WHY OBSESSION IS A GOOD THING
3/09
During a recent flight I had time to reflect about my artistic process and particularly the nature of artist obsession.
The truth is, having a great idea for a body of work just isn’t enough. The trick to making really good art is bonding truth with illusion so seamlessly that the viewer believes your image. If the seams show – if there are gaps – then the image isn’t going to be compelling to the viewer.
They might smile and whisper knowingly about your intent – but they’ll end up walking away.
Artists need to be able to solder together all the elements – if we can’t, we have to re-think, shift perspective, or take a different tack altogether.

The challenge is that each idea can have a thousand motivations - all equally valid – and each image can be derived from a thousand ideas. Which to choose? The artist must pick one, cling to it, sleep with it, interrogate it, and turn it over and over to discover all its dimensions. Then - when the idea, its motivation, and the image have all expanded to fill every crevice in mind full of possibilities – then the artist begins to draw.


Yet at any moment in time, the full multiplicity waits at your elbow – look away from your realized idea for a moment – get distracted by the shabby state of your finances, your child’s unemployment, or the demands of a lover, get distracted by any one of life’s minutia and your focus becomes diluted, porous, and riddled with whispering new possibilities. Picking up the threads of your carefully woven concept requires a commitment to obsession.

Each time I enter my studio I’m confronted by my inadequacies.

A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO DIARY FARMING: NOTES FROM PANAMA
2/09
Recently, Lyman Orton asked a group of Vermont students if they could envision their world without the familiar scenes and smells of dairy farms. Then he posed the question to us AOA artists and it occurred to me that my time in a Azuero Peninsula of Panama allowed me to describe an alternate vision.

Hybrid solutions to life’s challenges intrigue me and I find they’re particularly interesting in rural societies because subsistence living requires constant attention to low budget and practical innovations.
The Azuero is cattle country . Life is conducted on horseback. There are more horses than cars or trucks and more cows than people. It feels like a land completely at home in the last century – except for cell phones and Internet. So I was totally thrilled and intrigued by their approach to dairy farming. There are no barns – no need - no smell of manure, and no milking parlors. The cows are milked in the field where they’re found each morning and evening. The ‘free range milk’ is collected in the standard milk cans, tied them one or two at a time to the farmer’s saddle and ridden out to the nearest main road where he makes a cell phone call for collection. (Since both cell phones and Internet are critical to the rural economy, there are NO debates about the unsightliness of communications towers within the communities)

He leaves the cans on the road and returns to his chores. The cans are emptied and returned to their spot on the side of the road for later collection by the farmer.

The two questions I have – and my Spanish wasn’t good enough to get answers - were:
Why didn’t the milk turn to butter as it was jostled and churned on the ride out to the road?
And, what was involved in cleaning the cans after several hours in the 90 degree heat?


Life continues to be a mystery.

Blog 1/24/09

Cultures of Change

Hola, Que pasa? Como estan ustedes?

Salaam wa allakum! Sabah en noor, Kiif halkum?

I’m leaving a land rich in fresh water that has no green technology and entering a water poor land that's trying to be one of the leaders in new green energies. Both have long standing love affairs with the plastic bag and disposable water bottles. In Panama I see them both floating along the shoreline or blowing on the wind. In Amman, Jordan they constitute another life form. Every color bag is seen resting in the treetops at night and floating through the air by day. I’m afraid to ask to where they’re all migrating.

It is impossible to ask shopkeepers in either country - in either language – to put groceries in a consumer provided bag. They look at me insulted, as if the plastic bag were a symbol of the shore’s credibility. And this – in Panama – from a country who’s indigenous tribes make the most GORGEOUS ‘bolsas’ (bags) out of local jute. In Amman where water is SOOOOOO scarce, squashed plastic water bottles line the roads, some still half full. No one has communal drinking fountains – this from a region where communal basins for washing your feet before entering the mosque is ubiquitous.

Sometimes cultural behaviors makes me crazy.

GETTING A HAIR CUT IN ST. ALBANS -12/08

Valblog

12/08

GETTING A HAIR CUT IN ST. ALBANS

Is it true for the rest of you? Once assigned a topic of research it becomes the only thing you want to talk about when out of the studio. That’s why I found myself listening to the halcyon musings of a former Goddard College professor of photography and a former student at Goddard who were serendipitously having their hairs cut and dyed at the same time I was.

It’s a curious thing about Vermonters, whether they’ve newly settled in the state or have been around for centuries, whenever a visitor asks them about their resident home they always talk about how good it used to be – before now. Before the way of life they loved growing up or moved here to enjoy – changed.

The present always seems to be an imperfect work in progress and the future a patchwork of their remembered past and a few technical improvements, like internet connectivity, functional bus service, and less than three jobs. Yet ‘their Vermont’ of almost any decade, continues to have a mythically successful image among non-Vermonters leading, I suppose, to repeating the cycle just described above.

However, this particular set of memories concerned Vermont’s former branding as the commune capital of the East and a former home of the Weathermen. And, interestingly, although their tales were fascinating - images of Weathermen conducting military drills (how did that work among this most anarchistic of groups? Was the cadence, “left, left, left?”) and slogging through mud season while freezing your ass off during the ‘back-to-nature-decade - made for great stories, neither of them wanted to integrate those memories into an envisioned future for the state. Possibly because they - in their present lives – were fully integrated into the lifestyles they had rebelled against in the 60’s. They both owned their own homes, had mortgages, and credit cards. They’re protests took the form of buying organic produce and using ‘green grocery bags’ – a lifestyle available to those who can afford to choose where to shop.

Both told me their vision for a future St. Albans would be minus Costco, minus the ‘prescription’ drugs that drive the crime rate in town and more community activities on the town green – like band concerts. Asked about ‘branding’ they talked about St. Albans’ past as a railroad town – here we go again, I thought. Proof that progress seems to be a lot more cyclical than linear in its development.

A DARKER VISION OF THE FUTURE

I was picking up the paper yesterday when the store clerk and one of our Burlington city council members got into some speculation on a new future for Chittenden County. It was
a darker vision maybe the snow and freezing temperatures had something to do with their mood - images of half finished McMansions in Williston and Colchester came to mind. Derelict Costcos, becoming re-tasked as open barns with sheep, and chickens ‘free-ranging’ over their gutted interiors. How difficult would it be to jerry-rig a boutique kiosk on Burlington’s Church Street or the newly cashless ATM’s to shelter the new homeless? What will Vermont look like is the question every state rep and senator is asking as they were trying to visualize how our lives will change.

I’m thinking there’ll be no new big construction for a few years. The real-estate boom caught in mid-stride has left open foundation holes in Winooski and South Burlington. Those could be turned into root cellars and grazing sites for urban flocks. I’m reminded of the rooftops of Fez, Morocco where families house their goats at night – could happen in the new Cascade Falls condos in Winooski. We’d just have to assign someone to hose out the elevators every morning and evening.

Houses will show less paint, more peel. Color schemes will reflect what’s on sale rather than a determined aesthetic. With the credit crunch – Vermont may literally be ‘frozen’ in time and the clothes we bought last year will stay with us for several more. City zoning in Burlington will change to accommodate a family cow, several chickens and a spring lamb in the backyard or tethered to the green belt – no need to mow or fertilize lawns anymore. The neighborhood farmers markets will include a small site (isolated to protect the vegans) for the sale and purchase of livestock.

People make do and can get quite inventive about it. For the last ten years I’ve lived in a state of low anxiety over the loss of green space in the city – but no longer – vacant areas will stay vacant space now and become vegetable gardens again. Many Vermonters work several jobs to ‘afford the lifestyle’ of living in a pastoral setting, now we’ll add several seasonal jobs too for ‘pin money’.
In a year all the Starbucks will be gone.
What will eating local mean in the new Vermont winter?
To what ends will environmentalists be driven when they can’t heat their homes or feed their families?

I WENT HOME AGAIN

I decided to try to ‘go home again’. There is a lot to be said for empirical research. After reviewing to the results of the FOV survey for Caledonia County I felt there voices that hadn’t been heard. Besides I’d not been back to the village and farms of Waterford since I was forced to sell the family farm in 1998. I took with me two other former citizens of Waterford; one grew up working on the local dairy farms in the 60’s and is now an academic in Rhode Island. The other grew up in the village during the 80’s and now lives in New York City – both had vivid and fond memories both still had connections with locals. It was my hope to observe/record any changes that may have occurred, re-engage some of my former neighbors and then provoke a conversation among my companions about their observations on our return to Burlington.

I was personally interested in finding out how the current farmers had adapted current technologies. Given that many of Waterford farms run along the Connecticut River -had any of them accepted state help to create mulching pits for their manure? In the land of ‘Take Back Vermont’ – there was always a twined attitude toward ‘innovation’ – a deep distrust along side an innate ability to adapt and recycle the old with the new to make fascinating hybrids – I wanted to know about those – I have remembered images of machinery re-tasked and reinvented in the diary parlors of my youth. I thought this could provide me tangible examples for the ‘self-reliance’, ‘ingenuity’, and the ‘ferocious independence’ spoken of in the survey.

My companions’ Vermont experience was all pre-home computer generation and they were anxious to see what impact the Internet had and if green technologies had affected the landscape.

These were our observations:

We saw no satellite dishes on any farm buildings in Waterford – granted they’ve gotten smaller – and harder to spot – we may have missed some. We did see some of their nifty ancestors- huge ‘pasture ornaments’ decomposing in place.

Of the farms we remembered only two were still functional.

Of the houses we remembered some had fallen down – abandoned – others looked tacky – unrepaired and swathed in heavy plastic surrounding the foundation – clearly the boom years in real estate had not touched the family farm here. One of the big ridge farms overlooking the Moore Dam – we used to joke that their cows gave the best milk because they had the best view – had sold their herd and had evolved to stable horses. They advertised riding and trail tours. One farm had been abandoned - its barns had burned to the ground.

Two of us had wonderful memories of chicks hatching under the careful supervision of ‘Ulla’ the farmer’s wife, in her kitchen oven. The house’s roof had caved in. As we were reviving pleasant memories – a white camero drove into the driveway and a young woman got out – she wasn’t

happy. She gave me a look reminiscent of Madame Defarge reviewing candidates for the guillotine and reaching into her car pulled out not her knitting – thank the Gods – but her cell phone (amazing really, because I kept testing the ‘bars’ of my own Verizon issue with no success). She reminded me instantly of the locals we used to see once a year at the Lyndonville fair – distrustful of all and ferociously protective. She moved toward us with a hostile air so I hastened to reassure her relying on the strategies learned at the natal hearth – identify which farm you come from and which farmers know and can vouch for you – thus immediately identifying you as a local. But of course we couldn’t do that. The farmers we knew had passed on. Our farm had been sold to flat-landers. I probably gave her names and places long since dead to her world. She crossed her arms and planted her feet and then just stared at us – immutable as stone and just as cold and uncommunicative. She began to call somebody so we returned hastily to our car. At that moment my life in the Champlain valley seemed light years removed on the other side of the state.

The scenario was to be repeated for much of the rest of the farm tour. Only Larry Wilson’s farm still seemed to be working. We saw no evidence in his parlor of new digital (non-human) mechanized milking or inventive adaptation -just grim determination to hang on. It seemed that the older technique of ‘growing your help’ was still in force. We looked over their hired labor and saw no obvious Latino faces. However, the pin-up girly calendars ubiquitous in the milk rooms of my companion’s youth were nowhere to be seen. Progress? Nobody seemed to be wearing LLBean work boots either – just the old mud-caked green or black rubber affairs – I didn’t have the guts to ask them if they were lined as I stood in my state–of-the-art-Merrills.

In the village we went to the post office and the library – the only town buildings. We were astonished to see a computer in the library where a wonderful old Victorian couch used to be.

The card catalogue was gone and the dark ‘stacks’ had given way to a cheerful children’s room. Since the library does dual service as the town hall, we saw the minutes of the last ‘Waterford Development Meeting’. It lasted a total of 15 minutes and had exactly one item on the agenda.

Small town efficiency at it's best. We gave a sigh of relief at the familiar names listed as committee members. Interesting that after the wreck of our farm memories and the present bleak landscape we took refuge in a lack of change.

White Village was the same. No new houses. But the old ones looked no worse. Rabbit Hill Inn was beautifully landscaped and looked prosperous. We counted five cars in their lot on Thanksgiving weekend. We looked but saw no satellite dishes on their roofs (they used to take pride in ‘releasing’ their guests from the pressures of the media during their stay when there was only network TV and no internet . Perhaps the owners serve on the Fairpoint Communications and Verizon Wireless boards).

The town clerk was delightfully informative about the lack of change in the town. The white church only has services once a month – about the same frequency as it did when my great grandfather was their minister. But there is a new children’s story hour in the library on the weekends – and a knitting group.

There is a new gas station on route 18 toward Littleton. The town of Waterford has no website – although Rabbit Hill Inn does. Going back through Saint Johnsbury we saw one prius. All the signature industries we remember – including the natural food store - were still in town. The Fairbanks Museum and Athenaeum were closed for the holiday (so much for holiday tourists!). On route 18 just outside of Danville we stopped for gas at a Mobil station that had a blazing array of drinks including ‘Organic Peach White Tea’ – Alleluia!

THE FUTURE – We found no evidence of future trends in Waterford. It bore more of a resemblance to our past mixed with a grim grasp on the present and an immutability toward future change – The last three prosperous decades left no lasting evidence of green technologies upon the landscape - no earth homes, no solar panels, no triple glazed windows or rain gardens but a reassertion of the mix we knew as children – the next generation of trailers and modest capes or old farm houses along side abandoned farms. Those who’ve found a way to survive live next to the remnants of those who couldn’t adapt.

The Farmers Daughter gift store – a favorite destination
In our youth – we have always tracked her peek-a-boo
panties as a signal of cultural trends – In my childhood
she had pantaloons and the skirt only blew up to her knee.
It inched upward to reveal garters, and stockings in the 60’s
Then blew straight up to glimpse tiny panties in the early 70’s.
The 80’s brought the length down for a while and only showed
leg – now it’s almost waist high with BLUE panties – What’s up with That? Someone do a ‘social anthropological’ analysis of this – PLEASE!!!