WHAT MADE A BEAUTIFUL DAY SO BEAUTIFUL

Pondering about the day

It's Sunday night and I am waiting for clothes to be washed for work tomorrow.  My mind wanders back to my lovely afternoon (described in the last blog). I feel content.  I think of peonies, lush green paddocks, animals, cutting flowers, sipping coffee, laughing with people, listening to the music, warm sun after days of rain, good conversation with a friend, throwing a stick for the farm's Border Collie and drooling over those doughnuts.

My senses are alive in a three dimensional world

What stands out is the sensory aspect of today.  Being on a farm and seeing lush green paddocks with black and white cows.  Bunches of big full peonies carried by smiling people. A little weatherboard church nestled in amongst towering gum trees and the surprise of a local band on a verandah of a general store.  I remember the smells of the pasture, the doughnuts, the coffee and the barbecue sausages. The feel of the breeze on my face, the warmth of the sun on my skin and patting the rough hair of the horses. I heard music, laughter, birds and conversation.  I tasted good coffee and a pork and coleslaw roll.  My senses were alive and functioning well today.  The photos tell a story of my sensory experiences.

 

My sense are alive in three dimensional art

We live in a three dimensional world where I negotiate experiences with my senses and my body.  This creates a feeling of well being and joy.  Is it any wonder that I think that creating art in three dimensions brings me closer to these same experiences?  It is the smell of the clay, the feel of the wool, the sound of the art materials being moulded, the taste of the soap that float in the air and the sight of the little piece of magic that comes from me to the outside world. 

 

Art therapy and the limits of the canvas

Why is it that there is so little research and attention paid to three dimensional art in the art therapy world?  It seems very strange to me.  It's not that art therapists do not use three dimensional art with clients but it always appears to be unworthy of attention.  At the same time it seems that  two dimensional painting, drawing and collage is the normal way to work with clients.  Three dimensional work is more like an experiment and a little unusual in the art therapy world.  It is an "add on" to the two dimensional world of painting and drawing.

Why does three dimensional art seem an "add on" to drawing rather than an intrinsic part of art expression in therapy?

Historically, paintings were useful as a form of recording.  Almost like the photos I took today.  I enjoy looking back at them as they prompt my memory of such a beautiful day.  Portraits recorded moments too.  When photography evolved, art took another turn.  No longer was it needed as a way to record people's image but could be used as a way to express emotions.  Sculpture too recorded people and moments. Like portraits they were often life like to record a moment in time - a beautiful woman or a man off to war.  They were formal.  Sculptures were on plinths and usually set higher than the viewer. While engaging they were often made from cold, resistant materials such as marble or rock and larger than the viewer- almost distant and reserved.

Limits of the canvas in art therapy

As art therapists we encourage our clients to express themselves through painting, drawings and collage.  We realise the power of using images to access the unconscious or express our joy and pain.  Why is it that we do not use sculpture to the same degree - and a means to access the unconscious or express our emotions.

WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY - IN A THREE DIMENSIONAL WORLD

What a beautiful day. 

I met my friend Cate in Daylesford and we ventured off together towards Spring Hill Farm between Daylesford and Kyneton.  The rain was drizzling down and we were whingeing about the rain and cold a week before summer was about to be upon us. But by the time we arrived at Spring Hill there was a tiny glimpse of blue sky.

Spring Hill Farm

We ventured through the Farm towards the Peony paddock.  For $20 we could pick 20 peonies.  It was a ten minute walk through lush green pastures to the paddock past horses and cows.

 

Lush green pastures

 

Horses saying hello to us as we meandered past

 

Black and white cows looking nice and healthy

We ventured into the glorious peony paddock where we were able to pick beautiful full blooms and some buds. 


Peonies in the paddock

 

Enjoying holding a bunch of peonies

The stylish Cate with her bunch of peonies

Beautiful full blooms

 

Soft pinks and whites

We walked back from the paddock smiling at everyone who was also carrying their bunches of flowers.  Many people were posing for photos  - visually it was a beautiful farm and the bunches of peonies made great photos. It was as if we wanted to remember this experience.  Back at the gate there is a small weatherboard church that has been restored and is glorious in its simplicity.  Wood and white décor with a few flourishes added - a bunch of peonies and a candlestick.  We wandered around chatting to a few people.  One of whom was Annie Smithers - a restauranteur - who was selling great coffee and home made doughnuts.  We opted for the coffee and gave the calorieladen dougnuts a miss - but they looked delicious.

What a gorgeous little church - so simple yet so inviting

A touch of colour with peonies in the church

 

The church from the road at the entrance to Spring Hill Peony Farm

On the way back we stopped in at the Glenlyon General Stall for some lunch where a local group of blokes were jamming on the front verandah.

Just a nice photograph of the cello case

 

Local musicians

 

Not sure what this instrument is called

 

Glenlyon stall verandah

Rob (my husband) has been away for a week and it was time to tidy the house before he arrives back tomorrow.  And just to complete the picture a huge vase of peonies on the kitchen table.
 


Bringing some of the magic of Spring Hill Peony Farm home

I love the voluptuous full blooms and the tight round buds

Some are pinker than others

 
 

A clean house with Peonies from Spring Hill and driftwood from Port Fairy

I feel good every time I look at my flowers

God I love having teenagers - Finn cooking pancakes for dinner

 

A bowl of strawberries - cut beautifully by Eva

The finished Sunday night dinner

 

Then relaxing on the couch with the Groodles

 

What a beautiful day......



DISTURBANCE

Why do I find Louise Bourgeois' art so disturbing?

"My work disturbs people and nobody wants to be disturbed. They are not fully aware of the effect my work has on them, but they know it is disturbing."  Louise Bourgeois, 1979 (Crone and Schaesberg, 2008,p.11)

In an earlier blog I describe visiting my Auntie who was dying and the resulting disturbance I felt.  I came to the conclusion that unknowingly my hands had expressed my conflicting emotions and painful realisation that no-one escapes death. My own art making had helped me to unravel my feelings of unease.  In the process of creating art I transferred my inner emotions into a symbolic form. 

In order to unravel the power of a Louise Bourgeois' sculpture to disturb me I have been reading "The return of the repressed" edited by Philip Larratt-Smith with a series of commissioned essays. There are two books.  The first holds Louise Bourgeois' own private notes that she wrote while undergoing psychoanalysis with Henry Lowenfeld which occurred on and off for thirty years.  The second is a companion guide that reflects on her psychoanalysis and her art from different contributors. 

At one point,  an essay (who) within the book describes how Louise was at times difficult and prickly.  The author believes this was because she would project her own anxiety into others creating a corresponding anxiety in them.  Her difficult emotions were also projected into her artwork. Louise Bourgeois herself stressed that it is not only the artist who creates from the unconscious, but the viewer must also work from the unconscious.  It is perhaps not surprising that I experienced some of the obvious emotional conflicts that Louise Bourgeois projected into her own artworks.

An invitation to experience rather than observe

When I think about the times I have seen her sculptures, I sense that she has invited me tantalisingly into her own emotional world.  I do not observe her work, I experience it.  I can walk around it and in the case of one of her large spiders - stand under it.  The sheer size of the spider gave me a sense of being trapped and overwhelmed. When I stood beneath it I felt I may be devoured or annihilated.

The exhibition at Heide Gallery, Melbourne Australia of her later works also invited the viewer in.  I was able to walk amongst her hanging headless bodies and walk into her jail like cell and under her spider.  Her installations invite you  quite literally to enter.  They force you to interact and through this to connect with her emotional experiences.

Other sculptures had movement created by the suspension. Suspended heads that slowly turned and moved. Hung almost domestically like washing on a clothes line. Domestic chores and dismemberment.  A disturbing image. A juxtaposition.

Conflicting material and conflicting emotions

Much like conflicting emotions Louise Bourgeois utilised conflicting materials. Her own clothes stuffed and hung from meathooks.  Soft warm fabric nestled in metal, glass or wood.  Latex and metal - like skin and bone.  Bodies attached to kitchen implements in place of heads or limbs.  Soft and hard.  Fluidity and rigidity.  Human and machine. 

Larratt-Smith (2012) states that her power as an artist lies in the 'unresolved and irresolvable contradictions between binary opposites.' (p.11) Kuspit (2012) believes her art has an 'uncanny, disorientating effect because it is innately paradoxical.' (p.22)

Containers for human pain and suffering

She created artworks that held her own emotional pain. Her themes seem to centre on the things that caused her great personal anguish.  Reflections of her childhood trauma, challenges with her mental health, passion, death, torture, dismemberment, sexuality, secrets, powerlessness, gender, murder are alluded to. They can be frightening to the viewer.

According to an essay titled 'Louise Bourgeois in Psychoanalysis with Henry Lowenfeld' written by Donald Kuspit, Louise (can I call her that?) was 'in desperate need of holding.' (Kuspit, 2012).  He details some of the periods in her life when she was profoundly depressed, agoraphobic and contemplating suicide.  Her art was her salvation.

Kuspit (2012) states that her artworks in whatever material she used are 'symptoms of her suffering.' (p.19)  He alludes to her art transcending  this pain by her embodiment of the suffering. 

Unapologetic honesty

Louise Bourgeois' art speaks of the unspeakable.  Sexuality, death, trauma,  It is unapologetic.  It does not care if we are offended, horrified, shocked, surprised or thrilled. Her art overts her innermost private thoughts - many of them violent or bizarre.  She brings the unbearable to her conscious through her hands. According to Larratt Smith (2012) she believes that the artist has a special ability to reach into the unconscious and express psychic truths in symbolic form.

Mitchell (2012) believed that keeping her memories raw and alive helped her to delve into her unconscious and take it one step further.  She makes concrete, through her art, what is unbearable and unknowable.  The transference of her feelings onto materials.  The brutality of her honesty is disturbing.   Mitchell (2012)describes this honesty in her art as true and real.


The following quotes from British artists

“	I walked in and just gasped and went, 'This is for me.' I love the juxtaposition of sinister, controlling elements and full-on macho materials with a warm, nurturing and cocoon-like feminine side. I gather she's had to deal with a lot of anger, jealousy and rage in her past but she still treats the female and the male with love and compassion - there's no silly anti-male thing in her work. You're allowed to feel in its presence. If I had to choose one thing she's done it would be one of the enormous penises, which I've always wanted to pick up and touch when the security guards weren't looking. They're tender and full of passion and love, and there's a little bit of comedy in there.	”
—Stella Vine, The Guardian[31]

“	I like the ways she speaks about her family and its tensions. When the work is very illustrative it interests me less, but I like that the fuel for the work is very emotional. She works in lots of different ways, and one of the most refreshing things is that you can't necessarily spot a Louise Bourgeois. That's the sign of a really good artist	”
—Richard Wentworth, The Guardian[31]

“	We're interested in Louise Bourgeois because of the way she archives memory in architecture. Her installations have a strong psychological tension within them, and I think we definitely cross over on that basis. The first time we came in contact with her was in the early Nineties when we went to an event at her studio in Brooklyn. We got to see the spider pieces she was working on before they showed in the Turbine Hall, and there were all these delicious cheeses and nibbles laid out within the work - you had to go underneath to get them. She struck us as being a pretty out-there kind of person.	”
—Jane and Louise Wilson, The Guardian[31] “  Louise goes further by including the viewer in the drama. The first show of hers that I saw, in New York at the end of the Seventies, involved parts of houses, … the paraphernalia of real life, and you could walk into them. I remember a staircase in the middle of a dim, dark room, with a little door in the side. You opened the door and there was a little blue rubber heart hanging on a hook under the stairs. That piece really stuck in my mind: there was something extremely secretive and fabulous about it.

LIMITS OF THE CANVAS

"Every day you have to abandon the past or accept it. If you cannot accept it, you become a sculptor."  Louise Bourgeois

I came across some interesting ideas in a book by Ann Coxon (2010) titled Louise Bourgeois. This book details her creative process and discusses the psychological features of her sculpture. Coxon states that Louise is most notably recognised as a sculptor. However she began her creative life with paintings and works on paper.  This book traces the metamorphosis.

In the mid 1940's Louise Bourgeois was exhibiting alongside American artists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.  At this time New York and Parisian artisan circles were awash with the dominant philosophical view of existentialism.  This world view placed great emphasis on authenticity of expression particularly through art.  (Coxon, 2010, p. 16)  Around this time according to Coxon (2010) she began to express her frustration with 'the limits of pictorial representation.'  Basically two dimensional surfaces were limiting her ability to express herself.  Around this time Jackson Pollock began to explore with canvases laid on the floor and paint dripped, poured (Coxon, 2010) and splattered beyond the boundaries of the painting.

Pollock pushing the boundaries on canvas

At this point in time Louise had three young boys.  Her art displayed some of her struggles  to find emotional space or time to do her art work.  She literally had her head in domestic issues with her family responsibilities.





A time of domestic challenges to the artist



Louise entered the world of sculpture with objects she called personages.  These were upright, rigid almost totem like figures that were intended to represent the people in her life.  As a newly arrived immigrant she created these figures to keep her family from France close to her. When the personages were first exhibited they did not have bases and were dotted around the gallery.  It was if the room was full of people as they encountered the personages. (Coxon, 2010).

 





Personages creating a room full of people






 

The personages were created through carving, cutting and hacking.  This method allowed her to express her aggression and anger.  One in particular had nails nailed into the object almost fashioned like a voodoo doll.  Louise said, 'This piece kept me from doing to her what I did to the sculpture...I controlled my feelings through sculpture.'

 

Eventually she grouped her personages.  The most basic definition of assemblage is to use found or ready made objects and group them together to make a sculptural composition. Coxon (2010) described this as equivalent of collage - in three dimensional form. In a 1986 interview with Bourgeois she stated, 'Assemblage is different to carving.  It is not an attack on things. It is a coming to terms with things....It really is a work of love....there is the restoration and reparation....You repair the thing until you remake it completely.'(Storr, 1986 cited in Coxon, 2010, p.30).

 

Later in her life, Louise Bourgeois created a series of installations that she titled 'cells.'  Installations were devised by artists to overcome the limitations of sculpture and to refrain from the control of the spectators point of view (Crone and Schaesberg, 2008).  According to Crone (Crone and Schaesberg, 2008) the cells illustrate how her past both contains and imprisons her. 

 

Bourgeois described the psychological effects produced by the different processes of creating three dimensional objects Carving has the ability to release anger and destructive urges in a cathartic and immediate way.  Whereas assemblage allows the artist to salvage, slowly repair and reconstruct the past into something new.  It is a transformation.

(Coxon, 2010).