what's a stoney

I live between LA and SF. I'm on a plane a lot. Carrying bricks, eating food, downward dog, landlording, playing with two hands and making things.

[whatsastoney]

I don't consider a work critical because it's the product of a critique, but only if you can activate a critical process, a kind of critical reflexivity in other people, of their own investments, conflicts, desires, and defenses. That's what a critical work must do, not just complain about something. Critique at its best is a verb. That's partly why, if it doesn't make me acutely anxious, I think it's not worth doing. If I can't connect with my own conflict about it and feel that conflict and work through that conflict then I'm not going to be able to get anybody else to do so. If the anxiety isn't there, I don't need to do it; it doesn't need to be done. - Andrea Fraser, artnews, winter 2016

[whatsastoney]

I peered into that soon-to-be nursery, and I saw the chair, the mobile, the perfect paintings plucked out of Cathy’s portfolio.  The color theme of grey and pink and blue.  How they are an extension of the parents’ neuroses and preferences.  And how much expectation that is bestowed an a child even before he is born.  How much burden a child is already dragging with him.  Jung and the shadow.  I wonder if he turned into a TV slob how infuriating and disgusting that would be.  But we don’t think those thoughts. 

[whatsastoney]

Agnes Martin

I had been reading about Agnes Martin, the artist.  Some notes - her style evolved from one of early landscapes, abstractions, shapes, to grids, to color fields, to some of the shapes she started off with.  She went on hiatus for a few years.  She started rather late.  She said she got inspiration from herself, but people misconstrue that as that she didn’t have influences.  I don’t think that’s what she meant.  I think it meant that she wasn’t inspired to paint until the feeling to welled up inside of her and then when she started painting, it was an act of being in a state where she was just that - her and her painting.  Somewhere in the book people talked about paying attention the small details, but one critic said that it wasn’t about that.  It was about taking away the artist from the artwork.  The immense calculations that were involved isn’t about the artist, it’s about a piece that stands up as what it is.  The artist is no longer a piece of what is created.  That kind of speaks to me.  The other thing that I was thinking about, which is this constant struggle I have with existentialism.  She wrote “we seem to be winning and losing, but in reality there is no lowing.  The wiggle of the worm as important as the assassination...”  Perhaps my thinking that humans have such a grave impact is false.  Our impact is on ourselves.  Our narcissism is that we think impact more than we do.

[whatsastoney]

The shadow is a negative phenomenon:  it is an area behind an opaque object that is shielded from the source of light.  If the illumination comes from a single point - the spotlights of the Gonzalez gallery, for example - then the shadow is sharp-edged.  In effect, it is a projected negative image:  an area of darkness surrounded by an outline.

Martin Gayford, A History of Pictures

[whatsastoney]

Shadows convey information, but also create illusions.  If the light source is multiple, or diffused, a more complex type of shadow results:  one in which there is a more solid area of darkness - the umbra - and also what is technically the penumbra, a zone in which only some of the light is blocked.  In conditions in which the light is partially diffused, as it often is, these blend smoothly into one another.  Together, the depiction of these shadows and partial shadows results in an effect of volume

Martin Gayford, A History of Pictures

[whatsastoney]

in His presence

In a way, by walking into the room, and participating in shadow-play, you are contributing to its existence.  “To see volume, you need light - and shadows”

[whatsastoney]

I had the opportunity to visit a Syrian family with a friend who is sponsoring them.  I was a little overwhelmed when I first went.. how do I behave?  How will they receive me?  Will it be similar to Malaysia?  Do I have to know any special gestures?  Do I only eat with one hand?  How do I bridge the gap in language?  Will I be scrutinized as a female of a different culture or religion? 

The family met me with such generosity.  I tried really hard to remember all of their names because I felt it would be respectful.  It was touching for me to see them embrace the country with such innocence and sincerity.  And enthusiasm.  It was beautiful to witness safety in action.  It was brutal for me to listen to how war can become normal for some people.  

There was one point while we were all in the elevator when one of the younger sons had his arms around his dad, hugging him, and his head was the height of his dad’s potbelly.. kind of buried into it.  And his dad had his hand on his kid’s head.  And it was so sweet.  And it was so safe.

And an hour earlier during dinner, the mother was talking about missiles and bombs going off outside her child’s room while he was asleep.  And one of the children talking about the sound of machine gun fire.

And how they were refugees in Lebanon for four years before eventually coming to Canada.  I cannot imagine how difficult it would have been for the family.

And yet they were so generous towards me, an absolute stranger.

They are all trying so hard.

After that very tender moment in the elevator, two people came in.  And for a moment, I saw a glimmer of something they will likely experience in the future - racism.  Even in such a multicultural society like Canada.  My heart plummeted to my feet.  It was like I wanted to preserve the moment so that they would never have to experience that feeling of being on the outside. 

I hope their family stays together.

They have survived through so much.

I want to give them as much encouragement as I can. 

They had long eyelashes and beautiful features.

The children were all so willing to learn. 

The youngest wanted to say the words, like they were constipated yet ready to fall out of his mouth. 

The middle one wanted to keep on doing math problems.

The girl was so quietly curious, and strong, and helpful and wonderful.  Translating for her parents.  I secretly wished she becomes super successful and happy at whatever she does.  Not only because she was a girl, but also because she has the potential. 

It is so easy to stereotype.  It’s so easy to point fingers. 

I had a heated exchange with a friend later that evening about news he read two days ago. 

Arabic is a beautiful language.  

It was a privilege to see Canada from their eyes.   

[whatsastoney]

The four seasons

I’m listening to The Four Seasons (Vivaldi), and it has been a long time since I listened to it.  The last time I had any thought of it was when they used “Winter” in Chef’s Table about Massimo Bottura.  And it was aptly used.  The feeling of brimming over.

My favorite movements are Summer and Winter.  Two seasons I least like, but in the Four Seasons, my favorite.  They both have a sort of violence associated with them.  Punctured violence.  Punctured drama.  Violence and drama.  And then redemption.  Spring and Fall are too stately.  Too measured.  And too enjoyable. 

[quotemadness]

Compassion basically means accepting people’s frailties, their weaknesses, not expecting them to behave like gods. That expectation is cruelty.

Osho (via quotemadness)

[whatsastoney]

Art making

There is art that I produce that I think through, the art that expresses my worldview.. my thoughts.  And there is art that I make when I feel bad.  It doesn’t have thought.  It’s anguish, despair.  Sinking.  That’s where it comes from.  The feeling of sinking.  It’s like the happiness has become bland, and it has leached out into something more dark, brutal, and violent.  And full of entropy.  And turbulence. And it’s so hard to climb out of sometimes that I just have to document it, and hope to crawl out through the process of art making. 

[whatsastoney]

[whatsastoney]

The grief that does not speak Whispers the o'erfraught heart and bids it break.

Malcolm, Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 3

[whatsastoney]

Just one note could make me float Could make me float away One note from the song she wrote Could fuck me where I lay Just one note could make me choke One note that's not a lie Just one note could cut my throat One note could make me die

Aeroplane

[whatsastoney]

Diving in the kelp is a biologist's dream. "You can be sixty feet down, looking up at these giant columns of kelp spreading out on the surface, and these golden shafts of light, like light through a stained-glass window," he said. "There are hundreds of species around you. It's like flying through the forest." We waded into the water and put our flippers and masks on. I ducked my head under and gazed. Two years ago, it was rocks and urchins. Now kelp was everywhere, ochre-colored, thirty feet tall, flailing like tube dancers outside a car wash. Three bright orange Garbaldi fish swam past, then a group of opaleye, then five kelp bass. I came up to the surface and dove down again, plugging my nose with one hand and using the other to pull myself down the length of the plant. The water was milky with kelp slough. Southern sea palms swished and swayed as the waves tumbled over them. At the surface, Ford held up a loose piece of kelp, shaky and decrepit with a small holdfast – it was sporifying. "More spores," he said. "Go, go, go."

Dana Goodyear, "A New Leaf", The New Yorker. November 2, 2015

[whatsastoney]

I've been experimenting with different ways in which the Fruit Loops can be hung. Initially, I had the fishing line going through the hole in the middle of each Fruit Loop. However, this only resulted in a lop sided effect, which I didn't really care for. I wanted the Fruit Loops to hang straight down. So I was able to figure out how to sandwich a washer between each half, and then glue them together. The fishing line is knotted inside the halves. I got this idea from thinking about how jewelry is made. When two pieces are dangling off of each other, I thought about how a chain is used to connect both of them, so that the hanging is fluid. By having the washer in the middle of each half, I'm able to dangle the fishing line from the top and also from the bottom, stringing two pieces together.

[whatsastoney]

Are there discernible differences between the watercolor on plastic, versus the watercolor on matte white paint. I've devised some kind of assembly line structure that would allow me to paint a number of fruit Fruit Loop halves at the same time. It consists of double-sided tape, whereby the Fruit Loop halves are mounted, and then I paint on top. I am still undecided as to whether I use gesso on top, or just paint straight onto the plastic.

[whatsastoney]

After reading the book, art as therapy, I was at the SFMOMA and saw Richard Serra's piece that I swear to god, I saw at LACMA almost twenty years ago. I think I spent a couple of moments just feeling the piece, and it felt oppressive. Suffocating. Every time you looked beyond a corner, there was nothing yet to be found, only more path. The rusted brown felt old, worn, decrepit. And when I got into the center, it felt especially intimidating. I could hear voices outside, but yet I couldn't climb over the wall. Aside from coming into the cavern, an exit wasn't obvious. There was a fear that if the exit had closed off, I would remain inside and starve to death. In one of the caverns, someone had evidently tried to reach the top of the sculpture because you could see hand prints clawing down the wall. It made the whole experience feel more eerie. I felt more small. I felt trapped.