A Loving Struggle

By using objects associated with the western notion of "home", my MFA thesis exhibition,"A Loving Struggle", looks at relationships, communication, and the awkwardness of authenticity. Home objects and furniture suggest ideas of comfort, stability, and community. Reference to the domestic space brings the mind to moments of intimacy and inevitable vulnerability. As participatory art pieces, the work in this exhibition plays on the flux between the clumsy and stable points of connection we share as we search for moments and spaces that accommodate the development of relationships and our notion of selfidentity. This current research intertwines with my research as an art therapist in which I examine perception, sensory awareness, empathy and the subjective experience of the artist and the viewer (psychotherapeutic relationship). My clinical counseling research has encompassed investigation into the intersubjective space within clinical art therapy practice.

A Loving Struggle A final project paper submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts Submitted by Kate Wingard, LCMHC, ATR June 03, 2021 2 Acknowledgments I thank my partner Xi Zhang for his support, feedback, and love for art. His belief in me is seen in his thoughtful feedback and support in my practice. I am honored to have worked with exceptional faculty with this research and am grateful for their time, thoughts, and work. Beth Krensky’s pedagogy, value of justice, use of art as research has been inspirational and grounding. Her research and guidance have assisted in using my visual voice with confidence. Ed Bateman has reminded me of the power of mystical, magical play. He has reminded me of the complex, intimate relationships that emerge when one invests in risk, exploration, and curiosity. I am grateful for the insight of my thesis committee members. Brian Snapp has encouraged me to find my own voice, no matter what material it expresses itself in. This contributed to a deeper, more integrated relationship with ceramics, as I explored its language, by listening to it in chorus with other materials. Dan Evans has been a steady guide, as he has supported my conceptual and material exploration, while guiding me to not lose my compass of critical conceptual & formal thought. Kelsey Harrison has supported giving me a contemporary, multidimensional perspective on content. She has pushed me to look deeper at what I’m truly trying to say and to develop authentic, captivating ways to say it. I am grateful for these mentors, and what they have given. 3 A Loving Struggle Kate Wingard MFA Thesis exhibition September 18 – October 1, 2019 Alvin Gittins Gallery University of Utah By using objects associated with the western notion of “home”, my MFA thesis exhibition, “A Loving Struggle”, looks at relationships, communication, and the awkwardness of authenticity. Home objects and furniture suggest ideas of comfort, stability, and community. Reference to the domestic space brings the mind to moments of intimacy and inevitable vulnerability. As participatory art pieces, the work in this exhibition plays on the flux between the clumsy and stable points of connection we share as we search for moments and spaces that accommodate the development of relationships and our notion of selfidentity. This current research intertwines with my research as an art therapist in which I examine perception, sensory awareness, empathy and the subjective experience of the artist and the viewer (psychotherapeutic relationship). My clinical counseling research has encompassed investigation into the intersubjective space within clinical art therapy practice. 4 Home as Mandala1 “Not only our memories, but the things we have forgotten are ‘housed’. Our soul is an abode. And by remembering ‘houses’ and ‘rooms’, we learn to ‘abide’ within ourselves. Now everything becomes clear, the house images move in both directions: they are in us as much aswe are in them, and the play is so varied that two long chapters are needed to outline the implications of house images.” Gaston Bachelard, Poetics of Space2 In my studio practice, I was interested to look at ways in which art could move us beyond the quick, often superficial and incorrect assumptions we make about ourselves, others, and the environments we share.3 An unexpected jolt to our presumptions and expectations often helps to bring us out of these ideas.4 Or, at least draw some awareness to them. My work creates situations that aim to blur the line between what we expect and what is. It involved a table, clay, cake, Sally (the host), and the body. Careful Sweets was an interactive performance that integrated wet, unfired clay, cake, and human communication. I see clay as an intimate material. I see food as an intimate material. And, why is that? Both materials touch the body. And they engage with the body in a multisensory way. And they also move and change with the body. They are receptive to the movements of the body, yet also hold a form to themselves. They have flexibility to move with the body, but enough structure and individuality to have boundaries, potential, and limits. In the relationship between clay and the body, and food and the body, both partners respond to, and work with each other. So, I guess the body is what makes these materials intimate. Careful Sweets was the beginning stage of looking at intimacy, movement, communication, and the body using both clay and food. 5 Careful Sweets Table, Chairs, Silverware, Tableware, Wet Clay, Chocolate Cake Dimensions Variable 2017 Sally, the host, was a friendly yet lonely woman who hoped to use baking and pastries as a way to connect with others. Sally is an individual who yearns to interact and connect with others, and wrestles with the natural fears and risks associated with that engagement. Sally is a baker and a sculptor. Sally loves food, and clay, and she’s hungry to connect with people. She feels connected and awake and aware when she creates. She feels distant and wanting when she engages with others. When she bakes and eats she feels her whole body is awake. For Sally, every new recipe, every new sculpture is an adventure and involves continual discovery. Even when, with recipes and shapes she knows, she feels comfort and excitement in getting to know it more, in learning more in depth about what it offers. She wants to find a similar excitement and full awareness, but most of the time she experiences a dullness, a distancing, a semi-vacant exchange of pleasantries, “Hi”, with minds that are in other places and not fully in the now with her. Sally thinks to make work for others, and to openly, without reserve or fear, share with others what one enjoys, may be a step toward working on a deeper connection. To work on her connection with people, Sally thought she’d offer them her favorite things, the things that make her feel most awake, alive, present, and attentive. So, Sally baked a chocolate cake and sculpted a table out of her favorite clay. And she invited people to join her. 6 She interacted with participants on an instinctual and sensory level as she offered to serve them iced chocolate cake on moist, unfired ceramic tableware, at a table covered in moist, unfired clay. The anxiety that participants may have felt as they were allured by the sight and smell of cake and icing, as well as the potential grit and messiness of unfired clay, was reflective of Sally’s anxiety as she yearned to interact and connect with others, and wrestled with the natural fears and risks associated with that engagement The whole body eats. It smells, touches, hears, sees, tastes and engages with food in a visceral, instinctive way. Similar to clay. As a ceramic artist, I aimed to approach clay the way the human body naturally engages with food, in an intrinsic, physical, sensory based, whole body manner. Ceramics and food hold an intimate relationship. Clay, specifically tableware, and food, specifically cake, work together as actors in the performance of human consumption, as one offers itself to be taken, and the other supports this offering, literally. The human body responds to both clay and cake differently. Cake, and its swirls of sugary icing, allures the visual and olfactory senses. The body naturally salivates as one aims to take a bite and experience the expected, spongy texture and smooth surface of cake and icing. Unfired clay, with its musty smell and smooth exterior, waits for the body to squeeze, roll, and pinch its gritty particles in one’s hands. Careful Sweets was an attempt to keep looking at the intersubjective space and embodied selfawareness through objects and a physical encounter with others. I created the character Sally as an object to symbolize the innate desire we have to recognize our shared connection, a connection that goes deeper than the generalized niceties we exchange in our daily lives. Wet, unfired clay and chocolate cake were used as a way to look at the similarities these objects have that, objects that are typically meant to be kept separate. 7 Notes 1 Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. “Glossary,” in Meaningful to Behold, trans. Tenzin Norbu (Cumbria: Wisdom Publications, 1980), 348. “Mandala - circular device for making offerings; special abode or environment” 2 Gaston Bachelard and Etienne Gilson. “Introduction” in The Poetics of Space, trans. Maria Jolas (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994), xxxiii-xxxiii. 3 Claudette Lauzon, “An Unhomely Genealogy of Contemporary Art,” in The Unmaking of Home in Contemporary Art (Toronto; Buffalo; London: University of Toronto Press, 2017), 26-68. Accessed May 10, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt1whm8v6. 4 Susan Sontag. Regarding the Pain of Others (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003). 8 Home as Mandala What I’m Afraid To Tell: My Mother Careful Sweets also reminded me of the relationship between sound and the body.5 The sound of moist clay being squished is a sound that activates my whole body. Childhood memories of squishing slippery disks of cut bananas, sensual memories of kissing and love, and many many memories of making sausages and hamburgers and desserts with women in my family were some of the textured histories that arose when I heard the sound of clay being squished on the Careful Sweets table. There are sounds in the body. The stomach gurgles. We hear ourselves swallow. The body makes sound every time we speak. And it is perceived differently when it is heard within the container of one’s own body, then when one hears it played back in a recording. In Richard Garet’s 30 Cycles of Flux, with dancing lines of white string that drew their echoes in the air and directed the eye to their sound wave producing subwoofers attached to the ceiling.6 With frequencies so low, one could not hear them, but rather feel them and see the movement of sound gyrating via the dancing strings attached to their stationary subwoofer horns. I knew what this was like, to have sound and words produce more than what our ears can hear. I’d felt it in my body with low frequency sound. I’d felt it in my body with words that went beyond their meanings (painful words, beautiful words). I’d felt it in my body when I struggled to find words. I also thought of Christine Sun Kim’s work,7 which gives sound a body, a texture, a look. When I saw a process video of Kim working on studio drawings by using the vibrations of a subwoofer and her voice, instead of her hand, I was hooked. Movement, sound, images, and the body were all being used in communication. And this led to curiosity about the movements we make as we share with others thoughts, ideas, and moments that bring vulnerability. 9 What am I afraid to tell my mother? A lot of sharing happens at the kitchen table. My mother cooks out of need and desire and love. The kitchen and all the eating spaces in the house are her domain, and through her I have seen food used as a tool for comfort, communication, love, and pain.8 She cooks with love. She loves cooking. She loves sharing her cooking. What I’m Afraid To Tell: My Mother Table, Chairs, Subwoofer, Cherry Pie Filling, Clay 48 x 30”, Audio Loop 1:50 2018 10 Growing up, the kitchen table is where all the really important stuff happened. We had family dinner at the kitchen table every night. That was where excited announcements were made. That was where sad announcements were made. That was where love was exchanged, roles were learned, and difficult conversations were had. Food talks. Each dish has its own personality. And the person who’s prepared it, the context in which it’s presented, add dimension to its personality. My mother loves desserts and she’s an excellent baker. She bakes with love. She bakes with adventure and an intent to discover and share comfort and joy. And that is why, if I were to tell my mother what I’m afraid to say, I’d do it at the kitchen table, over pie. Except the pie I would make for her would be different than her pies. It would sing.9 With distorted singing, it would push out all the difficult parts that are hard to say. It would move and jiggle and dance in response to the words that are hard to express. The whole table would vibrate with the pain and pleasure involved in expressing the thoughts. The aim with What I’m Afraid To Tell: My Mother, was to bring to attention the space/context, as well as the movement and interhuman body experience that happens when we say what we’re afraid to say, especially to our mothers. 11 Notes 5 Christoph Cox, “Beyond Representation and Signification: Toward a Sonic Materialism,” Journal of Visual Culture 10, no. 2 (2011): 148. Cox wrote of text and images working within “spatial juxtaposition of elements”, and with a distance that separates subject and object. Then, Cox noted sound art works within “a temporal flux in which elements interpenetrate one another”. 6 Richard Garet, 30 Cycles of Flux, 2013, Sound Installation, Dimensions Variable, Continuous Running, 30 Hz Audio File, Audio Amplifier, Speakers, String, Open Edition. https://www.richardgaret.com/documentation/PRESENTATION/30_Cycles_of_Flux/30_Cycles_o f_Flux.html 7 Christine Sun Kim, 2012. https://vimeo.com/31083172 8 Myrte E. Hamburg, Catrin Finkenauer, and Carlo Schuengel, “Food for Love: The Role of Food Offering in Empathic Emotion Regulation,” Frontiers in Psychology 5, (2014): 2-5. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00032 9 Steven Reich, It’s Gonna Rain, 1965, Time-Based Media, Tape Recording, 17 minuets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vugqRAX7xQE&t=1s https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2015/01/27/381575433/fifty-years-of-steve-reichsits-gonna-rain 12 Clay. Body. Good To Hold Good To Hold Single Channel Video 2:44 2018 In making What I’m Afraid to Tell: My Mother, and obscuring clear auditory reception of the words from the viewer, translating them in movement and the visual symbols of the pie and the table, I thought of containers. I was thinking about my mother. I was thinking about the kitchen and desserts and tables. I thought of vessels. As I explored ideas of intimacy and communication with my mother, I became more curious about the symbols and objects in the domestic space.10 Objects and symbols can be thought of as containers, as vessels. Containing cultural and personal history, they can hold expectations, desires, fears, and potential. They can remain static for prolonged periods of time, and they can change. I asked questions about intimacy and communication with the vessels in the kitchen. Including the vessel of my own female body in the container of the kitchen.11 My mother is a container. 13 In “Container Technologies”, Zoe Sofia referenced historical developmental psychologist Donald Winnicott’s thoughts on the development of the infant-mother relationship,12 and stated, “It [infant] ruthlessly exploits this seemingly personless entity [mother] whom it only gradually comes to know in a relationship of mutual love and concern”.13 How often have I regarded other containers as an infant initially regards its mother? What an intimate thing to be a holder, giver, taker, to be a container! Is it not intimate and vulnerable to be the container of an idea, ideas such as “useful”, “sensual”, “expected”, “open”, “passive”? As I thought of these ideas of communication, intimacy, vulnerability, domestic, vessels, and containers, I thought of cups. And I thought of my own female body. Both of which hold, have held, the above listed ideas. In our everyday lives, how much attention is paid to essence and the “thingness” of the object?14 As a woman I’ve been trained to see my body as a thing. And am told it is not a thing. This confusing, mismatched dichotomy is interesting. What I have found most interesting is the space of overlap in which both definitions reside. It is an object. It is a thing. It has an essence. But how to give voice to the “object”, the container that is perceived as passive and voiceless? Or better yet, how to hear and listen to the distinct voice of that vessel? By now I was surely intrigued with sound and the body. I had started to reflect on what is communicated to me, a woman in 21st century America, through images and objects (in relation to the body), and I was interested in objecthood and intimacy involved in the body engaging with “things”. It takes the physical body to engage with clay. Even when using industrialized casting methods, clay is not silent. It has its own smells. It interacts with the environment and the air. It welcomes being pushed, prodded, pulled, mushed, liquified, and hardened, until it finally doesn’t. And that’s just when it’s in its wet, unfired stage. What an intimate object, that allows me to touch and hold it. It holds things I enjoy, and things that disgust me, without questioning. It will even hold me! I wonder what my coffee cup would think of this handling and holding? 14 As I thought of my body interacting in such intimate ways with this material, and how my mind typically gave it no thought, I reflected on my body itself as an object. As a vessel. My body as a female. My body has been an object. It has given to handling and holding. Holding of hands, of food, of objects, of other bodies, of words, and of ideas. Similar to clay vessels, the exterior of the body vessel has been held, and its interior holds. What would the mouth and hands, the intimate body objects that exchange with the coffee cup every day, think of this handling and holding? If they could, what would they say about this? While I was asking these questions, I had become aware of Alvin Lucier’s piece I Am Sitting in a Room, in which he recorded the following:15 I Am sitting in a room. The same one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice and I’m going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves, so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed. He then played this recording back into the room, and at the same time recorded the playback. He simultaneously played back and recorded each new recording in the room, again and again, until the resonant frequency of the room was the primary sound heard. Learning of this drew me to think yet again of sound, the body, communication, and interpretation. The literal words expressed by Lucier transformed out of their didactic state and became integral to showing the shape, size, texture, and elements of the room, expressing the body of the room (vessel). How brilliant! That was how I looked at giving the body of the cup and my body their own voices. By letting them borrow my voice, I asked them to recreate the sound through the expression of their own individual bodies (as vessels). i like my body when it is with your by e. e. cummings i like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite a new thing. Muscles better and nerves more. i like your body.- i like what it does, i like its hows. I found the poem, i like my body when it is with your by e. e. cummings,16 and felt this portion of the poem applicable to my body’s relationship with clay. Maybe clay felt the same way about its relationship with my body. The remainder of the poem, with the “shocking fuzz” and “electric fur” didn’t seem as applicable to this ceramic vessel/human body relationship I was looking into, so I decided to use the above shown section of the poem for the work. I recorded myself narrating this section of the poem. 15 Then, to give the cup and the mouth free liberty to take my words and make them their own, I gave them this recording. Holding a microphone and an audio recorder within its belly, I played this recording, and each new recording again and again inside the cup. I did the same routine inside the mouth. Each vessel responded differently, expressing the shape of their own bodies with their own individual (audio) resonant frequencies. The investigation took a visual turn as I documented the vessels that held these sounds and had made them into their own. I photographed the cup. As an object. I photographed the cup engaged with itself, engaged with its own body. I photographed the cup engaged with my body. I photographed the body. As an object. I photographed the body engaged with itself, engaged with its own body. I photographed the body engaged with the cup body. I photographed the cup again and again. Still. Static. Solitary. I photographed the cup again and again. Open. Adept. Familiar. I photographed the cup again and again. Touching. Holding. Containing. I photographed the cup again and again. Raw. Rough. Receiving. I photographed the body again and again. Still. Static. Solitary. I photographed the body again and again. Open. Adept. Familiar. I photographed the body again and again. Touching. Holding. Containing. I photographed the body again and again. Raw. Rough. Receiving. Held still on the split screen, as the clear, understandable, easily recognized words from e.e. cummings’ poem were are recited, these two images, documented as passive objects, as containers, seem to hold the space. Held within their own delegated (contained) sections of the screen, they hold the space for assumptions and expectations. As static, familiar objects and images, they hold the space for objects we know and use but don’t think about. And they move. The images move. The objects move with each other. As the objects express these sensual words that resonate in their bodies, their bodies move. They lightly touch. They push. They grip onto one another, hold each other, move away from each other. They express, shape, and form. Each begins within its own contained space. Within the split projection screen, mouth/body and cup/body know their own individual places. But then they invite each other into the other’s space and retreat back to their own for moments of safety, rest, reflection, and clarity. Initially visually contained within their own designated spaces in the projection screen, contained within the idea of passive objects that are structured, safe, protected, they invite and challenge each other to activate and engage the shared space of the intimate. 16 Note 10 Martha Rosler, Semiotics of the Kitchen, 1975, Single-channel video (black and white, sound), 06:09 minutes. Smithsonian American Art Museum. https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/semiotics-kitchen-77211 11 Ilana Harris-Babou, Cooking with the Erotic, 2016, Dual-channel video (color, sound), 11:37 minuets. https://ilanahb.com/Cooking-with-the-Erotic-1 12 Zoë Sofia, “Container Technologies,” Hypatia 15, no. 2 (2000): 184. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2000.tb00322.x; 13 Donald Winnicott, “The theory of the parent-infant relationship,” in The Maturational Proccesses and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development, (New York: International University Press, 1965). 14 Bill Brown, "Thing Theory." Critical Inquiry 28, no. 1 (2001): 1-22. Accessed May 14, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1344258. “The story of objects asserting themselves as things, then, is the story of a changed relation to the human subject and thus the story of how the thing really names less an object than a particular subject-object relation”, p. 4 15 Alvin Lucier, I Am Sitting In A Room, 1969, Audio Recording and Performance, Composed Brandeis University, Recorded Electronic Music Studio at Brandeis, performed Guggenheim Museum, 1970. 16 E. E. Cummings and George James Firmage. 1991. Complete poems, 1904-1962, (New York: Liveright Publishing, 1991). 17 Clay. Body. Open Cupboard I know hospitals well. I’m comfortable in hospitals, as a patient and as a provider. As I researched relationships with containers, vessels, and the body while working in a hospital, I began to think of the hospital as a container as well. Zoe Sofia (2000) wrote of container technologies and pointed out the similarities between Winnicott’s infant-mother relationship theory.17 She wondered how these theories could be applied to container technologies, and suggested the following:18 Facilitating environment: an adaptive intelligence is at work to ensure smooth functioning Containment: is not just about what holds or houses us, but what we put our stuff into, and thereby identify with; what of ourselves we can and cannot contain Primary maternal preoccupation and attunement: this lets infant and caretaker get in sync with each other; its corresponding technological phenomenon concerns the degree of adaptation of the environment/space/ container to us; the more a technological object is adapted to respond to or even anticipate our own wishes and capacities the more “user friendly” it seems Ruthlessness of infant: just as we don’t notice or acknowledge the active giving of the (m)other, so too do we take for granted containers and the resources they supply; they are merely spaces to get stuff out of or put stuff into. Similar to Winnicott’s infant-mother relationship, and container technologies theory, the hospital also serves a similar role. 18 In the case of these plates, unexpected images have been placed in common, approachable objects.19 The form of these plates is simple. There are no extroverted lines in shape, balance, or scale, however, the images on the plates are bold in design. Made through the Mishima technique, with blue inlay, each image lays within the off-white surface of its plate.20 The form of each plate is minimal and quiet, but the images are incongruous, yet soft. The intricate line work and movement of each image is organic and slow, but so repetitious and full, filling up almost all the surface space of each plate, they are nearly unnerving. The images have sunk their way into the minimalist forms. They have merged with them. The anxiety and fearfulness now come from inside the form of each plate. Each plate, soft, sturdy, and comfortable is not separate from its clear, disquieting image. Open Cupboard Ceramic Dimensions Variable 2019 19 In the gallery, they are hung and displayed in a manner that makes one think of decorative plates in a home. Like commemorative plates, they mark, recall, show importance, and give context to a person and event. Open Cupboard Ceramic Dimensions Variable 2019 I’ve always found commemorative plates interesting and somewhat odd. Typically, they are ceramic plates that are acquired to represent an event, such as a vacation or a wedding, and they are hung or displayed in the home, the way a personal or decorative photograph would be. As vessels, they hold memories, ideals, and status. Not only do they hold these concepts, as objects displayed in the home, they are vessels chosen to be used to share these concepts with others in the home.21 20 Most of the time, commemorative plates look a bit staged to me, with imagery that is picturesque. Real life is not picturesque. Memories, ideals, and relationships are full of complexity. Like Richard Avedon’s father portraits, these plates expose what is typically not shown.22 They hold the hard spot, the spot of survival, intimacy, vulnerability and care. I’d prefer to think of these plates as mandalas.23 Open Cupboard Ceramic Dimensions Variable 2019 In my exploration of the domestic, I knew I wanted to investigate vulnerability and the body, and use clay as my tool. I wasn’t sure why I was making these when I started. The intimate relationship with material and curious exploration allowed my mind to look for what it needed to see. Most people don’t like to talk about death. Or near death. Or pain. As humans we are attached to an idea of forever. Living forever without pain is what it seems we’re all striving for. Which makes sense because pain is painful. It’s difficult to talk about and most people feel at least a minimal amount of discomfort when hearing about something unpleasant or unwanted. We imagine it ourselves, for ourselves.24 21 As I started making these plates, with images of individuals who are being “held” by the medical equipment, I began to think there was at least a small amount of irony in this object. I was creating a form that is used to hold what we need to live, and the form itself holds an image of a person who is near death. Would I want to eat off of this plate? No, not initially. The image is too disarming. And honestly, I’d feel as though I were disrespecting the person and the plate. Would I want to have this plate in my home? Yes. Why? To keep as a reminder of death, its inevitability, and the value of life. These plates hold a memory. I have taken care of others in this hospital bed. I have been the person in this hospital bed. As I made these plates, and continued my work in the hospital, I thought of eastern philosophy and mandalas. Within certain schools of Buddhism, mandalas are used to represent the cosmos, impermanence, and the interdependence within the structure of life. In the studio, these thoughts were present. These plates I made were visually and physically comfortable. Their form was designed to hold sustenance and what was needed to live. And they also hold a reminder of the full circle of elements and moments, showing the interictally woven relationship between comfort and discomfort, between life and death.25 22 Note 17 Howard L. Traub and Robert C. Lane, “The Case of Ms. A,” Clinical Case Studies 1, no. 1 (2002): 49–66. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534650102001001005 18 Zoë Sofia, “Container Technologies.” Hypatia 15, no. 2 (2000): 185. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2000.tb00322.x 19 Jeanne Morgan Zarucchi, “Modern Styles, New Traditions,” in The Material Culture of Tableware: Staffordshire Pottery and American Values (London: Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2018). 20 Steven Young Lee. https://stevenyounglee.com 21 Susan Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993). 22 Richard Avedon, Jacob Israel Avedon: Photographed by Richard Avedon, 1974, curated by John Szarkowski and Richard Avedon, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1974. https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2522? 23 Nettrice Gaskins, “Sanford Biggers: Contemporary Mandala and the Hip-Hop Ethos,” Art21 Magazine, March 2012, http://magazine.art21.org/2012/03/23/sanford-biggers-contemporarymandala-and-the-hip-hop-ethos/#.YKBH1i1h1QI 24 William Kentridge, “William Kentridge in ‘Compassion’,” Art in the Twenty-First Century (Art21, 2009). https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s5/william-kentridge-incompassion-segment/ 25 William Kentridge, “Pain & Sympathy: William Kentridge,” Extended Play (Art21, 2010). https://art21.org/watch/extended-play/william-kentridge-pain-sympathy-short/ 23 Clay. Body. Pt# 5392057214 Pt# 5392057214 Single Channel Video Projection 6:18 94 x 170” 2019 “Thus when I come to shape here at this table between my hands the story of my life and set it before you as a complete thing, I have to recall things gone far, gone deep, sunk into this life or that and become part of it;…” 26 Virginia Woolf, The Waves Cake came before the plate. I see and hear a woman reading an emergency room hospital report. The report itself is not in the frame. She looks directly at me and she appears serious, a little anxious, and at times, a little casual. It is like she is going to tell some serious news to someone she cares for but does not know too well. 20 seconds in, she looks away from me, and continues reading the report as she casually brings a bite of cake to her mouth. Now, I feel a little more relaxed since she obviously feels comfortable enough to eat in front of me. She makes casual movements with fork in hand and I think of family and friends reading, sharing, and discussing during meal time. But then, she begins to talk with fork in hand and food in mouth, while she is still chewing on cake. What she reads to me is a little heavy, yet the casual cake eating makes me feel this is informal. 24 I feel comfortable and a little anxious. My anxiety builds as she eats the cake faster while reading aloud. She barely slows down to swallow and the words that come through her muffled cake filled voice are intense. At this point, she is reading to me and I am reading her.27 I read her animated eyebrows and her hands that move in energetic, longing, urgent gesture. And I read her mouth. It is stuffed and opens to receive more than it can hold, more than it can bear. She tries to breath. Tries to swallow. And I feel sad I feel disgusted I feel frustrated I feel awkward I feel humorous I feel desire to know, irritation that it is being kept from me, and curiosity in what she has given She has physically shared with me the manifestation, the consequences of the cold dry data read to me on the hospital report. And I feel intimate I feel grateful I feel exposed I feel curious I think of what the curator Diana Nemirof stated, “The most provocative performances for the camera are those that engage the spectator on a conceptual level to participate either physically or psychologically in the action. On these occasions, the communicative exchange at the heart of all performance is set in motion, and the social implications of the performance are understood." 28 And I wonder, has she seen Lisa Steele’s 1974 Birthday Suit with Scars and Defects?29 She may relate to Steele’s vivid authenticity and exposure. Has she seen Colin Campbell 1972 True/False?30 She may connect with a blurring of clarity in understanding, and find comfort in Campbell’s direct view and his attempt to conceal.31 25 Note 26 Virginia Woolf and Kate Flint, The Waves (London: Penguin, 2000), 166. 27 Paul Hegarty, “Body as Screen,” in Rumour and Radiation: Sound in Video Art (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). ISBN 9781623562694 28 Diana Nemiroff, “Performances for the Camera: Montreal and Toronto in the 1970s and 1980s," in Point and Shoot: Performance and Photography, ed. France Choinière and Michèle Thériault (Montreal: Dazibao, 2005), 42. 29 Lisa Steele, Birthday Suit: with scars and defects, 1974, Single-channel video (black and white, sound), duration 12 minuets (Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY). In “Relational Maneuvers In Autobiographical Video Art,” by Matthew Ryan Smith, Biography 37 (2014): 966 – 968. 30 Collin Campbell, True – False, 1972, Time-Based Media, b/w videotape, duration 15:00 minutes on 3/4" cassette (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario) https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artwork/true-false. In “Relational Maneuvers In Autobiographical Video Art,” by Matthew Ryan Smith, Biography 37 (2014): 957 – 960. 31 Matthew Smith, “Relational Maneuvers in Autobiographical Video Art” Biography 37, no. 4 (2014): 958. 26 Home Body Couching Criticism Another term for living room is “family room”. George Nelson defined the family room as “biggest room in the house" that would serve the social and recreational needs of the entire family.32 A lot happens on a living room couch. Exchange of information and experience happens, both verbally and physically. Movies are watched. Games are played. Conversations are had. By Fall of 2018, I was already working with ideas of the home space, its objects, and relations. The loci of this research had been related to the kitchen and dining areas, as seen in the food and domestic objects in What I’m Afraid to Tell: My Mother, Good To Hold, and Pt# 5392057215. It was in the Fall of 2018 that I began sketches to look into other areas of the domestic space and its objects, in order to understand the intimate, vulnerable, communal associations we make with these spaces and objects. It was then that I took the conversation outside of the kitchen, and looked into the living room. Couching Criticism Couch, Throw Pillows, Human Hair, Speakers 5 Audio Loops: ranging 1:56 - 4:34 38 x 78 x 48” 2019 27 Within an intimate, domestic setting, love is made, fights are had, and both verbal and physical exchange happens on a sofa. Not all couches are large, three seated, sectional spaces. Many times, they are smaller, more intimate, like a love seat. I chose to work with a love seat because of what it implies in its name. I was drawn to the love seat as a mode of investigation into this mix of intimacy, vulnerability, pleasure, and pain, due to its comfortable nature. Love seats look soft and stable and need to be strong and structured. Similar to Melanie Friend’s Homes and Gardens: Documenting the Invisible,33 I wanted to look at the dichotomy between a safe, comfortable, domestic space, and the complex, many times painful reality that often takes place within that comfortable environment. Unlike Friend’s work, which looked at the government infiltration into domestic space, I wanted to focus on the family unit as a complex organism within that space. I thought of my own history of personal and sensory experience, in a comfortable, safe, middle class home that many times consisted of dynamic, verbal, visual, and kinesthetic cues, marking the boundaries, rules, and roles associated with my gender, ethnicity, and social class. At this time, I was looking at, and was inspired by Martha Rosler’s Losing: A Conversation with theParents,34 which uses the lush comfort of a middle class, Caucasian home, to narrate the slow, violent death of a girl, influenced and overcome by gender roles, power, and objectification of the body. Around that time, I also saw the exhibition at the New Museum, “Sara Lucas: Au Naturel” and was taken by the multilayered complexity of tactile comfort and ridiculous humor she used to visualize “objectified representations of the female body” through domestic objects.35 28 It was then I played with words and their sounds. The words we hear while sitting on the couch reverberate through the body. Pulled from American television programs, statements from religious leaders, and my own narrative, I compiled audio for this speaking loveseat. Roles and rules were designated and expressed through compliment, complaint and dogma. Painful expectations and delightful support added to the layers of texture of the love seat. They mixed together, blended and bled into each other. Heard all at once, these statements merged and created a fluctuating rhythm, at times soothing, and at times solo statements of rigidity. 5 voices sang their certainties and inclinations, and each of their songs was held by woven hair. Love seats and hair, both tactile objects I associate with home, the body, and the intimately personal. Hair, this delicate, yet strong material of the human body which we see with pleasure and disgust. Hair is personal and communal, and in the home, hair is intimate. It can be both yucky and sensual. Hair on this loveseat covered the symphony of voices that spokefrom the couch pillows, their mid-tone murmur audible enough to know they are there, but blended enough so that one needed to lean into the pillow, covered with an intricate hair embroidery, to clearly understand what each individual said. The allure of comfort as well as an alert awareness may exist on a couch. Statements exchanged could be like lulling white noise if one eases in and does not try to understand what is said. Resting on a pillow, on the hair of another, there may be a moment of tension as one intimately hears a reprimand. Loving support and beratement may echo within the complex comfort of the couch. 29 Note 32 George Nelson and Henry Nicolls Wright, Tomorrow's House, How to Plan Your Post-war Home Now (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945). 33 Melanie Friend, Home & Gardens: Documenting the Invisible, 1996, 16 photographs (dimensions unknown) and audio transcript, duration 14 minuets. 34 Martha Rosler, Losing: A Conversation with the Parent, 1977, Single-channel video (color, sound), duration 18:39 minuets (Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY). 35 Sarah Lucas, Sarah Lucas: Au Natural, 2018, curated by Massimiliano Gioni and Margot Norton, New Museum, New York, 2018 – 2019. 30 A Loving Struggle “No urge seemed stronger to me than that for communication with others. If the never-completed movement of communication succeeds with but a single human being, everything is achieved. It is a criterion of this success that there be a readiness to communicate with every human being encountered and that grief is felt whenever communication fails. Not merely an exchange of words, nor friendliness and sociability, but only the constant urge towards total revelation reaches the path of communication.”36 Karl Jaspers, On My Philosophy A Loving Struggle Three Channel Video 1:30 2019 Karl Jaspers wrote of “a loving struggle”37 and a “constant urge towards total revelation” that leads to “the path of communication”.38 True communication. Jaspers went on to write that true 31 communication is like each person standing in front of the other, naked, weapons exposed. That requires release of guards, a release of expectations, and a release of an attachment to self. I wanted to look at the intimacy of communication, especially non-verbal communication. I wanted to look at the vulnerability and intimacy required to truly be with another, outside of expectations and judgments. Each of us holds several languages. The language that is taught in schools, the language we learn at home, the languages we create with lovers, and the language only each of us individually knows (we all talk to ourselves). We speak different languages. Verbally. Visually. We interpret sights, sounds, and objects from different cultural and gendered perspectives. In A Loving Struggle, I want to know him, the other with whom I share food. Communication is difficult. I need to let go of who I think he is and have the bravery to see him as he is. So much is lost in cultural texture and implications, even when translation is accurate. And we have to work together, with patience, awareness, and diligence. I aimed to create a piece that explored naked, weapons-down communication. I aimed to create a piece that explored the path to opening with another. I aimed to create a piece that explored the “working together” necessary to truly be with another. And I failed. I failed at patience. I failed at letting go of expectations. I failed at opening to another, weapons down and naked. A Loving Struggle is a short video piece documenting our attempts, struggles, and failures. We succeeded at perseverance. We succeeded at diligence. We succeeded at focus. We succeeded at getting the food in the bowl! 32 Note 36 Karl Jaspers, “On My Philosophy,” (1941). https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/jaspers.htm 37 Ronald Gordon, “Karl Jaspers: Existential philosopher of dialogical communication.” Southern Communication Journal 65, no. 2-3 (2009): 113-114, https://doi.org/10.1080/10417940009373161 38 Filiz Peach, Death, ‘Deathlessness’ and Existenz in Karl Jaspers’ Philosophy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008). Accessed May 15, 2021. DOI: 10.3366/Edinburgh/9780748625352.001.0001 33 Conclusion The body comes back to clay. This studio research started off with curiosity about relationships and the body, within the container of the domestic space. At the end of this research, it all came back to clay. Other actors became integrated, supportive members of the play. Audio and video spoke of disguise, authenticity, collaboration, and played with performance and curated expression. Home objects and participatory pieces gave comfort and allure, allowing one to come in, feel intrigued, and pause for a moment to look and touch. This work expanded my understanding of ceramics and solidified my relationship with clay. My relationship with clay enriched my understanding of the body. My technical growth using other media also enhanced my perception of the body through disembodiment… A reflective nature between the vessel and the body began, and has led to continued intrigue with the concept of vessel. I continue to be interested in how we connect and interact within physical space. This last year and half of coronavirus pandemic and quarantine has contributed to continued experiential research into life and relationships within the physical space of the home. I’ve become more curious about framing and perceived boundaries. We’ve become performers as we’ve watched ourselves and others on the screen during business meetings, classes, and therapy sessions. It appears we’ve become more conscious of what others see and how we are seen within this personal space each of us calls home, within our own personal vessels. Home is a place where we create. Home is a person. A person can be home. 34 Bibliography Art in the Twenty-First Century. 2009. “William Kentridge in ‘Compassion’.” Art21. https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s5/william-kentridge-in-compassionsegment/ Avedon, Richard. Jacob Israel Avedon: Photographed by Richard Avedon, 1974. 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