Happy August everyone!!! This image is from our calendar titled Shades of Blackness. This project was intended to look at all the different types of black beauty we see around us and celebrate them in the way that society encourages us to celebrate whiteness. It was my goal to create images that were universally beautiful that #alllives would relate or at least consider in a way that they had not before. With the help of @theglasszipper And her graphic genius I think we got to a pretty incredible place! I am so proud of this project and this image!!! Shout out to our model @theoriginal_danadane For being stunningly beautiful, kind, and flexible!!! #blackisbeautiful #blacklivesmatter #naturalopulence #afro #powertothepeople #righton #love #peace #justice #cantwealljustgetalong (at Bloom & Plume)
“Making America Great” is meant to be a commentary on COVID and quarantine in the USA. From the beginning, the current administration (with fervent support from its base) has downplayed the reality and significance of what is now a pandemic. From selling stockpiles of PPE to other countries to undermining state efforts to obtain PPE to refusing to wear a mask himself, President Trump has consistently acted in a way to secure his own re-election over the safety of his constituents. Relatedly, while people have been trapped at home under quarantine, money has continued to be poured into the border wall. Trump’s base has followed his lead and, like the president, put their own interests over the health and safety of the country as a whole. As a whole, I intended this piece to be a reflection of the selfishness, waste, isolation, division, and even nonchalant brutality of current times. This was originally performed live on Facebook. This recording was edited for time and was flipped as it was originally recorded as a mirror image.
I’ve got these inky pens that bleed like crazy when they get wet, no matter how long you let it dry. It makes curly hair really fun to draw.
This is on my society6 page on totes and stuff! There’s a sale on clocks today too if thats your thing: http://society6.com/tyleramato/andromeda-reverie_wall-clock#33=283&34=286
I was really most nervous to do this piece. So I posted this on FB to make sure I did it:
Then I got my kids to come yell with me because that felt like it made it more acceptable somehow. 5 or 6 people watched live. A bunch gave hearts and likes and someone commented “so needed”. Afterwards, I saw a neighbor posted on my original post, and she said she her kids yelled along with us.
Grapefruit, Yoko Ono #2: Clock Piece - usually a clock is placed on the center of the stage and audience is asked to wait until the alarm goes off.
Again I went live on Facebook. Some people watched for a second and then left. However by the end 6 people were sticking around to watch with me. I got some “haha” and “heart” reactions. We (clearly) did not watch until the timer went off. I liked the feeling of making a statement - and communicating different energies by tapping my finger different speeds as the timer ticked along.
#Grapefruit #YokoOno (#1) Throwing Piece: Throw a stone into the sky high enough so it will not come back.
I went “live” on Facebook for the activity. I had 1 person watch the whole time (but no comments or like/love reactions). 2 others watched for a few seconds the moved on. The benefit to FB live is it is an easy way to be ina public sphere, but I could not directly observe my observers. I’ve left the video recording on my fb page and will update with any later reactions.
For me, it felt really cathartic to be throwing the rocks - and part of the catharsis was that it was public and people were watching.
[1] I don’t understand Burden’s intention for this. If I think about it, it seems like maybe it’s a commentary on how easy it is (was) for anybody to get a gun and do anything with it. In the wake of Columbine and Sandy Hook and all the school shootings that have become the norm beginning in my own childhood, I don’t think this is art. Part of my repulsion to this piece likely has to do with what has transpired in the last 50 years between school shootings, gun rights activist valuing guns over children’s lives, and police violence targeted against people of color, especially black people.
[2] Candice Breitz’s “portraits” (like Legend and Queen) is a good example of performance art’s ability to be diverse and inclusive. Because the “canvas” is bodies and the technical skill is more about having something to say and being willing to say it, it is less dependent on the male dominated genres of art (such as sculpture or painting) that has relied on technical training that for centuries were largely reserved for men. In Breitz’s portraits, the people creating the body of work were fans. No skills were need but love and knowledge for the album she was focusing on.
[3] This film gave me a much deeper appreciation for performance art - for both the power of it as an art form and for the artists who create and perform it. In Abromovic’s case, there’s this feeling of her powerfully creating herself, creating her art, and, through both of those, creating how other people experience the not just her and her art but the world. A strong theme in her work throughout the world seems to be about feminity (often in relation to masculinity). In her work with Ulay, the way they used their bodies showed the power differential between men and women physically (and implying in other spheres as well). There work also showed extreme trust between them - until there wasn’t and then they could not create together any more.
Abromovic’s work has a lot to do with control. There’s commentary about control in the male-female pieces she and Ulay created. However, in the pieces she created on her own there’s also elements of control over her own body. Especially in her “Artist is Present” piece, her will power to push through pain and complete the performance seemed to be mind over body: she willed herself to do it and did it even though maybe her body couldn’t.
Electric stimulus to the face: This felt a little disturbing to me to watch - to see people’s faces and muscles moving without their will. It felt to me like a commentary on how much of human experience is actually just reaction or reflex and we are all programmed the same.
Alter Bahnhof: I thought this concept was fascinating - I didn’t realize until several minutes in that what was on the screen wasn’t what was currently happening. At first I thought we were watching the artist record. The way she used the overlay of past and present was really powerful - especially as she was talking about national and personal memories.
Bike Lanes: Oh my gosh! I loved the brashness of this piece. And Casey’s commitment to a kind of physical comedy to drive home a point.
Candice Breitz’s Portraits Legend + Queen: Neither of these albums are sound tracks that I have spent much time with, though I am familiar with many of the songs. So the musicality pieces was not a huge draw for me. However, I love the structure of these works. And I love thinking of them as portraits because it’s a true description on several levels. It’s a portrait of the original artists and a portrait of the album. It also ends up being portrait-like of each of the participants.
Meat Joy: This one made me curious. It sounded like the audio was reading instructions for something and I wonder if they were written for something else and then applied as part of this piece or if they were written for this piece? Between the French and just the older sounding audio I don’t think I caught all the words. What I could see and tell was that this piece was really pushing boundaries and it felt like it was making a statement about bodies that really resonated with me.
Vanessa Beecroft VB40: More than beauty and suffering, it seems like Beecroft’s pieces (and especially VB40) are commenting on what it means to be a woman in this society. This is one that will stick with me and that I will be reflecting on for a while. One of the things that really struck me was how some of the women would glance around and once they saw others sitting or resting, only then would she give herself permission to do so also.
Quintet of the Astonished: I love this deep dive into human emotion. With the 5 actors, it feels like a commentary on how everyone works through series of of overlapping and even contradictory emotions and that we all respond to a similar event a little differently. What resonates most with me is that it feels like an almost giving permission for viewers to deeply feel their own emotions.
Staging: Listening to Hassabi speak, I was so aware of the building tension and discomfort watching someone just be somewhere and to move so slowly and intentionally - it also made me much more aware of my breath. It made me hyper aware of the space and their surroundings, as she said. It feels like she is slowing down time by literally slowing down movement in the moment, rather than editing it later. I’m really interested in the contradictory reaction her work elicits - in me and it sounds like in others.
Talking Tongues: Wow - I feel she’s just sitting next to me chatting - and it’s horrifying to think how little has changed to protect women from routine violence.
Perimeter of a Square: The main elements of this piece (the taped square, the movement in time to the metronome) are very fixed, rhythmic and almost rigid. There was a disjarring contrast between that almost static/fixed nature of the primary elements with the disorganized background and the occasional awkward transition between sides or directions. It leaves me thinking about structure - how can it can scaffold a form and create deeper meaning, but also how it can stifle content/meaning if it’s too rigid.
Punk Prayer: Using music and performance to challenge the power of the church and state resonates so much with me. At first I was wondering how did they have get permission to produce this in such a traditional looking church - and then I realized they hadn’t and were just doing it!
Cut Piece: This piece made me super uncomfortable - particularly seeing the men come up to cut pieces of her dress off. Especially the man at the end, who cut off the straps of her white camisole or undershirt made me squirm and made me mad - particularly because that was outside of the bounds of what [I understood] she had invited people to do (cut the black dress off).
Interior Scroll: This appeared to me to be a commentary on where we as women look to for guidance, purpose or meaning. Is it exterior like in books? Or interior? And when we look and are guided from inside ourselves it makes others really uncomfortable. I really loved this and that message really spoke to me.
Bound Foot + Mouth: To me, this piece felt like it was about the entrapping nature of shame: it keeps us slipping and sliding, on unsure footing and with no words, to move forward. The other words in the pudding I think were sexual slurs -- maybe part of the cyclical nature of causing and perpetuating feelings of shame?
Wholesome: This film resonated for me as an allegory for information - we are force-fed way too much information to process and healthily integrate or respond to every day.
Roll of a Woman: The double entendre of this is amazing. Nice to way to end a list with some heavy topics
How to Earn a Glass of Water: This is so hard to watch and reveals such a hard truth about disparate access to resources.
Can knot: Guitterriez wrote about the need for patience and perseverance in attempting to solve problems as the meaning behind the piece. However, what stood out and resonated with me the most was that the microphone was the last cord to be untangled. It said something to me about voice and how (especially as women) there is so much built in to silence us, to make us stay small and those systemic pressures have to be worked through and untangled interiorly to find our (my voice) to be then be able to address them exteriorly.
For this piece I wanted to create something playful but not so obvious I want the public to think about what is going on while you walk in the park also the uses of complementary colors and to keep it simple and lineal or geometrical. First, I did a little research about where I can locate my piece and the public. In this case is a park close to an Elementary school and there were a lot of kids playing around with others and their moms. The day of the installation there were a group of kids between 3 and 10 years. They just keep looking what I was doing and when I finish my design and I step further away and because I knew the intention that they have I ask their mom if I have the permission to take pictures and on the video as you can see the first reaction and I think I made my goal because without saying anything they start playing on their own way, jumping, thinking about diagonals, trying to do not touch the lines ,looking at the colors and finally grabbing the little balls(that was a surprise because in my idea the purpose of those were to catch the attention) but like I said they found their own way to play. (The last pic is how the piece end).
I love this project and I love that you were able to capture an initial reaction to it (and as a parent I really appreciate that you got parental consent to take pictures and record the kiddos). The shapes and colors that you used were so inviting and engaging. How fun that the kids surprised you by playing with the tape balls! I wish that it were bigger or that you had done 2 of them in different places of the park to see what different reactions might have been. Such a good idea and well executed.
“Decorate + leave a rock as a gift for someone after you”
The world, our country, and day to day to life is exceedingly tumultuous right now. Racial disparity and protests and push back. COVID and uncertainty about school and jobs and incomes. Quarantine and isolation. Political gamesmanship and villainizing of the other. We are living in a time of collective trauma being perpetuated on so many fronts.
In “Pass it on,” I wanted to create an invitation and provide some tools to help people ground and center in themselves. Between the labyrinth and the decorated rocks I wanted to create an experience of meditation and self-reflection. Labyrinths such as this one have been used in different religious traditions as a form of meditation. By pairing this meditative walk with the invitation to think about what they (the viewer) needs and to take a decorated rock that spoke to that need, I was aiming to create a very personal and revitalizing experience for each individual viewer. It can be a counter-cultural idea to spend time thinking about what you need – and then even more so to make it happen. But it is only from a grounded place where our own needs are met that we can really show up in the world and be present to others. This, then, leads to the final part of the invitation of this piece: to decorate a rock and leave it as a gift for someone who comes after you.
Arrows coming from every direction invite passers-by in and arrows leaving in every direction send them on their way. This kind of intentional pause is something we all need – no matter where we are coming from or where we are going.
I also wanted to create a way for people not on-site to be able to experience the invitation for meditation and self-reflection. For this reason, I also created a video of myself walking the labyrinth, with the camera following the turning line on the ground. The music sampled in this work is purely for creative non-profit purposes and will be removed at owner's request.
There’s another post detailing the process of creating this piece (including a time lapse of drawing the labyrinth and some close ups of more decorated rocks). Check it out!!
Helpers gathering and washing rocks to be decorated
Designing the Labyrinth. (Final design was 16′ x 15′)
Time lapse of drawing the labyrinth (some slight alterations were made to accommodate the columns) and in a playful spirit I decided to make the path go on top of a few ledges.
200 rocks were decorated for the piece. I reached out to neighbors and my virtual network to crowdsource hopes and desires. The words sent back to me were included in my rock designs.
[1] Viewing Context is the location in which you see a work of art. This context denotes that the piece is art, draws connections betweens pieces of art displayed together, and can make value statements based on where the piece is displayed (ie a flag on the floor vs on the wall)
Internal Context is the context created within a work of art by the different pieces and elements.
Social Context is refers to the time and place in which a piece of art was created.
Art Historical Context looks at how a piece of art references (either in following a similar technique or subject or by subverting a known technique or subject) other pieces of art already made.
During quarantine, there are a lot of memes and images of people “recreated” famous works of art. While it is obviously referencing the art historical context, they also reflect the social context. Part of the reasons so many recreations are being made is because of the social context of covid and quarantine.
[2] Barret says that SUBJECT MATTER + MEDIUM + FORM + CONTEXTS = MEANING.
Subject matter refers to the actual images represented in a piece of art. Medium refers to the materials, such as oil on canvas or marble or whatever other materials an artist might have used to create the piece. The form refers to stylistic decisions regarding how to represent and incorporate the subject matter. Context is as described above. The combination of these elements together create the meaning. Through Subject matter, medium, form, and context the artist attempts to create a meaningful experience and interpretation for the viewer.
[3] Nacy Holt’s “Sun Tunnels” were meant to work in and with the landscape. Installed in Northwestern Utah, they were meant to give people a way to experience the immense landscape while also providing some containment or grounding points. These 4 tunnels make a rough “x” shape and point in the directions of the rising and setting sun at the summer and winter solstice. Holes in the sides of the tunnels are in the shapes of several constellations and project light and shadows that change throughout the day into the tunnels. These “constellations” are meant to provide another layer of connection to the universe.
[4] In “Time Landscape,” Alan Sonifist planted an abandoned lot in Manhatten with native plants. His goal was to reconnect city dwellers with the original landscape of the Manhatten island. He also wanted to draw attention to the run-away train of development in the city. “Time Landscape” is still there today – with lush and mature indigenous flora. It is a powerful returning to (literal) roots while challenging capitalism and “progress.” It also makes me think about how crazy expensive space is in Manhattan and how value is ascribed and determined. As land value has continued to skyrocket, it feels like a particularly rebellious and powerful commentary to have this space still be dedicated to native plants.
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