three poems by Hoa Nguyen

These were also in "Brooklyn Rail":
If you can't read them, go here

Jeanette Winterson on art's role in affecting political and social change

Read this in a recent "Brooklyn Rail" (just found it's online as well - www.brooklyrail.org). An interview with author Jeanette Winterson.
Just a small excerpt that I wanted to share with you:

Rail: Can you talk a little about the role you think fiction should play in affecting political and social change?

Winterson: Art, all art, protects imaginative space. Encounters with art open your mind because they force you away from your usual little world into spaces both meditative and challenging. It is a great mistake, the biggest mistake of all, to confuse a piece of art with its subject matter—what it says, what it’s about. We can’t do that with music, and we can’t do it with abstract painting, etc. That should warn us not to do it, full-stop. Of course a novel is “about” something, but its power is in its language and its image-making. When we turn to art, we are turning away from the clock-driven busy world into a reflective space that allows us to find our own meaning and our own beat. Change is impossible unless it starts with the individual. Art is always, always, always about the individual, the one-to-one experience. Change begins when our minds change—when our hearts change. That’s what art does, and that is why governments in the West don’t ban art—that would make it important and we would fight to keep it—no, they trivialize art, call it a luxury, call it elitist, quietly withdraw it from school study, and we go along with this, and soon we are just passive consumers of goods and news items, and we lose our spiritual muscle. Art keeps your mind fit, keeps your heart strong.

Opening Fri, April 4, Claire Watkins, Joe Deroche, Rosana Barragan

TRANSMISSION
presents new work by
Claire Watkins (kinetic sculpture, drawings)
Joe Deroche (mixed media paintings)
Rosana Barragan (performance)

Opening Friday, April 4th, 7-10pm
Performaces by Rosana Barragan
will occur on the opening night at 8 and 9pm
Show runs April 4-26

TRANSMISSION
321 Brook Rd. (between Broad and Marshall St.)
Richmond, VA 23220
804.200.9985

Gallery hours: Thurs, Fri, 11-6, Sat 12-5,
or call for appointment

Claire Watkins received her BFA from Kansas City Art Institue in 1996. In 2004, she received her MFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Her artist statement:
'The digestive system turns food into eyelashes. I am in awe of the minutiae and delicate actions that make up everyday life. The machines I build reflect this awe and wonder. My work is intimate, curious and mesmerizing in its gestures. The translation of energy is both a functional and conceptual part of my work... With movement, I make machines that become creatures.

I am fascinated by systems found within the body and the parallel structures located outside of it; the human brain and circuit boards, nerve systems and trees. How is the brain a computer and how is it an electrical storm? The affects of electricity are curious. Neurons fire in your head with the memories of your life. Your toast gets burned. Electricity has a visual presence in my work, traveling through motors, lights, wires microcontrollers and drawings that are circuit boards. I want to expose the invisibility of electricity, a physical reminder of its presence.'

Joe Deroche incorporates poured resins, layers of glass, sculpted metals, and highly polished surfaces in his hybrid paintings. Geographical formations mixed with transparent and semi-transparent layers combine to reference seemingly fictional histories of place. Transmission is proud to present this artist's public debut.

Rosana Barragan is a performing artist originally from Colombia, South America and currently residing in Richmond. She has a Master’s degree in Dance from the Laban Centre in London and a Bachelor’s degree in Communication & Social Studies from Javeriana University in Colombia. Her performances address social and political issues in environments that challenge audience perspectives. She has received various grants and awards for choreography in Colombia, Mexico and England. Her works have been shown in different theaters, galleries, museums, public spaces and festivals in Colombia, Ecuador, Portugal, England, Mexico and the US. This performance marks her debut in Richmond.

"Transmission introduces Studio 23"

Image:
Sarah Watson,
"I'm Here, You're
There", spitbite
and sugarlift
aquatint


The Southern Graphics Council Conference is in Richmond this week. The show at Transmission is primarily a forum for Studio 23 to introduce themselves, their work, and their mission.

TRANSMISSION
321 Brook Rd. (between Broad St. and Marshall St.)
Richmond, VA 23225
804.200.9985

This show has been up for the month of March, and will be open throughout the Conference's entirety. Hours are Wed, Thurs (11-6), Fri (11-9), and Sat (11-6), or call for appointment.

The members of this group are versatile, extremely talented, and generous. Without them, this community would continue suffering without a resource to learn and/or practice printmaking techniques like etching, lithography, relief (woodcut/linocut), and screenprinting.

Studio 23 will be calling Plant Zero (the artist studios at 0 East 4th St. in the historic district of Manchester) home. Not to confuse you, but they will be hosting an open studio on Saturday, March 29th there from 6-11pm. You can check out their blog here.

Here's what you can expect to see at the show: Etchings, lithographs, woodcuts, linoleum prints, screenprints, and mixed media prints by the members of Studio 23 (Ashley Hawkins, Sarah Watson, Beth Noe, Cindy Eide, Kate Horne) as well as some of their associates (Trudy Benson, Bret Payne, Andy Kozlowski). Also on view are prints by the following artists: Amze Emmons (etching with screenprinting!!), Sam McPheeters, Neil Burke, Ryan Jacob Smith, Matt Wells, Amy Ross (rare collage pieces), Travis Robertson (zines and screenprints), books by Kevin Hooyman... and more!

I interviewed some of the members of Studio 23 -

Q: What process will be required for an artist to use the facilities at Studio 23?

A: At first we said street cred, and knowing not to run a metal spork through the press. Really, anyone interested should email us at studiotwothree@gmail.com and come down to check out the studio. We want to accommodate a wide range of experience and goals, and want to emphasize that all are welcome. We'll tailor tutorials/open studios to individual needs, and are always available for questions and/or visits to the space.

Q: What prompted your efforts to confirm the relevancy of printmaking techniques like etching and lithography? Have you witnessed a decline in the appreciation or understanding of these skills?

A: We're a group of print dorks who want to create a dorkdom (dorkpire?) of printmakers. It is extremely difficult for young, emerging artists to set up and run a printshop individually, as the cost of presses, materials, and maintenance is high. Thus, having a shop available for community use is critical to encouraging young artists to make prints. Prints have their own unique quality, and you just don't see that many of them in galleries. This isn't necessarily indicative of a decline in the appreciation/understanding of traditional printmaking skills, it is simply that facilities for printmaking aren't readily available outside of the university setting. We wish to make prit these facilities available, and create a communal atmosphere as community is such a vital part of any printmaking environment.

Q:Opening this up to the public is an extremely generous gesture. Having a facility like this in Richmond, outside of the confines of the School of the Arts or other institutions is a blessing for someone like me. What made you decide to open Studio 23 in Richmond?

A: We're all recent graduates of VCU's Painting and Printmaking Department, and felt a bit lost after graduating. Without the facilities of VCU, we found it difficult to create work. We started Studio 23 as simply a place for us to work, to get Kate Horne's Talking Horse Press up and running. We've decided to open Studio 23 to the public because we've met many other young artists like ourselves looking for a place to work. We're very excited to provide that place, to increase awareness of printmaking through workshops, and to be a part of Richmond's art community. We see so many people immediately leaving Richmond after graduation, and we think that sucks. We want to contribute to a community of young artists with roots in Richmond who are dedicated to contributing to the arts in the city.

Jesse Albrecht part 2

Here's part 2 of the interview -

Bret- I feel fortunate to be able to showcase your work. Yours is
a voice/perspective that we don't hear much in the contemporary art world.
Have you run across other artists who are vets of the current war in Iraq?

Jesse - Thank you for the oppourtunity to be included in the show, I would have loved to take a look but my budget is broke, so hopefully next time. Bill Donovan is a vet of the Afganistan Campaign who was in the show, but I don't know anyone else from the Iraq side. Last spring Jamie and CeCe had Bill and I to Richmond as visiting artists and that was the first time Bill and I had a chance to talk about our expierence. We did so over a late night kitchen table drawfest and it was good.

B - What is the most recent change you have seen in your work?
How have they changed from the time when you first got back from Iraq?

J - Showing my work has gone in the direction of instillation with artifacts and pictures from Iraq informing where I am coming from. With Great Uncles gassed in France in WWI and his brothers at Pearl Harbor and Tarawa, my Grandfather 3 1/2 years in New Guinea and Uncles in Vietnam I am examining my family history and how that informed me and my expierence. Initially I couldn't build the pieces fast enough to pour out what I saw, did and felt. My work continues to become more refined in the emotion and expierence are represented. Performance is working its way into the mix as well.

B - Are you still making similar forms with text carved into and/or
painted onto them?

J - My last series of ceramic work was without text but relief of rattlesnakes and straight razors being some of the reoccuring subjects. The cone is the form I am still working with, abstracted to or from the human form. I crowbared the word "love" into some pots I made last summer which all ended up wedding gifts for my closest army buddies. Love N' War has been the series I have been working on for the past three years, and much text has appeared as recognition of friends back in Iraq, wishing their safe return.

B -Did you ever question your thought to write on/into
your pieces?

J - The first year back I didn't question anything I wrote on my work or why I was doing it. Now it is obvious the gap between who I was before I left and who I returned as was put into my work. I didn't want to pull anything back but the most taboo thoughts and feelings.

B - What does the Arabic script say on the untitled piece?
I enjoy seeing what foreign languages do to audiences.
What was you intent in using it in this piece?

J - Allah Akbar, God is Great(er) is the Arabic text I think you are referring to, which is off the Iraqi flag post 1991. It was used to reference some horrors Saddam perpatrated during his rule. With that piece I was screaming back about what I did in Iraq, what it was about for me. I was remembering Iraqis I met who bear Saddam's brutality missing fingers and toes. I was remembering the experience of purchasing medicine, supplies, and delivering it to a childrens hospital in Mosul. I was remembering the medical treatement I provided Iraqi children, civilians, and soldiers--remembering some of the good I did while in Iraq.

Jesse Albrecht

Jesse Albrecht is one of the artists in the current show, "The Word Made Fresh".

Here's his statement for the show:
"My art speaks about my personal experiences in Iraq - what I saw, did, smelled, tasted, felt and thought. WWI, WWII, and Vietnam also sent family members around the globe--war has spanned nearly a century for my family and its effects are ever present. A year of kill or be killed shattered my personal understanding of good and evil, right and wrong. Art helps me process and communicate such an overwhelming sensory and emotional experience and its daily effects. It has become a means to open a dialogue about the experience of combat--love n war--coming home. From beautiful to nauseating sights, feelings, experiences, thought and action. I can not internalize my experience. I can not forget those fighting and those fallen. "

This ceramic piece is titled "I Chose to Live"


Here's part 1 of an interview with him-

Bret: As a gallerist, I have had a real physical interaction
with both of your pieces in the current show. Both
are fairly difficult for one person to handle. I had to
have someone help me lift "I Chose to Live" off of the floor
onto the pedestal. I can read and understand what you
are communicating with the text on these pieces, but I felt
like I was tapping into a more physical understanding
of your experiences as an Iraq War Vet.

Jesse: I had been back in the United States for around eight months when I made those pieces and they were at the front end of the work I made about my experiences. The clay was a canvas, I wasn't thinking much about form, just building the pieces as quickly as possible, often an hour or two--the decoration (drawing/painting on them) was my focus, which was fast and overpowered with emotion/experience. I needed them to be thick and heavy so I could tear into them while I decorated them and not worry about them collapsing. It was a raw time personally and for my art.

Bret: I want to quote you here:
"I need to speak (through art) about my experience—what I saw, did, smelled, tasted, felt and thought—while in Iraq and now while I process such an overwhelming sensory and emotional experience my art serves as the physical through which I am processing that experience."

Jesse: I meet a lot of people who have never talked to someone who has been to Iraq. It got to the point where I felt I had an obligation to make my statement through my work about my experience because the mainstream media misses it so much of the time. And its a different experience for everyone and as it evolves...but the day to day I get here reading the papers and watching the news is not what the soldier is seeing, feeling, thinking...so I wanted to initiate that conversation with people. I don't have the eloquence or space to write about the sensory and emotional experience Iraq has to offer, much less how I am sifting through my old existance in relation to who I am now...hopefully my work captures just a little bit of that.

Bret: Again, because I've been so up close and personal with these
pieces, I was even able to smell the dirt/mud/clay/mold/algae.
These all spoke to me about memory and its transient nature.
I witness so many people forgetting about what is going on.

Jesse: I am realizing memory changes with where I am at mentally/physically...people can't forget what they never knew, but that is why I am speaking about my time in Iraq. Hopefully I can bring something to people about Iraq aside from another news blip that easily blends away. I hope it initiates a conversation that helps inform people. Without an outlet the outdoor storage initiates the growth of algae...reading into it I think of the homeless veteran and relate that to my work stored behind a garage, covered with mud, ice, mold, and leaves.

Bret: Please tell me about the date on "I Chose to Live"

Jesse: For the first year or two back from Iraq I didn't want to be around people I didn't know becasue I would scan for a threat, but when I would be alone I would become parinoid to the point of hallucination at times. I would barracade myself in my studio so I would hear someone if they were in the building..."I Chose to Live" was the date of a particular night in the studio when I had a real hallucination/breakdown.

"The Word Made Fresh" Opening Jan. 4, 7-9pm

The colors seem to be a little off here. This show brings together 24 artists from all over the U.S. and one artist from France (REMED)! The opening is this Friday. There will be a puppet show by Sean Samoheyl around 7:30.

Contributing artists: Jamie Boling, Bill Donovan, Leah Beeferman, Matt Betts, Chris Lawson, Jesse Albrecht, Liam Devowski, Travis Robertson, Max Hubenthal, Mike Ball, Dean AEIOU, Cece Cole, Brooke Inman, Heather Bregman, Bret Payne, REMED, Andy Kozlowski, Anthony Meloro, Kate Horne, Travis Jackson, Chris Coy, Arthur Hash, and Sean Samoheyl