Write on a Full Stomach

This was my summer of loss. It seems that I could not escape it. Loss was everywhere. I found some peace by immersing myself in dance. It was time to figure out what the difference between the meringue and salsa is, how to make a Western two-step look believable, and finally how to make the Bhangra your friend. I learned some tough lessons, like the fact that I am not nearly jaunty enough for swing, nor am I as enthralled with tango as I once thought (after one too many close embrace tangos.)I was relieved to realize that I have been dancing something closely resembling the meringue quite naturally since the age of five. To me it was a nameless hip sway that would just seem to seep out of my child frame and later it would prove to be a wondrous gift that would let me slip into tribal dance lines around the world without much of an effort.

In this summer of loss, I also had to face the fact that far too many other facets of my personality had been lost in an entirely different kind of shuffle. I had lost quite a bit of myself in the ever present pressures to be too much of a teammate, or more specifically, a support system for others. So what to do? I holed myself up and put myself in a self imposed quarantine of sorts. A lock down that would help me to remember the self that ended up on the bench somewhere along the way. Many got mad at me for looking after myself, as they had grown very accustomed to not being supportive when I very much needed someone not to crinkle their nose when I discovered something I loved or may have been good at. I didn't hear anyone say "good for you," well, except for me. I said "good for me" sometimes when I let myself focus on what my lost dreams are. I had surrounded myself with cutthroat competitors that had given up on their dreams, so they were not too happy to learn of my return to mine. What can I say, it happens to us all at times.

I could blame NYC, my food allergies or the struggle to live your artistic dreams that may be overwhelming at times. It could be the fact that I weaned myself off coffee, soy, wheat and dairy in a knockdown drag out battle to figure out what I should be eating. I could blame my shyness, the %$^%ing Starbucks monkey that was very hard to shake, maybe the excessive number of over 100 degree days in this NYC summer, or possibly blame myself for not being a better judge of character, or simply the fact that I see so much potential in others that I overlook the shortcomings that they possess. But then again, I could just blame no one and nothing and move along with things, and so I have.

The hard thing is really focusing on your dreams when you haven't really been able to fully explore that option in sometime, if ever. Coming to New York put me in a survivalist mode, but it appears that I have become too adept at handling crisis and as a result I have selected jobs and relationships that all involved crisis management of some kind. I have developed the bad habit of helping others too much, and if I step back and really take a good look, I don't find many others offering the same reliable nurturing advice. So what is the result? The well runs dry, and instead of waiting for rain, you must build a new well.

Today's wet,cool weather brings out my creative spirit and the urge to cook has returned (as expected) along with the urge to write. Food and creativity are one for me. As I write tonight, I munch down a steamy bowl of vegan coconut curry using every color vegetable in the farmer's market. From yellow wax beans, to purple eggplant, red peppers and green and orange heirloom tomatoes. It was so rich and tempting that I let the eggplant overcook and become a rich stew and forgot all about cooking the rice, just eating the buttery curry like porridge.

So, it is with a very full belly that I write tonight, just before hoping off to the market-yes shopping after 8 on a Sunday in NYC- to complete my gluten free peach mystery desert. I feel rested, nourished and calmed by the weekend of creativity and reflection. I have made the time to upload two submissions for a video festival, revisited some chapters in Jackie Battenfield's, The Artist's Guide, edited some videos that I can now see in a new light, added a few of my murals to my website (while reminding myself that I am a muralist) and redesigned/ordered some new business cards (reflecting the fact that I remembered that I am a muralist.) Overall, a very grounding weekend of creativity that will prepare me for yet another week on a Federal Grand Jury and so much more...

Now and Then

Tonight, Gabriel Orozco spoke about his piece Mobile Matrix that is part of his mid-career retrospective that ends March 1st at MoMA. In this panel discussion, Orozco again pointed out that he shuns the imposed classifications of he and his work. These classifications frequently allude to he being a nomad, and his work being romantic or poetic in nature. He also brushed off those die hards who loved his dabbling with chaos and order in the nineties (with myself being included in that herd.) As I travelled home, I couldn't help but think about the role of the conceptual artist today.

Considering that my own work was deemed "too conceptual" by the Education Department of a major NYC museum just two weeks ago, the topic has remained in the front of my mind. In my case the museum felt that my work may be too cerebral for the common man. Orozco seems to be having the opposite effect. The art public adores his work, and shows their adoration by coming up with analogies or generalizations that are at times humble, but still simply human efforts to reach an understanding about his work and are then left to struggle with language to describe it. The artist (Orozco) rejects these simple classifications as he continues to change his work in what may be an effort to remain just out of reach, or else simply remain in the present.

It is hard to overlook the fact that Orozco once cupped clay in his hands, then opened that heart-shaped object to the camera, displaying it in front of his own bare chest. In another example he rolls plasticine around a city. This ball of material mimics his own bodily form by being the same weight as he. This performative act allowed the object to absorb the textures, substances and the experiences of a place. Both are blatantly sensual acts, but is it wrong to call them so? I am frequently accused of being a sensualist, but I cannot possibly reject the obvious. It is part of why I work in water and also in sculpture, the sensual is part of my nature.

So what do we do as conceptual artists, and at what point does the conceptual artist become a romantic notion in it's own right? Conceptual art isn't new by any means, and as we all know time has a way of romanticising everything. Orozco spoke as if the 90's were ages ago, while most of the people in my seat row and one panelist were still in art school in the 90's. The young Orozco still has a decade on many of the artists who were nurtured by his work while we were in school, or shortly thereafter. For me, the 90's are too fresh to be romanticised, while he seems to want his ideas from the 90's to go away. He lives in the "now," while many are still captivated by what was "then."

The Sea Remembered Yesterday NY Screening

The Sea Remembered Yesterday, parts 1&2 By Anna Peach

On Sunday, November 22, from 4-8pm, two sections from my video series will be screened at the Fluid Festival at the Queens Museum

The Sea Remembered Yesterday is a series shot off Waikiki Beach, Hawai'i. In 2008, I decided to film the spot that I remembered from my childhood where I was once caught in a riptide and carried along the coast. I began my investigation by questioning if the sea also had a memory of its own experience. Filmed at the same time each morning and layered with footage from the previous day, this creates a visual record of place in an ever changing sea.

Convergence

Stills from my video Convergence, 2009

I am newly drawn to the solidity of the body as it converges with the translucency of water. The spring dance project video takes on a shape of its own, and I try to follow it's lead. Some myth or legend shows its face, and became a narrative thread that is hard to overlook. Subliminal poems emerge. So I allow myself to pursuit the illusive. Falling asleep on piles of epic stories; turning pages as Circe turns Odysseus' men into pigs.

Meeting the full moon

Lights on the top of the Empire State building, with full moon at left

Images taken my first night out in NYC. City viewed from below, on the surface of the water, and from above. Statue of Liberty seen with reflection of immigrants.