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rgr-pop · 5 years

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LONG POST AIRING GRIEVANCES ABOUT DUMB SHIT IN BEAUTY COMMUNITY!!

oh my GOD. okay, so, small youtuber who is climbing. beloved by many small youtubers because she is a regular girl and very nice and FROM UPSTATE NEW YORK and has social justice interests, she also posts a lot of drama content and some people (including me tbh) really like the way she kind of ~~democratizes drama content. don’t @ me it’s whatever. reddit HATES her because her mother buys her a lot of makeup for her birthday (literally) and she is not into self-punishing no-buys which is the only thing people like right now very coincidentally (going on a no-buy is apparently how you end landfills).

this youtuber is fat and not conventionally pretty--I really hate even saying the latter because it is objectively not true and also an evil thing to say even nicely, but for example she is always talking about how she doesn’t really care that her lips are small and is not interested in overdrawing or “fixing” them, and getting flamed for it. in the community (the respectable arm of it, which is the rddt, where we are ostensibly not allowed to be like “she looks terrible”), where there is smoke there is fire, and “not skilled at makeup” + maybe some nebulous complaints about whininess = she is a fat girl, end her. (”rude” = black youtuber too much power, end her.)

i’m talking about sm*key gl*w whose name is hannah, hannah #1, i think it is interesting to contrast her with the other hannah that i talk about sometimes--i try not to talk about her too much because we sort of teechnically have real world social connections and, also, i just feel bad for her. i feel desperately bad for hannah #2, because she is in her thirties having lived in art communities and global urban centers but for the first time in her life having to reckon with things like--”it is not appropriate to talk about calories at dinner, etc.” that is the second hannah, and while she is sweet and interesting to many in the small youtube community precisely because she is very alien to them (has mfa), it’s very difficult to watch, and sometimes i think she is the most “toxic” youtuber i follow. she is not an originator in any way, but she found herself in the center of a so-called anticonsumerist movement in small beautube that is kind of taking over, which is related to but not exactly minimalism--you have probably heard me talk about this already, at length. a good example of this is that second hannah recently said in a video that she was thinking of doing a shopping “fast.” i don’t know how she became this person, and how she held onto this kind of personality in spite of being in lots of communities that i am also in or have friends in where i know that if you talked this way about dieting etc. at a social event, someone would probably softly scold you. she somehow insulated herself from this kind of learning, i don’t know, then she threw herself into beautube where a woman who maybe sort of likes art and writes poetry and has heard of “fair trade” before is an absolute anomaly, but that community--like literally, where people do liposuction and skinny teas!--has only encouraged this absolutely unreal nasty and BAD behavior. etc. i have a lot of feelings about this.

so first hannah is a fat girl who is not rich--we will get to that!--but spends her money primarily on makeup. people HATE her. second hannah is thin, possibly rich in family origin (i think she is) but basically your average working artist in life. she frames her so-called overconsumption not even precisely as an addiction but specifically as a lack of willpower that she also struggles with when it comes to sometimes eating sugar (really). both of these hannahs consume and talk about quite a lot of luxury makeup--second hannah is very openly committed to luxury purchase as part of her self-conception. second hannah sometimes goes on “shopping diets” though, so people praise her! it is evil.

above is the shit i hate day in and day out but the points below will have more to do with the screencap +...upstate new york, i guess. henceforth we are only talking about first hannah.

so this girl is from some kind of small town around rochester or syracuse--something up there. iirc she goes to a suny school i had never heard of (i looked it up and it is a “suny comprehensive college,” though i can’t remember if she transferred out of this school to a bigger school. but, as many of you know, sunys are cheap as hell and should be protected at all costs, this school costs well under half what my state school did, for residents anyway.) she is in her mid-twenties and not graduated yet, due to struggles she has had (and spoken openly about) as well as having gone to community college. they LOVE to bring up how she is too old to be a college student! she’s like...idk 24 or something. she is going to school to be a social worker in one of those accelerated programs, which she has found quite difficult (again, spoken openly about this) and which also requires, as many of you know!, lots of extra work, unpaid and paid. she said somewhere that she does not have student loans, but i don’t know if her parents paid for her college or just shouldered loans, or if she paid for it, or if it is all financial aid. (”not having student loans” is something that enrages people, ESPECIALLY when someone doesn’t have loans because they got need-based aid.) again, she probably had some financial catastrophes due to school failures (speaking from experience here), but: sunys is cheap as hell and there are a million reasons why someone could go to one and not be struggling with loans!

where was i...her parents. watching this has fascinated me! her dad was a school teacher and her mom is a social worker--absolutely public servant middle class. i thiiink (could be wrong) that her father retired already and ended up retiring from a principalship, so they were probably extremely comfortable by the time she was in college, but they are definitionally middle class. the biggest controversy around this youtuber is that for birthdays and christmas her mother goes fucking insane--probably spent two to four hundred dollars on her for her birthday. she talks about this all the time: her mother and her are very close and their hobby is shopping. people treat this like the bougiest fucking thing on earth and it is ba nanas. straight up, this girl has probably never even HEARD of anthropologie. listen, i can’t afford to live like her either but i recognize poor shopping when i see it. working class people like to blow their money on bullshit and to take issue with that is demonstrably racist and classist! i will not hear this conversation over again in 2019. for example, hannah made a video about her “high end bag” collection, in which she said she got a bcbg bag on sale for like $30 but had never heard of the brand before. she had once been gifted a kate spade bag and her DREAM was to purchase one on her own. she buys coach at the local coach outlet, which is a regional attraction. THIS GIRL IS NOT BOUGIE! THEY ARE JUST MAD THAT SHE OWNS CLOTHES AND IS ALSO FAT! she did a closet tour where she talked about how she has like 50 crop tops, they were ALL like forever 21. they are just mad about fat girl in crop tops. there is nothing to see here! does she have too much shit, and shop too much? sure. welcome to flyover country you dumb bitches. that is what I think about that!

so, she definitely makes money on youtube, but mostly enough to sustain youtube and makeup buying (possibly some savings? unsure. i know she said this in a video but i forget.) she has lived with this boyfriend of hers for a number of years and they are building a life together that doesn’t immediately include marriage, probably largely for financial reasons. i get the sense that his jobs pay a lot of their bills, but he just finished getting a teaching MA of some kind (i think he is a math teacher? i already forgot) and is entering the regular teaching job market. based on some of the following i think his parents might be wealthier than hers but i think they might also be teachers. as you can see in the screenshot above, people are enraged at this girl for apparently being a gold digger for getting a house with him before they are married!

people are SO pissed that she was “able to buy a house” at age 25, but they did not watch the video! in which she said that they had been dealing with the death of her bf’s step grandpa all year, and the family had decided that they should take over the step grandpa’s house. (step grandpa’s family does sound “richer” because, according to her, this house had been owned by a GREAT grandparent and paid off decades ago.) her descriptions of this house are confusing to me because she keeps referring to it as both “old” and “from the eighties,”; I think it is an actually old house that had not been “updated” since the eighties. seems like the family did not “gift” it to them as much as sign it over to them in exchange for them being the ones to take out the renovation loans, which allegedly she said are $50k. unclear to me if she and her bf got approved for that loan--probably not, I think it was taken out in the family’s name. ($50k is too much to put into a house in rochester imooo but I am reserving my judgment there! rochester has a very flyover housing economy, much like ours, but with a much higher end, I think?)

so anyway, these vultures are sociopaths. “ Who gives someone a house no matter how much they like them? That seems wild to me” ...p-parents? dead grandparents? is your will gonna be like “my kid has to buy their OWN house like i did!” who are these people

YES SOMETIMES YOU STOP NEEDING YOUR HOUSE, WHEN YOU DIE

anyway I’m done. I just thought this thing would be of interest in particular to the upstate new yorkers. the whole condition of the indebted working-middle class is just like inconceivable to people who consume only ideologically pure content by wealthy west coast whites all day long

#makeupblogger fandom

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ambrvsel · 5 years

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hey there demons! it’s me, sam ( she / her, 22, est timezone ) aaaand here’s a fourth char, which i’ve never had here but we started accepting older muses and daniel sharman is one of my fave fcs ever so here we are. pls bear with me but ok let’s hop into this! character info under the cut and as always please message me here or @ellvie if you’d like to plot!

╰☆╮ DANIEL SHARMAN ─ AMBROSE LANCASTER identifies as CIS MALE and uses HE/HIM pronouns. they’re a POET/ACTOR, and they’re only TWENTY-EIGHT ! they’re said to be INGENIOUS, but also BROODING. i guess that’s why they’re known as THE WORDSMITH in the tabloids. *mia's older brother wc!

so, this is...ambrosius cyril lancaster. we just don’t know why the lancaster parents gave him such a mouthful of a name and then looked at their second kid and went nah just one ( 1 ) syllable for this one, but it happened and now here we are! he tends to go by ambrose, which is just the simplified version of his actual name and takes less than five fuckin hours to say

anyway, as you might have guessed ambrose is mia’s older brother! they’re about seven years apart which is obviously a significant age gap, but it never really stopped them from being v close!

he was born and raised in los angeles, california where he experienced your typical upper middle class sort of lifestyle during his childhood. his parents divorced when he was a teenager, but it was amicable so he was able to kinda just accept it and move on with his life. he and mia lived with their mother most of the time, but both of their parents are cool and he really doesn’t have any issues with them or any serious childhood tragedies at all really

so growing up he was always kinda quiet and timid, but not painfully so. as his interests in the arts developed, his parents kinda nudged him into doing things like joining the drama club, which helped him to come out of his shell a bit

yes, he was a Theater Kid™ i’m so sorry everyone

he was...v v good at acting to the point where he wound up going to hollywood arts a special performing arts high school in hollywood on an acting scholarship. he starred in many of the school plays which usually had a lot of talent agents and casting directors and producers in the audience so he got noticed without really trying tbh

did a couple small tv appearances when he was 16 - 17 in all of the basic af teen drama shows of the time like pll & tvd & gossip girl. so, nothing special or groundbreaking buuuut it got him noticed by a lot of studios and hollywood people who were offering him much bigger roles in tv and film but he was like nah and went to college instead.

so he took a small break from acting in order to study poetry at columbia university in nyc, but he got bored bc it felt kinda easy to him oops. so he quickly went back to acting on the side while continuing his studies and got himself a steady recurring role on yet another basic teen drama to keep him entertained while he went through school.

he got his mfa in poetry from columbia a few years ago and he’s v proud of it aw i love that for him :’)

however after graduating he really didn’t do much with his writing bc he accidentally bit off more than he could chew by taking on a couple more acting roles bc he figured he’d be able to manage it and still work on his poetry but...nah. as a result his writing has kinda fallen by the wayside but he’s still really passionate about it!

was engaged to torrance keynes for a time and it wound up being v...Messy. she got pregnant more than once, but unfortunately miscarried each time. it was obvs difficult on both of them and it turned out to be too much and so they eventually broke things off. he’s still kind of a wreck over everything but like how could he not be? it’s still a very sore subject for him but like what are you gonna do! he basically just refuses to talk about it and pretends everything is fine haha yikes

he’s kinda been switching between la and nyc ever since he started college bc of school and work and going to see his fam ( especially mia! ) and he’s never really settled in one place or the other? but he’s really fallen in love with nyc and it’s where he spends most of his free time!

might have dipped to la for a little longer than usual after his last break up with torrance, buuuut he’s obvs returned and i think he’s planning to stay put for now

extra fun facts! probs a good thing to read if you’re looking for a tl;dr tbh

he’s probs on a tv show right now. think like american horror story or the walking dead or something? i feel like he gets typecast as a dark/brooding/sarcastic type of character in a lot of ~edgy~ type of shows. lmk if you’ve got any suggestions for a specific role bc rn i’ve got nothing

critics and management and even fans often complain that he’s wasting his immense acting talent on all of these smaller roles, but ambrose is happy with his career rn. he loves acting and he doesn’t want it to start feeling like a chore and he wants freedom and flexibility so that he can finally start focusing on his poetry.

“are you mad?” no that’s just his face

hobbies include boxing, throwing knives, surfing, taking walks, watching pretentious films, hanging out in record stores, and some dabbling in drawing.

loves to read, always carrying a book around and sticking his nose in it if he has a few minutes of free time & it’s not uncommon to see him with a new book every single day, or even more than one book in a single day

he’s kind of a hipster i’m sorry

also just kinda...slightly...a little...very Dramatic™

might do music on the side but like……...very far on the side. he’s probs a drummer?? in some arctic monkeys type of shitty indie rock band but he enjoys it so whatever

a total gentleman and a romantic, but also most likely a Disaster in the relationships department so...watch out for that too ig!

personality: ambrose is quiet, perceptive, intelligent, eloquent, creative, pensive, sarcastic, dramatic, tumultuous, and passionate. he can come across as standoffish but it’s just Resting Bitch Face and the fact that he’s an introvert working against him. just start talking about film or books or something and he’ll warm right up. he’s a v loyal and protective friend, nice and polite to strangers, but noticeably a bit closed off ( especially after the miscarriages and failed engagement ). basically - all you need to know about ambrose is that if someone told you that he was secretly a 500 year old british vampire who likes to surf in his spare time then you would probably believe them.

here are a few lame connection ideas that you should not feel limited by whatsoever!

best friend

friends

frenemies

former costars

enemies

romantic - exes, crushes, pr relationships maybe? & all that stuff

people he attended school with - either in la or at columbia

college roommates?

other members of his little side project indie band?

ok that’s it for now! feel free to message me if you’d like to plot and as always, i’m super excited to write with you all!

#excessintro #divorce tw #miscarriage tw #plot with me cowards

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floridamining · 5 years

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Interview with Matt Allison and Matthew Usinowicz

January 19, 2019

Artists of Slamdance Cosmopolis

About the artists:

Matt Allison

Matt Allison is a collector and (re)arranger of objects. In a culture increasingly driven by immaterial content and virtual realities, he remains dedicated to uncovering the stories contained within stuff. His practice is particularly informed by the unexpected object pairings that come from “DIY” repurposing projects and homegrown interventions.

He was a co-manager of the experimental art space OPAQ in Jacksonville, FL, and is the co-founder of Sea Farm City and MNK Studio which operate in Downtown Los Angeles. Matt received his BFA from Ringling College of Art and Design in 2004, and his MFA from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2015.

www.mattallisonprojects.com @mattallisonprojects

Matthew Usinowicz

Conceptually drawn to social politics and the physical accumulation of stuff, with a specific interest in the relationship between humans and objects, Matthew works in a process- based mode of production using materialism – the physical and psychological elements of materials – to visually communicate. The results are fabricated objects, using an interdisciplinary practice to create; these objects are used as a humorous, allegorical means of telling a story.

Last time Matthew was in Jacksonville, it was the last stop aboard a US Navy vessel before heading to the Persian Gulf in 2001. 17 years later, he finds himself making and exhibiting artwork that critiques the very system he swore to protect and defend. Some things never change, just the vessel you choose to arrive in.

Matthew received his BFA from San Francisco Art Institute and his MFA from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

www.matthewusinowicz.com @matthew_usinowicz

Where are you from and where are you now working?

Matt: I was born in South Florida, and slowly moved my way North to Jacksonville. I lived in Brooklyn for a few years, before coming out to California. I currently live and work in Los Angeles.

Matthew: I was born in Salt Lake City, but I’ve lived most my life either floating somewhere on the water, or in the San Francisco Bay Area. Currently I live and work in San Francisco.

How did you meet each other and what sparked your collaboration?

Matt: Matthew and I were in the same Graduate Program. I could tell from his work that we had common influences... So I invited him over for dinner. He brought two bottles of wine and several blocks of cheese. We've been working together ever since.

Matthew: We met in graduate school in Southern California. We naturally gravitated towards each other through similar interests: cooking, good food, music, politics, fighting common childhood conformities, grafitti, and of course art making.

How is your work similar? How is your work different?

Matt: We each have our own odd take on formalism with very strong affinities for color. Our reference points overlap a lot: Music, graffiti, providing food for loved ones... We're different in the way we approach materials. Matthew is a butcher so he breaks a material down to its "rawest form." He then refines the material and rebuilds it into something new. I'm a collector, so I'm more concerned with preservation, and transformation through association.

Matthew: We both focus on materials and objects how they exist, how they operate in spaces, and how we can activate (or disrupt) their state. We deconstruct these objects and materials differently. Matt is more of a “arranger or re-arranger” of objects. I intend to break down the objects/ materials formally and manufacture a new, different objects from my deconstruction.

What inspired the show Slamdance Cosmopolis?

Matt: My inspiration for Slamdance Cosmopolis is how “everyday” the process of dehumanization has become. While political leaders are talking about fellow human beings as if they're some alien invasion, the corporate world is looking for prospective employees to be a minimum wage version of Siri. Meanwhile, we’re all sacrificing lived experience in favor of being documentarians for our own fictitious "social" media empire. Everyone is either a super villain or a super hero - No one is just a complex and flawed individual that knows they have no business throwing the first stone.

Matthew: Shitty people in government and shitty people in general.

Why did you choose to do a show in Jacksonville?

Matt: I lived in Jacksonville for during a very formidable time in my life, and consider it my home (even though I didn't get there until I was 23. I love the city's strengths, and wanted to be a small part of the growth that'll overcome its weaknesses. Working with the ACLU of North Florida on a show that opened a few days before midterm elections seemed like a good way to do it.

Matthew: Matt has a strong connection with Jacksonville; working and living there and being involved in the food and art scenes. I heard nothing but good things about Florida Mining Gallery and intriguing nostalgia about Jacksonville. I’ve never been (with exception of a pit stop while cruising with the US Navy) and I love shrimp, grits, and beer! It has been a pleasure making work for Jacksonville, staying in Jacksonville, and eating my fair share of Mayport shrimp in Jacksonville.

What does the title Slamdance Cosmopolis mean?

Matt: It’s a coupling from the poem that Allen Ginsburg recites in the song “Ghetto Defendant” that closes out the A side of Combat Rock.

Matthew: The urge (and possible need) to break out in full mosh (slam dance) mode in a crowded metro car because the crazy shit that’s happening now, the dehumanization and government corruption and pettiness, is absurd. And we all need a good mosh pit now and then.

How would you summarize Slamdance Cosmopolis?

Matt: A visual conversation between two friends, trying to figure out how to retain one’s connection to humanity amid the economic disparity, language barriers, gentrification, emotional isolation, crime and pollution that permeate our respective cityscapes.

Matthew: A dialogue from the past, is the dialogue of the present. Generation after generation, this recurrence of very little change creates anxiety, and progress is moving too damn slow. As a visual artist these are our/ my modes of expression in hope to inspire others to being more active in a push to sustained progress for the human race.

What about Combat Rock by the Clash motivated you to create the series of posters featured in the show?

Matt: It's a record that naturally gets put on the turntable every time Matthew, my wife Katie and I are hanging out in our living room. After several years, we had so many conversations with it playing in the background that it became, in my mind, a sort of conduit for a lot of our best ideas. The Clash are the perfect jumping off point for anyone who want’s to make critical thinking seem like the coolest thing on the planet.

Matthew: Song titles and overall theme. 

What is your favorite piece from Slamdance Cosmopolis?

Matt: The "Straight to Hell" poster. Aside from being my favorite song on the album, the lyrics are eerily (and depressingly) relevant to our current administration’s tactic of reducing human life to political capital. I picked the image of Elian Gonzalez as a stand in for the abandoned Vietnamese child from the song, and the very next morning news breaks of families being separated at the Southern Border. Check in as I’m writing this, and those children are now dying in American custody. This is not a partisan issue- Children shouldn’t be victims of our own fabricated conflicts. It doesn’t matter if the president’s last name is Clinton or Trump. Or if you don’t want to give up your assault rifle. Or if you still believe in the doctrine of the Catholic Church. Or if you think frozen concentrate is more convenient then peeling an orange.

Matthew: Straight to Hell. The layers of content are deep and visually it kicks ass!

Do you have plans for your next collaboration?

Matt: Yes, always. Contrary to the artist myth, I got (and stay) in this game to work with others.

Matthew: Yes. Cooking more food together in L.A. or S.F.

Who are some of your biggest influences? Artists or otherwise?

Matt: Currently the list is as follows: My wife Katie and daughter my Clementine, the ACLU, Philip Glass, Chef Dan Giusti's work transforming public school cafeterias, Bell Hooks, the novel Alas Babylon, Defend Boyle Heights, and the Spiritual Jazz scene of the late 1960’s.

Matthew: Traveling. Food. Music. People I meet (formally, through shared experience, eye contact, or otherwise.) when traveling.

How do you navigate the creative process? What helps you develop a piece from beginning to end?

Matt: My creativity is my primary problem solving tool, I’d truly be lost with out it. I’m also extremely restless when it comes to my art practice, so I have this sort of natural catalyst constantly pushing me forward. I’ve never been one to chase the “finish line” when it comes to making work. I’m interested in work that allows for any number of variations, and that grows and evolves over time. Especially when an exhibition is usually the first time you have different people interacting with the work. In a lot of ways, that’s when things are just getting started.

Matthew: Watching/ listening to S.F. Giants baseball, watching “The Wire”, “The Sopranos”, “Fargo” (TV), “Breaking Bad”, or “Better Call Saul”, over again...

Do you have a preferred medium?

Matt: Some small found object that that stirs my soul for reasons unknown me.

Matthew: Never, ever. Always changing. Never limit yourself to medium.

What are your hobbies outside of art? 

Matt: Trying not to worry.

Matthew: Travel, eating/ drinking, cooking, music, baseball.

#artist #interview

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byopposing-endthem · 6 years

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Seeking Stillness

The bigger part of the painting depicts what looks like an iceberg, or a map, or a rock. The smaller part could be some hills and grass, or an island, or a telephone pole. Maybe a dinosaur. Looking at it is like looking at the clouds: possibility passing by, urging you to look longer and think harder. Its title is A Story. The background is the sort of white-grey haze that obscures the plot in a mystery novel. It’s patchy, and there’s a lot of empty space and indistinct shapes, like a book with an ambiguous ending. Both halves seem divergent, but they share a streak of bruise-blue here and there, and the same imagination-stirring style. Admittedly, it’s the sort of piece I would usually look at briefly before snapping a photo.Katja Vujićstood in front of it like it really was a novel, like she couldn’t put it down. It made me look closer too.

A Storyis part of a larger exhibition in the Museum of Fine Arts called Seeking Stillnessthat displays the works of various artists. The instillations included are meant to encourage introspection, contemplation, and meditation. Seeing Katja walk through the space, drifting past sculptures and pausing in front of paintings, she struck me as belonging. Her hair was damp from the drizzly walk to the museum, and its wispiness reminded me of sweeping lines of ink. She held her coat, which was grey and textured like Conjunction 15-214, a piece painted on burlap. She excitedly introduced her favorite works, and we’d talk about them; she listening to my stuttering comments with patient focus. Or I would turn around and she would be across the gallery, her footsteps obscured by the piano music flowing from above. Listening to Katja speak and seeing her internalize the art in front of her emphasized the thought that she seems to apply to each aspect of her life.

Sharing a conversation – or even a college course – with Katja involves an intimidating level of insight coupled with a comforting sense of searching for the right words. She is extremely articulate, but often interrupts herself with clarifications, hesitations, and self-deprecations. She tends to needlessly apologizes at the end of her sentences. Sometimes she cuts her words off with a laugh. She strongly values the education she has received, but in a non-academic setting, she is just as likely to joke around as name drop Aimé Césaire. The comments she makes in class are always pointed and focused; the comments that she makes about her thoughts and beliefs are made with equal care, but interspersed with goofy little anecdotes and actions. In the Mark Rothko: Reflection exhibition, she noted the use of similar shades that could only be distinguished by staring. This reminded her of a scene from a Mary Kate and Ashley movie, which she then acted out in the middle of the gallery, complete with an impersonation of a wise French boy who told them that they had to really look at art to appreciate it.

Her room smells like lemongrass; the culprit is a cute little diffuser puffing away in the corner. There’s a charming display of mismatched mugs and wooden spoons carefully arranged by the sink. There’s a printed pillow on the dorm-regulation arm chair, and colorful souvenir magnets decorating the fridge. The coffee table has a silver magazine tray in the corner. Even the view of Boston Common looks like it was projected on a green screen in order to perfect the ambience of the place. It reminds me of a spread in a Pottery Barn Teen catalogue, except for the handle of vodka nestled by the spoons, or the tapestry depicting the Great Wave off Kanagawa made up of tiny pugs next to the fridge. Katja is like that too. She reminds me of a model, tall and slim. Her dark hair is stylish, cut with blunt bangs; her clear-framed glasses are chic. But she fidgets endearingly while she thinks; she tugs on the hoops in her ears, twists the rings on her fingers, and nudges the magazine tray with the toe of her black Converse.

Katja was born in Zagreb, Croatia, and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, when she was about seven months old. She has one sibling, a sister named Stella, who’s four years younger. Stella, who is now eighteen, feels as though she is closer to Katja than she is to their parents in some respects. Katja is the one who toured colleges with her, not their parents. They were raised to be both sisters and friends, but they continue to be close because of their actions now. According to her sister, Katja has always put her best effort into maintaining relationships with those she loves. She always finds time to talk on the phone, and when Stella visited in order to tour colleges on the East Coast, Katja went with her and showed her around despite having class.

Katja seems to put people first in both action and thought. Her political and societal opinions prioritize empathy, liberation, and equality. She supports liberalism, but only to an extent – “I also have a problem with liberal politics in that a lot of liberals are like, ‘yeah, I’m a liberal, so I can’t do anything wrong,’” she explains. Standing in front of a Rothko painting that features a rough rectangle of scarlet pigment, she expressed disbelief that some pro-gun advocates could value their “fun hobby” over the lives of other human beings. Her time at Emerson College, an overwhelmingly liberal school, has only made her more “politically correct,” in the words of her sister. It has also been the cause of some of their squabbles. Katja will get annoyed at Stella for phrasing something in a more potentially offensive way than someone at Emerson might. In turn, Stella is annoyed by Katja’s inherent hatred of Republicans, whether or not they voted for Trump. Katja finds political beliefs to be inseparable from moral identity, and refuses to excuse them.

Katja told me that she thrives on the exchange of love. She knows that Valentine’s Day is a corporate invention, but is fond of it because she can dedicate it to expressing her love for her friends and family. Stella notes, “She has a really large capacity to love. It makes her a great friend, but can hurt her in some ways, like when her friends don’t necessarily return that love.” Much of the walk to the MFA was spent wandering in the right general direction, ignoring Google Maps for the sake of conversation. Katja had mentioned before that she had a lot of friendships that ended without her wanting them to. Friends would make excuses, or stop answering her messages, and she’d “wake up one morning” and realize they could no longer be considered friends. As much as she tries to appreciate the time she’s had with people and accept that it’s over, she still wants to figure out why people care less than she does so she can “fix it.” As much as she values friendship, she spends a lot of time alone. She isn’t always lonely, but admits that she doesn’t really have friends in Boston anymore. She mentioned Akosa Ibekwe, one of her closest friends, who recently returned to Los Angeles after graduating from Northeastern. She spent much of the last year spending time with him exclusively. “We’re both very private people who spend most of our free time alone,” he told me, “and it wasn’t long before we started spending most of our alone time together.”

Akosa says that she’s “very friendly, but difficult to get close to.” Stella considers herself to be a more open person than her sister. “I definitely know a lot about her,” she says, “but usually it takes more prodding from my side.” When we were speaking, she seemed to hit boundaries in what she felt comfortable sharing. When I asked her about school, she said vaguely that it was “a really difficult experience” to be able to attend Emerson. Stella, on the other hand, freely explained that that their parents – and especially their father – were against Katja moving out of state for college.

Katja did mention her father at other points; he’s a controlling man who she describes as “very against emotion.” She grew up not being able to express any strong feelings, even excitement, without upsetting him. Being away from home, she appreciates the freedom to openly feel the way that she does. She says that she feels emotions strongly. She gets angry often but it burns out quickly. She has learned to compartmentalize so that she can sometimes be happy. Her outlook fluctuates between “sad and fatalistic” and moments of hope or feeling at peace, which usually come when she hasn’t looked at the news in a while. Akosa finds that “the state of the world seems to weigh more heavily on her than most, and while it can be hard for her and people who care about her, it’s inspiring in this world that overflows with apathy.” She says that she never used to cry when she was a child, but now she finds herself needing to sometimes, even if it’s just happy tears at a Facebook video involving animals.

She uses the phrase “used to” a lot. She used to be more self-conscious; she used to care what other people thought of her more. She used to envy the characteristics of other people. Now she seems to be seeking her own stillness, contemplating life ahead. It’s her last semester of college, and she speaks about herself as if in the midst of deciding who she is and what she believes in. She seems to be trying to find her place in the world, and taking the time to do so thoughtfully.

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houstonlocalus-blog · 7 years

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Visual Vernacular: Roberta Harris

Roberta Harris. “Flight Time” (detail)

Amongst the many artistically talented and conceptually strong artists in our city, one particular artist is about to show forth her lasting and lyrical work through a special exhibition downtown through Arts Brookfield, Wing It! Effervescent and elegant, thoughtful in both application and meaning, Roberta Harris will showcase a variety of work dating from 1995 to the present. She has created work in the times of dramatic artistic changes during the 1970s, when famous artists walk amongst her studio and other creatives such as Phillip Glass invited Harris and other artists to his rehearsals. Over the years, Harris has cultivated a visual voice all her own, ethereal and joyful in nature while paying close attention to magical details. The work on display at Two Allen Center, curated by Sally Reynolds, lends itself to winged creatures in a kaleidoscope of colors. Harris was kind enough to answer a few questions for Free Press Houston to reflect on her career and her recent show.

Free Press Houston: Within the workings of your aesthetic, when did you begin to become attracted to such subjects as vines, birds, particular colors, etc?

Roberta Harris: When I was a young girl, I lived next to a forest. This was the first place where I journeyed alone. There, in that wilderness, I discovered great mystery: above me, below me, to my right and to my left — a 360-degree cacophony of life.

Before a banquet set for senses, amid…

the sounds of insects and birds the smells of bark, leaves, moss and wildflowers

the sensation of wind, rain, and humidity, the visions of color, texture, light through dense trees, and life

teeming in swampy puddles, I became sensuous.

Although I have thought of that experience often, I am just now paying attention to how this “nest” shaped my soul and my work.

Roberta Harris, “Welcome to the Neighborhood”

FPH: What were some of the moments that made you ponder and turn towards art?

Harris: As a young child, I remember having a blackboard on an easel. I mostly drew ballerina’s standing on point. Those ballerina’s managed to find their way into many of the collages and paintings I did in the late ’80s and early ’90s.

In regards to a connection to the “arts,” the only art we had in our home was a pair of framed prints of standing females. They were probably copies of 19th Century American Portraiture & Genre Painting. Placed over our upright piano, I looked at them all the time as I practiced my piano lessons.

In elementary school we took a field trip to the Museum of Fine Arts. I remember being most impressed with a very detailed portrait of a queen which we were told was painted with only a few hairs of a paintbrush! Her garment was truly lavish and bejeweled. Only now as I write this, am I realizing that was probably the first moment I related the idea of “time” to making art.

When I was 8 years old, we took a trip to my uncle’s home in New Jersey. He was a landscape muralist. His living room depicted a beautiful floor to ceiling landscape that covered two long walls. In his kitchen he had hand-painted apples everywhere….walls, cabinets, doors and ceiling. I was astonished to totally surrounded by hand-painted apples! At that time I told him that I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. His words to me were to be a commercial artist because then I could make a living.

My father was a master craftsman who worked with glass. For many years he worked for one of the major glass companies that installed windows, mirrors and intricate installations in private and commercial spaces. He and his team installed the huge windows of the control tower at the Hobby Airport in the ’50s. As a young adult, I would go out to his studio (our one-car garage) and help him with some projects. From this experience with him, I learned one of my greatest art and life lessons: “Necessity is the mother of invention”.

My mother taught herself to be an architect and designed a number of homes, which she and my father built. She also loved ceramics and mosaics. So, between the two of them, geometric forms and the idea of construction was very much implanted in my being.

When I was in the 8th grade, I won a scholarship to the MFA. Other than my wonderful 7th grade art teacher, this was really my first experience with art and being in the museum on a regular basis.

Another huge artful influence in my teen years, was my infatuation with the Neiman Marcus ads in the Houston Post and Chronicle. Every Sunday there would be a full page of an avant garde drawing of a figure, showing the fashions of the moment. I was enthralled with the line quality and freedom of expression in creating an image. I decided that I wanted to go to New York to study and learn how to do that! It’s a long story, but eventually I did go to New York after a year of studying in Texas, and was accepted at Parsons School of Design and Hunter College.

I majored in Fashion Illustration and Fine Art. This was in the mid ’60s when the art world in New York was on fire and American art history was being made. I was so privileged to see the beginning of Pop Art (Andy Warhol and the soup cans), the art of the action painters such as DeKooning (who all my classmates emulated in life painting class) as well as new art of Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Jasper Johns, Lee Bontecou, Louise Nevelson, Jim Dine, Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Lewis, Marisol, James Rosenquist, and Phillip Pearlstein. This was an education up close.

Returning to Houston, I got a job at Dillard’s when they opened the new store in the Galleria. My job, a full page in both papers, was to create an avant garde figure showing the fashions of the moment (After a couple of years, the management decided they wanted to show more salable, recognizable imagery and my job there was over). After my daughter was born, I returned to the University of Houston and majored in Fine Art.

Roberta Harris, “Sky Chair”

FPH: Over the course of your career, what were some of the breakthroughs and/or milestones that still run through your current work today?

Harris: Being accepted into the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1972 was a very important milestone in my life.

Again, this was a time of history-making art in America. My equipment at that time was a compressor, an air gun, glass, natural pigments, Rhoplex, chalk and canvas. My assigned studio was on the edge of Chinatown, in a large room plus the vault, in the basement of a bank, which was now being used as an off-track betting company (I was told to not fool around with the enormous vault door because no one knew where the key was). After making a heroic size painting that was about 16 feet wide, I decided to stop everything I was doing and just absorb, learn and grow as an artist while I was there. Just few of the artists who came to the studio were Lucas Samaras, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Smithson, and Chuck Close. One of the comments that stands out from Lucas Samaras was “Making art is like making a salad. It’s not enough to have the ingredients….everything depends on what you do with them.” Another great memory is being in Chuck Close’s studio and seeing him work, with all his accoutrement neatly around him at the end wall of a large loft. Phillip Glass, the musician, was another memorable person who talked with our group. We got invited to his private practice sessions with his ensemble. They met on an empty floor of a gutted out loft building. Beautiful rugs were spread out in the middle of the room and we sat on the floor and listened to these extraordinary musicians, making sounds we had never heard before.

I think that the thread that runs through my work is about an experiential experience. This goes back to the forest where I grew up and the sensation of experiencing everything around me all at once. I have, for most of my life, believed that just as everything exists in the world simultaneously, so can it all exist in what I do. It’s my salad. The vocabulary I’ve used has included numerous iconic forms such as birds, sticks, hearts, figures, plants as well as geometric forms. I am mostly interested in the experience of seeing and feeling and being left with an uplifted spirit.

Roberta Harris, “Process”

FPH: Tell me about how you came up with the title of your recent show and how it reflects in your work?

Harris: Sally Reynolds curated this show and decided to use some of my available bird images…or works that relate to birds and nests and other winged forms. As I understand, choosing the name of the exhibition was a spontaneous idea that occurred to Sally and the Brookfield Arts group when they knew birds were the theme. I thought it was a perfect title. I love what Sally said in the essay she wrote for the show. Just a few lines:

“What do we do when we wing it? Well, sometimes we trust ourselves to fate, we let go, probably unprepared, and we do the best we can. We improvise as if we were an understudy in the the wings of the theatre who didn’t quite learn all the lines, we push on. We try to fly! We join our feathered friends and at times get a new perspective an elevated look at a broader landscape. And the birds, sitting, hovering, flying, beckon each of us to courageously take wing as they do.”

FPH: What has it been like to work with Sally Reynolds and Arts Brookfield?

Harris: Working with Sally Reynolds and Brookfield Arts has been totally pure pleasure. Sally is a magnificent person and a real art professional who has a brilliant eye, a big heart and a beautiful soul.

FPH: What are some thoughts or concepts you hope appear in between the lines of the exhibition?

Harris: Throughout my career, through a variety of media, my mission as an artist has been to inspire hope and its corollaries – dialogue, joy, encouragement, strategy, peace, kindness and imagination. The feeling of “UP” is what I hope to convey. Given the challenges that we face, hope demands courage, commitment, endurance and renewal. If I can contribute to that, then I’m doing the job I was sent here to do.

Roberta Harris’ exhibition “Wing It!,” curated by Sally Reynolds and presented by Arts Brookfield, runs through September 7, 2017 at Two Allen Center located at 1200 Smith Street, 2nd Floor.

Visual Vernacular: Roberta Harris this is a repost

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