Thu, 10 May 2012 09:30:59 +1200WeeblyMon, 16 May 2011 21:07:33 +1200http://www.lesliefalls.com/1/post/2011/05/its-been-a-long-time.htmlAs I said, its been a long time.  I have recently been getting my head around the whole 'blog' thing.  And that it doesn't have to be some publish worthy essay, something of carefully thought out ideas as much as it needs to illuminate the creative process in some way that makes sense to me.  If others get it, so much the better; I am taking a leaf out of my son's book on this one!
]]>Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:00:00 +1200http://www.lesliefalls.com/1/post/2010/03/the-life-of-completed-art-works.htmlDexter Dalwood is interviewed in Art in America's January issue.  In it he talks about specific motivations that I find particularly relevant to me and my work.  He says he likes the idea that his depiction of an event will become how you recall it in the future.  In other words he takes ownership of the event. Then the whole concept of ownership of an event or idea becomes topical, that his rendering of something becomes the reality, the truth whether it is accurate or not...... and does that even matter?  His idea of how art operates: "once you've gone away from it, its still going on in your head" is a grand one.  To create something that takes on a life of its own once you've put it out there.

It is characteristic of parenting that you nurture a being and then, hoping it is prepared, set it loose to fend for itself.  Art is like that.  I remember when a public sculpture was installed in my home town to much dissent and the artist was asked how he felt about all the criticism.  He responded that he had an idea that he executed and resolved to his satisfaction.  He then moved on to his next project having let go of the completed one... it had to fend for itself, it had nothing to do with him anymore.  I remember thinking that that made so much sense: part of the process of completing a work is to then let it go....... In many ways the work has served its purpose to the artist and is no longer relevant.  Hmmmmm, I'll have to think about that.

Copyright © 2008 - 2011 Leslie Falls | Email: artist@lesliefalls.com ]]>Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:00:00 +1200http://www.lesliefalls.com/1/post/2010/02/responding-to-stuff.htmlWhat can artists to respond to a world full of so much stuff?  We know about global issues, plights, we see so much, so many images it is difficult to connect to any one in particular, to sift through the masses of stuff! Are we desensitized by the sheer volume of what we see so that everything seems to be just one huge unmanageable issue?  Is there such an overload of stuff out there that artists have either too much competition for viewers (think of You Tube, the internet in general to say nothing of the usual barrage of media imagery) or just don't know what to address first so get mired in self indulgent productivity that then gets passed off by critics and curators as ‘art'?
Peter Plagens writes in March '10 Art in America magazine that what he wants "... from serious art is distillation".  I couldn't agree more.

The problem is that then artists have to engage in the world outside themselves.  The "self" makes the work but, in order to find relevance outside of the personal, there must be an awareness of the world to have something to respond to.

I find myself almost paralyzed into non-productivity because I talk myself out of most ideas of creative manufacture due to its seeming self-indulgence.  I like the idea of a personal line that separates the art/artist from the viewer but without something to draw the viewer into an even minimal level of familiarity and common ground, what's the point?

Another article in A in A Mar '10 about painter Irving Petlin's 50 year career by Peter Selz, suggests the possibility that a fundamental quality of painting is a commitment to current issues.  I love this suggestion that, yes indeed, the artist has a responsibility to address or at least acknowledge the world around him.

Hmmmmmmmm.

Copyright © 2008 - 2011 Leslie Falls | Email: artist@lesliefalls.com  ]]>Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:00:00 +1200http://www.lesliefalls.com/1/post/2010/01/part-2-lake-taupo-summer-considerations.html I have been reading a mystery thriller about an art dealer who discovers the work of an ‘outsider' artist but can't locate the artist himself.  To justify showing the work despite this he explains that the artist does only half the work, it is up to the art dealer to make the work into "art"........ essentially contextualizing the work so it can be seen as the commodity "art".

I have to think about this idea because it has the ring of truth but of an unpleasant tone.

Copyright © 2008 - 2011 Leslie Falls | Email: artist@lesliefalls.com ]]>Sun, 03 Jan 2010 20:00:00 +1200http://www.lesliefalls.com/1/post/2010/01/lake-taupo-summer-considerations.html Last night I watched Sir Ken Robinson's brief address about creativity in education (or more accurately the LACK of it!) on TED.  I listened along with those around me, our heads nodding in agreement with his ideas. He expressed his dismay at how terribly faulty our educational philosophy is.  Its concept of how to prepare today's 5 year olds for a future we can't possibly comprehend.  We offer them an antiquated system of education that won't possibly prepare them for their lives in the unknown world of the future.

Everything he said about the relevance of creativity made me think of my own education and how contrary it was to my natural inclinations; activities I excelled at, ways in which I learned best were all left un-utilized.  Too, my children's education left their strengths largely untapped.  How can we recover the confidence of childhood to follow natural inclinations?

Picasso's famous comment about how all children are artists the problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up, rings particularly true in light of this view of education.

Copyright © 2008 - 2011 Leslie Falls | Email: artist@lesliefalls.com ]]>Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:00:00 +1200http://www.lesliefalls.com/1/post/2009/09/trust-waikato.html I returned back in NZ just in time to attend the opening of the Trust Waikato National Contemporary Art Award. Having just spent 2 months in the U.S. I enjoyed the opportunity to reconnect with NZ culture at the Waikato Museum Friday night September 4th.  The atmosphere was festive and full of anticipation.  I am not certain if the actual exhibition lived up to the expectation of the crowd but time will tell as responses come in.

  As for me, I was pleased to have been selected by Charlotte Huddleston, Curator of Contemporary Art at NZ's national Museum, Te Papa.  I was pleased, also, to see so many videos works, though I thought that few pushed the concept of the chosen media.  The imagery was interesting but the presentation seemed to lack due consideration.

  I continue to search for a way to combine technology with the handmade.

  My artist statement for my entry in the Trust Waikato National Contemporary Art Award:

  Modern culture depends on media for communication: for the dissemination of information and entertainment. But, in a world of media overload and viewer expectation, the unique expressive qualities of the individual may get lost in the prescriptive presentation of information, leaving little room for independent dialogue with newly encountered images.

  This work continues my exploration of documenting the ordinary.  My intention in "Girl Talk" is to interrogate and situate conventional understandings and expectations of media in the context of modern culture while also addressing the issue of technical reproduction vs. the handmade.

  This work combines a silent black and white video of a young woman expressively speaking, with an ink drawing duplication of a page from "Bridget Jones' Diary" in Spanish.

Copyright © 2008 - 2011 Leslie Falls | Email: artist@lesliefalls.com ]]>Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:00:00 +1200http://www.lesliefalls.com/1/post/2009/06/further-thoughts-thanks-to-judy-chicago-wellington-new-zealand.html Thinking further about the decorated body: all the methods of decoration are extremely labor intensive and time consuming.  I wrote that before reading in the Indulgence section of the June 20th issue of Wellington's Dominion Post about a drag queen who calls herself Judy Chicago after the American 1970's artist.  I love the ideaof an assumed name which extends the idea of image alteration!

This chap spends 3 hours preparing his alter ego's appearance.  His description of this process has furthered my understanding of the motivation for body decoration. Have a look at the article.

 Labor intensive tattoos:  I suspect most tattoos, aside from the ones done impulsively are carefully considered and designed.   The application of the design to fit the body part is carefully executed too and then the long process of the actual tattooing of the design's outline and possibly coloring in are all extremely labor intensive.

I have also read that certain methods of scarification require repeated cutting to guarantee a raised scar.  Even the addition of dirt or vegetable matter to help irritate the wound is sometimes used to ensure the scar is effectively visible.

Body painting for fashion or as an art form in itself is a fine laborious activity.  I recall reading of the hours and hours spent standing by models for body painting competitions.  Not to forget the hours some women (and men) spend applying make-up to their faces each morning. 

Too, there is hair removal; leg and arm shaving (or waxing- "Judy Chicago" covers 'her' real eyebrows with wax, temporarily replacing them with hig arching drawn ones), face shaving and grooming that are all a part body decoration.  Oh, and tanning by topical self-application or in a professional spray booth or sunbed!

I suspect I am only just beginning my discovery of the world of body manipulation, alteration, decoration!

 

Copyright © 2008 - 2011 Leslie Falls | Email: artist@lesliefalls.com ]]>Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:00:00 +1200http://www.lesliefalls.com/1/post/2009/06/the-decorated-body.html Having seen "Tattooed under Fire" as part of the Human Rights Film Festival in Wellington, New Zealand I began thinking about how we view our bodies; how we use our bodies, how we decorate our bodies or change their shape using various means from tattoos to corsets.

Looking at the ways bodies have been ornamented, in particular how the skin is used as a canvas: using techniques from body painting to tattooing to scarification.

Reshaping can be achieved using ‘foundation garments', dieting or cosmetic surgery.

My thoughts haven't gone much further than this, though the idea of motivation for these activities is an intriguing one.

Copyright © 2008 - 2011 Leslie Falls | Email: artist@lesliefalls.com ]]>Tue, 05 May 2009 20:00:00 +1200http://www.lesliefalls.com/1/post/2009/05/on-repetition.html In a review of the exhibition: " Notation: Calculus and Form in the Arts" by Marc Gloede from Art in America Dec. '08 I read a reference to Gilles Deleuze regarding modernism's shift away from finished masterpeices with a new focus on process called 'the mode of becoming'.  The article explains that, "by trying to capture an element of time, rhythm or movement, ......... notation necessarily gets involved ...."

 This past weekend in Pukekohe New Zealand I saw people attempting to "read" the text of my recent installation; the text which was made up of simple 1 cm graphite marks filling each of 90 pages (see "From the Edge" exhibition images).  I do these drawings continually and in this particular installation they were to act as a backdrop or rather a constant static to the text drawings hanging from the ceiling.  The hangings operated clearly as written text, though the dialogue between them varies depending on how they are associated by the viewer.  Interestingly, it has been the alphabet-less text that has been the most provocative.  This was an unexpected response to the drawings and reminded me of the article mentioned above.

Copyright © 2008 - 2011 Leslie Falls | Email: artist@lesliefalls.com ]]>Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:00:00 +1200http://www.lesliefalls.com/1/post/2009/02/the-unique-within-the-ordinary.html Any activity and/or object becomes ordinary after repeated experiencing. It is familiarity that leads to the loss of perceived uniqueness. By presenting what has become familiar in a new way it's extraordinary characteristics can be relocated, and, in the case of art, called to the viewer's attention.  

We necessarily need to consign things to the ordinary to make room for new experiences; our mind is constantly reassessing activities and objects so as to move them from the category of the unique to that of the norm, thus making room for new events.  

Art can call attention to the extraordinary within the ordinary by presenting it with the unique vision of the particular artist; calling attention to that which we no longer see because it is so familiar or reminding us of the unique quality of something we used to celebrate but have consigned to the usual.

When an artist stretches this point the work challenges the viewer and creates a dialogue between viewer and the work.  To group these dialogues into styles is the work of art historians and not necessarily a productive way of identifying the work.  To look at a work and seek characteristics attributed to a specific style does the work and artist a disservice......... effectively dismissing the very unique qualities that makes the work NEW.

Copyright © 2008 - 2011 Leslie Falls | Email: artist@lesliefalls.com ]]>