What I Learned Today From Remaking One of My Pandemic-Era Sculptures
A creative rut-breaking trick I tried + Love Advice my daughter swears by
Last week I offered some suggestions on how to get out of a Creative Block, whether its in your art studio or just generally in life. I took a look in the mirror and realized I may be in a bit of one myself, the summer can make me feel a bit slower and with less deadlines in place (other than our home renovation which is taking up most of my creative energy) I need a reboot. So I took tip #2 from my old teacher Jerry Saltz, and got to work.
*If you missed last week’s suggestions, you can catch up below:
Jerry’s advice to me was to take the last sculpture Id made and to remake it. He insisted that in the remaking it, I would see it in a new way and it would either make it better, or Id abandon it and try something new. Either way, the wheels keep turning.
One of the works I still think about reprising is a series of cast pieces I made at Eden Rift Vineyards in Northern California during the pandemic. I was invited to stay at their gorgeous residency along with one of my artist friends Liza Voloshin, who photographed the process of my work (seen below). I don’t drink alcohol, so it was funny to be invited to interpret the wines and/or be inspired by them.
Ahead of the trip I packed old notebooks and went through my “NEW MOOD” photo album, some of my most important pics are above and below.
Driving down into Eden Rift in Hollister, CA- It reminded me of places Id visited decades ago in Switzerland when I was going to meet my fathers family for the first time. This is where we stayed, and this photo is taken from the hilltop where I had a panic attack. ATVs: Not For Me.
Located at the foothills of the Gavilan Mountain Range, the vineyard sits atop the San Andreas Faultline, and is comprised of limestone-rich, calcareous deposits running through granitic, sandy beds of loam. These dramatic, nearly inhospitable soils have made it super hard for any number of grape varieties to grow.
Because they had to graft different vine varieties together in order to produce fruit, I decided to boil down cases of their completed/aged wine and make my own vines out of this sugar solution.
I reduced their Pinot Noir to a sludge, increased it to 300 degrees and then poured it carefully into silicone molds Id made of cuttings from our afternoon pruning sessions. I then did the same with their chardonnay and zinfandel. Sugar is poetic, like glass it can be melted and fused in a moment, it can make new friends and connect without the necessary time it takes for plants to be grafted to one another.
Grafting the sugar varieties together, then assembling cast grapes in geometric formations. Working against nature and against the clock of humidity which would dissolve the work in a matter of days.
When I got back to my studio in New York I took out my molds (the only part of the project I returned with) and cast some clear sugar in them. I had them on my counter for awhile before melting them down again for another project, no sugar really sticks around for long around here.
This last week I was thinking about the advice Id handed out, about remaking something from the past, figuring out a way forward through reliving the process.
I got out my vineyard molds and cast them in sugar mixed with powdered quartz. We are no longer in the kitchen, nobody is eating here. My other sculptural work is dealing with permanence and moving away from ephemeral materials. I want the work to stick around for longer, maybe even seem like its been here for awhile.
Combining materials that are both melting/disappearing in real time and that would need a seismic shift to alter their molecular structure felt like a good place to start. Ive been looking at a lot of Lalique and Baccarat, and my dream would be to make some of my sugar works in frosted glass like the ones below. Not to make replicas, but for these to be a starting point.
Interesting quality- My sugar sculptures, if I do leave them in the studio for awhile, will develop a frosted layer, much like frosted glass. It happens when the sugar has been polished and is then exposed to air or cool temperatures. The craziest version of this was at Art Basel Miami in 2016, I did an installation outside and within 30 seconds of uncovering the works, the salt in the beachy air clouded all of my crystalline sugar. It ended up looking gorgeous but it definitely brought me to tears at first.
Polishing the new branches which have been fused with artificial “fruits” and are ready to be grafted with other cuttings.
I don’t have a finished sculpture here, no completed installation or works that can be photographed properly. This process was to take me through what I experienced a few years ago at the vineyard, to recreate it here on my home soil, and to push me further in a direction that suits this moment.
What I learned here:
I want more of my work to stick around.
Forcing branches and vines together is like forcing friendships or jobs.
Adding inedible materials to the process feels more aligned with the danger of the subject matter
Im excited to work with glass this summer, I am going to learn at Haystack in August.
Uranium glass needs to factor into some of the next sculptures
Vaseline glass/ Uranium Glass vs. detail of a sugar series inspired by the medium
Now some Love Advice!
Let’s first establish that Love is Love, not just romantic love, but roommate love, friendship, and familial love.
When I was in my early 20’s I went to Jamaica with a boyfriend who left me there without a valid passport, and I had to find my way out (in only the short shorts and halter top I had, since he took our combined suitcase with him).
Passport office hours were slim, and at the end of the line at the Canadian Consulate day after day, I found myself with several hours to walk along the small strip of souvenir shops after they’d send me home and tell me to try again tomorrow.
On the final day of the trip I came across this wall hanging. It spoke to me for very obvious reasons, even if I was too young to know the depth of these rules. I was more focused on getting home.
Ever since I returned to New York, Ive had this item hanging on the back of my pantry door- a place I see each day while in the middle of day to day affairs. It’s one of the only items Ive moved with, when every other trinket or souvenir has made its way to Housingworks.
My daughter Freddie really took a liking to this list because when she’s in the bath she has a clear view of it. Last year she asked me to read it with her and she has it memorized. Over the weekend I was really at the end of my rope with bullshit behavior (and heat) and I asked her to go to bed without offering storytime or songs or any of the rituals we love to do before bed. I felt like crap but thought I should stick to my guns and be firm, this is what the podcasts tell me to do. I was doing the thing.
About 20 minutes went by and I could hear her stepping out of her room. My whole body tensed up because I knew it meant I was going to have to reaffirm my choice to skip the fun stuff, to be the parent I’d like to be, who does not allow the children to run the house.
I saw the look on her face, and it was sweet but knowing. She walked over to me at my laptop, very confidently with her chin up high.
She says:
Never go to sleep with an argument unsettled. Commandment #7.
Who was I to argue with her. I took her hand, walked back into her bedroom and read the Demeter and Artemis chapters of D’Aulaires’ Greek Myths , sang “Abracadabra” together, then thanked her for challenging me.
That’s what we want our girls to do. And this is Love.