Susannah Schouweiler serves as editor for the weekly updated arts writing and criticism published on the homepage of mnartists.org, as well as the site’s twice-monthly e-mag access+ENGAGE. Before her work with mnartists.org, Susannah served as Editor-in-Chief for Ruminator magazine (a.k.a. Hungry Mind Review, Ruminator Review), a nationally distributed art and literature magazine. She lives in East St. Paul with her husband, son, and too many cats and dogs.
Portrait of Jean Matzke by Chris Felver
Early last Friday morning, fiber artist Jean Matzke went out for a stroll in downtown St. Paul with her boxer, Maya, just like she did every morning. As she crossed the street near her condo in Lowertown Artist Lofts, she was struck and killed by a passing garbage truck. The strange, sad nature of the tragic accident has grabbed a number of headlines; but not enough has been published, thus far, about the woman, herself.
Matzke was a fixture in the local art and fine craft scene — in addition to her distinguished career as an artist, she ran a gallery in St. Cloud for years and years before moving to the Twin Cities in the early 2000s. Her distinctive artwork was shown regularly at the Grand Hand Gallery and Textile Center; she was a stalwart of the seasonal St. Paul Art Crawl scene and a lifelong booster of her fellow artists’ work. In the wake of her sudden death, artists from all over the state are struggling to make sense of her loss.
One of Matzke’s friends and Lowertown Lofts neighbors, filmmaker Deborah Wallwork, offers her own tribute to Jean below.
*****
It’s our deepest fear — that your life could be over in an instant. One day you are talking and laughing with a friend in the elevator, about to take your dog for a walk; and then, the next minute, you are gone, kaput, finished.
Lowertown artist Jean Matzke was killed a week ago, struck by truck at the intersection of 5th and Sibley, close to Mears Park. There’s a memorial there, one of those ad hoc folk shrines — roses and sunflowers, photographs and news stories, all bound to a lamp post. That Jean died instantly is maybe a blessing; but it also left a hole in many lives. Here was someone who held many threads in her hands; an individual who gladly took on many roles and made many connections in the circles of her community.
Jean was, first of all, a bright smile you encountered at the Textile Center, the WARM meetings, the St. Paul Art Crawl. A can-do person, she was enthusiasm incarnate, someone who’d jump in to help out, who took up others’ ideas and ran with them. Never one to complain, she embraced life and its challenges with a little twinkle of humor, in way that was both admirable and charmingly self-deprecating.
Jean Matzke, "Tangled"
Being so warm, upbeat, engaging, she was, naturally, a light to others. A wonderful artist in her own right; she was also loved for being one who served. She ran a gallery in St. Cloud for many years, and she continued to be a resource for many artists and students from outstate who came to the Cities. After she moved to St. Paul, into Lowertown Lofts Artist Coop, in addition to showing her own work, during the Art Crawl, she organized a “theme wall,” where she curated and hung a show of other members’ work.
That was Jean, always looking around to see what she could do.
I loved her work the second I saw it. It’s deeply personal, and yet, intellectual. She was thinking, through her art, about the life she led–about being a woman, a mother, a passionate reader. Her art took the thread of her life and worked it intensely into the fabric of the world around her. Interested in the figure, in the combinations of text and image, she put her ideas in a medium that is rich with feminine history — is there a woman out there who doesn’t lust after fabric? And yet, somehow, hers is a medium that still hangs in the halls of art history under the rubric of “craft.” Jean made art: pieces that are serious, thoughtful, playful, and expressionistic.
Jean Matzke, "Fall at 5"
Stubbornly independent, full of energy and optimism and physical stamina — at 70, Jean was vital, as antsy and eager as a young teenager. At a gathering which friends recently held in her memory, there were many stories about Jean climbing up 14-foot ladders, hauling great boxes of exhibit materials to and fro in her capacious van, refusing all offers for help. She walked at least five miles a day; on the day of the accident, she was probably on her way back to Lowertown from her ritual route around the St. Paul Cathedral, arriving back home as the sun rose above the buildings at five in the morning.
We couldn’t keep up with her.
I’ve been thinking about Jean and thinking about threads–about how so many stitches, in embroidery, are circles. Each stitch is like a tiny brush stroke, in each one you have to travel into something and then find your way out.
I’m thinking now about how there’s always two sides to a cloth, the one you see, which is realized, an image created through meticulous and demanding labor; and then there’s other side, the one that is a tangle of knots and cut ends.
Paul Klee defined drawing as “taking a line for a walk”; it’s a phrase that fits if you think about embroidery as the complex elaborations of a thread.
One of Jean’s recent pieces is about tangles. Another one is about the fear of losing one’s memory–a different kind of tangling, so I’m told.
In Greek mythology, three ancient crones weave the threads of Destiny. Clotho spins the Thread of Life, Lachesis allots the length of the tether, and Atropos positions her scissors over the loom for the final snip. One by one the threads are cut in this life, almost unnoticeably. And sooner or later the garment or quilt or weaving is freed from that endless spool.
We in the arts community were all devastated by the suddenness of this loss. At the Lowertown Lofts, we held a remembrance ceremony. We all brought candles and lit them, one from another, told stories, and brought them together into a brilliant shrine of many points of light. Someone sang a Tibetan prayer, and another person did a releasing of the spirit. Improvisationally, as artists, we knew we needed to turn this tragedy, to tuck in the threads, tie up the loose ends.
Jean didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. Her thread was precipitously cut. But the embroidery of her life, her work, goes on.
–Deb Wallwork
Kristin Makholm with British artist Graham Rawle and the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow, Dorothy, Toto, and the Tinman in the field of poppies.
Last week, the Minnesota Museum of American Art (MMAA) announced that the St. Paul museum has hired a new director, Kristin Makholm. In addition to her duties as an adjunct professor in the Minneapolis College of Art and Design’s liberal arts department, Makholm has spent the last five years as MCAD’s director of gallery and exhibition programs, as well as being the administrator of two large artist fellowship programs, the McKnight Artist Fellowships for Visual Artists and the Jerome Foundation Fellowships for Emerging Artists. (You can see a list of the recently named 2009/10 McKnight Artist Fellows here.)
Frankly, the news that MMAA was hiring a new director at all came as something of a surprise to me–last I’d heard, the institution’s very future was in doubt. With all the misfortune hitting arts organizations in recent months, hearing about the MMAA’s plans for revival is heartening news, indeed. In spite of its recent troubles, the museum has been a valuable addition to the Twin Cities (and, in particular, St. Paul’s) contemporary art landscape, particularly for its impressive (albeit too rarely seen) permanent collection of artwork and an admirably enduring commitment to showcasing work from regional artists.
Kristin Makholm will assume her new post at the MMAA quickly, on June 22, so before she’s swamped with the tasks of settling in to her new job, we hit her up for some information and insight–about the MMAA’s new plans, her new role in and vision for the museum, and what we can expect from the institution as it regroups and moves forward.
*****
What prompted you to make this move from an influential position in a nationally known educational institution to take the helm at MMAA, by all recent accounts a struggling organization? And why now?
KM: My background is as a museum curator, and I always knew I’d want to return to the museum someday. I’ve been at MCAD almost five years, plenty of time to make my mark on a thriving college art community and to develop my knowledge of local and regional artists, especially through the McKnight and Jerome fellowship programs. Why now? Due to the MMAA’s leadership vacuum and loss of its building, it needed someone now to take the reins, not last year, not a year from now. The timing was basically dictated by these other circumstances, not necessarily my own timetable.
The MMAA has seen hard times in recent months–turmoil in the leadership, a need for space to house the museum, not to mention the loss of momentum from the MMAA’s closing several months ago. What do you see as the lingering obstacles for the museum going forward, and how do you plan to tackle them?
KM: Well, the biggest obstacle is clearly the lack of a building, so determining what will be the best space to house the next museum will be one of my first priorities. Hand in hand with that is raising support and money for the new museum and its programming. And this will mean reestablishing confidence that the museum can thrive–both fiscally and artistically–offering donors and supporters a program, a mission, a vision that is dynamic, distinctive, and doable.
Some logistical questions –
KM: About the location: I think it is imperative that the museum stays in St. Paul. Minnesota’s capital city needs its own art museum, an art center that can be a real destination point for people across the region and beyond. A permanent home is the goal of both the board and myself. This is part of giving the museum an established identity that people can count on, year in and year out.
About the artwork: The MMAA’s permanent collection is a major asset to the city and the state and will be seen on a regular basis. Of course, how often and in what capacity this happens will depend to a large extent on space considerations in a new building. However, it is my goal to refresh the public’s knowledge and appreciation of the museum’s permanent collection as part of the overall programming of the museum.
About money: We have received an extremely positive sense from individuals, the city, local foundations, and corporations, that the continued vitality of the MMAA is important to the cultural life of the region. Many have committed funds to help us restart our operations and search for a new building. One of my big tasks will be to bring back supporters who may have committed themselves elsewhere and reignite the enthusiasm of new donors and philanthropists on both sides of the river.
Given the abundance of art galleries and museums in the area, what do you envision the MMAA, under your leadership, will add to the scene? Put another way: Do you see gaps in the area’s exhibition and arts programming where the new-and-improved MMAA can step in and offer something distinct?
KM: That was one big question I needed to answer before accepting the job, because why do something second best or as an also-ran to other established local museums? The Twin Cities are awash with great art museums, galleries, and art centers. What niche could the MMAA fill that would make it important, distinctive, and long lasting? One thing I saw missing was a museum dedicated to art of Minnesota and the region, both past and present. This is a focus that has actually marked the MMAA’s programming for a long time now. I want to ramp it up, provide more scholarly, in-depth exhibitions that focus on regional artists, consider the “state of the state” at regular intervals, offer more cross-disciplinary events and exhibitions, collaborate with other local arts organizations, coordinate with other museums from the region, that sort of thing. This doesn’t mean we will sideline the museum’s dedication to American art, which is a key component of the collection and the history of the institution. I think programming can include work of both regional and national artists; it’s all American, after all.
What is your five-year vision for the reopened MMAA? How will the revived museum’s programming and exhibition line-up differ from what the museum has focused on previously? Specifically, do you see the MMAA continuing on as a regionally-focused contemporary art museum, or do you see this as an institution with possibilities in larger national and international art circles?
KM: In five years, the plan is to have a thriving art museum in St. Paul, a center that people regularly visit to experience high quality, innovative exhibitions and events, educational opportunities, and even parties, openings, maybe even patio nights again, which were so successful at the last MMAA. My belief is that as long as you provide high quality programming, with vision, with integrity, with unique flair–whether that be more regionally centered or more broadly American–that the institution can be a model for museums and museum professionals anywhere in the world, museums that want to refocus their attentions on the talent and individuality in their own backyards. My main concern right now is reestablishing a museum that has this integrity, excellence, and commitment. At the moment, how that will be viewed nationally or internationally is not on the top of my list of priorities. I DO feel however that if you do things right, you can be a model for anyone, anywhere.
Finally, what about the 2-D and 3-D Biennial exhibitions of work by local artists the MMAA has hosted over the years–will they go on?
KM: I don’t know. I certainly feel the museum should engage recent trends and current work in the region, but perhaps there’s a better way to go about it. Nothing’s off the table at this point.
It’s easy to find writing workshops and how-to sorts of roundtable discussions about the knack of putting words together to construct an effective storyline or to explore the nuts and bolts of working within various and sundry poetic forms.
You can easily check the latest offerings at the Loft if you’re looking for practical tips on honing your craft or breaking into the publishing business.
But if you’re a mid-career writer or editor, interested in specialized conversation with your peers about a life in letters, or the more philosophical questions that arise in pursuit of the craft–well, such a forum is a little trickier to find outside industry-specific conferences. Like many in the business of words, my day-to-day work is pretty solitary. I write for editors, of course, and we do the practical back-and-forth required to buff and polish the pieces I file for publication. I do the same dance, from the other side of the desk, with our own writers on mnartists.org. But outside the editing process, I–like many others in this profession, I suspect–don’t have many occasions for a more free-ranging exchange about the art of writing. And you know what? I’d like to.
This brings me to “The Works,” a brand-new writers’ salon, hosted and created by poet Lightsey Darst. (If her name rings a bell, there’s a good reason for that: you may be familiar with her dance criticism, which appears regularly on our own site, as well as in a number of other esteemed local publications.)
“The Works” is a monthly conversation series at the Bryant Lake Bowl where writers of all stripes are welcome, whether their work is playwriting, screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. But it isn’t a typical writer’s workshop; and it isn’t a live reading series, either. Instead, each evening’s conversation revolves around a small group of prepared topical presentations, created by writers for writers. Darst says, “There are a lot of readings series in the Twin Cities; and there are places you can go to talk about the craft of writing. But if writing is only a craft, I’m not interested in it. I’m interested in writing as an art form.” She describes “The Works” as an effort to engender “a lively, ongoing conversation about writing–its aesthetics, ethics, poetics, hermeneutics, erotics, and just plain tics.” She’s aiming for it to be like “the best AWP panel you’ve ever seen, but even better”–better, in part, because at the BLB you can have drinks with your writerly shop talk.
The inaugural meeting of “The Works,” held in early May, turned on three presentations: Charisse Gendron talked about the ego in contemporary poetry; Greg Watson raised the question of truth in poetry; and fiction writer Joseph Laizure deconstructed the peculiar details that breathe life and plausibility into a scene. Over the course of the evening, each panelist gives a prepared presentation, about 15-20 minutes long, and then the floor is opened for a broader exchange on the topic with the audience.
For the second installment of “The Works”–tomorrow evening, as it happens–Darst has invited three more writers to offer up conversation-starters: Will Alexander will talk about “prose piracy” and the cross-pollination between writing with other art forms; poet Cindra Halm will weigh in on the notion of “art for art’s sake;” and Tim Nolan will talk about the hidden work of writing, including the revisions upon revisions that constitute the life of any given poem.
Future salon topics will depend largely on the interest and suggestions Darst receives from other writers. So, my fellow writers and editors: What would you like to talk about? (Visit “The Works” website to submit your own ideas for future conversations.)
For my part, I’d love to hear a discussion on, say, the art and intimacy of reading well. Or, how about hearing from a personal essayist on the tangled psychology involved with both living a story and documenting its events?
At any rate, I know I’m planning to be at the BLB on Wednesday night–I can’t wait to see how the evening’s conversation unfolds. If you’re someone with a passion for words and a hunger for shop talk that extends beyond the practical concerns of craft–why don’t you come too?
The Minneapolis of College and Design has announced the four artists selected to receive the 2009-10 McKnight Artist Fellowships for Visual Artists:
Michael Kareken paints urban landscapes filled with metal scraps, rusted debris and piles of recyclable goods. He received his MFA from Brooklyn College in 1986 and is an associate professor of Fine Arts at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
A 1982 and 1987 McKnight Artist Fellowship recipient, Aldo Moroni’s current focus is his Babylon Project. A five-year process piece created in ceramic, performance and video, the Babylon Project explores the volatile history of destruction and rebuilding of the ancient city. He is a 1976 MCAD graduate.
Carolyn Swiszcz creates paintings, prints, drawings and collages that explore her hometown of West St. Paul. She holds a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and received a Bush Foundation Fellowship in 2002.
MCAD Media Arts Professor Piotr Szyhalski’s interactive designs have been exhibited worldwide. Known for his Labor Camp and Theater of Operations projects, he received two MFA degrees from the Academy of Visual Arts in Poznan, Poland.
The fellows were chosen from a field of 231 applicants. The selections were made by a panel composed of Carla Hanzal, curator of Contemporary Art at the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, N.C.; Maria Makela, professor and chair of Visual Studies at the California College of the Arts in Oakland, Calif.; and Roger Shimomura, an artist and professor emeritus at the University of Kansas at Lawrence.
Designed to identify and support outstanding mid-career Minnesota artists, the McKnight Artist Fellowships for Visual Artists Program provides recipients with $25,000 stipends, public recognition, professional encouragement and a catalog and exhibition at MCAD Gallery in the summer of 2010. The fellowships are funded by a grant from The McKnight Foundation and administered by the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
You can see work by the 2008-09 winners’ work this summer-the 2008-09 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Visual Arts exhibition opens July 8 at MCAD Gallery
Reproduced under Creative Commons license (Photo: sxyblkmn's Flickr photostream)
I have a feeling artists and other self-employed creative folks know the pain of rising health care costs even more intimately than most, since they often work without the safety net that catches people working for larger employers.
But thanks to the efforts of area arts advocates and civic-minded health-care providers, help is on the way–and for a population of artists too seldom reached by these sorts of programs.
Thanks to a new initiative by Artist Relief Fund and Lake Superior Community Health Center (modeled on a very similar program in the Twin Cities area spearheaded by Springboard for the Arts), artists without health insurance who live in the Arrowhead region and in the Douglas and Bayfield counties of Wisconsin now have access to a fantastic program intended to offer critical health services at very low (and often no) cost.
Here are the basics:
Beginning March 25, 2009, individual artists may apply to the Artist Relief Fund for a voucher to be used at the Lake Superior Community Health Clinics located at 4325 Grand Avenue in Duluth or 3600 Tower Avenue in Superior.
“Health care is a major concern for the artists we serve. Many are self-employed and have little or no insurance,” says Erika Mock, President of the Artist Relief Fund board. “We are very excited to partner with the Lake Superior Community Health Center to provide artists with a new option for affordable healthcare. Helping artists connect to options for healthcare, especially preventative care is an important goal of the Artist Relief Fund. This program is a perfect start towards that goal, and we hope that the partnership will be able to grow to provide even more healthcare for area artists.”
Wende Nelson, Executive Director of the Lake Superior Community Health Center (LSCHC) adds, “At the LSCHC, we also believe that our country should provide affordable health care for its artists. For years our clinic has provided medical care on a sliding fee scale basis for working artists (full and part-time) who do not have health insurance, so we are very excited about this partnership with The Artist Relief Fund.”
Visit the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council website for more information or the Artist Relief Fund site to download a voucher form.
God knows, every little bit helps.
As we’ve mentioned in the newsletter recently, beginning this year, we’re putting our two literary series under one big umbrella, mnLIT. For those of you unfamiliar with our poetry and fiction series for local writers, here’s the skinny: mnLIT is a competitive literary program presented by mnartists.org, in collaboration with Magers and Quinn Booksellers, which consists of the What Light Poetry Project and the miniStories flash fiction competitions.
mnLIT showcases original work by Minnesota poets and writers and is sponsored, in part, by The Decider and its parent company, The Onion. (You can read a nice bit of local coverage on mnLIT by MinnPost’s Amy Goetzman here.)
We’re in the midst of a call for submissions from local writers; the deadline for submissions (both for poetry and flash fiction) is April 30. Click here for the full call for writers, eligibility, submission, and publication details.
Just this week we got our two panels, one for poetry and one for fiction, nailed down. And, I have to say, this year’s line-up of jurors is a powerhouse mix. Read on for the full list of jurors for 2009.
For this year’s What Light Poetry Project competition our panel of readers is:
Dobby Gibson (Skirmish, Polar)
Deborah Keenan (Willow Room, Green Door; Kingdoms)
Leslie Adrienne Miller (Resurrection Trade, Eat Quite Everything You See)
Joyce Sidman (Red Sings from the Treetops, This is Just to Say)
Connie Wanek (Hartley Field, On Speaking Terms, which is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press)
For this year’s miniStories flash fiction competition our panel of readers is:
Barth Anderson (The Patron Saint of Plagues, The Magician and the Fool)
Leif Enger (So Brave, Young, and Handsome; Peace Like a River)
Lise Erdrich (Night Train)
Jon Fasman (The Unpossessed City, The Geographer’s Library)
Diana Joseph (I’m Sorry You Feel That Way)
In addition to these fine folks, Geoff Herbach will be returning for a second year as the lead juror for miniStories; and Chris Walters and Jay Peterson of Magers and Quinn will be taking over at the helm of the What Light poetry competition.
So here’s my pitch: If you’ve ever entertained dreams of writing fiction or poetry, this is your shot to get your work in front of a full complement seasoned, talented authors–no strings attached, no “reading fee” necessary to have your work considered. Just a meaningful opportunity to get your work carefully read and, perhaps, published. What are you waiting for?
You can read through previous years’ winning stories and poems by Minnesota writers–terrific, diverse stuff–on mnartists.org: here are several years’ worth of winning What Light poems and an archive of our inaugural year’s winning flash fiction from the new miniStories series.
This program has proved a fantastic way to bring local readers and writers together. Speaking of which, keep your eye out for some announcements about a couple of live readings by this year’s mnLIT winners this summer. Details and dates for those events will come in June. The call for submissions ends April 30. mnLIT winners will be announced in June and, at that time, publication of this year’s victorious short-short stories and poems will also commence.
Still from "Sugar," (2008) the festival's closing night film, directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (courtesy of Sony Pictures and BBFF)
If you’re a fan of indie film and global cinema, take heed: Beyond Borders Film Festival, sponsored by the Rime Foundation and hosted by the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis, begins tomorrow (March 25) and runs through Sunday, March 29.
I first ran across a mention of this ambitious little global film festival when I heard they’d be screening Nina Paley’s brilliant Sita Sings the Blues, a gorgeously animated, very personal reimagining of the Indian epic, Ramayana. And when I looked through the full line-up of films, well, I was a goner.
Twin Cities Daily Planet has a nice write-up on the festival today if you’d like a bit of background (“Beyond Borders Film Festival brings world cinema to Minneapolis”).
According to TCDP, festival organizers have snatched up some terrific festival circuit favorites from around the world, and will screen the world premiere of a new documentary chronicling a Tibetan monk’s search for the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama, Unmistaken Child.
See their whole, impressive line-up of films on the BBFF website.
Watch the trailer for Sita Sings the Blues that first grabbed my attention. (As an aside, the DIY effort behind the making of this film is a triumph of artistic perseverance, if ever there was one. It was mostly animated in Flash, on a home computer, if you can believe it.):
Seriously. You should go. I’ll see you there.
Related links:
Star Tribune “From Tibet and beyond far beyond” by Colin Covert
MPR’s own “Movie Natters” blogger, arts reporter Euan Kerr: “Going ‘Beyond Borders’”
KFAI’s coverage (one of the festival programmers, Jim Brunzell, is a host of the weekly show “Movie Talk” for KFAI)
Getafilm blog post on BBFF (and my source of a number of the links above)
Photo by Krista76 from Flickr, reproduced under a Creative Commons license
As I’ve scanned through my RSS feeds this week, I’ve been struck by the sheer number of headlines having to do with changes in media. It’s natural, I suppose, that I’d be seeing lots of that kind of coverage in newspapers, TV, and radio, since those changes hit especially close to home for those of us who work in the industry. And we media types do like talking about ourselves, don’t we?
Even so, I’m surprised at depth of the melodrama and the fear: Twitter is destroying/saving journalism. (Please.) What in the world will replace print newspapers/TV/radio? (Digitally disseminated, multimedia content, of course.) But will there be a place for “real” journalism in this brave new world? (Sure there will, it’ll just be bundled into different sorts of content/money-making packages than we’re used to with the newspaper/magazine ads+eyeballs=content model.)
All the handwringing about the slow, steady demise of “old media” in recent years (some of which kvetching I’ve done myself, admittedly) seems to me to be missing the point a bit. Whether we’re talking about print publication or network TV, or commercial radio–the days of hegemony for homogenized content delivered from the top down are numbered. Predetermined, neatly packaged content we all share and share alike just doesn’t have a monopoly on public attention anymore. I have a hard time getting upset about that. I like niche content; I enjoy the sort of obscure creations that thrive in the populist soup of new media but which wouldn’t have a prayer of getting off the ground in the winner-take-all, numbers-driven world of old media models of communication.
I have a feeling, once we who work in the field find our feet again and figure out how to swim in these new media waters, we’ll find our new horizons to be exhilarating, if different from the joys of writing for just the printed page–especially once we expand our skill sets to include some audio/visual editing competence, too. Some things will be lost, to be sure; but let’s not lose sight of what we stand to gain: greater autonomy, a fluid interplay between reader and writer; the tangible possibility for small but talented voices to triumph over their less agile big-media counterparts, simply by virtue of being better at what they do. The rules of new media may be different, but that doesn’t mean what we’re actually saying to each other, the message itself, is. Maybe it’s just that more messages are available now that you don’t have to have lots of money or designated authority to put it out there and see what sticks.
Such a cacophony of new voices is messy and noisy, for sure; but I find it terribly exciting, too. I run into unexpected delights and insights online every day, and I’m more engaged with colleagues and friends and the richness of what’s happening in my community–thanks to the advent of these new technologies.
I’m not denying that the pain caused by these media transitions is real, especially while those of us in the business of words struggle not to get lost in the gap between these historical chapters in media innovation, as we adapt to new media’s still-murky economies and the unfamiliar textures of its modes of communicating.
But the sky isn’t falling and storytelling isn’t going away. We’re just changing what tools we use to spread the word and shaking up the authority structure that gets to decide who gets to say what and to whom. And, of course, we’re still trying to figure out how much and whether we’re willing to pay for it all.
What’s your take? Do you think these changes in medium are altering the fundamentals of what we’re saying to each other? Are you embracing RSS feeds and social media networks and content on demand, or are you resistant to them, fearful of what’s being lost in the process of all these tectonic shifts in communication?
Bonus link: Christie’s (!) has a webcast of a panel discussion from 3/12 on “The Future of Arts Journalism”: includes Senior Director of Cultural Initiatives from the Pew Charitable Trust, the Cultural News Editor from The New York Times, and the prestigious Columbia School of Journalism’s director of the school’s M.A. program in arts and culture journalism. (Link courtesy of a fine industry blog, ARTicles, by the National Arts Journalism Program)
"Writer's Block" © Inger Klekacz, reproduced under a Creative Commons license
When I saw the headline on a recent article in the Guardian, “Writing for a Living: Joy or Chore?”, I thought I knew what I’d be reading about. The familiar complaints of working writers usually have to do with privation–the scarcity of gigs, the low pay for freelance articles, the shrinking number of places that will publish your work. It usually boils down to this: How in the hell can I get enough work and money to quit my day job and make a modest living doing this?
It’s less often that you hear successful writers talk candidly about the day-to-day joys and petty frustrations of their writerly work lives: what happens after one has gotten to the enviable position of living the dream, earning their keep as a full-time writer.
A.L. Kennedy responds: “The joy of writing for a living is that you get to do it all the time. The misery is that you have to, whether you’re in the mood or not.” Will Self, on the other hand, sees the task as anything but a chore: “I gain nothing but pleasure from writing fiction…. Frankly, if I didn’t enjoy writing novels I wouldn’t do it – the world hardly needs any more and I can think of numerous more useful things someone with my skills could be engaged in.”
A veritable constellation of other literary luminaries–established novelists like Amit Chaudhuri, Hari Kunzru, Julie Myerson, Geoff Dyer, Joyce Carol Oates–weigh in on the question. Their responses are as fascinating as they are varied. Here’s a spoiler: many of them find their success, specifically being in a position where they write creatively for a living, to be more arduous, more painful than they could have imagined. In fact, a number of them admit to regular fantasies of switching to a vocation far more mundane.
I’m struck by the idea that this question is an equally pertinent, intriguing one to pose to other sorts of artists. So, what about it? Do you who earn your livings by being an artist of some kind ever find that the necessities of the grind–the need to make money, to be unrelentingly creative, to hustle up recognition enough to maintain the status quo–suck the joy out of making the artwork? Or, do you find that earning your daily bread by using your artistic talents–whether it’s in performance, film, painting, sculpture, or putting words together on a page–to be an unmitigated pleasure?
To get the ball rolling, I’ll make my own confession: there’s nothing in the world I’d rather do to earn my keep than work with words and writers (and I’m keenly aware that I’m damn lucky to have the job I do in this economic and media climate). BUT some days I dread everything about it, too. The practical concerns of meeting deadlines and making sure everything rolls out on schedule, the interpersonal dramas, the necessarily cut corners and last-minute compromises–the job of it all–are no loftier or more rewarding, in many ways, than I found in any other work I’ve done. I love writing and editing, but I can’t say I always find it delightful.
What about all of you out there? Did any of you land your dream job in a creative field, or finally establish enough patronage to quit your day-job, or get a coveted staff job in performance only to become wistful for your carefree days as an amateur? Have you successfully married the unbridled creative flow of making art with the day-to-day grind?
Is making art, doing your creative thing for a living a joy or a chore?
Please leave a comment below, share a bit of your story.
(Thanks to The Rumpus & Kottke for the link)
Author Bill Holm (Photo: Einar Falur, reproduced courtesy of the McKnight Foundation)
Last Wednesday, the world of letters lost a treasure: beloved Minnesota essayist, poet and raconteur Bill Holm unexpectedly succumbed to complications of pneumonia in a South Dakota hospital.
I didn’t know Bill well, but I read him; and so he felt as fully-fleshed, as dear to me a longtime family friend. Who could spend time inside his singular prose, and in so doing brush against his formidable intellect and wide-ranging passions, and feel otherwise? So, when I heard of his passing last week, I did what many did, I’m sure: I went straight to the bookshelf and took refuge in his glorious stories.
As I poked around the shelves and reacquainted myself with his work, I ran into an old favorite: an impassioned essay which hit themes that recurred again and again in his writing–the enduring joy to be found in great music and art, the perils of brutishness and political myopia. As I read, the paragraphs below, in particular, struck me. I can think of no more fitting tribute to Bill Holm’s life and literary legacy than to share those words with you here:
Great works of art ask more of us than elevator music, celebrity magazines, Survivor and internet games. Beethoven gives us everything inside him-all his brain and heart and genius and soul. And he demands that we give him the same. Like Rilke’s “Archaic Torso of Apollo,” he asks us to change our life-to think and feel with everything inside us. He gives us joy, wisdom, beauty at the highest level of human consciousness. He means more than to merely amuse us, though he is of course able to do that with elegance and humor too.
…
My friend Jonas Ingimundarsson, Iceland’s most beloved pianist, had a bout with cancer a few years ago, but after the usual terrors luckily survived. I went to see him at a little concert hall outside Reykjavík where he practiced on a Bösendorfer Imperial. I asked what he was working on. “Now,” he said, “I have time only for the most beautiful music.” He played a Chopin “Nocturne” and one of Schubert’s last “Klavierstucke” with great inward tenderness. I wept like an idiot listening to him. None of us has time for any but the most beautiful music, the greatest music, played and heard with everything inside us.
Related links:
An index of tributes, news stories, and remembrances of the author since his death last week
A remembrance of Bill Holm by Milkweed Editions, which published many of his memoirs
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