have. I pick them up with mixed feelings. I begin to gesso, how many layers to not reproduce what I so wish to avoid... Done I begin to paint, learning Acrylic, the language of. My world, the one I have known in oil for so long, rapidly sinks through the floor, into the ground.  I paint & do not recognize the work. Who did these? Is it the artist speaking or the medium?? I beg myself. I torture myself... and somehow I make it back into the studio of non-recognition. I begin to work on other ideas & another non-painting artistic endeavor.  Depressed about the 3 half paintings that surround me & the 3 remaining empty canvasses across the wall, I declare my painting career, such as it was, over. dead. & gone. These are salami! I am a vegetarian! (tho’ actually no after 9 years I came back for the slaughter) Painting is dead to me. I shall do other things. and then. and then. I am back. Slowly over a period of dreadful inner days. I apply the damned acrylic onto the paintings, begin to see a theme, a place, a departure & a possible arrival. I paint therefore I am. tag:blogs.artspan.com,2012-04-10:33167 2012-04-10T11:34:11-04:00

Please Note: California doesn't allow pictures to represent anything remotely negative.  Therefore, pictures automatically edit themselves to remove these aspects.  This beauty ...

Painting Please Note: California doesn't allow pictures to represent anything remotely negative.  Therefore, pictures automatically edit themselves to remove these aspects.  This beauty belies a ferocious (ch)ill wind.   at one point it seemed as though we were driving into the velvety yellow thighs of a voluptuous woman. Both mustard covered sides of the rolling hills met before us, just before a turn, just before we could see the continuation of road... we both let out a breath. It came upon us in such a visually stunning manner, I couldn’t loosen my eyes to dig for the camera The world did this & we were there. the planet was a woman today we drove aimlessly road trip for a day there nowhere & back southern california the woman rolls over slowly grasps near-day under bed covers still then sticks out a massive thigh or fleshy arm a mountain breast twists her great camouflage duvet rearranges her limbs la madre tierra transmitting life force underlying sorrows restless sleep the shore winds in perpetual chaotic dance & motion we step from the vehicle for more squinty-eyed gawking arms akimbo pressed into the relentless presence of howl sad & celebratory Damn nature! harsh & testing, even here and great breadths of carpet succulents spotted in fruity gelato dots crawling rapaciously over the lumps of land mass a survival net clinging & cradling the otherwise free-flying dirt of upper-beach and I standing there hunched into my shell searching for a parental hand at the busy mall cautiously joyous at all the possibilities before my curved inwards jog back to the rental car feet awkwardly digging into sand with the dope of wind fatigue upon me we could have slept a thousand hours to compensate for all that was felt in five minutes on that unruly shore tag:blogs.artspan.com,2012-04-03:33017 2012-04-03T14:56:11-04:00

In a small southern California town, at the perfect intersection between late afternoon & early evening, when the day has only one direction to move in; a man & his 3 year old daughter ...

Day to Day In a small southern California town, at the perfect intersection between late afternoon & early evening, when the day has only one direction to move in; a man & his 3 year old daughter stand before a gas pump. Both are side lit by the curtsying sun, laying it’s evening light down Main St, wind-whipped hair twisted & stuck to their faces.  They glow the special lobster blush of surrendering to too much sun on a spring day. The daughter, held up, body erect, by one of the father’s arms, while both soft hands engage with the pushing of buttons, gently directed by her father, ‘Ok, now push this’.                                                                * * * My mother used to quote her mother as saying, ‘when you have many children, your love does not divide, it multiplies.’ I’m not entirely certain my mother felt this had been her truth. She was the fourth born daughter in a middle European Jewish family. Three much celebrated boys followed her arrival. I look at my life and try to think in terms of multiplying, because one can become so divided. Art, family, mind, love, body,(not necessarily in that order & always changing order) as chapter headings, & then a busy network of subheadings & compartments. A juggling act when each breaks down into it’s parts tearing one away from one’s life. If that’s not dividing I don’t know what is. I feel like the more I live, the more I need to make art, much art in different ways & mediums. At times I glow with the singularity of this thought. and: I need my adored offspring, their issues, their moment in time.  And my friends; one on one, sometimes many on many. I need green vegetables &  satisfying chunks of cheese on chewy bread. Espresso in the morning, good strong walks uphill with the magic of biology to lay my eyes on, the smell of earth in the pre-dawn air,  the bending-holding-breathing of real yoga, the caw of Ojai crows & the lick of sublime gelato. Whats’ good about making a list, is to see all that falls away, the lost tailings & dropped numbers of un-mathematical division. tag:blogs.artspan.com,2012-03-27:32827 2012-03-27T09:58:19-04:00

I did not need a training bra my breasts came in fast & free of their own volition Besides my mother, possibly hoping they would go away a sort of false start, did not provide one I ...

General I did not need a training bra my breasts came in fast & free of their own volition Besides my mother, possibly hoping they would go away a sort of false start, did not provide one I chose not to look down much by-passing the entire middle region down to my thin ankles still in ankle socks My breasts, I’m reminded now as I strive to save the gift of a flowering Orchid, seemed to need not much encouragement of any kind No particular thumb colour accompanied their burlesque arrival from childish funny girl though not ha ha funny, swept up in needs and wants unseen & unrecognized No - here, try a paint brush or, write a story art bloomed too like a pair of titties reckless and unsure I was invisible but for them bound & ever so slightly determined, a too young child-woman fatherless learned who she was in the eyes of men, among the elevator wolves a barbie stuck between the legs My blue eyes had fallen out now I only had a blooming chest I smiled sweetly a good girl did as I was told until a while after the breasts showed up then rebellion found me embraced me, deflowered my politeness, my catatonic benign-ness. Only I truly had no cause what? my non-twiggy-ness? my lack of paint brush or an original thought or an idea of my own I only knew that I had to bust out Like the breasts had done tag:blogs.artspan.com,2012-03-20:32673 2012-03-20T12:47:15-04:00

what is more important? input or output. The journey has lead me to discover 2 new poets, one Canadian male poet, Bruce Taylor, through Michael Lista’s article in The National Post, one ...

Art Industry what is more important? input or output. The journey has lead me to discover 2 new poets, one Canadian male poet, Bruce Taylor, through Michael Lista’s article in The National Post, one American female poet; Sharon Olds, through a friend.  I want to read more of their work, study the cadence & choices they make now that I’ve taken in a little, I want a lot. Recent documentaries have lead me to discover more Andy Goldsworthy, land-nature-installation artist, and fall in a kind of rapture of his work & approach, & the wonderful doc about him, that in its’ first few minutes moved slowly, church-like & almost had me leave my pew & then in an instant ensnared me in marvel. And then a documentary about Jenny Holzer whose work I admire & am influenced by. She’s a true ‘techno-textist’!  More of the more I wish to know. So as I absorb this newer knowledge, this more, and am so satisfied chewing on it all, the words, the visuals, the thinking & ideas, while continuing to paint, I struggle with the new. Turning my mind to so much input is deeply gratifying & necessary but easy to slip into as opposed to output. Output strengthens the bonds of active presence & replication (as a noun, replying to) & being alive. This becomes to me a discussion about valuing myself & how I will live in the world. Perhaps the dichotomy is not between input & output but in my desire to instantly be in command of new information...  I’m a loosely made sponge. Lots of water gets in, much water runs through.  New input can be like a slippery bar of soap. But I have noticed this, while those around discuss the GOP candidates or the NDP candidates or the situation in Russia & I admit I can let this information fly like a flock of scattering ducks, above my head only collecting occasional droppings, the sticky things I am deeply interested in often take on the expert V-formation of Canadian Geese and pull in at a run, into the deep recesses of my mind to be looked at later. And in not-about-art news, but could be & may be... I wanted to blog about sexism today. This week I had smoke coming out of my ears over a Victoria’s Secret catalogue, misogynistic porn at my door, in my mail box. The models, all white woman, but for one Asian, tall & curvy like her sisters, all with jutting out bottoms, heaving cleavage, curving their backs suggestively, sharp pointy hip bones protruding, all long-wavy hair perpetuating self loathing & over-sexualization = the creepy unsexy, & mindlessness everywhere they go. And then I wanted to talk about (more fire & brimstone) Toddlers & Tiaras, and  French Senator, Chantelle Joanno, who wants to pass ‘anti-tiara’ legislation, (the TV shows have had versions in France for years) including the inability to sell the wee ‘sexy’ clothing that goes with. She rightly said in a CBC interview this week that the ages between 2 and 10 should be about LEARNING. These are profoundly disturbing and harmful child(girl)-hating events, I believe these parents should be criminally charged... Then we have approval in Canadian Parliament to do what Harper said he would not do, re-open the question of ‘choice, by letting a man, Tory MP Stephen Woodworth, have his say. Why? Why does he get a pulpit on my tax dollar!!? Yo! Harper: My Body. My Womb. My Choice. deja vu all over again tag:blogs.artspan.com,2012-03-12:32485 2012-03-12T12:56:51-04:00

I have learned in the way we do without necessarily setting out to, that being away & change, all have the potential to lend perspective & add fuel to the heart, the mind, the ...

Day to Day I have learned in the way we do without necessarily setting out to, that being away & change, all have the potential to lend perspective & add fuel to the heart, the mind, the imagination. And being away in the right place is the best away. Here I sit in my other home, a place I came across about 5 years ago and felt an instant draw towards. Like the chemistry of person to person attraction I felt I had to have more of this place in my life. And I determined to make that happen. And I was privileged to be able to make it happen. In the mysterious way that things have of aligning, a new friend at the time moved here and we lost touch for about a year, and in my inquiring about her through mutual friends I was gobsmacked to learn that she had ended up here, in Ojai, California.  I am I must admit somewhat reluctant to give the actual place name away. But then realize that at this point with a fairly low but growing blog following, the numbers barely represent a digits-worth on a single hand. And we are each drawn to various away-places for a multitude of reasons. And mine & yours are different. In any case after making contact, I immediately imposed my 2 sons & one wife of, along with myself on her & hers for a visit, as we had a family wedding to attend near-by, over 2 years ago now. She proved to be the hostess-with-the-mostess and welcomed us like offspring back to the nest. We drove away reluctantly a couple of short days later with our jaws slung low in shocked admiration of her huge hospitality. And she is as passionate about Ojai as I am! Thus began the more serious seeking out of a return here, at first staying with her a few times. Until this fall when I found a place of my own to live & work from. I had been thinking about, in a very loose way, fantasizing mostly, about another place to be, hopefully to eclipse some of the Canadian winter, but not uniquely with that in mind. A place to develop a relationship with, to return to, to work in, gain perspective on my art work & life in general, Toronto at this time where I make art & live. A place to run away to? that too. So here I am finally(!) after spending winter in Toronto, ready for first some healing, some revisiting of good habits, yoga, meditation, walking uphill into the glory of layer upon layer of mountains & endless views, after being eaten up in the maelstrom of a grey but admittedly mild winter, prepping for Toronto Artists' Project and other art submissions. And I am in deep gratitude!!! I do get all Zen-ny out here. I am interested in what a new space to work in reveals art-wise. I know only that the output will be different. So being here is like a mystery novel. Who am I here? What drew me here? The unknown, the sense of possibility & I love the big bright Cali-sky.