Art is Dialogue

Unveiling a spark, a five-year-in-the-making idea that started out as the tiniest flicker. Out of art + nesting. Out of blurry boundaries. Now an invitation for you to explore along with me:

Art is Dialogue, a series of dynamic conversations hosted online on curated topics where art is in the exchange of ideas.

Through the alchemy of discourse, Art is Dialogue facilitates new perspectives and useable knowledge for multifaceted lives.

The questions change. The locations change. The premise does not:

The separate identities of artist, curator, and critic are merging. Artists are now scientists, teachers, philosophers, parents, authors, and engineers. Curating is done by artist-led initiatives, sparked by gathering of individuals meeting for conversation online, over dinner, or coffee. Critics are artists of word and vision. Art is conversation, the grouping of images, objects, people, and location around meaningful topics. Art is in the words we speak, ignited by the chemistry of language.

Contemporary living and art making requires multiplicities, engagement with life in dynamic ways, crafting identities that resonate across geography. Freed from the wall, art craves non-specific locales, driven by new vocabulary and a glossary of terms that represents the intricacies of life today. Being present is critical.

The definition of an artist has changed. The studio is you.

Interested in joining in on a conversation? Care to host a talk? Follow Art is Dialogue on Twitter for updates (freshly hatched as of today, Jan/12/10, so expect more soon!).
More information forthcoming on the inaugural collaboration with expat+HAREM this year while Istanbul is the 2010 European Capital of Culture.

Thinking in color

For as long as I can remember, I have thought in color. I envision the calendar year, for example, as a line drawing shaped like a dissected pie, each month represented by a wedge of color. The cheerful spring and summer months are aqua and pink, fall colors green and yellow, and winter ashen and purple. Colors have a particular sound and pitch. I grid what I see, make visual lists that hang like objects in space. That's how I remember things, and why I can typically find my way back to a once-visited side-street cafe, around a busy airport, or even through back roads.

The senses, handily there for our survival in a vibrating and chaotic world, are not always easy for me to differentiate. This hearing color thing, tasting shapes thing, is called synesthesia. I never understood why I didn't like malls or crowded spaces until I learned more about this extra-sensitivity factor. Sounds and motion reverberate in such a way that I can't chronicle the individual movements fast enough. Instead, I shut down.

Moving abroad to Turkey, I found myself fatigued by even short trips to the grocery store.  I found myself fatigued by even short trips to the grocery store, or to my language school to teach. I would listen to Turkish, a language I didn't know much of at the time, and its tonal value would set off a flurry of reactions I thought was mainly from shyness and sensitivity. Everything I did outside of my house had to be done slowly, while inside I could work for hours sewing or drawing or reading without even noticing the time pass. I filled notebooks with sketches and magazine clippings covered in fabric samples collaged with watercolor painting. To touch something, like silky fabric or hearty upholstery, was to engage with the whole object, its meaning and not just its function. And nearly always in silence, because music competed for attention, filling the airspace with more color and shape.

The ability to visualize numbers and forms in space is the only reason I passed Algebra and Geometry in high school. Useful when trying to remember a sequence, like items on a menu, or when learning a new alphabet, it's less convenient when needing to block out noise, or quiet spaces are not to be had (like at a Turkish family gather under bright fluorescent lights with tea glasses clinking and aunties yelling over each other and uncles moodily discussing politics). I've carved out a nice space at home, though, where I can brush off the words that circle like ribbons of color and chatter like clacking keys and hush them to sleep.

Is this you, too? Or are your senses more tame and obedient?

The Starter Quilt

Throwing caution to the wind, I embarked upon my first quilt. The desire to make a quilt had been growing in me since my grandmother gave me quilt squares made by my great-grandmother almost two years ago. I'm not quite finished with this starter quilt, but nearly so. I didn't follow a pattern. I laid the blocks out on the floor and pieced them together haphazardly. I consulted a few books like Anna Maria Horner's Seams to Me only after I had sewn the batting and backing. I eagerly jumped into machine quilting without following any of the proper steps. And what happened? A lumpy, sad crib-sized quilt that would have to hide in the back of the closet in shame, or be repurposed into something else.


But this week was different than most, so the story ends better than it started. Today was my week off, from everything besides domestic endeavors and rest. I had a nasty fall after blacking out two weeks ago (dehydration, low blood pressure) that gave me a minor concussion, and when I came to, I basically realized I had to stop my high pressure routine. I'm still sorting it out, but things are better. I'm not going to move as fast as I had been. And you know what? Even that first week after I fell, I felt guilty while cutting quilt pieces. It was broad daylight and I was supposed to be working!

I knew the problem was me and not anyone else. So, after a nice long talk with one of my dearest friends, she prescribed me not one, but two weeks off. She told me to find a way to move my deadlines back another week. Everything could wait.


So I picked up the quilt blocks and started piecing. Like I said, I did little planning, and it turned out badly. A third grader with a plastic sewing machine could have done better. I rushed. Just like I said I wouldn't. And then, the remarkable thing happened. I said, so what? Fix it.

Since Wednesday, I have been sitting in a cozy chair in my living room with a nice lamp over the quilt, and have been taking out each and every quilt stitch. Today is Friday, and I just finished this morning. Thousands of little stitches. When I first started taking the stitches out, I really resisted it. I got bored. This is similar to when I try to meditate. First eagerness, then boredom, and finally, finally peace. About half way through, I realized I was enjoying myself, and with it came the relief that the quilt could be saved.

{My friend Meg will notice she gave me most of the fabric! The bright aqua and orange flower pattern was a lining I used on my 2006 handbags.}

I ironed out all the little pinpricks from the needle, and will try a different approach to sandwiching the layers. If I had thought about it a little bit, I would have realized most of the quilts my grandmother has made are tied together with bits of colorful yarn, stuck in the center of the square, and not machine quilted at all. I'm not really going for a pom-pom look, but I think I might try some cream-colored x's in select areas.

I'm not sure what next week will look like, but I know it has to retain this feeling of moving at a slower pace, and being more in sync with my energy and my family. I'm looking forward to it.