Introduction
Welcome to our first ever monthly newsletter! We created this in hopes of sharing a little bit of our personal art and some insight into our creative process on a regular basis. In this newsletter you will find updates from each of us, reviews of art that we’ve interacted with this month, and occasionally, a featured piece from someone we know that particularly struck us. Creating, talking about, sharing, and reviewing art is all a part of the creative process and this newsletter is a culmination of that process each month.
Updates from Leo:
This month I wanted to focus on getting back into the practice of creating regularly. Each week I chose a different medium to play with so that I didn’t feel too confined to one thing or experienced fatigue with something after being so out of practice. I started the month by taking pictures in Boston. Then I got introduced to Adobe Express after Warwick got sick of watching me try to manipulate layers on google slides. So I worked on learning how to use it to make collages and digital media. I finished the month by working on revising and expanding a piece I wrote over the summer about getting my haircut. Next month I hope to focus a little more on one specific medium.
The piece I have featured is a photo I took in Boston from a day trip I took at the beginning of October. This image, titled Bound, was taken in a parking garage on a rainy day. One thing I love about walking around with my camera is the way it forces me to pay attention to the world around
me and all the interesting details I wouldn’t have necessarily noticed otherwise. Rainy days are especially interesting to me when taking pictures because of how unique the light is. The natural diffusion of light created by the clouds allows for some colors to be even more vibrant than on a sunny, clear day. What I like about this photo specifically is the warmth from the lights contrasted with the cold white cloudy day outside the windows. I also find the overlapping diagonals of the stairs and lines of the handrail to be interesting. It allows for the viewer's eyes to move continuously around the entire piece without feeling cluttered.
Updates from Warwick:
I graduated in May- sort of. I did graduate, but then I went on a study abroad trip to Mexico so I didn’t technically finish with classes until August. Counting from August 1st, that means that it has been exactly three months since I finished art school. It's simultaneously relieving (I have more free time than I’ve ever had in my life), and exhaustingly lonely. In school, I had a guaranteed community- a circle of people that care about what I care about, and that would push me to do better. Without that structure in my life, I’ve been missing my studiomates and haven’t been nearly as creative. So, after having taken some time to decompress from the brutality of art school while doing nothing except my non art related job, I have been focusing on small projects that feel tangible, manageable, and that are actually enjoyable.
For one, I’ve been sewing. While my degree is in ceramics, one of the luxuries of not being in school anymore is that I don’t have to follow a curriculum that considers many of my interests to be a waste of time. So, I’ve been sewing.
Not particularly well, but for many hours, and I would like to think that my used sewing machine and I will start to get along soon. I spend a lot of time reflecting on the history of crafts, particularly how pottery and garment construction feel intrinsically linked, and deeply personal. The relationship between clothing, or dishes, or so many other objects in our homes and our bodies is uniquely intimate. When I sew, I think about making objects that amplify or empower some part of myself. Sometimes this is clothes that are thick, and sturdy, and will hold up to the coarseness of clay. Sometimes it's pieces that are colorful, and silly, and feel fun. Usually it's both. One specific project I’ve been working on is a halfway self drafted jumpsuit made out of a canvas drop cloth. I enjoy using functional fabric pieces in my sewing, particularly when making studio clothes for myself. Once upon a time, I
made myself a pair of studio pants out of S***bucks aprons.
I have also been doing some work in clay. It's been slow going, finding my rhythm in a new chapter of my life. I am grateful to still have access to a ceramics studio, so I go in every Friday and make something- even if it's just a cup I end up squashing.
Updates from Sophiko:
I don’t know how to talk about what art is to me without giving away my entire history. It would be altogether too much to put into sentences here. And some of my reasons are unclear to me still. But an artist is the very first thing I wanted to be when I was little. I can actually remember the exact moment I decided that.
I loved drawing, making scenes out of clay, making paintings out of beads, writing poems and I loved being in my elementary school plays. Creativity felt boundless. It was a way of being rather than a designated activity or a ballooning dream. I actually never thought about it. I just did things and lived my life and making “art” was what happened in the midst of it all. But one day, in the mounting angst and confusion of a growing child, being “artistic” became the only thing I knew for certain about myself. So somewhere in my mind, I made this one thing all that I was and could be.
And with that, the art I wanted to make became better than me. It demanded bigger things from me than I felt capable of. Making art began to feel too exposing, too vulnerable, too important to mess up. I had created an identity behind the costume of “artist” and once the clothes were on, I was left a liar and a masquerader. The thought of it sat on my chest like a big, fat bottom and rendered me still for ages. And this bottom squashed all of my spirit of play. After all, the things you don’t make can’t be bad. And if you’re not making bad art, you aren’t a bad artist. And without bad art to prove me wrong, I could know who I am. And I could know what I wanted from my future – a job as an artist. I didn’t need to believe in myself, I just had to believe in that.
Basically, I made nothing for many years. For the above reasons and for many more reasons that aren’t necessary to disclose. I just sort of… hid. So now, on what feels like the other side of the tunnel, I would love to remove myself from the identity of “artist.” I would love to learn to play again, or maybe to forget enough to play again. There is no message, process or artistic intention
in the work I’ve made this month. I was just doing it because it was fun. Action is the only thing that can remove doubt, after all. And the best version of me isn’t the only version of me that deserves to live a beautiful life. I am not an artist, I just really enjoy making things. So I’ve been taking some photos, I participated in an art fair and I started a painting. And for the first time in a very long time, a little bit of imagination found me again.
Review: Leo on Andrea Gibson's "Orlando"
When I first read “Orlando” by Andrea Gibson, it was by chance when flipping through pages of their book Lord of the Butterflies. Months after reading it, the beginning still stuck with me. After doing some digging this week, I found the poem and reread it. What struck me is how Gibson structured their poem, which was exemplified in these first few stanzas:
When the first responders
entered the Pulse Nightclub
after the massacre in Orlando,
they walked through the horrific scene
of bodies and called out,
"If you are alive, raise your hands."
I was sleeping in a hotel
in the Midwest at the time,
but I imagine in that exact moment,
my hand twitched in my sleep.
Some unconscious part of me aware
that I had a pulse,
that I was alive.
Gibson’s poem goes on to beautifully navigate the horror of this massacre without undermining it or losing the meaning in the brutality of the details. She uses the gruesome reality of what happened to write jarring and unsettling descriptions, crafting a more meaningful poem than if she had smoothed over the pain of talking about it. In between descriptions of that night, Gibson weaves in personal anecdotes and references to common experiences within the queer community. Using lines such as “even life is like funeral practice: half of us already dead to our families before we die” and “That night on stage I kept remembering being fifteen at Disneyland, wearing my best friend’s hoodie like it was my boyfriend’s class ring” Gibson touches on themes of losing ones’ family, the anxiety of first love and how easily that can be turned into self-hatred, and the connection that each member of the queer community has to one another. Combining these stories with descriptions of the Pulse Nightclub massacre such as, “...emptied a magazine into the kidneys of a full grown man…” Gibson packs a punch and brings humanity to the numbers that were reported in the news. By touching on common experiences, personal stories, and refusing to shy away from the grisly facts of the shooting, “Orlando” effectively voices the collective grief, outrage, hurt, and love of a community and the responsibility we feel for one another.
Thanks for Reading, See you November 30th!
Love,
The Birdhouse Collective