Saturday, Nov 5th(i think?) 10am, Nick's house?

Shall we meet again!  This Saturday morning at Nick's?  Will it be too cold for outside or perfect?  Let's make a plan to make some perhaps, hm?  Love,

K

Nick's lists

Meetin meetin: Saturday, October 15th, 10am, Nick's House?

We's got things to discuss, we's got ideas for the table, we's got catchin up to do.  : )

I will again bring paper if we feel like making drawings with words.

Check yes or no for this Saturday, Oct. 15th, Nick's.  (Does that work for you Nick?)  Let's sort it out in the comments.

Love, K

Next Meeting: Sunday, October 9th, 4pm, Nick's house

Remember to bring your list or write a list if you have not already!  I will bring a large piece of paper or two for drawing/thinking.   Best, K

innovation and consumption.

I had a malfunction while I was talking yesterday. It happens every once in a while that my speech process is intercepted by a void of thought and the loop is never closed. In these moments, I loose my train of thought and fail to return to the original idea with any closure. I was trying to talk about innovation in the terms related to me through this video of an interview with architect Peter Eisenman. (most of the video is related to more specific ideas about architecture and the practice therein, but I feel his general comments about innovation, precedent, and responsibility are relative to all those involved in the arts and the visual synthesis of ideas.)

Our conversation in that moment was leading into ideas of artists negating responsibility and necessity for the making of bad work. Another question we were having dealt with originality in our practice. How often has it happened that your original discovery is trumped by some other artist that has already investigated the same problem? What is the nature of our responsibility anyway? Is it social, cultural, temporal, personal, or independent of audience? These are based on the specificity of individual pieces, but in general, what is an artist's role in society?

I feel that my practice of making is only a practice in the discipline of painting or sculpture or the line in between. The "study" is less serious, more experimental, more investigative, and deeply liberating. I want to make without any connecting tissues between my objects and some profitable market. This is the "bad work." It's also the most disconcerting idea considering a person's "living", but the more I make, the more confused I get about the art "market." What is most freeing and synonymous with that practice is something like Co-Lab, which functions through installation based work that is non-archival. In this curatorial practice, there is so much fluid between idea and object that the actualized intellect is free from the monetary constraints of a market based on consumption.

There was also mention of the fact that there is never a truly original work. It's somehow discouraging when we discover a person who is geographically, socially, culturally, and chronologically separate, yet still arrives at a similar intellectual discovery. I recently found Kurt Schwitters, who worked on these wall pieces in the early 20th century, which are very much like the ideas I've had about the constructions in my work. This is precedent. The jumping off point.

Next Meeting Time?

Next meeting will be....????  Did we decide?  How about Thursday evening after the W&tW opening, maybe Thursday at 7 or Sunday afternoon around 4?

To catch those of you up who weren't there, today we talked and talked and made lists.  If you weren't there, you need make lists before our next meeting of things relating to you and your making as artist.  This practice has little guidance in the beginning.  (I was really confused and didn't know where to start.)  I think everyone agrees though that as we make these lists and then step back from them, we begin to notice our own direction out the lists themselves.  You can add your list to the blog so all can see it.

For next time we're going to keep working on the lists.  I'm going to bring a large piece of paper for us to synthesize our lists together into one big thinking-drawing.  We are going to find or discuss the similarities or differences in our lists and hope to use that as a starting point for making together.

Ok, let's decide about calendar ASAP!  Love, K

LISTS! - Please add your list to this list of lists.

Next Meeting: October 1, 10am, Nick's house

We're meeting at Nick's house this Saturday, October 1!  4716 Mt. Vernon St. at 10am.

Bring something you made that you're sincerely invested in, and that you made for the group specifically, we may be working from these individual places.

See you guys soon!  Love, K

Collaboration?

We talked a brief bit about getting together and making things. There wasn't much consensus on it, except that we all have different aesthetic sensitivities and egos. The improvised sculptures we've worked on so far have become a source of conflict in that we were forced build and edit a purely formal problem. Even though we are all familiar with the reactionary process, we all go about it differently. Some associate more with the AbEx problem that deals with formal issues of composition, and design, others with a conceptual problem of signs and language, for example. So, even though we were all approaching the same object with the same material, we were all going about it differently and asking different question and demanding different answers.

Should we continue a practice of collaboration? Is there something there for us to work out?

Since I need an excuse to interject the idea of architecture, I'll use it as an example. The process of designing or building a structure is entirely collaborative. Building for utility will always require various voices and insights into the efficiency of utility or efficacy of design. The difference, though, is that there is only a single goal. The goal in that case would be the specificity of the utility of some organized space. In our case, I think we should set up a problem. Isn't that the nature of art in general? to propose a visual solution to a social, cultural, or intellectual problem? These artistic proposals may not be a solution per se, but instead become a cue into the problem itself and warrants closer inspection by the viewers of the work.

So, do we have any problems? Are there some things we need to work out? Sure, we each have a problem that we are working out in our own work, but is there a problem we could all approach as a group that somehow relates to or could involve each of us? I am all for showing up with our own work and our own problems looking for dialogue and conversation about the direction or intent. We could also use my home studio as a kind of collective work space. It would be different from the studio at school, which has a pretension in the architecture of the institution. Plus we would be around ourselves, with whom we have and established repoire and dialogue. I'm down for bringing your own things to work on. I'm also interested in the collaboration problem.

comments.

I like my Saturday when it is with your Saturday

I have never made an omelette.  I propose, if anyone wants to get here at 9am (or earlier because you're crazy, enthusiastic, or still awake)), just come on over and let's make omelets.  I've never made an omelette!

As well, the next few weeks I have NO INTERNSHIP on Saturday mornings!  I work on Wednesdays.  SOOOO we are free to spend a little time without me running away tactlessly like today (sorry).  Does this work for everybody?  Next Saturday, September 24th, early for breakfast begin working at 10am?  Bring some food, some ideas, some material if needed.  Holla in da comments.  Love you all,  K

Next Meeting, Saturday 10-12, Katie's house

like singing through christmas lights, and waterproof plastic

Hi.  Today we did good.  We did real good.  I vote perhaps we do similar things next time we get together.  Perhaps a brief conversation about what happened, and whether or not we should continue refining some of the work that happened.  Then perhaps make some more or different stuff.

Shall we bring new materials/potentials?  Shall we limit ourselves to what has already been brought?
(I'm not touching the sculpture, so everything's still here to use.)

Also, when should we meet?  Saturday is really bad for me because of work...sorry.  How about Sunday around 4 maybe?

Let's work out the next meeting via comments below.  Love you all, today was exciting to me, hope for you too!   K

Meeting: Saturday, September 10, 10am

Greetings!  Sorry today was a little quirky.  Obviously we won't do 6 anymore, it's too close to studios and made us rush through things.  We should probably aim, though, to get more efficient together so we spend good quality productive time without skipping or skimping.

We meet again next Saturday, September 10th at 10am.  My place.  Until 12 at the latest.  Bring a "something", "anything", "material", "potential".  We will make.    

Feel free to bring food if you like, breakfast or lunch.  I'll try to have something too.  Best and love,  K

make lists

Fluxus.  If you aren't familiar, I encourage a brief brush up via wikipedia.  I think they're helpful to the idea of groupness.  I was looking at their manifesto and it made me start thinking about lists.  Sometimes, list are helpful.  Really specific and subjective lists, completely useless to anyone but to the person who wrote it, can be really helpful.

While I was at Ox-Bow I was given the challenge by a professor to make lists.  To write about what things make a great work of art.  To write about what things will always be necessary in art.  To write about what things are always important to the human condition.  To write about what is always important to my condition.

Perhaps, needless to say, I haven't done it yet.  I need to before I begin making again.  If anyone wants or feels compelled to pick up this challenge, let me know.  Perhaps we can compare and talk about our lists afterward.  See you all Thursday!  Love,  K

Second meeting

We spent nearly 2 hours discussing the Basha article and the idea of sincerity in artwork and actions. As Katie said, we kind of talked in circles, but an interesting conversation was definitely had. Here are a few key? ideas.

-difference between sincerity (intrinsic human emotions/reactions/actions) and Sincerity (a communicative expression made to be received by another)

-who's your audience? and how does it effect what you make/how sincere it is?

-idea that the gallery is a default audience rather than specific groups. An issue?

-accessibility

-"the mom test"

-hierarchy of viewership

-art that needs no previous knowledge to be viewed (ex: Anish Kapoor Cloud Gate)

-sincerity of an object: are unmodified objects more sincere?

-"clusterfuck aesthetic", clumsy accumulation

-Susan Sontag article and book, "Against Interpretation"

-justification and integrity

-what are the specific reasons that you have made an object and brought it into existence (materials, concept, etc.)

-motivations

-skill set?

-Should sincerity be a goal?

-instinct v. instruction

-sincerity v. truth

We then did a quick making exercise using a sheet of paper and passed them to the left for that person to keep/use however. (Bonding, fast thinking, makin' stuff)

For next time (Thurs. Sep. 6, 6PM): make something and bring it in.

-use ideas you are thinking about in your personal work, but take some sort of risk

-small, quick, not scary. (Possible experimentation over final product.)

Meeting#3: Thursday, September 1

Thursday, September 1 at 6pm.  My house.  

Homework:  "make something and bring it"  

If that needs more clarification feel free to comment.  An hour max for Thursday, because Champion has an opening 7-9 and we should all be there.  Let me know if I've forgotten anything vital.  Love, K

First Meeting Minutes

Hey Guys, sorry that I didn't get these up sooner. Will be more punctual in the future. Here are the notes I made during our first meeting to refresh the memories of those who were there and to catch up those who weren't.

From 8-20-11

GOALS

-Making work

-made by both individuals and the group as a whole

-chances to propose group projects

-Showing work

-apartment gallery model

-research: SOFA, Tex Gallery (Denton),

-possible locations:Pam's studio (small, a good place to photograph work), Jade and Donnie's future apt. gallery space, Helios Co-op, Katies house? (Connect to monthly film screenings?)

-performance-using/taking advantage of public spaces

-Set a deadline for our first show together and stick to it. Make it happen, get it done!

-Growing out of the ashes of other dead, Texan art institutions (Art Lies, AMOA, etc etc.)

-Using the collective to work in ways not possible without a group

-Starting with one project to focus the group

-Group support through critiques

-Make up for what is lacking in many UT crits.

-Taking ourselves seriously, having a professional presence.

-Start with a very general theme-make work-then speak again

-vague theme based on common worried

-mistrust of contemporary art

-honesty, integrity, skill

-Weekly meetings! Next meeting scheduled tonight for Wed, Aug 24th, 6:30pm at Katie's house

-To find member's work online:

-pamjarvis.com

-philipharrell.com

-ibendonrelease@wordpress.com (Melissa)

-chantalwnuk.com

-jadeabner.tumblr.com

-Karina and Katie, e-mail photos to the group

-Melissa: e-mail NYT article about photography on the internet

-Katie: finding article on authenticity/integrity to read for the next meeting

-Importance of TRUST. Support. A close unit (Katie: family unit). Honest critique. Safe environment. Productive working environment. Teamwork.

-Process and experimentation valued just as much, or more, as final products

-Performance with the collective could be the key to its success

-influence on economics and how it changes performance

-finding the what performance becomes after youtube article to share

-Research okaymountain and other collectives

-Use each other's resources/different skills and backgrounds

-feedback on ideas, not just finished projects

-Pushing each other to do our best/work our hardest, "workin' our asses off"

-Katie:making a private blog for us to share information on/post minutes, etc etc.

-Possible group trips to Dallas, Ft. Worth, Houston...

-Cory Arcangel interviews?

Next Meeting:

-discuss meeting scedule, day time, etc

-discuss articles

-start a list of common values

really, sincerely

So the first article when google searching sincerity and contemporary art:  http://www.artlies.org/article.php?id=1299&issue=49.  Seems to have a lot of varied and good questions in it that could serve as fuel for our hot mess.  I'll keep my eyes and ears out for other things that seem relevant.  And everyone feel free to do the same and post if you find something helpful, otherwise take note of any ideas you may get from this article or elsewhere.  Love, K

because love is safe on the internet

Our brand new temporary home!  i.e.  "Ma it's not permanent; it washes off!"   I invited all of you as admins, so you should be able to post and it's open for anyone to comment, but it's been taken off google searches, etc.  Let's keep this place for art/collective related conversation so we don't get all mem and internets and linkage too quickly.  I'll send something for us to look at for next Wednesday by the end of the day.  And if the emptiness of this site is killing you and you wanna fix it, holla.  I did this quickly so it's boring and may need a few adjustments.  Until next, enjoy this cookie monster gif-jif courtesy of the L.Parker.  More soon!