We have enough.
Expressions of Radical Hope: “We Have Enough”
Every week, I listen in to Midjourney Office Hours. I find so much of it fascinating, and I take notes to update my learning collective people to fill them in on changes, new features, and philosophy. There is a channel on the Midjourney Discord for the “daily theme” - you can choose to get notified when this theme changes or not, but it’s people in the same channel making art on the same topic. Often, this daily theme changes to reflect something discussed in office hours - like robot squid. I usually include some of these images with the update to the learning collective. This week it wasn’t really related, and I felt inspired by all the topics of discussion in general and made some abstract painting images. I try to prompt shapes, colors, styles, and materials I actually use.
I also used combinations of these ideas: new computer science, art history, biodiversity, responsibility, exploration, community, infinite compute power, radical hope, a beautiful future, post-scarcity, and monkeys looking for bananas in new places. (😂 It's always a good time!)
After making these images, I also used the /blend feature to really get something I was feeling. I took this image into Photoshop and used the neural filter Super-Zoom to upscale. Next up, I opened the upscaled image in Adobe Fresco to get painting - the live brushes are really lovely. If you’re a traditional artist working with AI, someone who has painted in Photoshop forever, or a new artist starting with AI-generated images and learning to paint digitally, definitely check it out.
I’m loving the tools that Midjourney has for making art, but also the community. So many acknowledgments of systemic issues and how we can have a better future. So much awareness that we have enough, for everyone. If I could see this community as a sea of people, I imagine many of them have these sparks of radical hope glowing within them… (Now there’s another thing for me to go prompt) 🖤✨
OBSERVANCE
Review of my recent exhibition: OBSERVANCE
OBSERVANCE was held in conjunction with over 60 other exhibitions taking place in the month of May as part of the inaugural Taking. Up. Space. Initiative. After the opening, I was honored to speak with the Thrive Together Network about the exhibition and the work. I also held a live Q & A session on Instagram discussing my process, working with artificial intelligence, and creating a virtual exhibition. There were over 200 individual visitors to the exhibition, and I’m grateful to each of you who spent time in this space.🖤
“During a month-long residency, I practiced holding space for myself using mindfulness and creative expression using traditional materials. This practice has been developed through my studies in art therapy and personal trauma recovery work, with the phenomenological knowledge that these expressions are tied to our bodies. We can not create anything that does not come from within us. AI is the same, it can only give us back what we teach it. I use it as a tool for reflection in meditative practice, where I observe the AI rendered images with curiosity and non-judgment. The works that come from this practice serve as reminders to the viewer, of self-acceptance, of acceptance of others, and that we can create these spaces for ourselves and each other.”
The exhibition consisted of work available as editions of one, in print format, or for the video work, as an NFT.
This next series of images is presented as a slide show to demonstrate the placement of still and video works together. In the exhibition, as you “approached” the video pieces, they would start playing, and loop continuously.
Below are some more screenshots of the exhibition space. During the exhibition, you could navigate the rooms using the arrows, your mouse, clicking on a piece to view it up close, or by using the menu to tour piece by piece or travel to a specific artwork. Clicking on an image would take you up close, and the works could be purchased from that screen.
Thanks for taking a look at OBSERVANCE. If you want to make sure you get notified about my next exhibition, sign up for my newsletter here.
Let me tell you about my new romance…
I joined the virtual studio at Playform, and am currently working on a project based on recent collected works. I was truly excited to discover this platform for creating AI art, and maybe have previously underestimated my love for all things digital?
In thinking about it, I realized that I can trace my digital art-making back to my video painter, and maybe back to those days in kindergarten when we had computer class, and got to make art on the Macs? I'm one of those millennials who didn't have to be tech-savvy - we didn't have the internet until around when I went to college. I didn't even know I was tech-savvy until somewhere in my 30's and I realized I was giving out a lot of help, and it was surprising to me that people didn't understand it. Now, I would definitely consider myself an early adopter. It makes sense that I am because I feel ridiculously excited about the potential I see. Partially because exploring that potential gives me such a sense of joy. I think this is deeply related to radical hope. It's not something that exists here yet, but I can feel its existence. I noted that same sense of joy was frequently present when editing photographs, playing with texture and color, layers, versions...
These explorations are my way of studying, understanding something more. It feels like a word I can't recall, a place I can't remember my way to - It is so strong, but it is also emptiness. The matter is in the relationship, in the space between. The Playform platform is a tool to help me explore this space!
How does it work? There are computers that the platform is connected to, and I uploaded around 50 of my works of art. The computers essentially then learn those images, the forms, lines, colors, etc., and create renderings of new work. Those renderings can be further developed, mixed, and used in ways I haven't even discovered all of yet.
Developing models on Playform
I'm (obviously) enthusiastic about this new digital tool, and how it truly fits into my work.
Case in point - The other day, I was just sitting in my studio, smiling to myself thinking about Arthur Batut and his ideas on virtuality.
"To reproduce with the help of photography a figure whose material reality does not exist anywhere, an unreal being whose constituent elements are scattered over a certain number of individuals and which can only be conceived virtually, is it not a dream?" - Arthur Batut (translated from French)
Ah, so thrilling! Did I mention Batut lived from 1846 to 1918? What would he even think of something like Playform? We can't know the answer, but I'd love to hear yours!
Being sensitive, holding space, and radical hope.
For a long time, I would be disappointed by people for their actions. I couldn’t understand it and I always felt let down by their behavior, as incongruous to how I saw them. Not all that many years ago, I realized that this is because how I saw them was incongruous with how they actually were - and that my mistake is inherent in how I use what I see. How to put it? I’m sensitive. Not just in the way that got me made fun of growing up, but also in the way that I have access to other pieces of information that aren’t exactly within the “normal” range of experience. Some of these things are categorized as psychic and/or empathic abilities, like being able to actually feel what someone else is feeling, in my body. And all of this information can be really confusing and overwhelming - especially when it’s all tangled up with trauma and unhealthy dynamics. But back to what I came to understand about my experience of other people, I realized that I am able to tune in to who a person really is, and I experience this knowledge at a feeling level.
There are ways of knowing that are intuitive, and the more we learn to use them, the more we come to understand about ourselves, our relationships, and our world. I think that artists are in tune with these abilities in different ways. Learning that I have a strength when it comes to claircognizance (knowing) and clairsentience (feeling), has been very helpful to me. Now, when I meet people, I know that the sense I get of them has more to do with their greatest potential than the level they actually operate on. I’m able to stay out of situations where I, because of my empathy, obliger tendency, and familial relationship templates, would be blindsided and taken advantage of. I know more of a difference between who I am, what I’m feeling, and who someone else is. That might sound crazy, but if you’re able to pick up on all kinds of information and don’t know how to/ can’t process it, it can be VERY confusing.
To parse out all of this info that’s coming in, I needed to put boundaries in place. I needed to have help and support creating a practice. It has to remain in place this way for me to just feel semi-ok. Lately, it’s hard. I want to hit pause on everything and just paint and process. Just staying grounded and mindful is much of my self-care.
The idea of radical hope has been getting me through. It’s been so important to me at the core, and the more I contemplate, the more I realize that radical hope is at the very foundation of who I am. It is tied to the reason that I sense people’s potential state, not just the current one. It’s the reason that I can know, absolutely, in my bones that something is righteous. (Not that I am right, but that a concept has a righteous feeling, I think about it, and my body just knows). It’s like having a sense of direction, knowing which way is North. I’m just orientated to a different set of parameters that is intuitively defined, and the concept of radical hope is a compass.
Radical hope is essentially having hope in situations that have absolutely no hope. Radical hope is wise hope, not toxic positivity. It is a hope that doesn’t deny the reality of our suffering, but chooses to see it all, and take action.
Writings by Joan Halifax, Rebecca Solnit, and Jonathan Lear explore this subject further. I find the concept of radical hope to be in alignment with Catholic social justice teachings, and present in the punk rock community. It’s active. It’s defiant. It’s also very present in post traumatic growth, where there is space, often uncomfortable space, between what happened, what is, and what will be. It is in this space that we may act. This is what my work is all about. Holding space for the truth and the capacity to transform it. Radical hope.
What a great realization to have.
I have known that the work I do is about holding space - for people in portraits, in installation work of shrines and imitation relics. There is repetition of information, movement, shifting of forms. These constants have existed, and I can only see them now that I look backwards through time and media and a plethora of projects. I’ve focused on the beauty of an individual, seeing what makes them true. I’ve created experiences - literal spaces to be in, and prompted an ignition of radical hope in the face of systemic injustice. I’ve made bowls filled with intention and set them on fire. I’ve sought community through my work, connection to others to create a shift. I’ve tried time and time and time again to capture visually, something that I know in my bones, that I feel and experience, that is completely invisible and goes back to the concept of space. It is wild how filled with radical hope it always was, and how I lacked the descriptive words to say it. I have them now.
My work is about radical hope, and I want to share that with you.
Hold on.
I read somewhere that today’s date is Blursday the somethingith? That seems correct?! How are we all doing out there?
How am I? I am frustrated, angry, sad, furious, heartfelt and full of love, shut down, wound up, choked up, exhausted, strong, defiant, silent, screaming, full of hope and rage.
(But like, more so than normal)
I have been hanging onto words and paint and music. (Again, more so than normal) Aaaaaand Animal Crossing. That game is an absolute delight full of art, music, and silliness.
Also, the universe is sending me clear messages this week, and it’s weird in contrast, because everything else feels so foggy. There have been so many synchronicities happening that I’m starting to laugh out loud about it.
One of those messages I’ve received being, “It’s time for me to dig in.” So I’ve been thinking about the meaning of that, because my nature is typically to do exactly that. But it was presented to me in a way that meant maybe I’m not… Maybe I have this “skill” of being able to dig in, but maybe I’m not applying it correctly? Hmm. This feels as true as today being Blursday.
This feels like a call to a “this is it” moment of self-commitment and truth, all else be damned. What a weird moment of frightening clarity in this space at this time. I’m just going to hold on.
Artist of the Week
You Are Here is an awesome non-profit art gallery in Jeannette, PA, and they are starting a new project to help support artists during this time, when so many opportunities have been lost.
Feature artists will be sharing how they’re being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic situation, along with what they’re offering as far as art you can purchase, services, etc.
If you’re in a place where you can support working artists, this is a great opportunity to connect and make a difference. You Are Here is making these features into a permanent artist roster for the direct support of artists and their work.
I’m always grateful for the support of You Are Here, I’m currently doing their Satellite Artist remote residency, and now am the first featured weekly artist!
You can check out the ARTIST OF THE WEEK page here, and my Satellite Artist Blog here. Thanks!
Alcohol Ink on Yupo Paper.
In the flow with alcohol ink on yupo paper.
Oh my gosh, I’ve been really enjoying making work with alcohol ink on yupo paper. I’d only previously used alcohol ink with encaustic medium. I liked it then, and have missed making encaustics, which is one reason why I wanted to try working with these otherwise. My encaustic studio has been out of commission since we moved here - just before Christmas, and this will be the 3rd Christmas here - clearly, I need to figure something out to get my encaustic studio space going again. (Rental - carpet- and I get wax EVERYWHERE)
In the meantime, I’ve heard buzz about yupo paper. I was all, what now? But it’s this synthetic “paper” that works really well for alcohol ink. It doesn’t absorb the liquid, and you can just keep working on it. I made the mistake of using my regular heat gun - too hot, don’t do it - a hair dryer is just fine. I see why everyone is all yupo, yupo!
Over the past few years, my work has developed to have these lines, that are usually informed by the shapes of the paint under them. I got really excited about the way the ink moves to the outer edge of the shape with alcohol ink, and the way you can put the alcohol on it to make it spread out more, carrying it further. There’s a lot of play with alcohol, and a lot less ink than you’d imagine. So, I’m getting these shapes that are part of my language, with a new medium. *SWOON*
LACHRYMA LINEAGE
I KNOW I’m this super-sensitive, emotional creature, but sometimes, waves of emotion still take me by surprise, which is what happened with a few of these pieces I’ve been working on. I hope that you’ll feel them too. <3 I’ll be releasing this series, along with the one featured above, to my email list first - they’re all affordably priced 5 x 7’s, so get thyself on that list below!
Do you like to try new things? If you’re an artist, have you ever worked with alcohol ink or yupo paper? Tell me about your adventures in the comments!
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