The comment below was posted by Elatia Harris, wisewoman and friend, in response to my earlier posting about my discomfort with artist statements. I found her point of view worthy of a front row seat.
“Words and I are not friends,” Georgia O’Keeffe famously remarked. And every artist who struggles with writing an artist’s statement — usually the night before the day the gallerist needs to tack it on the wall — knows what O’Keeffe meant. The artist would go on creating if there were no reason to write about her own art, because she does not need to make her art more real to herself by other means. And yet, and yet. The statement is not a diary or any other method of self-confrontation, but a form that’s crafted for other people. People for whom, without word + image, there is no door thrown open, people for whom perception will not otherwise occur. When you’re painting, you’re doing something personal, aren’t you? When you’re writing about your own painting, you’re orchestrating an experience for someone who is not you. There doesn’t have to be a conflict.
My photo, yet. I guess I’ll have to say a few more words. The artist is baffled and even angered by having to write an artist’s statement because her art IS her statement. So the command to write a statement is in effect a command to paraphrase herself, to put the same thing differently than she has already put it. The frustration is like that of the stutterer who finds mid-sentence that certain consonants are so tricky they must be abandoned in favor of utterances that can be uttered, like that of the neophyte speaker of French who tells you her sister has a yellow pencil, not because she means it, or has a sister, but because she can say the phrase.
If you are the artist on the horns of this dilemma, there may a better way. Get a friend with a tape recorder to ask you some highly mysterious leading questions, that is, questions that can’t possibly be answered yes or no, in the understanding you’ll answer them only with reference to your life in art. Here’re a few of the kind I mean: When did you know? What was it like your first time? Which book was it? Who got to you? Whom would you ask and what, if you could ask anyone anything? What will matter to you 20 years from now? When you finish up this session, edit the results down to three questions and your answers, taking care that the length does not exceed three-quarters of a page. Print it, and you will have a usable statement.
Great idea. Do you have happen to have access to an artist statement that you think does the job well? I think my still lingering skepticism could be quelled with a best-of-breed sample.
Sure. Here’s an early draft of a statement that I and a student were working on a few years back. Her work was very hard for her to write about, and OF COURSE she didn’t want to write about it. But she had a show coming up, so… I like this statement because it’s readable, short, interest-creating, and focused. Please note that long statements stand a low chance to be read, especially in a group show setting, and many readers stop in the middle of a statement that rambles. Another thing this student did that I liked was to write an opening sentence that could stand alone for the short-short version of her statement that might appear in a catalogue, and for reviewers to quote. Getting quoted by making a journalist’s work easy is a good strategy. As follows —
Artist’s Statement
Like an anthropologist presenting her findings, I weave paintings out of the scraps and rags of culture, working to connect the viewer to the collective wisdom of generations. I pull out strands of my own experience – a letter from my mother, an old photograph, a record of an unusual encounter – and layer them with elements from media, literature and religion. This suggests meanings both rich and elusive, and comments on our need to create meaning from the complexity of our world.
I abstract the human form, partially obscuring it, and flatten space so that what is represented may be seen also as symbolic marking. Working with a mixture of oils and encaustics, I am particularly drawn to beeswax for its translucent quality. It acts as a natural preservative for the type, fibers and other cultural artifacts from which I build my images.
Pretty damn impressive, Elatia. We all need you to do the same for us.
This is great Deborah! Thanks for posting it. I will refer your blogs to a young artist friend with whom I have been exchanging thoughts, pro and con about art and life . Here in the suburbs, she needs to remain in contact with ideas that aren’t in common currency and which are of great usefulness to her as an artist. She is grappling with all of her roles as a young married woman. She will find great value in what you communicate.