[smygo] Collective Consciousness
Dan Clore
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Collective consciousness
Working Collectively, Twin Cities artists and writers find
inspiration, connection and community
by Jenn Day
Editorial Intern
Meg Novak sees herself as a counterpoint to the dominant
story about the successful artist in today's society. For
one thing, she's political, working to connect cultures;
second, her success hasn't come from struggling bravely
alone in her studio, climbing over the backs of her
competition, jealously guarding her techniques and currying
the favor of the art establishment. She's had conversations
across cultural barriers. She collaborated. She organized
her own art collective, and she called it Babylon.
Among artists, a collective can be a group loosely connected
around shared political or artistic goals, or more
practically focused around studio or exhibition space.
Informal art collectives can happen on the neighborhood
stoop, where the talk is art and action and the only
contribution required is time. Or a collective might
function as a member-run gallery in which artists pay dues,
organize their own show and keep all the profits.
Historically, collective organizations have appealed to
utopians and radicals alike because they eliminate
hierarchy, equalize members and work with a shared vision.
With or without a physical space, collectives produce work,
organize shows and influence one another along the way.
Love is the stuff out of which these bonds are made. For the
artists, the rewards are often creative. The struggle to
achieve consensus can be painful, but it pays off in pride
of ownership, inspiration, constructive feedback and a deep
connection to fellow members. Collectively, they say,
they've been more productive, more inspired and even more
successful when their resources are pooled.
Arts collectives can be empowering to women, said Amy Rice,
a member of Rosalux Gallery in Minneapolis, where all
members are encouraged to speak their minds. "To be part of
a collective you have to be willing to not just be a
follower, to be a co-member and [believe] that it's important."
Here's a look at four Twin Cities collectives, the work they
do and the visions they share.
Art in action
The Babylon Collective embodies the classic model of the
political collective -- with a twist. The members are
dedicated to producing artwork, but they couldn't escape the
politics of our time.
From the beginning, commitment to social and political
justice has been central to the four-year-old group. Babylon
has always been led by women and supportive of women far
beyond the scope of an immediate neighborhood, from the
Revolutionary Afghan Women's Association to the Women's
Prison Book Project in Minneapolis. But their concerns dont
stop at gender.
They are more interested in upending the mainstream art
world than gaining acceptance in it. The collective model,
integral to radical organizing, has never been easy, but
neither are their goals.
"What I'm trying to do with my art is build a different kind
of society and to do that, we have to learn how to work
together," said Meg Novak, one of the founding members. "So
it's definitely a direct experience in direct democracy and
decisionmaking by everybody involved that I really value."
Working collectively can be complicated, but it is also
rewarding, she said. "It's not the most efficient way of
running things, for sure," she said. "So that to me, because
I'm a very goal-oriented person, is the most challenging.
But it's also the most rewarding, because you meet people
through that process that you know you're going to work with
the rest of your life, which you wouldn't if it was just
top-down decisionmaking that was going on."
Artists have come to Babylon because they were fed up with
other political organizations, Novak said, and because they
were looking for "something that's a little different,
creative and also nurturing to yourself."
Members don't pay dues. All Novak asks of people, she said,
is their dedication and their time.
Although the group was hit hard when their gallery on East
Lake Street in Minneapolis was lost in a fire last January,
their work has no borders now.
Murals have become the central vehicle for the group's
expression, and its members cover a range of styles, from
painting, poster art, collage, installation and graffiti.
But they're united by more than just a brick wall covered
with a vivid scene.
The style suits Novak's mission to break down the mainstream
art world, to raise questions and build an international
consciousness of radical resistance.
Since the fire, they have struggled with how to do their
work without a place.
For Novak, a host of future projects and connections emerged
from a difficult, but ultimately fruitful journey to Mexico,
a trip they'd been planning for a year.
At the end of August, 10 Babylon muralists returned from an
intense three weeks in Mexico, where they were the only U.S.
representatives at a political art conference, the Art of
Resistance. After the conference, they traveled to southern
Mexico to paint murals based on the oral histories of the
indigenous Zapatista villagers.
Novak is committed to building an international network of
artists in resistance and making Minnesota fertile ground
for a regional conference like the one they just attended.
"People are elevated in art history through their personal
accomplishments, not through achieving political gains or
changing the discourse in society. That's not seen as the
same value as having a few masterpieces in a museum," Novak
said.
If Babylon is successful, they'll tweak that value system
along the way.
The mothership
The Women's Art Registry of Minnesota
(http://www.thewarm.org ) grew out of a different take on
politics: the kind that works within the system to improve
conditions for women artists. When they began organizing in
the mid-1970s, the collective was a popular model. Not many
of those groups survived. WARM has achieved more than survival.
The historic mothership for women artists has been managing
without grant support, a gallery space or an executive
director, but 30 years after they began, the WARM still
gathers to encourage every generation of women artists in
the field and in the studio.
Boasting a membership of more than 150 women, the
organization isn't so much a collective as it is an entirely
volunteer-run resource for women artists. The philosophical
center of the group, the mentorship program, pairs younger
artists, or protigies, with experienced artists. Mentor
pairs meet an average of 40 times over two years; protigies
also can attend two workshops, one on the business of art
and one that teaches alternatives to the withering art
school critique.
Mentor pairs don't have to work in the same medium as much
as share a philosophy about their work. The protigies
conclude their two-year mentorship with a group show. The
next show will be held in fall 2006.
Fiber artist Karen Searle has been a mentor six times.
Searle says the flow of energy and ideas goes both ways.
Mentors advise, but her protigies have influenced her work
as well, she said.
Despite gains for women artists in the art world, Searle
thinks WARM's mission and mentoring is still needed. A woman
just graduating from art school might not perceive
inequities, but at the top of the arts echelon, she said, it
is still a man's world.
WARM has also been working to reconnect to a broader arts
community, through monthly coffee meets at galleries or
museums -- an opportunity for members to enjoy new workand
their Fresh Art gathering, open to both members and
nonmembers, where artists share work and conversation. A new
partnership with Amazon Bookstore Collective, WARM Works
Events, offers an exhibition space for emerging artists. The
current exhibit features Amy Chester's art dolls in a show
called "The Dreaming SoulExpressions of the Spirit" in the
bookstore's downstairs reading nook.
Their December 1 fundraising exhibition and auction,
"Seeds," will support the creation of a permanent office and
gallery space.
Rosalux: members-owners-artists
Rosalux Gallery (http://www.rosaluxgallery.com ) may seem
just like any other fine art gallery. But every time you
walk in, you're going to meet an artist, a dues-paying
member of the group. Housed in Open Book in Minneapolis, the
24 members of the Rosalux collective have created their own
self-sustaining gallery and support network; decisions are
made jointly, and each artist is guaranteed a two-person
show every year and a place on the collective's web site.
Jennifer Davis, a member artist since 2002, said before she
joined she was working as a painter and doing all right, but
something was missing.
"I just started to miss being part of a community, like when
I was in school," she recalled. One way or another, the
group found her and asked her to join. "And now some of my
best friends are in the group. I just love it."
One of the benefits of being involved is that you get a say,
Davis explained.
Something that sounds so simple can trigger an incalculable
amount of creative growth.
Amy Rice, who also paints and does collage, had long admired
Davis' work from afar. She went to the openings of her shows
for a while, and thought Rosalux seemed full of amazing
artists with impressive resumes, but never thought she had
anything to contribute to the group. Then she had a change
of heart. Rice was proud when she was accepted at Rosalux.
"I feel like belonging there my work has really improved,
that I've gotten a lot of really positive feedback and good,
constructive criticism and that I've been inspired by a lot
of the techniques and methods of other artists," Rice said.
Now, Rice and Davis are collaborating, with Rice making
hand-cut stencils from Davis' paintings and Davis using
collaged elements from Rice's pieces. Rice recently started
showing Davis her spray painting technique.
Swapping knowledge, experience and technique seems to happen
naturally at Rosalux. It begins at the regular meetings, and
when all the member artists try to attend everyone else's
openings. It might happen afterwards in the bar.
Although the artists aren't engaging in formalized critiques
as in art school, they're gaining much more from their
built-in network of peers. They're picking up informal
conversation, whimsical collaboration and constructive
criticism from other serious artists with a wide range of
experiences.
Collectives have always been important to Rice. As a
sociology major at Augsburg in the early '90s, she worked at
the cooperatively run Seward Cafi in Minneapolis. She isn't
drawn to that kind of organization because it's not the
easiest way to do business.
"It's hard, and sometimes it's painful and it takes longer
and sometimes it really sucks, but I think that overall what
ends up is of better quality, whatever you're trying to
accomplish," Rice said.
Rosalux member Camille Gage said that, for her, working
collectively is less of a political statement than a state
of mind. "I think it's that self-selected group of people
willing to make a greater commitment, and then hopefully,
just being a part of a group like that keeps you engaged. I
have found that to be very true. I'm producing more work and
selling more work by far than I did before I joined Rosalux."
Laurel Poetry Collective
Teaching poetry for decades at Hamline University in St.
Paul, Deborah Keenan was often struck by all the strong
writing she saw around herfrom students, peers and friends.
"Minnesota's just so lousy with good writers," Keenan said.
"There are a lot of people who don't ever get their breaks."
So in a confident blast of stamina and energy she decided to
do something about it. Three years ago, Keenan called up 45
people to gather in her St. Paul living room to discuss a
poetry and publishing project. A few meetings later, those
discussions had blossomed into the Laurel Poetry Collective
(http://www.laurelpoetry.com ), a group of 21 writers, a
book designer and a letterpress printer who were interested
in publishing small, artistic books of poetry, one from each
writer over a four-year period.
"There was a great feeling in the beginning of wanting
simplicity," Keenan recalled: A special kind of simplicity
found in sets of old books she and others collected and
saved. They wanted to make books that could stand as a set
and as individual works of art.
Since then, the collective has produced books by 13 poets
and three anthologies.
"We were very clear from the beginning that we wanted not
just the words, but image," said Keenan. "We really wanted
to honor that part of it. We wanted some things about our
press to be hand made, so we really somehow pulled that off.
All of us work essentially for nothing of course, but we've
done it and we've been able to keep the quality high and the
costs low."
One reason for their success: The collective was clear about
their goals from the beginning. They agreed on a mission,
hired a CPA, selected a treasurer and established a flexible
range of dues.
They even researched collectives.
"All of the advice wed gotten was we were insane to try to
do a large one, because the only ones that were successful
were like six to 12 [people], at the most."
Three years into it, their partnership is in the black.
"I think we're sort of charming to people in the real world,
like we're so happy about our broadsides and our books and
our little savings account," said Keenan.
Part of what doesn't come up in the history of other
collectives is how it changes the individual. The
partnership that happens when the book artist and the poet
come together deepens everyone's understanding of the
project, explained letterpress printer Regula Russelle.
Poets, who surround their words with white space, tend to
care a lot about the visual effect. And printers, so focused
on type and the look of a page, deeply absorb the words on
the page.
Although she's not a writer, Russelle, a print artist in
residence at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, said the
group readings are, for her, the most powerful thing about
the collective. It's an honor, she said, to be surrounded by
such wonderful writers, reciting the poems in their own voices.
"Writing is solitary work," Russelle noted. She thought for
a moment. "Printing is too."
--
Dan Clore
Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro
Lord Werdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in
any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in
itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or
tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never
entered into any war, or act of hostility against any
Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no
pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce
an interruption of the harmony existing between the two
countries.
-- The Treaty of Tripoli, entered into by the USA under
George Washington
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Fair play? Video games influencing politics. Click and talk back!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/VpgUKB/pzNLAA/cUmLAA/2bSolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
smygo-un...@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/