Julia Trops Artist Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-29

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Aug 292010

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Julia Trops Artist Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-22

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Aug 222010

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Our Life Models Are More Than Still Life

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Aug 072010
Ink on board sold

ink on board, sold

The difference between my models and others was made clear to me today. A new potential model asked me if I was going to tell him how to pose, when to turn, how long he should stay in one pose. I said no that the model was responsible for all of this.

My models are independent thinking human beings who retain control over their person. They choose whether to be draped, semi or undraped. They are given very loose direction for the performance during the sessions.

The majority of artists in Livessence continue, in their drawing or painting, to remember and respect the models humanity. I am of the opinion that an observer would be able to tell the difference between an artist rendering of a human still life and the capturing of the human existence.

I believe that these days, there are more artists who fall in the latter category rather than the former. I think it has to do with the awareness of the artist himself for others and this sensitivity is what gives that additional consciousness to their work.

Posted by juliatrops at 8:58 pm Tagged with: , , , , ,

Cross cultures – cross purposes?

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May 082010

Not really sure how to start this one out except to say Aloha from sunny Hawaii. I’m in Hawaii with my family and we are enjoying the sun and the wind. Getting lots of vitamin D that’s for sure.

Chris and I were here 15 years ago when we were still in the military. We came on a five day training flip. At that time I don’t remember it being so … Americanized. The area we are staying in is Waikiki and our first day we just took it easy, we went to costco for our week’s meals then walked around the beach area. Vendors, many vendors , selling the waikiki experience, the hawaiian attitude of colour and flowers and grace. Some were not so graceful as they tried to lure the fish in from the sea of tourists as they walked by.

Yesterday we went to the Bishop museum. Chock full of the authentic Hawaiian culture, the building was almost empty. Gorgeously carved wooden statues and meticulously interpreted artifacts were displayed in three sided glass cases encased in wood themselves. From astronomy to traditional calendars to politics and warfare to the eventual takeover by missionaries and absorption into the western culture. I am not a church hater but I do believe they have a lot to answer for. Genocide of a different form has occurred here and elsewhere in the world. I could feel the anguish of an almost lost culture by the Daughters of Hawaii Supported and encouraged by Bernice Bishop, a Hawaiian Princess who turned down ruling, the Daughters have created a haven for the Hawaiians to come and remember their heritage.

Immediately after the Bishop museum we went to what was billed as a traditional luau at Paradise Cove, near Ko Olina. We were here at this exact luau 15 years ago and wanted our children to see it too. The only difference was that we visited the Bishop Museum this time, we didn’t last time. I am so very glad we did. The contrast between tradtional and modern could not have been more stark. The luau was very enjoyable as an outing but most of my enjoyment came from watching fat attendees waddle from one event to another, called by the pu’u, the conch shell. Repetious long calls on the shell talked over by a pretty hawaiiaan girl on a microphone saying “follow the call of the pu’u, the conch shell to your next event” over and over and over and over until the sea of cattle moved from one place to another. Spear throwing, hula dancing, old canoes on the tiny bay, three to a canoe changing out after one trip which took approximately 30 seconds. Not to mention it took five to ten minutes to get these three people in the boat and seated.

I came back to the hotel room last night with a lot of dismay at the status of the current Hawaiian situation. The Hawaiian culture is not even touched on the barest of surfaces by many of these tourists and I believe it is a sad state when people don’t know any different. This world today is a shallow place and I wonder at it.

I am almost welcoming the catastrophe expected in 2012 to wash away and clear out the guck in our consciousness. I suspect people will look to tradition to start the rebuild process and maybe this time they’ll be smart enough to tell the church to keep their noses out of it. Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry

Posted by julia at 11:36 am Tagged with: , , , , ,

Respectability in art, galleries and … bliss?

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Mar 312010

I always have the most interesting conversations with my fellow artists because it always provokes further thought.

Today was about “quality” and “respectable” galleries and venues. Do you think that just because someone doesn’t follow another’s rules that their work lacks quality or respectability?

I wonder if it is better to be told that an artist needs to meet “standards” or if one should “make” those standards. Isn’t it better to be wanted for who you are rather than be dictated to?

I come from a very strict background on one hand, but a very free-flowing mindscape on another. My father was a stronghand, he had certain expectations that had to be met, he had certain values that he wouldn’t tolerate being compromised. But one thing he always told me was to set my own rules. I didn’t really understand what he meant, because he wasn’t a real good demonstration of this ideal, but I understand now, some years after his death, that was his heart and soul talking to me, and if he could do it over again, he would. My years in the military taught me structure, taught me order, and what it was like to be confined. Now, I have been out of the military longer than in it (I retired in 97), and I am understanding more and more of what it means to make my own rules. I am understanding that the value of social pressure can be used for good, but it is also very detrimental. While it isn’t quite “Lord of the Flies” here in Kelowna, there is tremendous social pressure to conform, to only do certain things, to be friends with only certain people yadda yadda yadda. I never bought in to that sort of thing, and here is where my realization lies. Social conformity suffocates creativity.

My mother had the type of attitude that as long as it didn’t hurt anyone, anything goes, pretty much. She was/is so open minded it was irritating. But that was her gift, and one that still bugs me today for I can not consider one side of the argument without acknowledging, even grudgingly, the other. All points of view are valid, it is just choosing which one you want to adopt and fits in with your life. Just because “I” make certain decisions, or ask certain questions, doesn’t mean that YOUR decisions or actions are wrong.

In January of this year, I turned my studio into a cooperative venture with three other artists. This is going so very well, beyond my most imaginative dreams. With less time at the RCA, I have noticed a reduction in my requirement to “conform”. Odd, isn’t it. But it is a public building, it is an institution with its own rules and regulations. By reducing the exposure to these sorts of structure, I feel my mind has become much more freer – “slipped the surly bonds” of social conformity so some extent, and now certainly working on the remainder. Lately I’ve had trouble painting larger works – mostly I have been doing 5×7s, 6×8ss, you know, that sort of thing, and I couldn’t figure out what the problem was. Well, I was growing, that’s what the problem was. Growth is seldom easy and mostly painful and confusing.

Below is an excerpt from an email to a friend of mine, where I am discussing what is going on in terms of art making, and attitude:

“and it is from our conversation that I think I have it figured out, just a little – and why I am doing the sculpture now, and doing sculptured drawings, and why the paper needs to be so big. I need the room, to shape and transform the space. ….. Anyway, that is what has been going around in my brain – I’ve been so used to conflict, and working from conflict, that the process of creating from a space of peace is/was foreign. It is like I am learning a new language.”

Art is really a process that illuminates what is going on within, if we pay attention. For me, the process of working with clay, adding, subtracting, being malleable, and then solidifying over time, finally to firing, is a parable for social conformity. Now I am working with stone, carving out, revealing the subject within, chipping away the rigid boundaries – I’m seeing a parallel of a path to independence and maturity….

Regarding respectability, I don’t think there is a correct answer, right for everyone. I only know the questions and comments I make to myself: By being told what standards you will adhere to, the walls of a box are created, and then you inhabit that box. That’s someone else’s box. By defining what standards you adhere to, you become known for a certain thing – is respectability all that it is cracked up to be? Does quality require respectability? Do you want to be respectable, or do you want to be alive and carefree and happy? Do you want people to want you for who you are or how you toe the line. The first is freedom and bliss and shooting for the stars, the second is chains and handcuffs and stormy clouds. At least in my world.

For my art, I will take care of the quality and respectability will take care of itself.

Posted by juliatrops at 2:35 pm Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,
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