Warming up
It was a little strange at first. I'd never done an artist residency before, I had no idea what it was or how to go about it. Then everything started very naturally: brainstorming ideas, outlining shared projects and themes. Researching. Thinking. Taking notes. Drawing. Drinking a cup of tea and laughing.
I sat down, opened my sketchbook and computer, and when I looked up, more than two hours had passed. It was absorbing, immersive, stimulating. It was like taking care of an activity that I had long treated badly. Drawing, researching, and designing are activities I've been doing regularly for over fifteen years, but I've always reserved them for the evenings, after "real job," or on weekends, in my "free time." I've never taken time just for them. It was liberating to be able to do it today. Having hours just for my ideas, to pursue them, to develop them. To relate them to the ideas of another artist, with a research and artistic experience completely different from mine.
I had the feeling that a part of me, which had been closed in a space too small for its actual dimensions, began to stretch its limbs for the first time today, savoring the flavor of possibility. I sought out works by female artists, primarily those concerned with storytelling and its intersection with gender, race, and colonialism. I immersed myself in the stories captured in Kazuko Miyamoto's Kimonos [3] and Faith Ringgold's incredible visual patchworks [2]. I rediscovered with renewed pleasure the dreamy elegance of Annette Messager's discursive installations [1].
I close my notebook with a sense of mental freshness. And of inexhaustible ideas.
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