Mantras for a Sustainable Art Practice (Vol. II)
/The waning days of winter and the end of year nearing always brings a time of reflection. Annie Dillard, in her Pulitzer Prize winning novel Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, describes an urge that comes as the weather changes to dig down deep, shed extra emotional layers, and get to the bare root of her purpose in a process she calls “Northing”. As artists based in South Florida we’ve noticed this same feeling can be triggered by waning hours of daylight or the changing states on license plates as the inevitable snowbird season approaches.
If done correctly, what’s left at the end of a good Northing is a guiding principle, or mantra, that if held on to and repeated can become the habit which fuels a sustainable practice through the thick and the thin. Mantras can be surprising in their simplicity or specificity; sometimes they hit you in the gut or stick to the back of your thoughts and they can even fall completely flat but still be helpful in revealing what doesn’t drive you.
As this complicated year comes to a close, it presents a crucial time to set intentions in the studio. It’s been our pleasure to check in with five more artists for Volume II of this series, asking them to share the mantras that have helped guide their work ethic during critical moments and offer snap shots of what they’ve been working on lately. Perhaps these insights from Carol Prusa, Michelle A. M. Miller, Jesse Shaw, Elysa D. Batista, and Kristin Miller Hopkins will prove useful in your own Northing this winter.
CAROL PRUSA
“Wake up every day and learn something new.”
I learned video editing this year after COVID shut-down and am working on a proof of concept using AI/machine-learning, and am working on learning book structures and making image studies for upcoming time at IS Projects making a book.
www.carolprusa.com
Here are five images taken in my studio since March where I am making work for solo shows in Cincinnati, OH (Dec. 2020), Taipei, Taiwan (Summer 2020) and Ann Norton Sculpture Garden (Fall 2021).
“‘Many Moons’ is the set of paintings I finally completed this summer but have been working on since 2017”
MICHELLE AM MILLER
“This is not permanent, this is right now.”
www.mammiller.com
Studio view
The next 5 are photos are views of early paper making experiments. Here sits small mounds of crushed and ground oyster shells.
Recycled drawings and studio ephemera returned to a wet pulp stage
A blended slurry of cut up etchings
Sheets drying
The finished dried sheet on my desk ready to become a drawing
Detailed view of a finished drawing
JESSE SHAW
Recently I keep thinking of two sayings: In regard to my work "it makes as much sense as anything else" and with work ethic and studio practice "slow and steady wins the race". I tend to over work myself.
www.americanprintmaker.com
Me and my family moved during the pandemic. So right now I have a small space to work in, which is a walk in closet. But hey, I own it so I am grateful. I plan to begin building a studio in my garage now that the semester is over at Texas A&M International University, where I teach printmaking and drawing.
Before we went in the pandemic I was focused on making monotype prints. I like making something new in a day. I was planning on making just a bunch of them and maybe having a show or tabling them at a print fair.
I was in need of more print inventory for shows and sales. I am going to be returning to this body of work now that classes are out.
I put my time and energy into finishing "American Landscape II" the 30th print from my American Epic Series during this last summer. I have since moved onto the next block in which food stuff is the subject matter. Still not sure why I am making this right now (but that is where the mantra comes in). I am enjoying it so far.
I recently received an NEA grant to purchase letterpress equipment for TAMIU titled "Laredo Mobile Letterpress" and produce community projects. I, along with Ms. Buentello at Alexander High in Laredo and my research assistants, have finished our first "print by telephone project" with local high school students.
The participating students made compositions virtually and then we produced them manually on our letterpress. A couple copies went back to the high school students to embellish and the rest were paper dyed by my printmaking students.
ELYSA D BATISTA
“It's not the space, but the ideas and work that matters.”
www.elysabatista.com
Studio inspiration board
Temporary borrowed shop space
Working Outdoors
KRISTIN MILLER HOPKINS
“Keep going even if you are not sure”
www.kristinmillerhopkins.com
A drastic change for me this year is work/life balance and the challenge of juggling a lack of childcare. This is a photo of my daughter in the studio, as she is often making something right along with me. I started a series of mixed media pieces of involving drawings of ropes because ropes can save us or hold us back.
Untangling, 18x24” The contrast of untangling emotional knots to the delicate washes of watercolor provides imagery to feelings of anxiety and freedom that come from a global pandemic. Constraints of time, childcare, work / life balance are untangling... often producing moments of great freedom and moments of serious knots.
Detail from, A Sea Change, an ongoing series of soft sculptures to eventually be a site specific installation. Materials include hand dyed tarlatan fabric, wire, fabric, embroidery, handmade paper and drawing. We have all seen a sea change this year. In home habitat, in global climate change, in politics, and in personal health. Making these organically shaped soft sculptures is both a distraction and a remedy from the harshness of today’s reality. The diaphanous nature of the forms are inspired by the changing forms of sea creatures, meant to symbolize how we are being challenged to grow, change shape and morph into a new normal.
Untangling, 18x24” - mixed media watercolor, pen, acrylic, fabric and embroidery on paper.
I’d like to thank Carol, Michelle, Jesse, Elysa and Kristin for generously inviting us into their studios. If you’re an artist who would like to share your mantra and some studio updates with us, please email sammi@isprojectsfl.com to be featured in this series.
Make work and be well,
Sammi & Ingrid