Declaring a Major

The slanting 4:00 light of fall ignites me with the desire to create, quick!, before the year closes. Everything feels dire at once- conversing with friends, reading, writing, drawing, seeing, hosting. Many pots on the stove. None at a boil. As an artist, I look back at the annual wake of what I have made. This year, my flotsam is less physical and more conceptual. Who has the storage space? Previous years were heavy in studio creating. This year has been practicum. Gathering groups, initiating conversations, meeting up. I started a podcast with my #1 goof Abbey McBride. We invented a salon that circles up around a topic or artist for feedback and discussion. We filmed a music video for Hannah Winkler (to come later this year!) with Amanda Nascarella. I keep a life drawing circle alive with Meg Eplett. 

My husband has been touring for two months. When he is gone, I simmer. Work at all hours, stay out with friends, read relentlessly. In some ways more unleashed, in other ways far more boring. In the absence of our all-day dialogue, I reach for so many books at once. Books on drawing, on artists, on technique, on revolutionaries and friendships and relationships. I am a self-teaching wizard- seven books at a time, never wanted to leave school, student of the world. I bring two books on my train ride- one for the mood on my way there (non-fiction) and another for the ride home (fiction).

My interests are more wide-ranging than deep-diving. “Intro To” is my happy place. I took a lot of 100 level courses in college. I found every topic fascinating– for a semester. Then that thread led to another topic, another school, another scene. Monkey bar-ing from one subject to the next. My hail mary French major allowed me to study all the topics as long as the textbook was in their language. Art history, literature, politics all fall under the umbrella of learning French. Twenty years on I’m still attracted to a new subject every month, but a sense of mastery is lacking. I want a strategy. In the last few months of this year, I would like to divine who and what my long term influences are, identify the topics I am drawn to over and over, the questions that keep popping up. What am I majoring in in life? If Sarah Jessica Parker can read 150 books in a year and make it look good (I love OK McCauseland’s photography style), I can figure out the thread of what I’m studying. 

Current books:

Apocalypse/Revolution:

No Time to Spare- Ursula Le Guin

Art:

The Reckoning: Women Artists of the New Millennium- Nancy Princenthal

Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes- Walt Stanchfield

John Singer Sargent

Open Questions: Thirty Years of Writing About Art- Helen Molesworth

France:

Écarlate- Christine Pawlowska

Place:

The Driftless Reader- Keefe Keeley, Curt Meine

Bastard Out of Carolina- Dorothy Allison

Recent reads:

Apocalypse/Revolution:

I Who Have Never Known Men- Jacqueline Harpman

Clay’s Ark- Octavia Butler

Art:

The New Oil Painting- Kimberly Brooks

Oil Painting Essentials- Greg Kreutz

Jenna Gribbon

Morpho: Face, Head, and Neck- Michel Lauricella

France:

Giovanni’s Room- James Baldwin

The Paris Novel- Ruth Reichl

Place:

Demon Copperhead- Barbara Kingsolver

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay- Elena Ferrante

Upcoming:

Apocalypse/Revolution:

Vineland- Thomas Pynchon

The Message- Ta-Nehisi Coats

Assata- Assata Shakur

Art:

Turn- Anne Truitt

The Silver Book- Olivia Laing

Place:

Piranesi- Susanna Clarke

Story of the Lost Child- Elena Ferrante