I thought a good start might be to talk about the main project I’ve been doing, since May 2006. Our two year lease is up this May and we’ve decided not to renew, so as I’ve been thinking about it, I will be planning for the residency in the summer leading up to August, and planning to move, either going for something in Europe or moving to another city in the United States. So I will also be thinking of this summer, and the residency, as a way of synthesizing what I’ve been doing and figuring out where to go from there.

The Fort Grunt project was also a fairly intense collaboration that had some successes and some failures and I think could be good for everyone to think about, for how we want to do the folio in Belgium, and maybe more focus for this blog?

(that’s me on the right, ben on the left.)

After grad school I was in Venice, Italy for a year, teaching printmaking and getting some projects going but in general not too happy with my post-grad school work. I moved back to the states in October 2005 (after a month in Holland and a show in Berlin) with live with my fiance at the time, and I had several pending jobs- but the relationship and the internship/teaching positions all fizzled within a month of being back, and I was left with very little options. Ben and I had discussed doing a project together if we lived in the same city- and since I had no pending plans, I moved down here to Durham, NC and managed to find a studio. This took unexpectedly long, as Durham is a growing city that’s quickly turning out most of it’s warehouses and cigarette factories for lofts and upscale restaurants. Nicer to live in, sure, but not so easy to find cheap space to work in. So we did find a space in the newly formed Bull City Arts Collaborative, along with a letterpress printer, a video documentarian and a musician. The space is downtown, and our studio is in the front, with several large windows- this wasn’t something we planned on, but were happy to work with. We have turned the one large window into the Aquarium, where Marcus and Dustyn have shown work, and we’ve been open for the monthly art walks in Durham, and somewhat successful at selling work.

The location in a way influenced the work a lot more than I would have thought. The public location, and the number of random people who would come through, had us thinking of working on small, discrete objects that would be ready to hang and sold for reasonable amounts (between $10 and $60)… more about this in part two. Another, lesser factor, but a factor nonetheless, was being next to a local gallery, Branch, that is a really nice space and sometimes has good shows, but mostly has tasteful hipster-minimalism type work, which I think led us to move against that and make more crowded, rough/painterly work with garish colors. This may have in fact kept the sales low, but it felt way too easy to make the clean stuff..

The first 4 months or so (May to August 2006) was spent working up a random number of things, getting the name (chosen from a list of several hundred we came up with, for it’s military-ness and also for how dumb it sounded), and in general just working up a number of possible ideas. We settled on working with a series of characters and scenarios that drew on comics, biological creatures, invented characters and desolate scenes. We had two solo exhibitions early on, in November 2006 and February 2007, then there was a lull until this past winter- no solo shows but numerous group shows.

Things that worked really well were in the first year, working together figuring out how to build a body of work, getting sets of work to a finish, experimenting (the large 20 x 8 ft wall allowed for working on numerous pieces at once), and planning new projects. In the second part I’ll write more at length, but this arrangement didn’t last- something perhaps of more interest for this group.

So I think some of the positive things to take away from this project have been:

1. Working out a number of ways for conceptual and formal collaboration.

2. Having the opportunity to have a store-front studio, being able to bring in a wide variety of people into the space, get reactions, etc.

3. The freedom of having a finite body of work, that I can break from, mine for further projects, etc.

That’s all for now. Hope to get the next post up more quickly.

So, if this blog is to get the ball rolling on this project, I thought I’d kick it off by posting a text from a project I recently did with Mary Lewandowski, from Rochester, NY. We’re both in our early 30’s and have been trying to figure out how to work at a pace that allows for a good amount of production without ignoring whole parts of our lives, to work in a balance. That email discussion turned into a small booklet, the Production Tempo Manifesto. Given the focus of the upcoming residency, I am curious what your reactions will be to this, so please, shread away!

If any of you are interested, I would be happy to send out some copies your way for distribution- the booklet also contains related drawings and an appendix of related and non-related issues.

Production Tempo Manifesto

Notes from the Production Tempo Advisory Board:

1. We present this: a highly condensed document posing guidelines towards an improved Personal Production. The compact size is not meant to suggest quick or easy personal change; rather, this is a document for the ages. Take your time.
2. We define Productivity as a State of Active Inquiry. Inquiry is an identity’s commitment to intensive involvement in the input, output and digestion of cultural, natural and interpersonal objects and events pertinent to that identity.
3. We Demand Quality.

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Production Tempo Manifesto is crucial for this day and age. Art must necessarily be conscious of production/time ratio, lest individual efforts become shaped and/or marred by imposed values. Caffeine-fueled economy asserts a hypertrophied ideal about necessary production rates. Any developing artist, sensitive from the get-go, may be subject to dubious sense of worth when measuring self-ability to be productive within a larger scheme.

Production Tempo Manifesto presents a kind of judgment. Production Tempo Manifesto is something of a feel-good enterprise. Production Tempo Manifesto may mostly appeal to the mid-life crisis set. Production Tempo Manifesto will feel irrelevant to the young, whose naturally relentless energy has swayed our cultural identity. Production Tempo Manifesto is an assertion of worth beyond youth. Production Tempo Manifesto is embrace of the little deaths that are daily neglected in lives.

Production Tempo Manifesto is cultural conservationist. Production Tempo Manifesto wants a fully functioning system, blood flow to all parts, rich and deep bodies of work. Production Tempo Manifesto is asserted towards general health. Corruption of all bodies is insidious and perpetual in a world built around ease. Production suffers by the hand of ease when it is unrelieved by strain or effort. Challenge has been stripped from our daily efforts. Technology allows for a brand of mastery that permits a realization of the most immediate urges. Struggle is eliminated. Dollar-store gadgets quickly lose their edge and carpet the landscape. This is our landscape.

The Production Tempo Manifesto is a simple prescription for quality. The rules of Production Tempo are guidelines for the productive individual plagued by an out-of-sync sensation.

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Production Tempo Manifesto rule 1 – Distinguish between the following activity states – Input, Output, and Digestion. Consider how each is crucial to the scope of personal production and observe occurrence, flux and interplay of each state in your own living patterns. Observe self-judgments regarding time spent in each state, including reflexive comparisons. Determine source of judgments. Disregard judgments. Take a break. Revise. Tweak. (See: Body Response Awareness in the Appendix.)

Production Tempo Manifesto rule 2 – Be attentive to the larger structure of your life. Determination of correct Production Tempo will happen only with accordance with awareness of the rest of your life. Though your production may be of ultimate importance, balance within the whole is crucial. Indeed, it must be noted that Production Tempo patterns can reveal themselves in any quantity or responsive rhythm – hours, weeks, seasons, time of day, weather, blood sugar, or holidays. Only vigilance will make these personal allegiances apparent.

Production Tempo Manifesto rule 3 - Accept your own tempo as your own. This requires intimate knowledge of the previously described processes, as well as intimate knowledge of your internal motivation. Take time to identify your Production Motives. Only modify attitudes that promote panic and/or dread. In practice, these pursuits will aid in sense of when and how to accelerate and decelerate Tempo for the benefit of personal Production.

Production Tempo Manifesto rule 4 – “Tempo” is not to be used as an excuse for laziness or neglect. Nothing in the Manifesto is to be taken as a reason for lack of motivation or work ethic; the Manifesto must be used to hone art production process into a finely tuned machine that involves less mystery and more self-knowledge.

Production Tempo Manifesto rule 5 – Production tempo must exist fully outside the marketplace of jobs, sales and awards. Money, while important to securing life necessities, is at best a “boring premise”. Intertwining the failures and successes of money making with motivations of art production is bound to have dubious results, whatever the degree of achievement. This also means that while your friends and family will (naturally) measure your seriousness and success by external signifiers, your Production Tempo’s immediate rewards are for yourself.

In this way, Production Tempo is a closed system.

Production Tempo Manifesto rule 6 – Take it to the streets. Sooner or later, you find yourself with a Product on your hands. It is only reasonable that the processes used in developing the Product (input, output, digestion) must now be realized in the Product’s own life. As Product has been synthesized from response to environment, now must Product enter into environment, offering commentary, inviting response, altering atmosphere.