Seen. Unseen. Artist Talk - October 19, 2006

Give me a stone, give me 500 lbs. of clay and I dive into it…. Put me in front of a bunch of smiling faces and I shake like a leaf.

Thank you all for coming…. It is true, it does take a village. Making art is much like raising a child; one needs to nurture it daily. Making art is often done alone, in one’s studio, by the piano, or the computer. It is quite difficult to keep at it, to persist, to avoid judging self, to continue to grow when one is isolated. Community and support are essential to an artist’s growth. I learned that from the wonderful No Limits community of women artists (known now as Artist Leadership Network) who has been behind me for the last 11 years. I want to mention and give big thanks to Di Anne Love who has been practically the entire organization behind this gallery and its events. Pam Dernham for her curatorial advice and support. My dear friends and personal support group known lovingly as MAZLL, we have been there for each other through thick and thin, you have lifted me up so many times. To my closest friends and lifesavers in more than one way – Ellen, Arlene, Micki, and Nadie. To my sons, Gil and Gilad, for your thinking, your muscles, your genius creativity, and your ability and availability to help me anytime no matter what. To my son Guy for supporting me from afar. My sons love and continuous support has made me a better person and a better artist. And to Abraham for his loving and clear guidance.

As our planet keeps shrinking and technology keeps evolving we find ourselves connected to global events like never before. Social, scientific and political occurrences across the globe become personal, we find ourselves emotionally involved in events happening to some stranger in Mozambique, or Bilbao, or Brooklyn. Information moves faster than the speed of light. We have immediate access to every bit of information on any given subject at any given moment. We constantly have to make quick decisions about what to open up to, absorb and digest and what to let go of. We are not affected, influenced, or triggered only by our immediate upbringing or cultural background anymore, we are exposed to the human race and all its flavors like never before.

I have become passionate about identities and criteria that are used to define us, humans. While being helpful for administrative purposes and social research I do believe they also add to division, tension and oppressions.

When I’m asked to check a square in a multiple-choice official form I scroll down to “Other” adding the word “Human” next to it. See, my problem is that I’m at best a square peg that the efficient system wants to hammer into a round hole. I am Latina, Israeli/Middle Eastern, American, Jewish, white but nor really; I speak with an accent that people can’t identify – I am an enigma at best, mostly an odd bird. By the time I turned 10 I knew Spanish, some Yiddish, a bit of Russian, Quechua, Hebrew, and some Arabic. I had already experienced violent anti-Semitism and a full-blown war. By the time I was in my mid thirties I had lived in three continents, been exposed to multiple cultures, traditions, customs, and behaviors. For years I felt I didn’t belong anywhere. The only solution seemed to be to deny parts of myself and strongly hold on to others, claim these as my true identity. That’s a tough and painful way of existing, as while choosing this I automatically neglected and denied other parts of self. The more I bought into “identity definition” the more I lost myself.

Who are you? They ask.

As far as I know Abraham and Sarah are my ancestor. I can trace my family tree only five generations back to Russia and the Ukraine. From my maternal grandfather I am three generations Argentinean; my other three grandparents created a continuous lineage of immigrants, nomads, the wondering secular Jew, which I certainly added to, having immigrated twice in my life, taking my children with me.

I am many details, I say. I am an evolving story.

So, who are you, really? they persist.

You want to know my identity, who or what defines me, I say, I understand. But let me ask you: when do we claim our own identity and when do we loose that choice and are labeled according to someone’s agenda, ideology or census criteria?

In the 19th century American South any white-skinned person with a black grandparent born after emancipation was considered a Negro. In 1930’s and 1940’s Europe anybody whose bloodline could be traced to a Jew was considered a Jew.

The PBS Philosophy Now show walked the streets of America asking people that question: “Who are you?” The answers were fascinating. From “I’m a collector of antique toy cars” to “I am an American woman, no, sorry, I am a New York Jewish Woman”; from “I am a person who loves to sleep” to “I was born in Russia”; from “I’m not sure, my mother is from Sweden, my father is African American, does that make me and African American Swede?” to “I am Japanese, Native American, Irish, and Russian – a quarter each equal parts.” From “I’m a mom” to “I’m gay and proud!”

As I said, we are many details. We are our evolving stories.

Immigration, class mobility, job mobility, scattered families, media and the web have brought us face to face with multiculturalism. Love thy neighbor – that was easy, or easier, when we lived in communities of like-minded people. But what do I do when multiculturalism is part of our daily life, when my neighbor might be or look like the person my parents or my culture urged me to fear or put down or discard? How do I love my neighbor now?! Bias, racism, and multiple oppressions live next door to us, it’s in our face and inside of us. Those deep, primitive beliefs about the primacy of competition and territoriality, rooted in ancient human fears of scarcity and continuous danger can and do pop-up at any time. How do we deal with our own identity and that of others in this changing world were labels divide us but reality brings us together?

“Race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexuality: in the past couple of decades, a great deal of attention has been paid to such collective identities. They clamor for recognition and respect, sometimes at the expense of other things we value. But to what extent do “Identities” constrain our freedom, our ability to make an individual life, and to what extent do they enable our individuality?” Asks Kwame Anthony Appiah in his book “The ethics of Identity”. And he continues: “I am who I am not only because I am engaged in the lifelong task of becoming the person I want to be but also because I can identify myself with groups of people engaged in similar “life-projects”: secular Jews, people with kids, people raised in Iowa city, etc.”

And Hazel Henderson, economist and producer of TV series Ethical Markets says: “The essential task of our generation is to root out these primitive fears – deeply coded in our “us-versus-them” political and economic textbooks. These dysfunctional old fears underlie today’s continuing cycles of oppression, poverty, violence, revenge, and terrorism that threaten to destroy us.”

Dr. Ervin Laszlo, philosopher, known as the founder of systems philosophy and general evolution theory writes that “new findings in science tell us that there is something in nature that conserves and transmits information not only at the level of particles but also at the level of consciousness. Individuals affect others around them not just through their words and actions, but also by the very fact that they have achieved a new level of consciousness themselves.” A notion that many, if not all, spiritual traditions have been speaking about for generations.

And Shashi Tharoor, the candidate for United Nations Secretary General says: “In much of the world there exist societies whose richness lies in their soul and not their soil… whose imagination is more valuable than their technology… It is unthinkable that they would develop without literature, without song and dance and music and stories.”

And from Amartya Sen, Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University: “People’s priorities and actions are influenced by all of their affiliations and associations, not merely by religion.”

Mahatma Gandhi pioneer the concept that evolved into the Indian democratic makeup that there are many identities other than religious ethnicity that are relevant to a person’s self-understanding, and also to the relations between citizens of diverse backgrounds within the country.

These are but a few of the many individuals, leaders in all fields, accomplished and holding influential positions all over the world, speaking up, stating that the world cannot be defined anymore by “us versus them”, individuals cannot be categorized anymore by one criteria, we are all connected, and we are all essential parts of the same organism.

At this point my favorite spiritual teacher would say: Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah…….

What does all this mean to us, to you and me?

I can tell you what this means to me. I am an amalgam of rich and diverse cultures. I have studied numerous spiritual traditions. I have a curiosity for cutting edge science and inner journeys. I have been influenced by male dominant cultures as well as by Feminism. Women artists such as Barbara Hepworth, Louise Bourgeois, Steffi Friedman, Betsy Damon, to name but a few, gave me the permission to make art seen before as non-feminine for its scale, media and tool requirements. I have been inspired by 20th century sculptors such as Constantine Brancusi, Francisco Zuñiga, Isamu Noguchi and by contemporary artists such as Ruth Duckworth, Nancy Azara, Boaz Vaadia, and others. I am moved by Abstract Expressionists who sought to express their sub-conscious through their art such as Kandinsky, Pollock, and Rothko. Yet, I feel the closest to a new movement that has been evolving among contemporary modernists – a global cross-cultural, inclusive of human experience as a whole, artists that seem to tap into the collective sub-conscious, that use a variety of media to address moral, spiritual, environmental and social issues. Artists such as Louise Anderson, Louise Bourgeois, Mel Chin, Charles Atlas, Elizabeth Murray, Tim Hawkinson, Barry McGee, Kiki Smith and many more.

As an artist I’m stimulated by circumstances, nature, events, my story, my family’s traditions, people, interactions and relationships, feelings, experiences, art and other artists.

Yet, my creative process comes, first and foremost, from my inner being. There is a continuous dialogue within me, a dialogue with the past and a dialogue with the divine. I honor my emotions and spiritual self and draw from them. I value perseverance, I continuously dig-in striving for deeper layers of my authentic self, aiming to be faithful to my own individuality, honest, naked. I find I am an evolving and changing self. It is a fascinating, powerful, tough, extremely rewarding and joyful process.

Stephen Nachmanovitch, who wrote my favorite book on creativity, “Free Play and Improvisation” says, “The creative process is a spiritual path. This adventure is about us, about the deep self, about originality, meaning not that, which is all new, but that which is fully and originally ourselves. Creativity is a harmony of opposite tensions of play and sacredness. As we ride through the flux of our own creative process we have to hold onto both. If we let go of play, our work becomes ponderous and stiff. If we let go of the sacred, our work loses its connection to the ground on which we live. If we are transparent with nothing to hide, the gap between language and Being disappears. Then the Muse can speak.”

And Prof. Joseph Campbell, best known for his work on mythology and religions believed that “You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don't know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don't know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.”

Much of my work and breakthroughs, both as an artist and in my personal growth, come to me as I am falling asleep, or waking up, or when I am in deep meditation. Now the process begins. I’m in my studio ready to start a new piece for which I sometimes have an idea, sometimes a concept, and sometimes the entire piece is finished in my head. First I have to trust and give up expectations. I try to focus my attention on the field I’m about to enter, when I do, I have to release the plan, surrender, step into the ‘zone’ and discover the reality that’s now been created by my hands and body. By stepping open and empty into the silence, into sacred space, I’m finally able to see what’s been waiting for me all along. “Step into yourself and you’ll find the Universe”, said Hakuin Zenji, the 18th century Zen master.

Since I can remember I’ve always had questions that went unanswered. Human interactions, bigotry, and racial divisions looked to my young and innocent eyes as incredulously stupid and very scary. I have never stopped asking those questions determined to understand human nature in general and love versus fear in particular. Each one of us is comprised of a multitude of details, details that create stories. As details and stories keep entering our conscious and sub-conscious minds we keep changing and growing. As does a family, a tribe, a nation, the human race. “The story revolution, the one that is transforming our world this very minute, is fueled by a democratic counter-assertion: that everyone contributes to culture; that the knowledge sorely needed by future generations must come from every ethnic group and region and social class, from men and women of infinite variety; and that everyone has something to teach and something to learn.” Taken from the article “The Story Revolution: How Telling Our Stories Transforms the World”, written by my very good friend Arlene Goldbard.

A sign inside the front door of Holy Cross Primary School in north Belfast reads: “If we had been born where they were born and taught what they were taught, we would believe what they believe.”

“We need to learn how to hear with other people’s ears.” Says Eli Weisel.

In searching and defining my own identity, in continuing to ask the questions that bothered me when I was a child I have embraced the understanding that we are different and that emphasizing these differences is an essential part of celebrating the human race. In my work I explore personal and collective narratives by questioning the limitations and divisions imposed by pre-defined criteria. I seek and find underlying messages that connect us all. I dive into myself and through that into others seeking essence and listening to personal stories. I do believe that we are a bouquet of flowers, a divine and beautiful flower arrangement. Because of our skin color, our different languages and accents, our traditions and our spiritual believes we have experienced life differently. Isn’t that fantastic? We are all plain and simple glorious human beings each carrying a different story. Do you know how many amazing stories are there to be told? We just have to gather and listen.

I want to end with a poem and a blessing. This is a favorite poem of mine written by one of my favorite American poets, Mary Oliver. This poem instigated a series of new work, wall relieves I call “I Am So Many”:

Sunrise

You can
die for it –
an idea,
or the world. People

have done so,
 brilliantly,
letting
their small bodies be bound

to the stake,
creating
an unforgettable
fury of light. But

this morning,
climbing the familiar hills
in the familiar
fabric of dawn, I thought

of China
and India
and Europe, and I thought
how the sun

blazes for everyone just
so joyfully
as it rises
under the lashes
of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many!
What is my name?

What is the name
of the deep breath I would take
over and over
for all of us? Call it

whatever you want, it is
happiness, it is another one
of the ways to enter
fire.

And this is my blessing - We’ve just entered a new Jewish Year and several Holly Days are upon us once again. Whatever your tradition, however you celebrate, whichever way you give thanks, please pray for peace, joy and love in all the worlds. Thank you all for listening. I welcome your questions, your comments, and your stories.