How do you use deterioration/decay?

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Permalink Reply by Marty McCutcheon on May 3, 2008 at 9:07

I like the sound of your erasure project, Deirdre, but then, I've never heard of an erasure project I didn't like...

Deterioration and decay seem to imply a slower, more passive, partial change than erasure, which seems, in turn, slower and less thorough than deletion. All are effective expressions of impermanence and transformation, and, as such, are, for me, valuable metaphors for life, death and the mysterious cycles of existence.

I have been hanging small, coin-filled spheres in public sight (but out of easy-reach), knowing that they will 'disappear' sooner or later. I enjoy seeing them, and I photograph them, and when they're gone, they become 'memories', and the photographs become meaningful.

Permalink Reply by Catherine Mascrès on May 3, 2008 at 9:11

I am sure erasing can be as nice as the process of making. I do make what I call intermediates paintings and which I can only photograph, as of course, they do not remain, are only part of the process of making until completion. Demaking is also an art. My first paintings were made on walls, when I left the house...which was not mine, my artwork of five years got covered by white paint.
I also paint with natural colors, such as blackberries, juices of flowers...All these materials evolve with time, sunshine, they change appearance, speaking about the fugitivity, the non eternity of things

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Permalink Reply by Catherine Mascrès on May 3, 2008 at 16:26

I remember, I was in Strasbourg,30 years ago, I was on the 5th floor (maybe) (not the 7th sky...for sure). I was making soap bubbles, enjoying them greatly, like in my chidhood, but all the walkersby, were looking at their feet and not in the rare bit of sky of the city. Only one, out of over a thousand looked up, saw and smiled, happy with the sight...Not long ago...I said within myself I will make art with my guts (meaning dying) (meaning the actual true guts made up of cells)...

Permalink Reply by Deirdre A. Fox on May 3, 2008 at 17:05

Marty, you're right about the distinctions between deterioration/decay, erasure, and deletion. My Erasure project was an entry point to deterioration -- it helped me release longevity as a central focus. The wall drawing was very large and the graphite and pigment were heavily layered. I erased repetitively in circular strokes (the area of erasure changing via the die roll every twenty minutes), rubbing more of each area out until it eventually faded to nothing, while stepping back to take a photograph myself every five minutes. The erasure took the whole day. It felt like metaphoric erosion, with me as the active agent made somewhat passive by having to follow the die rolls. At the same time, viewers were mostly passive but made somewhat active by rolling the die; most viewers were intermittent, some were remote (calling in their die roll). I am interested in active verses passive deterioration, and in a way, blurring these.

Your sphere project sounds wonderful; it's happenstance who notices the spheres, who takes the effort to take them down, and yet bound to happen. I wonder if anyone ever photographs them themselves when they run across them. I read about a Guerrilla knitting group that includes the group name on socks they knit and surreptitiously put on street poles. Some artists who do leave behind projects have a website printed on the object (or contained in it) that viewers can access and post their find. Of course, their focus is having to their object found. Your focus, I think, is losing it. What do you think?

Permalink Reply by Deirdre A. Fox on May 3, 2008 at 17:11

I shoot photos of intermediate stages on drawings as well, though I think mostly for myself and to test my philosophical goal (borrowed from Cezanne) that every mark should "finish" a work.

The fugitive colors remind me of a Rothko I read about. Apparently, the green and the red areas have in effect switched places due to the fugitive nature of the paint; it wasn't Rothko's intent, and the collection (either Harvard or Yale, I think ... I can't recall) has put the painting out of view. I think they should have left it up, but I am guessing they wanted it out of any light to preserve it.

Permalink Reply by Catherine Mascrès on May 3, 2008 at 17:27

From what I do...nothing is borrowed... I do this or that because I think of it at the time or even do a long time after the thought. I spend more of my time making, doing, thinking, living, struggling, than looking...eventhought I spent a long time of this life going to...many museusm... Maybe that got started too early...It reaches a point where...we stop reading, and we write, being from all our readings a unique composite of style and language which is for me as potent as spots of colors.

Permalink Reply by Deirdre A. Fox on May 3, 2008 at 17:49

There's a field of ideas and information out there, some of which we consciously or subconsciously accept, reject, or ignore/don't hear of, and from our take on all of that we forge the sum of our own ideas and approaches, the sum hopefully being greater than the parts. We move from mere digesting toward integration, but even them we continue to digest new information/ideas. I hope I never stop reading and learning no matter how much I make or write.

Permalink Reply by Catherine Mascrès on May 3, 2008 at 18:10

... Every night I indulge myself into " les travailleurs de la mer" from Victor Hugo, who I ever loved dearly up to the point I was steeling his books from bookshops up to...18. I just think that after being filled, one has to empty oneself...After life, one has to die...After a lot of reading and living, one should write (I'm coming from a writer family), after looking feeling art, one has to do. There is a time for integration, and a time for egurgitation (excuse my French). One has to be before being done. Love. Cath

Permalink Reply by Catherine Mascrès on May 3, 2008 at 18:12

Every started work should be finished

Permalink Reply by Catherine Mascrès on May 3, 2008 at 18:22

I used a lot of dead animals or remnants found in Nature for my work. I believe they prolong themselves throught me. I even believe they want to become prolonged through me....

Permalink Reply by Deirdre A. Fox on May 3, 2008 at 18:30

Definitely :) What do you think of studies verses "completed" works? Are studies "finished"?

I remember having issues with finish when I started in a concentrated way to make art, vacillating in my mind (and in viewer's responses) between "incomplete" verses "overworked." Cezanne's thought helped me break through that; while having every single mark actually "finish" the work is a goal I have when thinking about mark making, I find that my pieces (which are more narrative and conceptually driven than simply making marks) go through stages of "finish" rather than having each mark finish them.

I do more in my head now rather than on paper, but I used to make flow diagrams, and go back and forth between them and the drawings/paintings, changing either the diagrams or the drawings/paintings; I thought of the flow diagrams as drawings in their own right, though they were not something I exhibited.

Permalink Reply by Deirdre A. Fox on May 3, 2008 at 18:31

Yes, I agree with with this; nicely said.

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