November 2008 Newsletter
11/01/2008
Dear Writing Friends,
A few weeks ago I had a dream that I arrived in Taos for a winter writing retreat and neglected to pack warm clothes. When I got to my room and opened my suitcase, I found neatly folded shorts and several swimming suits, but no socks or sweaters or winter coat. I also forgot to pack a notebook. Living in Austin, it is sometimes difficult to remember what cold air actually feels like, and occasionally I arrive in other parts of the country with serious wardrobe deficiencies. I actually did have to buy a winter coat a few years ago in Taos because I hadn’t anticipated snow in October. But my dream had nothing to do with packing or the weather in New Mexico. The dream was about not being prepared—or more accurately, fear of not being prepared.
Prior to the dream, I received an invitation to participate in a panel at the Neuberger Museum. The subject of the panel would be the feminist sculptor and performance artist, Hannah Wilke, who happens to be the subject of the book I’m writing. You might think I’d feel comfortable talking about Wilke in any format, as I’ve been studying and writing about her art for over fifteen years. But when I saw that the list of potential topics included, “a focused theoretical treatment of essentialism apparent in Wilke’s work,” I decided the panel was not for me. I walked away from theoretical treatments of anything when I left academe over ten years ago. Even if I wanted to participate in such a discussion, I didn’t think I could retrieve from my aging memory banks any of the critical theory I had learned in graduate school. In short, I didn’t think I’d fit in.
I began composing an e-mail to Tracy Fitzpatrick, the curator who invited me, explaining that I was more of a writer than an art historian now, that I no longer participated in the academic art world, thank you very much, and good luck with your panel. After giving it some thought, however, I decided I’d better call rather than risk sounding snooty in an e-mail.
Within a few seconds of talking to her, I felt completely comfortable with Tracy. Before getting anywhere near the subject of the panel, we bonded over our children—a subject I could discuss without consulting Derrida or Foucault. And then, in the most down-to-earth manner, she let me know that she really wanted me to participate. She knew my previous work on Wilke and believed I’d have something to contribute.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Even though I’m still writing about Hannah, my book is more literary than art historical, more of a memoir than a standard art survey.” Without skipping a beat, Tracy said that would be a plus.
“You’ll bring a different perspective,” she said. “That will be refreshing.” She also said she didn’t want a hard-core discussion of feminist theory. As our conversation continued, I felt my shoulders relax. Maybe I could walk back into the art world exactly as I was. Maybe I could return as myself.
I keep a quotation on my desk from the 25th anniversary copy of Writing Down the Bones: “Once you connect with your mind,” it says, “you are who you are and you’re free.” After twelve years of writing practice, maybe I was finally free. Writing about Hannah Wilke in the privacy of my notebook, peeling away the layers of academic armor I acquired studying art history, I had come to the truth of why I was drawn to her—and it was personal. When I looked into Wilke’s eyes staring back at me from her photographs, I recognized my own emotions and experiences—of being a woman, living in a woman’s body. I recognized her beauty and sexuality, her suffering and her grief. What I knew about Wilke came to me on the page. It came out of practice and patience and a commitment to the emotional truth.
So why the dream? It probably had to do with the other people Tracy invited to be on the panel. One of them organized the first museum retrospective of Wilke’s work, the only such show to take place during her lifetime, and the other is one of the great matriarchs of feminist art history, whose books inspired me almost twenty years ago to pursue my Ph.D. Even though I was going as myself, my subconscious was reminding me of the company I would be keeping. I would still have to prepare. And so I began going through old papers, looking at published interviews with the artist and re-reading the essays I had written many years ago. That was easy enough. What frightened me were the introductory remarks I would have to prepare, more or less outing myself as a traitor to the art historical tribe.
Tracy had asked the participants to talk for fifteen minutes about our relationship to the material. Of course I would talk about my accomplishments as a graduate student—tracing the evolution of Wilke’s art, making connections between one body of work and another, and putting the work into historical perspective—all of which I still I feel proud. But how to describe the work I did after graduate school when I walked away from the academy to find my voice as a writer, when I went inward to meet myself, as well as outward beyond art and academe? As I was trying to figure out how to explain the shift in my perspective, I discovered an essay by Richard Hugo that resonated with my experience. In “In Defense of Creative-Writing Classes,” Hugo suggests the difference between academic writing and creative writing. “I doubt that academic writing will improve,” he says, “until academics believe Valéry, who said he couldn’t think of anything worse than being right. In much academic writing clarity runs a poor second to invulnerability.” Vulnerability runs rampant in Wilke’s art. To understand it, I had to become vulnerable myself—in the pages of my notebook and now in front of the audience at the Neuberger Museum. And that is still scary.
The panel is on Thursday, November 13th at 6:15 p.m. on the campus of SUNY Purchase. If you are going to be in the New York area, please consider coming. The other panelists will be Griselda Pollock, who as I said before is one of the great matriarchs of feminist art history, and Tom Kochheiser, who organized Wilke’s retrospective. There is also a gorgeous show of Wilke’s work at the Neuberger Museum—curated by Tracy Fitzpatrick—that is definitely worth the one-hour train ride from the city.
This month’s quotation comes from the Richard Hugo essay mentioned above:
When we are told in dozens of insidious ways that our lives don’t matter, we may be forced to insist, often far too loudly, that they do. A creative-writing class may be one of the last places you can go where your life still matters. Your life matters all right. It’s all you’ve got for sure, and without it you are dead.
Writing topics: What matters
What scares me
What I’m prepared for/What I’m not prepared for
Have a great month and a wonderful Thanksgiving.
My best to each of you,
Saundra
A few weeks ago I had a dream that I arrived in Taos for a winter writing retreat and neglected to pack warm clothes. When I got to my room and opened my suitcase, I found neatly folded shorts and several swimming suits, but no socks or sweaters or winter coat. I also forgot to pack a notebook. Living in Austin, it is sometimes difficult to remember what cold air actually feels like, and occasionally I arrive in other parts of the country with serious wardrobe deficiencies. I actually did have to buy a winter coat a few years ago in Taos because I hadn’t anticipated snow in October. But my dream had nothing to do with packing or the weather in New Mexico. The dream was about not being prepared—or more accurately, fear of not being prepared.
Prior to the dream, I received an invitation to participate in a panel at the Neuberger Museum. The subject of the panel would be the feminist sculptor and performance artist, Hannah Wilke, who happens to be the subject of the book I’m writing. You might think I’d feel comfortable talking about Wilke in any format, as I’ve been studying and writing about her art for over fifteen years. But when I saw that the list of potential topics included, “a focused theoretical treatment of essentialism apparent in Wilke’s work,” I decided the panel was not for me. I walked away from theoretical treatments of anything when I left academe over ten years ago. Even if I wanted to participate in such a discussion, I didn’t think I could retrieve from my aging memory banks any of the critical theory I had learned in graduate school. In short, I didn’t think I’d fit in.
I began composing an e-mail to Tracy Fitzpatrick, the curator who invited me, explaining that I was more of a writer than an art historian now, that I no longer participated in the academic art world, thank you very much, and good luck with your panel. After giving it some thought, however, I decided I’d better call rather than risk sounding snooty in an e-mail.
Within a few seconds of talking to her, I felt completely comfortable with Tracy. Before getting anywhere near the subject of the panel, we bonded over our children—a subject I could discuss without consulting Derrida or Foucault. And then, in the most down-to-earth manner, she let me know that she really wanted me to participate. She knew my previous work on Wilke and believed I’d have something to contribute.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Even though I’m still writing about Hannah, my book is more literary than art historical, more of a memoir than a standard art survey.” Without skipping a beat, Tracy said that would be a plus.
“You’ll bring a different perspective,” she said. “That will be refreshing.” She also said she didn’t want a hard-core discussion of feminist theory. As our conversation continued, I felt my shoulders relax. Maybe I could walk back into the art world exactly as I was. Maybe I could return as myself.
I keep a quotation on my desk from the 25th anniversary copy of Writing Down the Bones: “Once you connect with your mind,” it says, “you are who you are and you’re free.” After twelve years of writing practice, maybe I was finally free. Writing about Hannah Wilke in the privacy of my notebook, peeling away the layers of academic armor I acquired studying art history, I had come to the truth of why I was drawn to her—and it was personal. When I looked into Wilke’s eyes staring back at me from her photographs, I recognized my own emotions and experiences—of being a woman, living in a woman’s body. I recognized her beauty and sexuality, her suffering and her grief. What I knew about Wilke came to me on the page. It came out of practice and patience and a commitment to the emotional truth.
So why the dream? It probably had to do with the other people Tracy invited to be on the panel. One of them organized the first museum retrospective of Wilke’s work, the only such show to take place during her lifetime, and the other is one of the great matriarchs of feminist art history, whose books inspired me almost twenty years ago to pursue my Ph.D. Even though I was going as myself, my subconscious was reminding me of the company I would be keeping. I would still have to prepare. And so I began going through old papers, looking at published interviews with the artist and re-reading the essays I had written many years ago. That was easy enough. What frightened me were the introductory remarks I would have to prepare, more or less outing myself as a traitor to the art historical tribe.
Tracy had asked the participants to talk for fifteen minutes about our relationship to the material. Of course I would talk about my accomplishments as a graduate student—tracing the evolution of Wilke’s art, making connections between one body of work and another, and putting the work into historical perspective—all of which I still I feel proud. But how to describe the work I did after graduate school when I walked away from the academy to find my voice as a writer, when I went inward to meet myself, as well as outward beyond art and academe? As I was trying to figure out how to explain the shift in my perspective, I discovered an essay by Richard Hugo that resonated with my experience. In “In Defense of Creative-Writing Classes,” Hugo suggests the difference between academic writing and creative writing. “I doubt that academic writing will improve,” he says, “until academics believe Valéry, who said he couldn’t think of anything worse than being right. In much academic writing clarity runs a poor second to invulnerability.” Vulnerability runs rampant in Wilke’s art. To understand it, I had to become vulnerable myself—in the pages of my notebook and now in front of the audience at the Neuberger Museum. And that is still scary.
The panel is on Thursday, November 13th at 6:15 p.m. on the campus of SUNY Purchase. If you are going to be in the New York area, please consider coming. The other panelists will be Griselda Pollock, who as I said before is one of the great matriarchs of feminist art history, and Tom Kochheiser, who organized Wilke’s retrospective. There is also a gorgeous show of Wilke’s work at the Neuberger Museum—curated by Tracy Fitzpatrick—that is definitely worth the one-hour train ride from the city.
This month’s quotation comes from the Richard Hugo essay mentioned above:
When we are told in dozens of insidious ways that our lives don’t matter, we may be forced to insist, often far too loudly, that they do. A creative-writing class may be one of the last places you can go where your life still matters. Your life matters all right. It’s all you’ve got for sure, and without it you are dead.
Writing topics: What matters
What scares me
What I’m prepared for/What I’m not prepared for
Have a great month and a wonderful Thanksgiving.
My best to each of you,
Saundra