Tag Archive - Anna Schuleit

Gwarlingo “Sells Out”…To You

 

(Photo taken in Copenhagen, Hovedstaden, DK. by Zephyrance via Flickr Commons)

 

You’re curious. Open-minded. Creative. You’re an artist or arts lover who isn’t afraid to be challenged.

Gwarlingo, like the arts in general, is about seeing the world in a way we’ve never seen before. Whether it’s through poetry, film, visual art, music, performance, or writing, we make room for art in our lives not only to be entertained, but also to be challenged, educated, and awakened. Isn’t this the reason we make time for the arts in the first place? The real reason we buy books, travel, and attend gallery shows, movies, concert, and performances?

I started Gwarlingo because I knew that readers like yourself were perfectly capable of appreciating contemporary art, sounds, and writing that was challenging, strange, radical, and out of the mainstream. I understand that you’re busy and that your time and attention are valuable. My goal is to make every Gwarlingo email or post a highpoint in your day, no matter how stressed you are or how many tasks are piling up on your “to-do” list. Art has a way of grounding us—of reminding us of what’s really important.

Most people who have over 25,000 unique website visitors a month and a burgeoning subscriber list would turn to advertising at this point to “monetize” their site. It’s not the idea of spreading a message or selling things I object to. It’s the fact that most of this advertising space is dominated by large corporations or businesses offering “stuff.” And do we really need more unnecessary plastic objects in our lives?

 

Rachel Perry Welty, Spam Series: what do you really want (Rochelle, February 25, 2009, 9:05:05 AM EST), 2010. One piece of aluminum foil. 8 ½ x 120 x 1 ” (Photo courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)

 

Now that Gwarlingo has thousands of devoted fans, it’s time to take the site to the next level by trying something different. This is where you come in.

Recently, while brainstorming advertising ideas for the site, it hit me…

If Gwarlingo is going “to sell out,” why not “sell out” to you? I have one of the most interesting, talented, intelligent readerships on the web. I know because I see your event announcements, your press releases, your websites and Facebook pages, and receive messages and comments from incredible individuals all over the world. Over the past year and a half, I’ve been fortunate enough to connect with so many of you online and in person. I often wish I could clone myself so I could write about and work with each and every one of you.

I may not be able to clone myself, but it IS possible for me to introduce you to each other—to offer you the Gwarlingo platform to share your work, your website, your bio, your arts organization (or to allow you to do this in honor of a friend, loved one, or cause you care about).

So today I’m officially launching the first Gwarlingo Membership Drive and offering you the opportunity to become a charter Gwarlingo Member.

And in return, I have some exciting things to give you.

Since Gwarlingo launched in June of 2011, I’ve single-handedly brought you the work of over 60 Sunday Poets, nearly 200 articles on film, visual art, books, and music, as well as insights about the barriers to the creative life based on 20 years of working with artists and arts organizations. But in order to continue providing you with quality content, I need to raise a minimum of $15,000 through this membership drive. Your collective support will allow me to offer the Complete Creative series, artist interviews and reviews, the Sunday Poem, and other great content for free with no paywalls.

Where will your money go? Watch this special video I’ve made just for the occasion to find out.

Drum-roll please…

 

Gwarlingo Sells Out…To You from Michelle Aldredge on Vimeo.

 

I’ve worked hard to assemble a unique mix of rewards for my Kickstarter-esque campaign and to offer something for everyone, regardless of your donor level. Giving to Gwarlingo is a win/win. Not only will you have the chance to share your own work (or pay tribute to someone else) through the Member Page, you will be supporting some of the artists whose work I love and have featured on the website, while also acquiring a unique piece of artwork priced well below market value. How can you lose?

Please take a minute to check out the special artwork, prints, and other cool rewards I have to offer. They include work by photographers Bill Jacobson and Barry Underwood, artists Rachel Perry Welty, Matthew Northridge, and Anna Schuleit, and a new film from Cindy Kleine and Andre Gregory. I’m also offering members a chance to work with me directly through Complete Creative Intensives, workshops, and more. Rewards are extremely limited, and many are one-of-a-kind, so don’t wait. I’ve also made a special video just for the occasion.

Click here to browse the rewards and to donate. Thanks for reading and for your all of your support.

Happy holidays!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sunday Poem : Merry Fortune

 

 

 

 

God Quest

 

And when I have toilet paper I say thank you toilet paper god and when I
have food I say thank you food god. Clothes: thank the clothes’ god, shoes
and accessories- thank the same god. For lifts: the elevator god, and wine-
the god of grapes till I see stems and pits and oranges then I am lost in
contemplation of that which is good and may certainly decompose, knee
deep in gods pertaining to the dreaded thought, all distinctions left floating
to be divvied and transferred, mulled upon. After consideration and
appropriate confusion it is with great relief I decide to thank one god and
one god only. But the atheists appear and appear disgruntled so I thank no
one and my contemporaries appear to remind me how selfish and undeserving
I am, then my friends appear to rescue me from my contemporaries’ quaint
but borderline visions of myself and they take me to a better place until I
disagree with them. Upon realizing how emulative of the one they are I take
to the woods and breathe very deep- very, very deep.

 

 

 

About Merry Fortune

Merry Fortune is a poet and vocalist of German and Native American descent. She is the author of the newly published Deep Red Guild (Straw Gate Books, 2012) and Ghosts by Albert Ayler, Ghosts by Albert Ayler (Futurepoem books, 2004). A former co-editor of The World, editor of Pagan Place, and coordinator of The Poetry Project’s Monday night reading series, Merry has been performing and reading throughout New York for many years; highlights include performances with composer Butch Morris’ A Chorus of Poets. Her work has appeared in several anthologies: Many Mountains Moving, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, and The Unbearables’ publications The Big Book of Sex, Help Yourself! and Worst Book collections. Merry has taught writing workshops at both the Poetry Project and the Borough of Manhattan Community College. Her poems, reviews and articles have appeared in many publications including Beyond Race, High Times, L Magazine, Lungfull!, The Poetry Project Project Newsletter, Press 1, and Sensitive Skin. She has produced a recording titled The Love Dogs of Misfortune and has a collaboration on the 3-D compilation State of the Union produced by Elliott Sharp. Merry was born in downtown Brooklyn and currently lives and works in New York. For further selections of her work from Deep Red Guild visit Sensitive Skin Magazine and Leafscape.org.

 

Don’t miss the next Sunday Poem. Click here to have the Sunday Poem delivered to your inbox. It’s easy and free! You can also follow Gwarlingo on Twitter and Facebook.

Also, don’t forget that the Gwarlingo bookstore has an assortment of book titles on my personal recommendation list, including poetry, fiction, art and photography books, and more. A portion of your purchases benefit Gwarlingo.

 

“God Quest” appears in Deep Red Guild Copyright © 2012 Merry Fortune. Used with permission from the author. All rights reserved. Deep Red Guild cover art: Goat (detail) by Anna Schuleit, mixed media on paper, 2009.


What’s the Future of Dance? Ivy Baldwin’s “Ambient Cowboy” Provides a Clue

 

Ivy Baldwin's new dance piece "Ambient Cowboy" included a live set design by MacArthur Fellow Anna Schuleit (Photo by Nafis Azad)

If you want to catch a glimpse of where dance and performance are headed, look no further than Ivy Baldwin’s Ambient Cowboy, on view last week at New York Live Arts.

It is fitting that a dance piece inspired by Philip Johnson’s famous Glass House should have a set design made of light. And not just any light—but a ribbon of light that glides over wall, floor, and dancers, then suddenly vanishes.

If this set design technique has been used extensively in a dance performance before now, I’d be surprised. I’m flummoxed why the reviews I’ve read haven’t made more of it. This is cutting edge technology—a live drawing combined with live movement—a technique that has the potential to forever alter the future of the performing arts. Think of Nam June Paik or Wolf Vostell’s pioneering use of television sets in their work in the late 50s and early 60s, and you’ll have a better sense of the landscape-altering possibilities new technologies are creating at this critical moment in contemporary art.

In this case the artist behind the iPad is MacArthur Fellow Anna Schuleit, who also designed the set for Ivy Baldwin’s Here Rests Peggy. Schuleit is never visible during the performance, but the immediacy of her mark is both intoxicating and suspenseful, like watching a tightrope walker balance on a wire. There are no erasers or ESCAPE buttons available to Schuleit. We are accustomed to watching performers on the stage, and performers do what they do in part because they find the immediacy of a live experience exhilarating to some degree. But not every painter has the stomach for live theater. Luckily, Schuleit is up to the task.

 

Choreographer and dancer Ivy Baldwin in "Here Rests Peggy," with set designs by Anna Schueit. The piece is a tribute to art collector Peggy Guggenheim (Photo by Nafis Azad courtesy Ivy Baldwin Dance)

 

Ivy Baldwin's Ambient Cowboy is both elegant and spare, which is not surprising for a dance piece inspired by a house made of glass (Photo by Nafis Azad)

 

Philip Johnson's Glass House was the inspiration for Ivy Baldwin's new dance piece "Ambient Cowboy." This photo by Robin Hill shows the Glass House at dawn (Photo courtesy the Philip Johnson Glass House Blog)

It is a daring concept on Ivy Baldwin’s part—a live performance inspired by a seminal work of architecture combined with the excitement of a live set design. Johnson’s work alone offers many ideas ripe for exploration: transparency, the manmade versus the natural, boundaries, wild versus the civilized, open space versus the contained. There were moments in Baldwin’s Ambient Cowboy when I sensed some connection between the performance and Johnson’s Glass House. When the stage was bathed in green light, for instance, I thought of the large, grassy lawn surrounding the house in New Canaan, Connecticut.

But early in the performance I decided to stop struggling to make such connections and to simply go with the experience. There were powerful moments in Ambient Cowboy that transcended any lingering confusion. While I may not have understood how Lawrence Cassella’s Lamaze-style panting or the dancers’ arched backs and rhythmic chest scratching connected with the larger whole, I found these movements compelling. Baldwin’s choreography also has it’s humorous side, and at times the dance becomes infused with animalic gestures that resemble tail wagging or deer darting and leaping through the forest.

 

Baldwin's choreography also has it's humorous side, and at times the dance becomes infused with animalic gestures that resemble tail wagging or deer darting and leaping through the forest. (Molly Poerstel-Taylor and Ivy Baldwin in "Ambient Cowboy." Photo by Yi-Chun Wu courtesy artsjournal.com)

 

 

The moment when Smith collapses onto the floor on her stomach and Schuleit’s lines begin to furiously scratch out her body was the most mesmerizing point in Ambient Cowboy, and also the best expression of this new technology’s potential. (Photo by Yi-Chun Wu courtesy artsjournal.com)

Lawrence Philip Cassella was particularly riveting to watch on stage, though Ivy Baldwin, Eleanor Smith, and Molly Poerstel-Taylor all had their luminous moments. Eleanor’s Smith’s solo a quarter of the way through Ambient Cowboy was a stand-out. Her ability to convey suffering and sadness through shaking, rocking, and facial expressions was haunting, The moment when Smith collapses onto the floor on her stomach and Schuleit’s lines begin to furiously scratch out her body was the most mesmerizing point in Ambient Cowboy, and also the best expression of this new technology’s potential. I would have liked to have seen more live drawing in Ambient Cowboy.

Justin Jones’ music and sound design was a strong addition, especially during the last half of the performance, and Chloe Z. Brown’s lighting design, with its wash of contrasting yellows and greens, blues and yellows, was a beguiling stage for both the dancers and Schuleit’s light drawings.

 

Pictured (Left to Right) Lawrence Cassella, Eleanor Smith, and Molly Poerstel-Taylor (Photo by Aram Jibilian courtesy New York Live Arts)

 

 

Risk-taking is directly related to the future of dance as it embraces new technologies like the live drawing seen in "Ambient Cowboy." Soon, some incredibly brave team of artists will come along and dare to walk the tightrope, this time without a safety net. ("Ambient Cowboy" photo by Nafis Azad)

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The Gwarlingo Index: 2011′s Most Memorable Experiences in the Arts

Michael Clark Company performing in Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern was chosen as one of the most memorable experiences in the arts for 2011. (Photo courtesy camelwritesart.blogspot.com)


 
It’s the New Year, which means it’s time for lofty resolutions and the annual onslaught of “best of” lists.

Here at Gwarlingo, I thought I’d provide readers with a new twist on the traditional “Best of 2011″ list.

I asked an array of artists, composers, filmmakers, writers, musicians, and performers to tell me about their most memorable experiences in the arts during 2011. I wanted to know which books, concerts, albums, art shows, films, plays, performances, essays, etc. had personal resonance with artists this past year. I gave participants the option to comment on their choice or not.

A critical difference between the Gwarlingo Index and other year-end lists is that the chosen work didn’t have to be created or released in 2011. The Index wasn’t meant to be comprehensive. The idea was to see if any zeitgeist emerged in the responses and to get a glimpse of how the arts impacted our lives in the past twelve months.

There are a few surprises here.

I was particularly struck by the cross-disciplinary nature of the list. Many artists chose works or events from outside their own discipline. (Who, for instance, could have guessed that Moosewood author Mollie Katzen would choose a dance performance as her most memorable art experience of 2011?) Five of the composers and musicians polled listed events in the visual arts, which was a surprise. It just proves that creative inspiration comes from a myriad of sources and that cross-pollination between disciplines is a fertile pursuit for today’s working artists. After all, creative people don’t live in boxes.

Dance was a popular category among the artists who responded. Music, less so. Curiously, no plays appear on the Index, but two literary classics from the 19th century do.

 

"I was fascinated to read that some British filmgoers were hopping a ferry and crossing the English Channel to see Tree of Life in France, where the film was already showing. Any movie that can incite this much passion, love or hate, must be doing something right."


 
I was pleased to see two controversial works appear in the Gwarlingo Index—Peter Greenaway’s monumental take on Da Vinci’s The Last Supper and Terrence Malick’s polarizing film Tree of Life.

In early June I began to hear all sorts of rumblings about Malick’s film. Some people loved it. Some people hated it. Some people were walking out of movie theaters in disgust. When I arrived in London that same month, where the film’s release date had been pushed back to July, I was amused to read that some British filmgoers were hopping a ferry and crossing the English Channel to see Tree of Life in France, where the film was already showing. Any movie that can incite this much passion, love or hate, must be doing something right.

As for Greenaway’s monumental installation at the Park Avenue Armory, Holland Carter gave the show a scathing review in the New York Times calling the piece “a dud.” “It is, however, a big, expensive, technological-bells-and-whistles-to-the-max dud, which is something,” Carter added. And yet, despite this public drubbing, Greenaway’s installation appears here as one composer’s “most memorable art experience.” It’s a useful reminder that art is exactly that–an art, and not a science. It’s also a reminder to keep an open mind when reading those New York Times’ reviews.

 

An installation view of "Leonardo's Last Supper: A Vision by Peter Greenaway." The installation received a scathing review in The New York Times, but appears on the Gwarlingo Index as a most memorable art experience of 2011. (Photo courtesy Luciano Romano/Change Performing Arts)

 
Many large-scale, public events received a mention, including two different art installations at the Park Avenue Armory and an impromptu concert at the Occupy Wall Street protests.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, artists like Rosanne Cash, Bill Powers, and Will Rawls speak eloquently about the relationship between art and solitude. They remind us how rewarding intimacy with a work of art can be. This is one of the benefits of art in the 21st century–it allows us to slow down, to think, to push away those pesky distractions that chip away at our dwindling attention spans, to encounter the world of others.

What were your own memorable experiences in the arts in 2011? Please share your own picks on the Gwarlingo Facebook page or in the “Comments” section below.

 

Singer and Writer Rosanne Cash

The de Kooning retrospective at MoMA had the most profound impact on me in 2011. To see the entire scope of his artistic life, from the small painting he made at age 12 through the complex figures, vast abstracts and sculptures, to the sparse canvasses at the end of his life when his mind was deteriorating, was so moving, heartbreaking, inspiring… overwhelming. I was in tears by the last few paintings.

My friend Laurie Beckelman, who is friends with John Elderfield, who organized the show, arranged for a private tour. Walking through empty galleries with nothing but the art added to the impact. I feel extremely fortunate to have seen this show.

 

Willem de Kooning, Woman, ca. 1969. Oil on canvas, 60 x 48 in. (Photo © 2011 The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Artists Rights Society, New York)

 

“De Kooning: A Retrospective” fills MoMA’s entire sixth floor with some 200 paintings, drawings and sculptures. The show is on view through January 9th. (Photo courtesy c-monster.net)

 

Grammy-winner Rosanne Cash has recorded 15 albums and 11 number-one hit singles. Her most recent albums are The List (Manhattan, 2009) and The Essential Rosanne Cash (Sony Legacy, 2011). Her prose and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Oxford-American, New York Magazine, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and other publications. Her most recent book, Composed, was published by Viking in 2010. For more information visit her website or follow her on Twitter.

 

 

Writer William Powers

Last summer, I spent several days alone in an isolated house with no internet connection, dog-sitting for friends. My plan was to do nothing all day but read, and I brought along a novel, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, which somehow I’d never got around to. I dove into that beautiful book — it was the Richard Pevear / Larissa Volokhonsky translation — like I haven’t done since college days, and it was glorious. Crime and Punisment is a masterpiece, so in one sense it’s no surprise I had a powerful experience. But the circumstances, a rare chance, in a world of distractions, to focus for an extended period on just one thing, were also a big part of why it was so memorable. Four months have gone by and I still think about that extraordinary inner journey, and fantasize about repeating it with another book, one of these days.

 

 

William Powers is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Hamlet’s BlackBerry, which has been widely praised for its insights on the digital future. His writing has appeared in The AtlanticThe New York Times and many other publications. He has been featured in dozens of major news outlets, including interviews with Katie Couric, NPR, Good Morning America, the PBS NewsHour, CNBC and the BBC, and coverage in The New YorkerThe Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Wired, and The Guardian. For more information, visit his website or follow him on Twitter.

 
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Thank You Gwarlingo Readers

A studio visit with MacArthur recipient Anna Schuleit kicked off Gwarlingo's "Creative Spaces" series in June. A feature on Kim Uchiyama's Tribecca studio is currently in the works. (Photo: "Bloom" by Anna Schuleit)

This Thanksgiving holiday I want to thank all of the friends and readers who have supported me this year during the launch of Gwarlingo. What a year it’s been.

Since the official launch of the site in June, the number of Gwarlingo subscribers and visitors has grown dramatically. I’ve had the excitement of watching a few articles go viral. (The most popular articles so far have been on Japanese manhole cover designs, rare color photographs taken by Farm Security Administration photographers, Slinkachu’s street photographs, the moving letter from Sol LeWitt to artist Eva Hesse, my feature on artist residencies, and Bridget Lowe’s Sunday Poem).

Bridget Lowe's poem "In the Study of My Hysteria" has been one of the most popular Sunday Poems since the series began five months ago. Since July, eighteen Sunday Poets have been featured on Gwarlingo.

Artists and poets who never knew each other have connected for the first time as a result of Gwarlingo, and last week I had the privilege of meeting Jean Marie Casbarian–an artist and Gwarlingo reader who won tickets to see Joseph Keckler’s show at La MaMa in New York. None of this could have happened without the support of readers like yourself.

Because of you, Gwarlingo is gradually turning into the online community I envisioned when I first launched the site six months ago.

I created Gwarlingo because I was fed-up with seeing the same movies, music, shows, and books covered in the mainstream press again and again. (A press release can only endure so many facelifts before it loses its allure). There are a lot of fabulous alternatives out there, but the trouble is knowing where to look.

My idea was to create a place where art lovers and artists of all disciplines could discover compelling work. I wanted to go deeper than the average blog–to have real conversations with real artists about ideas and process. To break down the barriers of genre, geography, and age, but to also have a little fun along the way. In spite of the impression given by many arts and literary publications, you don’t have to be overly earnest or annoyingly hipster to have an impact.

The letters and emails I’ve received from readers lead me to believe that I’m on the right track. Here’s a small sample…

 

“Because of Gwarlingo, I’m continually gifted with these amazing gems from you and other artists–everything big-hearted and highly creative. So thank you for all your work on it–I know it must take a lot of time and energy–and it’s very much appreciated.”

 

“Your subjects are so genuinely interesting, and your approach to them is refreshingly thoughtful and insightful, particularly these days in which mindless chatter abounds. It’s also wonderful to see your photos–they not only illustrate your text but give it further depth. You’ve managed to capture the spirit of creative imagination and provide some smart, much needed nourishment in the notably sere world of blogspheres. Congratulations and thank you!”

 

“Excellent! I keep seeing…[Slinkachu's] images pop up places but I didn’t really have an overall view of his work and who he is. Which is exactly the problem with the common way of sharing on the internet, and why I enjoy your blog so much.”

 

In spite of this encouraging feedback, I know Gwarlingo is still in its youth. I have so many new ideas for expanding the site–for increasing coverage of the arts, while also giving artists a much-needed platform for sharing their work with a smart, interested community of peers. There is a lot of work to be done in the days and months ahead–work that requires both time and money.

 

Performer and singer Joseph Keckler and Michelle Aldredge in New York City last week. Gwarlingo reader Jean Marie Casbarian was the lucky winner of two tickets to see Keckler's performance at La MaMa. This was Gwarlingo's first contest and ticket give-away, and hopefully not the last.

When I was in New York last week, a number of people asked me how they could help support Gwarlingo. These conversations made me realize that I haven’t been very explicit about answering this question in the past. So if you would like to support this new venture, here are a few specific ways you can help:

 

1. “Like” Gwarlingo on Facebook. I post arts-related articles and events on the Gwarlingo Facebook page on a regular basis–many are links to topics I haven’t covered on the site. It’s an easy way to stay in the loop.

 

2. Follow Gwarlingo on Twitter. Ditto for Twitter. I share links on Twitter that appear nowhere else.

 

3. Subscribe to Gwarlingo by email. With a free email subscription, each new Gwarlingo article is delivered to your email inbox. This way you don’t have to remember to check the site for new content. I use this option for many of my favorite blogs. My morning is always better when I find Ta-Nehisi Coates waiting in my inbox!

 

4. If you are going to buy from Amazon or iTunes, make your purchases through Gwarlingo. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this one. I’m a big supporter of local businesses, bookstores in particular, so if you have a great independent bookstore, by all means, support it. But if you don’t, and you plan to buy anything through Amazon or iTunes, you can support Gwarlingo by using this site as your Amazon or iTunes portal. Gwarlingo earns a small percentage of each purchase you make.

I have some of my favorite books, films, and music listed on the site and in the Gwarlingo Store (there are some great gift ideas there), but you don’t have to purchase these specific items for Gwarlingo to benefit. If you click on a link for Brian Selznick’s book Wonderstruck, for instance, but then decide you have a pressing need for tube socks, Gwarlingo earns a small percentage of profits from your sock purchase! So if you’re going to buy from “the big guys,” you can do it through Gwarlingo and help “a little guy” in the process. How cool is that?

 

5. Donate to Gwarlingo. You can make a donation (large or small) by credit card via Pay Pal. Gwarlingo is not a nonprofit, so unfortunately, your donation isn’t tax deductible. But I do acknowledge every donation personally and use the money for essentials like web hosting, travel, and coffee. The more money I can raise, the less I have to rely on advertising, which is always a good thing.

 

6. Spread the word about Gwarlingo. It’s simple, free, and makes a big difference. There are a lot of ways to do this–”like” a post on Facebook, retweet an article, email a piece to a friend, or give a general plug on Facebook or Google.

 

Those are six simple ways you can help. I want to thank all of the writers, artists, poets, composers, filmmakers, art lovers, and performers who have visited the site regularly, shared their work, passed on links to friends, added money to the tip jar, written comments, followed Gwarlingo on Facebook and Twitter, become subscribers, and sent letters and emails of support. It’s been a wild adventure. I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Happy holidays!

 

MacArthur Fellow Anna Schuleit & the Whole Sweep of Trying

 

For the public installation "Bloom" Anna Schuleit and a team of volunteers filled the Massachusetts Mental Health Center with 28,000 blooming flowers and 5,600 square feet of lush, green sod, including corridors, stairwells, offices and even a swimming pool. (Photo by Anna Schuleit courtesy This is Colossal)

 

 

Anna Schuleit's studio is located in a renovated mill building in the historic town of Harrisville, New Hampshire. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

Welcome to the first installment of “Creative Spaces,” a regular Gwarlingo series that will focus on the creative habits and work spaces of visual artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, and other talented individuals.

I’m so pleased to kick off the series with an intimate profile of visual artist and MacArthur recipient Anna Schuleit.

Anna graciously agreed to talk with me about her daily work habits, studio space, recent projects, and much more. She also gave me permission to photograph her studio in exceptional detail, granting me access not only to her works in progress, but also to many of her sketches, personal collections, notes, and books.

Such generosity is in keeping with Anna’s personality. She is curious, playful, open-minded, intelligent, and exudes a positive, contagious energy. But forget the stereotypes of flighty creative geniuses (a word that makes most MacArthur fellows squirm). Anna is as deep and introspective as she is energetic and outgoing.

Born in Mainz, Germany, and raised in a family of artists, Anna came to the US at 16 as a high school student. She went on to study painting at RISD and creative writing at Dartmouth.

 

Visual artist Anna Schuleit (Photo by John Solem)

 

 

"Bloom" by Anna Schuleit (Photo courtesy Anna Schuleit)

Anna’s early, large-scale installations included Habeas Corpus (2000), in which she brought the crumbling Northampton State Hospital to life with the music of J.S. Bach, and Bloom (2003), where she filled the Massachusetts Mental Health Center with 28,000 blooming flowers and 5,600 square feet of lush, green sod. In 2007 she created Landlines–a public art project commemorating the centennial anniversary of The MacDowell Colony.

In 2009 Anna’s paintings and drawings were exhibited at the Coleman Burke Gallery in New York City. In 2010 she completed Just a Rumor, a large painting commission at UMass Amherst, as well as a painted set-design for Ivy Baldwin Dance at the Chocolate Factory Theater in New York. Her work has been praised for its “conceptual clarity, compassion, and beauty.”

Anna has been a visiting artist and lecturer at MIT, Brown, Smith, RISD, The New School, Bowdoin, and other institutions. Residency programs have been an important cornerstone to her artistic development. She has been a fellow at The Blue Mountain Center, The MacDowell Colony, Bogliasco, Yaddo, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard, among others. In 2006 Anna was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship.

(Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

The following interview and photo shoot took place in the early spring of 2011 in the small, rural town of Harrisville, New Hampshire, where Anna’s studio is currently located. On the morning I arrived at the studio, Anna’s dog Finnegan was relaxing on the couch and Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians” was playing on the stereo. When I commented on this musical choice, Anna explained that she begins every work day in the studio by listening to Steve Reich’s “Drumming“ and “Music for 18 Musicians.”

 

Michelle Aldredge: Anna, what is your typical routine? Do you have any rituals that are important to your creative work?

Anna Schuleit: When I wake up in the morning I first go outside with my dog to check on the weather and the overall feel of the day. That’s the very first thing, going outside. Then a walk or run in the woods, then breakfast. And then off to the studio for the rest of the day.

Once there, I usually continue working on what I was doing the night before–a series of works, never just a single piece. If I stay long enough in the studio, just stay with the work even if it doesn’t feel great or seem satisfying or directional or conclusive, if I just stay to tend and garden, then my mind gradually yields control to the more automatic labor of painting, and with that comes a sweet spot in the process further down, a worn groove, a sense of ease.

"If I stay long enough in the studio, just stay with the work even if it doesn't feel great or seem satisfying or directional or conclusive, if I just stay to tend and garden, then my mind gradually yields control to the more automatic labor of painting, and with that comes a sweet spot in the process further down, a worn groove, a sense of ease." (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

That’s a bit elusive and hard to describe, and it doesn’t really depend on any rituals other than, well…presence. Just staying with it allows it to open up. The same is true for any creative task, no?

I listen to music while I work, usually abstract things. But I also enjoy the quiet, sounds from elsewhere–birds. I eat simple meals, more lunch than dinner, and I read the news when I can, or make phone calls, or run quick errands, but usually I’m in the studio for long stretches of sameness: mixing paint, looking at paintings, drawing, looking more, painting, mixing more paint, drinking some tea, looking more. And so on. Just maintaining a presence. And I do enjoy this more than I can adequately express.

By the time I leave the studio at night I often feel deeply connected to my work, and I have to tear myself away like a kid from a playground. The process feeds itself, somehow, and I get to be a part of it, which is the best and simplest, and most tumbling and humbling feeling I know.

"By the time I leave the studio at night I often feel deeply connected to my work, and I have to tear myself away like a kid from a playground." (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

What do you do when you hit a roadblock or get stuck on a certain piece?

For the past six years I’ve been working in series: multiple panels of drawings and paintings that help prevent the formation of serious roadblocks by creating a multitude of views of the same thing. That means there are multiple options spread out across more than a single pictorial plane, side-by-side, which means repetition, which in turn, means a built-in possibility for continuation.

I try to keep going at the speed each particular piece seems to require naturally, some slow, some fast. Slow for me means more than a month, and I actually have several works in that category right now, large paintings on linen. They just seem to need more time to remain “open” while I keep them around, keep looking without specific expectations other than to stay engaged.

"Ultimately, this is what I repeat most often to myself: avoid tip-toeing around, Anna. Stay. Go deeper. DON'T LEAVE." (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

When I do get stuck and nothing moves forward for several days I will take a snapshot of the painting and enlarge it at a copy shop onto a large piece of paper, which I bring back to the studio with me. I cut the copy apart, paint on top of it, and use it as an impermanent collage. It gets me back into the work through a back-door and lets me see the colors and the composition differently, which can be crucial to getting unstuck again. But that kind of roadblock is ultimately part of the piece like all the rest, a sort of necessary detour.

"The different parts of the studio help me to keep moving, like stations along a road." (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

I love the combination of intense creative energy and controlled order in your studio. Can you explain how your studio is organized?

My studio is one large space subdivided into several parts: paintings on the walls, drawings and prints on tables in the middle, paints and inks and dry media and other tools in-between, and books and papers on the fringes. The different parts of the studio help me to keep moving, like stations along a road.

"Good advice is really anything that keeps you afloat via a sense of shared struggle. Good advice is the kind that tugs at your heart a little, since it addresses something you know you need help with, be it focus, authenticity, endurance, fearlessness, etc." (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

Things are in flux though; it’s definitely not overly neat, nor is it too tidy. But it’s not chaos either. It’s a good, medium kind of state with room for dried paint and dust and empty bottles and clothes and traces of use. And there are large, handsome industrial windows overlooking a row of trees. Oh, and lots of lamps and spotlights, since I work at night, too. Working at night makes all the other things that aren’t part of the paintings fall away, adding contrast and saturation and a kind of temporary authority in the composition that the next day supersedes again.

"Now I'm switching over to found shoes and old wheels and pulleys--just ordinary things that are lovely and precious in small, unexpected ways when held and handled." (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

Are there any objects in your studio that have special meaning to you?

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