Questioning Artists: Rob Schlegel

This week, at a potluck, I learned a new word: affect. I was trying to describe the unifying experience of something “meaning more to people than the meaning itself.” There is a caveat: the experience mustn’t be explained. If explained then, it's no longer “affect.” This game of wits, or an innate ability to trust your understanding of a moment, is humbly illustrated by an exceptional potluck dinner-plate, where flavors are delighted in, best, together. More than the sum of its parts, I am claiming “affect.” My trajectory of approriation from psychology has since been applied to abstract paintings, my own art, and the poetry of Rob Schlegel.

Perhaps, an encounter with Rob Schlegel is the perfect experiential way of exploring “affect.” When looking at the same scene, with the help of Rob’s words, there is “an added intensity” to the communal understanding. If you could stop time, and turn the conversation into a white board with a pen, one could circle phrases, and turn them into a mathematical equation. The answer would produce a very different landing place. In this case, the parts are not black pepper tofu, and beet with goat cheese salad, they are the female and male in all of us. Yes, all of us.

Rob takes face-to-face conversation and poetry to places you have or have not been, through a lens you might not have experienced before, using steps that are individually understood. Here is the crux to it not being explained: Being in the forest, using Google, putting your hand around the stem of a plant….

The University of Iowa Press, which recently published Schlegel's book, writes: "Working from the premise that poetry is indistinguishable from the life of the poet, Schlegel considers how his relationship to the creative process is forever changed when he becomes something new to someone else.”

Please reader, read that again.

Schlegel's work changes with what is brought to the work. He intentionally negotiates and uses “affect.”

Schlegel writes, “'The meaning I’m trying to protect is, the heart is neither boy, nor girl.' In the Tree Where the Double Sex Sleeps is a tender search for the mother in the father, the poet in the parent, the forest in the human.”

Schlegel, a resident of Walla Walla, has accolades and prizes coming to him for the ability to bring us along the evolution of the human experience. He is giving voice to duality in this long and shifting life we are all leading.

Rob Schlegel is the author of The Lesser Fields (Center for Literary Publishing 2009), selected by James Longenbach for the Colorado Prize for Poetry, and January Machine (Four Way Books 2014), selected by Stephanie Burt for the Grub Street National Book Prize. His third collection is In the Tree Where the Double Sex Sleeps (University of Iowa Press 2019), selected by Brenda Shaughnessy for the Iowa Poetry Prize. With the poets Daniel Poppick and Rawaan Alkhatib, he co-edits The Catenary Press. Most recently, he has taught at Whitman College, and in the MFA Program at Portland State University.

What does the pursuit of Authenticity look like? One of my favorite films is Pedro Almodóvar's, All About My Mother. In a monologue late in the film, La Agrado says, "...you are more authentic the more you resemble what you've dreamed of being." That feels true.

A hug or a handshake? Is it flu season?

Describe a pivotal moment in your life. In graduate school, the poet Forrest Gander read one of my poems and said, "It looks like you're pretty comfortable working in this mode. Maybe it's time to pull up the flowers and plant something more difficult to grow." I think he was quoting the New York School poet, James Schuyler. Since then I've always been hyper-diligent about not allowing either the form, tone, or content of my work to become too comfortable. Write what you know is true, I guess. But only to a point.

When have you felt the most seen? Or understood? I very recently read my poem "52 Trees" to a roomful of friends in an old Victorian Airbnb in Portland. We were all in the living room sitting around this giant purple quartz geode the house's owner turned into a coffee table. All of us could feel the geode's sadness. Or, maybe we were feeling each other's sadness amplified by the energy of the geode? Or maybe the geode was merely amplifying the energy of our own individual sadness? When I finished reading my poem another friend read her poem, then another, and another. There we were, a roomful of poets using our language to absorb (and hopefully lessen) each other's sadness.

What is your favorite place to be in Walla Walla County? What do you hear, taste, and smell there? My favorite place is wherever there is a strong sense of counter- culture. Most often this seems to be in a friend's backyard. Other times, it's the sidewalk on the way to the Farmer's Market where the kilted unicorn busks on the accordion for passersby.

Describe another artist that you would like people to learn about. Elissa Washuta is a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and a writer of personal essays and memoir. She is the author of two books, Starvation Mode and My Body Is a Book of Rules, which was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She is also co-editor of the anthology Exquisite Vessel: Shapes of Native Nonfiction, forthcoming from University of Washington Press. I teach Washuta's incredible essay "Apocalypse Logic" whenever I get the chance. Google it.

Speak about Mentors and or, apprenticeships in your practice. As a poet, I feel like a constant apprentice to other poets whose poems I love. The list of mentors is long. But a few of the poets I've met and worked with include Primus St. John, Lex Runciman, Barbara Drake, Janice Gould, Shane McCrae, Joanna Klink, Michele Glazer, Greg Pape, Malena Mörling, and Geoffrey G. O' Brien.

52 Trees. (For John Ashbury) Published in Rob Schlegel’s 2019 book of Poetry: In the Tree Where the Double Sex Sleeps

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A few important notes:

“Affect:
An affect is a non-conscious experience of intensity; it is a moment of unformed and unstructured potential. Affect cannot be fully realised in language, and because affect is always prior to and/or outside of consciousness. (Massumi, Parables for the Virtual)
Those visceral forces beneath, alongside, or generally other than conscious knowing that can serve to drive us toward movement, thought, and ever-changing forms of relation. ( The Affect Theory Reader)”

— Affect, has been appropiated with the help of Aaron Bobrow Strain, Matt Prull, and Dylan Farnum on the Chapins porch, May 25th, memorial day weekend surrounded by rain and a history of conversation. Words and inspiration for the aritcle came from Feeling, Emotion, Affect by Eric Shouse http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0512/03-shouse.php/ Parables for the Virtual by Brian Massumi The Affect Theory Reader, editors: Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth Introduction to Affect Theory: Brian Massumi & Eve Sedgwick https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeMS8QEYIQU

The Union Bulletion, where this article was published on June 20, 2019, has a policy of never publishing poems. “We have a longstanding (more than 40 years) stance on not running poetry, except in ads. (Only using) …snippets from poems to show the person's style.” Hence the photograph of the poem with the dual hands. Incidently, they did publish the photo of the poem and the poem although with their own spacing. Hooray for breaking the art rules…. one. at. a. time.

Questioning Artists: Dianna Woolley

“Being willing to live in the part of the self where the question is born… tell us that we cannot see everything, cannot know everything, cannot predict everything. It tells us, that ultimately, we in live mystery.”

What makes an artist is defined by the person’s own determination. After living through the prerequisite chapters, and all that came with it, Dianna takes the mystery of life and translates it into paint. Raised in small town Bethany, OK, to a family with little interest in what the world offered, she was a happy kid who took for granted a loving home life. Since then she raised fabulous kids, lived in NY and Hong Kong, inhabited a major company's corporate office overlooking NY’s Central Park, traveled abroad for business and pleasure, became an avid art collector, and a practicing artist.

As Dianna says, she “morphed purposefully, into abstraction.” Avidly reading books, looking at 20th century abstract expressionism and post painterly abstractionists, taking on workshops, private tutors, mentors, and self care, Dianna embodies her hard work. Using her skills from past lives, as an executive and a mother, she outlined the steps from her education in realism to make the transition over the last two decades.  The last two decades, meaning, while she has lived in Walla Walla.

At 76, often with a dash of the perfect red lipstick, she maintains, “I have no other choice than to do what I do… the compulsion to create has been innate since childhood.  Discovering the richness of possibility as an adult makes the application of art all the more fulfilling and fun for me.” 

Dianna is constantly pushing herself within her art practice. In particular, is her resolve around the artist residency experience.  She has participated on the Island of Nantucket — 2016 and 2017 in residency at the Nantucket Island School of Design and Art. In 2018 Woolley was awarded a two week October residency for independent study by the International Encaustic Artists, at the renowned Castle Hill Arts Center’s Edgewood Farm, Truro, MA. 

"Artist Residency definition — an incredible opportunity and force in the universe resulting in the action of pushing, shoving, kicking, coaxing, enticing, intoxicating, incentivizing, encouraging and blessing one's artist self through and into a new dimension of productivity, courage, selection, perspective, confidence and well-being — a blessing for which I'm ever so grateful!"

How long have you been in the WW Valley and what do you like to be called? I’ve lived in Walla Walla for nearly 20 years with the love of my life, Steve, and like the use of my full first name, Dianna. I’ve never yearned for a nickname.

A hug or a handshake? I prefer a handshake over a hug and have a habit of saving hugs for special occasions with close friends and family.

How does fear play a role in your work? The principal fear I face as a creative artist is that I’ve not gone far enough yet in my practice to flush out all I have to offer the universe. I work on that…..

Titled work or untitled? I don’t enjoy naming my artwork as I adore engaging with observers about what they see in the work regardless of its title. Sometimes I feel naming a work may limit a viewer’s feelings or engagement with the image I’ve created. 

Describe a pivotal moment in your artist life. Pivotal moments in my artist’s journey involve memories of my first drawing and painting classes in New York, the first time I wrote down my intention of a one woman show and the the 15 years hence in which that first One Woman Show became a reality. In those moments of positive intention I knew I was an artist, not a wannabe, an artist.

How do you handle rejection? Not loving rejection a single bit more than anyone else, I generally frame it in terms of 'not being accepted this time' rather than rejection. I do not save rejection notices.

Where do you make your work? I paint in my home studio regularly and work at eating three meals and taking a nap every day. My body loves the challenge of strength and flexibility. Yes, I practice yoga, have a personal coach, a nutrition adviser, and a trusted painting mentor. 

Share someone who is politically, historically, intellectually, artistically or emotionally significant to you. As far as persons I admire and who’ve influenced my life strongly, the first was a fictional heroine in the 1978 best seller, A Woman of Independent Means. In 1998, through her memoir, I became an avid admirer of Katherine Graham/Personal History, head of the Washington Post, as a political, historical, and intellectual model. Mrs. Graham, having led a sheltered, solitary childhood, though with every financial advantage, played second fiddle to men most of her life until thrust into a situation that was do or die in her life of taking over the helm of the Washington Post. Through her own fortitude she discovered strength and sense of self through mastery of personal and professional crises. I’ve read her memoir several times. The artist I’ve admired most of my adult life, once I began poring over art historical documents and images in my early 20’s, is Georgia O’Keeffe; not necessarily for her images, though lovely, but her dedication to becoming her own person in body, mind, and spirit. I would like to be remembered and honored in this life and the next as these two women, whom I’ve mentioned, managed to do in their own time — as woman, in my case mother, wife, friend, colleague, and gifted artist - successful in all roles striving to use God given talents to their best possible use.

Hot wax, (also know as) Encaustic:  - A paint made from pigment mixed with melted beeswax and resin and after application fixed by heat.  Encaustic means “to burn in” referring to hot, liquid, clear or pigmented wax painted onto a surface to render an actual image or to protect an image already applied with another medium. The liquid wax is manipulated with a heat gun or torch.

Cold Wax: A “Crisco” like emulsion mixed with oil paint to increase viscosity, to advance textural qualities, and to hasten drying qualities. Cold wax is never heated as it contains minerals incompatible with fire.

To learn more about Dianna Woolley

Published in the Walla Walla Union Bulletin, June 6

Questioning Artistis: Hannah Bartman

Sometimes a person can quietly wear many, many hats. Hannah Bartman serves on Walla Walla's newly anointed Walla Walla Arts Commission, a board member of Art Walla since 2016, and is the organizer for ArtWalla’s First Friday Art Tour, (previously called Art Walk).  She works at the Walla Walla Foundry, curates shows at Brasserie Four, collaborates and organizes pop-up art shows, and she writes articles about artists. Which is how I met Hannah in 2015.  Oh, and did I forget to mention- she is also an artist?

As Studio Two Zero Two is a proud participant in the First Friday Art Tour program, Questioning Artists invited Hannah to pick from the 50 questions. This spring, she finished her new mural Idolatry, at the Candy Co. building. This is Walla Walla’s first downtown public art, made solely by a woman. Hannah Bartman’s work uses graphic symbols to investigate place and history. Her work often shows up in public spaces or is about the stories that we claim are public. She received her BA in Studio Art from Whitman College in 2016.

Childhood game that feels pertinent to your work now? 

When I was little I was constantly making up stories and scenarios to play out with my family, friends, dog or just by myself. I would write plays and design dinner menus for my parents, playing both director, lead actor and sous chef. My mom is constantly finding eccentric documents that I made when I was little: fake FBI badges for me and my dog, photos of me riding an ill-designed skateboard chariot, an elaborate tiny house for my stuffed mouse. All were superbly weird objects that I made up then that make me laugh and understand myself more now. I was always creating fake realities for myself and using my imagination to craft something fun, which I undoubtedly still do.

Is there anything you're hoping to be asked?

Where do you see yourself in your work? I like to ask other artists this because I struggle with it myself. Of course I'm all over my work, but I rarely see myself making public work that is directly related to my life. Often when I do (or even when I don't notice that I'm doing it), the work concerns my presence as a female since I feel that identity so strongly in my day-to-day. 

What are your necessities to be successful? 

A deep sense of meaning in my everyday. A passionate concentration that doesn’t fade with rejection or failure. And a really nice studio with lots of windows.

What does “doing your work” mean? 

I wake up most days feeling like I’m behind on my art-making work. Making work for me isn’t just the physical part, like actually making the object, but largely it’s in my mind. I digest my surroundings and think about how I can translate a thought into a meaningful object. And for me, that happens mostly just organically. I can’t mark set times to make myself sit down and do the work; the thoughts generally come on their own and I scribble down ideas or images on sticky notes throughout the day. There is no doubt that then when it comes to actually making the artwork, it’s hard work, requiring patience and concentration to get the thing done. The “work” of the finished piece is always happening though, whether it’s meandering somewhere in the back of my brain or standing right in front of me.

Where do you find courage? 

I repeat to myself “Everything is temporary.” I make my own life seem so huge sometimes that I forget how tiny I really am. Sometimes I forget how funny it is to be alive, and remembering that I am constantly changing is very encouraging for me.

To Learn More about Hannah Bartman

NOT Published by the Walla Walla Union Bulletin, April 17 - She was a popular girl that week and there was another article on her instead.

Questioning Artists: Kim Nemeth

What makes the mind always follow a certain pattern?

Always seeking?

If it lets go fo one pattern, it picks up another;

it keeps on functioning all the time that.  

-Hannah Arendt

Kim Nemeth explores the complexities of seeing, within the constraints of weaving. In response to her latest show at Brasserie Four, we discussed the relevant work of Anni Albers, weaver and participant of the Bauhaus movement and Black Mountain College. Albers, who wrote Work with Materials in 1937 (orginally published in the Black Mountain College Bulletin in 1938,) about the freeing quality of simplicity, gives “a suggestion.”

“…we must come down to earth from the clouds where we live in vagueness, and experience the most real thing there is: material.”

Nemeth’s show states “woven wall work explores what happens when patterns change.” In discussion she adds that her work examines “the distance and dissonance between the external landscape and the internal dialogue.” These abstract ideas each give there own direction to the new work, and as Albers suggests,

“(Material) introduces boundaries for a task of free imagination….within set limits the imagination can find something to hold to. ” 

For Nemeth these limitations are set by paper, steel, monofilament and linen. Starting with the intersection of the warp and weft, pattern and line are questioned, manipulated, and layered, allowing her to produce a show of ethereal landscapes, arguments, and dreams.

With a degree in Art History from the College of Wooster, Nemeth’s first exposure to weaving was at the Kirkman House Museum in Walla Walla, WA. As an AmeriCorps volunteer, along side local master weavers, a Textile Center was developed to showcase local fiber artists and the process of spinning, dying and weaving. Shortly after, she purchased her first loom and began the slow process of teaching herself how to warp a loom and weave. 

In 2012, Nemeth formed woven, a small business that makes and sells wearable, functional items; cowls, scarves, ponchos and wraps. While continuing the wearable items, in 2015, she began weaving as an art form - stripping away functionality to create fine, complex wall and ceiling hangings.

what do you call yourself? 

Weaver. Sometimes crafter. Sometimes artist.

describe a pivotal moment in your life

On October 5, 2015, I sent a message to Hannah MacDonald, then owner of Brasserie Four. 

“Would you ever consider allowing me to show woven wall hangings at the restaurant?” 

Up until that time, I’d only ever made functional items – scarves, tea towels, etc. The spring prior, I had dinner at the restaurant. Looking at the then current art show, Augusta Sparks Farnum’s Besides the Garden: New Works I wondered if I could ever make pieces that would cover such a space. It made me nervous and excited. But that’s the thing, right? The small whisper that is a bit incongruous? It’s easy to ignore; I had had it before. I mulled it over, building courage. I sent that question out to the universe. 

This pivotal moment, was a strange harbinger of change. Shortly after, my life really shifted. The repeating patterns I had created and lived in were challenged, altered, changed. 

My weavings shifted too, into dissecting pattern, tearing apart structure. I really began to think of fiber and weaving as a way to translate things I’ve no words for, to build my visual language. 

When she responded “um….yeah!” and my first wall hanging show was in March, 2016.

Talk about a connecting thread that spans throughout your work

Researching historical patterns and structures is integral to my work. Then, manipulating those patterns to explore the complexities of viewing – all those shifting layers we look through to see – to expose each element. 

What is your favorite tool? How do you use it?

My Schacht heddle/reed hook. It is how I warp and set the loom. I’ve had it since I warped my first loom.

Where do you make your work?

Here is Walla Walla, I converted my one car garage into a studio. I do all my weaving and finishing there. It gets challenging when making the bigger pieces. I don’t have the space to hang them before install, so there’s always a little bit of mystery/terror when putting them up, because I’m never totally sure how they will look until they’re up…

Do you nap?

Almost every day. I like to wake up early, I work late, it’s the only way that’s possible.

Definitions:

warp: the lengthwise or longitudinal threads held stationary in tension on a frame or loom 

weft: the transverse of warp, threads that run horizontally on the loom and get drawn through and inserted over-and-under the warp.

heddle/reed hook: a double ended hooked implement used to thread a strand of the warp through the eye of the heddle. The opposite end, often a larger hook, is used to sley the reed (pull warp threads through the reed).

To learn more about Kim Nemeth

Published: Walla Walla Union Bulletin May 16

Questioning Artists: Zac Merten

Zac Merten, is the visiting artist at Studio 202 through April in downtown Walla Walla . Zac credits his parents for a life of travel and arts. In college, Zac found visual proportions and form. In the south of France his art turned into a practice while studying Buddhism at a Vietnamease monastery. Zac graduated from Evergreen State College in Woodworking and Industrial Design. Founding WaterDrop WorkShop, in Walla Walla in 2008, and he is also a manager at the Walla Walla Foundry. Zac feels the pursuit of authenticity is a long arc.

How does fear play a role in your work? Navigating fear is like rafting a river. Rapids and boulders, swift straightaways, lulled pools. Sometimes it is a cliff jump and the fear wants to lock me up. I jump before I can even think about counting… Sometimes I get banged up doing that... regain my breath, and see about moving forward. Then once the work is out of me, there are particular pieces that I don't want to let go of… putting them into the public sphere. Gulp. Jump.

Titled work or untitled? I love titling work though don’t always do it, merging the visual with my love of a poetic word or two. My work is abstract, sometimes I hold back, so the viewer can come up with their own. 

Art School or no art school? I tried art school but couldn't get comfortable with grades applied to expressive art. Naaaa. Not for me. I left until my late 20’s when I went to Evergreen State College. Art is woven into science and politics.. I liked that.

What is your favorite place to be in Walla Walla County? What do you hear, taste, and smell there? Home, and how grateful and sometimes amazed I am to be able to say that. I hear the constant sound of the Creek running through our property, sometimes a roar, sometimes a murmur.  In the flood season, I hear boulders clomping and scraping down the creekbed being rounded and sculptured by the water. I hear the sounds of dogs, children, bleating sheep, and rustling leaves. I smell the sweet vanilla smells of lodgepole pine and cottonwood; earthy smells of dirt and mud, grass and manure.

Talk about a connecting thread that spans throughout your work 

Negative space is as much an element as positive. Giving light to gesture and watching it form into a thing in front of my eyes. 

Name and describe an unusual place that you would like to see your work, here in the Walla Walla County? The big, light-blue, arcing sides of the municipal water tank at the corner of Highway 12 and Clinton.

What are you reading? 

I read like I research the internet: by leaving an obscene amount of tabs open. The bedside table pile: The Dispossessed -Ursula Leguin, My War -Andy Rooney, Be Here Now -Ram Dass, Delta of Venus -Anaïs Nin.

To learn more about Zac Merten Visit his Instagram: Zac Merten

Published: Walla Walla Union Bulletin April 4th

Questioning artists: The Introduction

As some of you know, I have been working on this for years. First was in 2013 with Dianna Woolley and Steve Miller as my test artists…. which I never published. At all times, it has been meant as a vehicle for artists and creatives to talk about themselves. I have a habit, of doing that which I see needs to be done, while in action, with learning curves… Please note Hannah Bartman’s was a miss-fire, and some Questioning Artist articles just won’t make my personal blog…

Designed for artists, dancers, writers, poets, musicians, and creatives undefined yet to pick and fill-out 5 to 10 questions from the 50 question list. I seek a format for the artist’s comfort, and control. I offer them the chance to approve - at least up to the point you see published here, the final product. The list of questions has been vetted by dozens of minds, near and far. I posted on Instagram- receiving help the hive-mind way, took notes over coffee and dinner conversations, sent letters, and emails, all looking for people’s tools to understand. The questions span intellectual to the comical. As with the work I established with founding Carnegie Picture Lab, back ground stories help endear the perceiver to the cultural experience.

When possible, I invite the interviewed into my studio for a portrait session. I want to show case their beings, and their minds. Together we agree on a portrait, so far, they seem to be very hand animated.  As I have written each article, I have started to take a bit more agency in my representation of the artists in my introduction. The last three have had words or concepts defined. 

In the newspaper version there are images of their creativity. My words are reedited by Annie Eveland for the Marquee.  What I am posting here are my submissions, as they are still “mine” in this state, and not the property of the Newspaper, yet.

Something that needs clarification - Neither myself, nor the artists are paid for our efforts here.  This is what you might call a project of the heart. In my twenty plus years of adulting, making an art community has been a continuous crusade. The work is done to give shape, to give perspective, and to be present with the efforts of artists. Truly, their work seeps into the town’s daily life, and although it is often unnameable, art makes life more livable. Can I get a HELL YES?

With this, and the next thing, I need your help. I need to open up my network of artists in the Valley. The first are all super white, and privileged. And, I am pretty sure -all of the first artists would agree with me on this.

Second, I am going to try out a donation opportunity. (Why yes, I have applied for grants…) After Picture Lab I had promised myself to never take on work that was unpaid, as it devalues my time, my work, and the similar efforts of others. AND YET. If I don’t do this…. It will not be done.

So I am doing something wild and crazy, out of my comfort zone and for real. I am offering you dear reader, the opportunity to not only donate, but tell me the names of people I should know about. Here is the catch, you have to donate to tell me the name. Lastly, the system collects your information, and I will add you to my newsletter list if you are not already on there… for Handmade Post cards!

Support for Questioning Artists

That you for thinking about this. Best to all of you. -Augusta