Omphaloskepsis Blog

Art of Connection Through Participation

Sun, 06 Sep 2020 23:36:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

Last time, I broke a long silence to let you know my life in art had been evolving from 2-D to 3-D – to social sculpture in fact, and to forms that are increasingly participatory.

Not that painting isn’t interactive. But I began to want to use the tools of community building. Hence, my café in Chicago, a reaching out in every sense. Art on the walls of a museum or gallery posits that people will come to you, enter the more elite space for you. With the café, I came to people, in a not-so-ritzy urban environment. Because it is a take-out window, I reach out literally, bringing the element of touch – and participation.

Activation, authorship, and community, writes Claire Bishop, are the most frequently cited motivations for almost all artistic attempts to encourage participation in art since the 1960s. “The spectacle – as a social relationship between people mediated by images – is pacifying and divisive, uniting us only through our separation from one another.”1

Writing 15 years ago, Bishop could have had that insight in our current pandemic state. For we are divided, and unified, by the power of our enforced separation. How does participatory art take on energy in this environment?

One element of Participatory Art’s aesthetic language is connection, very often through discomfort. I have located myself and others here; The Incredible Intensity of Just Being Human, a traveling exhibit I created to address the stigma and silence surrounding mental illness. In every exhibit the art was hung askew, causing discomfort in staff and visitors alike. In one instance the receptionist straightened the artwork daily because she found it so unsettling.

Ironic participation does not always induce discomfort. It can facilitate the feeling of full-hearted participation and a sense of belonging in the community. For example, in my piece for the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival, “Poor Impulse Control,” where volunteers allowed strangers to touch and stroke their hair. Festival participants took it upon themselves to recreate it daily during the hours I was not present.

Art no longer wants to respond to the excess of commodities and signs, but to a lack of connection, wrote Jacques Rancière in ‘Problems and Transformations in Critical Art’ 2004.

Art connects us. My mission as a human and my job as an artist is to foster deep connections through Art. Much of my work deals with permission, access and boundaries and seeks to bring to light the crisis in relationship between art and society by appropriating my audience. It comes from an authentic desire to engage my audience.

I have a puzzle for you. A puzzle for our era, which you will hear more about next time. This time, a question. What kind of art can provoke your participation in commerce, kitsch, and critical thinking? I am inviting you, dear visitor, to have a seat at the table. And I am inviting you, dear artist, to have a seat at the table.

Are you ready?

[IMAGE: Top to bottom: Poor Impulse Control SEAF. The Incredible Intensity of Just Being Human, Blakely Hall Issaquah. necessary & sufficient coffee placemaking in art.

1. Participation, Introduction/Viewers as Producers by Claire Bishop, Co-published by Whitechapel and The MIT Press, 2006, p. 10

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necessary & sufficient placemaking in Chicago

Mon, 24 Aug 2020 00:44:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

It’s been a while since I last posted. We are living through something big, and puzzling, and strange. So my life and art reached an unexpected but perfectly logical turning point. Please give me a minute to catch you up, and then tell me about you.

What is placemaking? For the past several years I have been working on a long-term placemaking in art project, even though the jury is still out on the full meaning of that extensively researched term.

Let’s look at placemaking in this context. I’ve taken over a commercial space in a diverse neighborhood where the other commercial spaces are either unoccupied or abandoned or simply not used for their intended purposes. That was already an opportunity for placemaking – to create something that would feel characteristic where there had been nothing.

In the entry to my art-making space, I’ve built a tiny café and take-out window business. My purpose is connecting diverse community members over a common interest so that they may see their neighbors as they see themselves -- as complex humans.

My mission since my studio art days is unchanged: to use art to connect people and help them wake up. My metaphor in this endeavor is rather blunt - coffee is literally a vehicle for waking up.

Rehabilitating the space, interior and exterior, has changed the tone and the energy of the two-block business district in which it’s located. I employ 6 baristas who live in this community and come from diverse backgrounds that reflect the community. Was the pandemic a curve-ball? Of course. I’ve had to build new skills, and learn to operate the business so that I can continue to remain open and provide a living wage to those I employ.

What does it mean to congregate during our present local and global predicament? It’s quite a puzzle. I am working with a creative landscape architect to consider the greenbelt where I once planned a sidewalk café. Now I reimagine it as a calm respite for our guests. One that provides seating without face-to-face. We became fantastically cooped up and isolated, and need safely distanced seating outside the home to inhabit temporarily. We may need that for some time. I see this as the new model for outdoor seating in the evolving pandemic era.

This work has been all consuming, exciting, immensely challenging and frustrating. Most recently, I’m receiving direct feedback from community members that the project is successful in its aims to connect neighbors to each other in a low-barrier, non-threatening, community-building way.

Immersing myself, I have a new understanding of stereotype-based interference, and of how seemingly disparate parts combine to create new and useful connections, both to ourselves and one another.

I’ve missed the back and forth with you. I’ve come up with something I’d really like to tell you about. Next time.

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Things that take us away and return us to our work

Fri, 19 Jul 2019 18:20:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

A year ago I moved to Chicago, precipitated by my husband's job change. We've moved a lot in our 21 years of marriage. Each one of them is difficult and abound with new learning opportunites, new growth, new observations, and the work one puts into creating community. This too is a big change. I haven't been able to paint for nearly 3 years. First my committment to leadership development through the outstanding Leadership Eastside program, then preparing to move, and moving. Now I'm in my new art space but still am unable to paint. That's a long break!

The studio space as it looked when I bought it. Formerly the home of Cards Against Humanity. More pictures to come when cafe and studio work completed

But what I am doing is the thing my art has strived to do my entire career - build connections in my audience, both with each other and with themselves. In essence, to help people stay awake in this world. Isn't it apropo that I'm creating a grab n go take out window and specialty coffee shop in the front of my studio?!?

Building is underway and we're slated to open mid-September. Who knows what I'll paint when I get back to my easel, but this cafe is my largest and most integrated art project to date.

Really proud of the staff I've dreamt of hiring for a long time. And yesterday, a lovely article came out about our intended cafe in Block Club Chicago. "Artist Opening Tiny ‘Grab And Go’ Coffee Shop In Logan Square. The new 230-square-foot takeout window spot will serve coffee from Washington's Olympia Coffee, baked goods from The Spoke & Bird bakehouse and more."

"The shop is “really for the community to be able to connect,” she added.

“A secure neighborhood is a connected neighborhood. The more people can see and meet their neighbors, the more active the neighborhood is going to be and the more secure the neighborhood is going to be.”

Read the article here.

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Art ? Math (Art intersect Math) CoCA March 1-April 14

Wed, 31 Jan 2018 06:05:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

“Art ? Math” explores art that is influenced by math and mathematics ideas to make these ideas more vivid.

SEATTLE, WA (January 24, 2018) – Mathematics is the study of structure, number, pattern, and shape; though abstract, it has influenced art for centuries. Today, math and art are exploring bold new realms. The power of their insights and effects on each other provides opportunities to be delighted by seeing new connections hiding in plain sight. Seattle’s Center on Contemporary Art (CoCA) presents Art ? Math, (Art intersect Math), an exhibit that explores the intersection of artistic expression and mathematical ideas. Art ? Math runs from March 1 through April 14, 2018.

Rachel Holloway Yellow Quintessence

Mathematics is a fresh lens to understand art: reckoning with chaos, algorithms, equivalence, topology, geometry and other mathematics tools to helps us see art and the world with more depth. A diverse selection of media will be featured in the exhibit from artists and mathematicians including sculpture and oil paint, to textile and metalwork. Mathematician artists include Jayadev Athreya, Katherine Cook, Erik and Martin Demaine, Edmund Harriss, and Hamid Naderi Yeganeh. Visual artists who use mathematical principles in their practices include Rachel Holloway, Claire B. Jones, George Legrady, Jean Mandeberg, Savina Mason, Suchitra Mattai, June Sekiguchi, Timea Tihanyi/Sliprabbit, Lun Yi Tsai, and Ilana Zweschi.

Lun-Yi Tsai Twisting a Cusp I

The exhibit is the brainchild of CoCA Board Member and Artist, Kate Vrijmoet, and mathematician educators Katherine Cook and Dr. Dan Finkel. In addition to curatoring Art ? Math, Finkel and Cook also run Math for Love, a Seattle-based organization focused on transforming how mathematics is taught and learned. They also designed the mathematical board games Prime Climb and Tiny Polka Dot, and created the summer curriculum used by Seattle Public Schools.

An exhibit book will accompany the exhibit and artwork, books, posters, and games will be for sale. Events include a Pi Day presentation, The Beauty of Math, March 14 at 6:30pm with Finkel and Cook. Dance performance of necessary and sufficient, by Katherine Cook, on April 6 and 7—a conversation between the embodied human and mathematical structure, exploring how pattern and form emerges from and becomes sustained by dancers. The exhibit closes with a Gathering for Gardner event on April 14 at 2pm. The curators will be in attendance at the public opening reception during Pioneer Square Artwalk on Thursday, March 1, 6-9pm. This exhibit is made possible with support from Gathering for Gardner, the Julia Robinson Math Festival, University of Washington Mathematics Department, and Rock’s Studio.

Calendar Listing:
Art ? Math: Exhibition opens March 1 - April 14, 2018.
Opening Reception on Thursday, March 1, 6pm – 9pm, as part of Pioneer Square Art Walk.
Artists’ Events: Pi Day: Curators will present on The Beauty of Math March 14, 6:30 pm
Dance performances of necessary and sufficient, April 6 at 7:00pm and April 7 at 3pm
Gathering for Gardner, April 14, 2018 at 2 pm.
To RSVP, please visit the event page atwww.cocaseattle.org
Exhibition and events at CoCA in Pioneer Square: 114 Third Avenue South, Seattle, 98104.
Gallery hours are Thursday - Saturday, 10am – 5pm.

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Artist Statement

Wed, 15 Feb 2017 11:33:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

Artist Statement

I'm reworking my artist statement after a workshop I took. How does this work for you? Does it make my work clear?

Kate Vrijmoet

I am a figurative artist working primarily in paint, but also in social sculpture. I use the tools of classical painting painting to create high-impact experiences for my audience—experiences that have a lot in common with theatre. My work deals with themes of privilege, access, consciousness, and scale. People know me best for both my water and my accident paintings.

The social sculpture I create is a real-time exchange between people in order to heighten consciousness with themselves and others. My role is to facilitate deep connections among us through art.

Through my work I am engaged in a highly energetic conversation with my audience and reflect that in the way I capture my subjects, by deconstructing the figure, and finding rhythm in form.

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Kitchen sink of professional development links to explore

Mon, 13 Feb 2017 07:56:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

Given that it's the first quarter, I have tons of research to do.

Here is my kitchen sink of links I need to follow up with.

Websites and articles to visit/read

Fiscal Sponsorship: http://grantspace.org/tools/knowledge-base/Individual-Grantseekers/Fiscal-Sponsorship/fiscal-sponsorship

The Artist Statement: https://vimeo.com/51484888

http://www.artbusiness.com/artstate.html

Studio Visits short films: https://vimeo.com/album/3484622

Ways of Something 3 video: http://artfcity.com/2017/01/30/online-premiere-ways-of-something-episode-3/

Residencies: http://www.artistcommunities.org/residencies

http://www.resartis.org/en/

ArtSpace: http://www.artspace.com/artists

Artists: http://www.dannielletegeder.com/

Professional Practice: https://vimeo.com/album/3065094

http://www.strandbooks.com/event/artist-as-culture-producer

M/E/A/N/I/N/G http://ayearofpositivethinking.com/2016/12/05/meaning-the-final-issue-on-a-year-of-positive-thinking-1/

List of art magazines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_art_magazines

http://curatorsintl.org/collaborators/valerie_cassel_oliver

How to get more Instagram followers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/02/instagram-followers_n_5537524.html

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Bad Artist! 5 never-do behaviors and how to fix them

Fri, 10 Feb 2017 09:34:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

The wrong approach

I'm currently taking Sharon Louden's Creative Capital's webinar series about approaching the gatekeepers in the art world and LOVING it! On the topic of conversation during the third of four sessions I asked the question:

What do you think about artists approaching you during your opening reception to ask you to promote their work to the hosting gallery or taking out their mobile devices to show you their work?

Sharon's response was swift and unequivocally clear that the behavior is:

Self-serving
Terrible
Not thinking of the other person
Not celebrating the person having the opening at the gallery
Incredibly disrespectful
Completely inappropriate
Shocking

I couldn't agree more!

Here are 5 things NOT to do at another person's opening reception (and what to do instead):

1. Do NOT ask an artist at their opening to bring your own work to the gallery owner's attention. Aside from being all the things Sharon pointed out above, it also assumes their relationship with the gallery owner has already been well established and is on firm footing, that they have the kind of relationship already built with the gallery owner that would invite this kind of dictation about how they should conduct their business. You are there at this opening to celebrate the person who's opening it is. Instead of making an outrageous, self-serving, opportunistic, tone deaf ask--look at the work, interact with the people, hear what their saying, and be helpful! Congratulate the artist! Tell them something positive you may have seen or overheard about the opening, let them know you see them and appreciate them.

2. Do NOT pull out your device to start flipping through your own work at someone else's event, even if they ask to see it! Use a custom Chinese people employ, if they ask 3 times, then take their information and promise to get in touch. And then actually follow up with no expectations! Really, honestly, amazingly, this event, this person's opening reception is not for you! They have a job to do. Their job is to meet and greet people and interact with as many as possible, make the audience feel good about them being there. That's hard to do with you standing in front of them for 30 minutes flipping through your images! Stop it.

3. Do NOT block their conversation! You don't know all who are in the room and who they need to connect with. If someone else walks up to your conversation or is waiting on the edges to talk to the artist, include them! Smile, introduce yourself, shift your body over so that your body language includes them in the space.

4. Do NOT monopolize their time. Once again, this event, opening, open studio, is not about you. Unless you're hosting it and paid for it and promoted it, you can lay no claim on it. So stop pissing on it. Be conscious of the amount of time you spend with them. They are hosts, and as hosts, have a responsibility to all their guests. This is not the time to back them into a corner and talk about all of your ailments, everything that's wrong with your career at the moment, the amazing trip you just took in great detail, or your political exasperations. (yes, all this happens to me on a regular basis). Connect, be pleasant, be interested, be curious, ask a thoughtful question, sign their guest book, introduce them to someone they may not know, usher that person over to the guestbook and tell them something wonderful about the work and the artist. Then move on.

5. Do NOT walk into a gallery opening OR an artwalk with a fist full of promotional cards about your upcoming show, walk straight in, past the art without even looking at it, and directly up to the artist and thrust your promotion in their hand. Stop it. Just stop that practice right now. It's so rude! Instead, walk in, smile at the artist, thank them for having their studio open for the public, take some time with their work, think about it, take a moment to connect. on your way out, sign their guest book, leave your email address, write a little note about how their work affects you and then let them know you left your postcard UNDER their guest book. On the postcard write: I loved seeing you tonight and your recent work! Great Job! or Keep it up! or Kudos! or something like that. And leave it at that. Or say: I'd love to see you at my opening next week if you can make it! Or: swing by the gallery next month if you get a chance! Or take their business card and do all the same via email.

Building relationships takes time and energy and you have to put the work into it. Many of you who actually know me may laugh at me saying that statement. I don't go to many openings. I'm introverted AND I have a family—so my time is guarded and admitedly how much time I invest in connecting with my peers is less than ideal. However, I do understand why and how I need to do this and to avoid those five behavioral mistakes above.

Think of it this way, be interested—not interesting. Be generous and celebrate other artists' voices.

I'd love to hear about your experiences either on the receiving or the offending side and how you managed to right the situation.

[Thumbnail Image from Trung Pham's opening reception Cracking Power | Tobya Art Gallery | Jan 13, 2017

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The need for robust critical discourse in the arts

Wed, 08 Feb 2017 18:17:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

Jen Graves, one of the last full-time paid art critics in the US resigned on February 8th.

Regardless of how you felt about her views, she has been extremely important to the health of this city and losing that well-informed critical voice is not good for Seattle.

We need more, not less, critical discourse. Let me explain the obvious. One of the markers of a healthy and thriving community/city is the health of its arts. Seattle Foundation reports that health in eight key areas are required for a thriving community. Those elements are: Arts & Culture, Education, Basic Needs, Health and Wellness, Neighborhoods & Communities, Global Giving, Environment, Economy. You can read the report here (I would argue that Transportation surely is one of the key elements as well)

The arts in the PNW are incredibly robust! Still I think they're struggling to survive. That's a conundrum. One thing that's missing is greater critical discourse in the arts. Is Seattle too polite? It's polite but I don't think that's really the problem. It's an expensive place to live and people need to earn a living. Art criticism doesn't pay. We need published, informed, critical thinking across all the arts both in print and online. How do we find this? How many of the educational institutions in the greater Seattle area offer this combination of writing course, one that combines art history with journalism with writing journalistic criticism? If we create incentives for that coursework, and they're offered, then the students will have assignments to complete and publish, they will graduate and a very few may continue to write in the arts and a very few of those may actually stay in the area to write in the arts. Over time, we may get those qualified writers and thinkers publishing this important critical discourse.

In the plus column, today I received this press release: ###

Encore Media Group Announces New Strategic Direction, Hires Chief Strategy Officer
Newly hired Chief Strategy Officer, Andy Fife, will lead the 45-year-old company’s move towards a stronger leadership role within local business and the arts.

February 8, 2017 (Seattle, WA) — Longtime arts publisher Encore Media Group (EMG) has announced a bold new direction that includes more civic leadership across sectors, creative partnership within the arts and a growing commitment to creative digital media. Local consultant and arts advocate Andy Fife joined Encore as Chief Strategy Officer in December to help engage the greater community and guide the new developments.

“Encore is uniquely positioned to become a primary hub for developing new arts-oriented solutions in the markets we serve,” says Andy Fife. “Our vision for this company is bold and I’m eager to work with all of Encore’s clients and partners to succeed.”

Fife, a veteran in organizational strategy and development for arts, culture and other non-profit organizations, is now part of Encore’s organization as Chief Strategy Officer. As CSO, Fife is responsible for developing, communicating, executing and sustaining Encore’s strategic initiatives.

As Executive Director, Fife led the development of Shunpike, a regional non-profit arts service organization that helps artists and small arts groups with the business of the arts. He has also served as Executive Director of The Vera Project, Advocacy Chair for the Washington State Arts Commission, and advisor, facilitator and trainer for dozens of local organizations as the owner and principal of Fife Consulting. In the new role of Chief Strategy Officer for EMG, Fife will focus on developing Encore’s strategies to better serve our clients and the cultural sector at large.

Encore Media Group is best known as the publisher of City Arts magazine and Encore Arts Programs at arts organizations in Seattle and the Bay Area. Additionally, Encore Media Group’s Specialty Publishing arm produces various periodicals including the Official Seattle Pride Guide and the SIFF Festival Guide and Catalog. Finally, the company also produces a series of special events featuring local artists, brands, audiences and venues.

EMG has established a new strategic plan to guide the organization in its planning, activities, and initiatives. The strategic plan, developed with internal and external stakeholders over the past year, includes the business’s mission, strategic priorities, goals, and key objectives. It also introduces Encore Media Group’s new vision statement:

Encore envisions a time of heightened cultural engagement, when arts offerings will be more relevant and accessible. Artists and other creatives will be properly valued and integrated into civic life. The region and Encore itself will be a home for creativity and dynamism, with the company serving as a champion and convener for the creative sectors. Encore will be recognized as a leader in media regionally and nationally.

Central to the strategic plan is Encore’s goal to leverage and elevate its position by advancing civic dialogue and providing leadership within the local creative community.

“I am excited and confident about not only the future of our company, but of future of the arts and culture sectors in the regions we serve,” says Encore Media Group president, Paul Heppner. “Both of our markets, Seattle and the Bay Area, are centers of immense creativity and growth with rich arts and culture communities. I look forward to Encore playing a major role in the future of our regions.”

###

About Encore Media Group:
Encore Media Group is the regional, family-owned publisher of Encore Arts Programs in Seattle and the Bay Area and Seattle’s City Arts magazine in print and online. Encore produces events in conjunction with their publishing brands. Additionally, Encore Media Group’s Specialty Publishing arm produces the Official Seattle Pride Guide and the SIFF Festival Guide and Catalog. Learn more at encoremediagroup.com

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The Incredible Intensity Short Film

Thu, 02 Feb 2017 18:53:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

With the support of Issaquah Schools Foundation and ArtEAST we created this short film about The Incredible Intensity of Just Being Human

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Hello 2017

Wed, 01 Feb 2017 15:32:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

New Year, New Goals

I've been sucked under by the divisive politics of our time, like nearly all of my colleagues in the arts, and so many not in the arts. I'm not sure how that's going to change my work yet, except that it's paralized me for a bit while I watch and wait and think.

Professional development

It looks like Q1 this year is officially my professional development time.

Just in January I have taken 4 seminars already:

Taken an inventory seminar to size up all that I did last year. Since the quantity of work I produced was down, I wasn't feeling so hot about my practice. I met with Barb Noonan who walked me through her inventory process and came out the other side with a very very long list of 2016 accomplishments. The problem was that I had narrowed my measure of success to include only works created, shown, or written about. The true narrative included travel, international exhibits, and developing entirely new work product, mastering materials I had never used before; like the cast resin Russian nesting dolls in this piece: "I know it existed, but I don't remember it." The title comes from a line in the book Secondhand Time, an oral history of the Soviet Union. I also created two films last year. Below is Variations on Breathing created for NFAA YoungArts.

I've taken a 4 part webinar on the role of the board chair with Washington Non-Profits.
I'm currently taking Sharon Louden's 4 part webinar series on how to talk to galleries with Creative Capitol
I've taken a terrific marketing for artists seminar with Amanda Dellinger at Gallery 110. As a result of that seminar I'm going to work on my website interaction for hand held devices and update my elevator pitch.

Continued development

Last year I was accepted into a two-year leadership development program that's pretty coveted for good reason, called Leadership Eastside. I'm working off part of the $4500 tuition by working in their office directly with the ED. My role is volunteer coordinator and I've implemented a database management tool for the organization to consolodate and organize the volunteer opportunities and manage the volunteer base. We're reading The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing your Organization and the World, Heifetx, Grashow, and Linsky, Harvard Business Review Press, 2009. This month, my quad is leading gracious space and I'm walking the group through a blind contour drawing exercise. This exercise develops and improves your haptic skills and can help people learn to see more broadly things they commonly overlook.

I'm also serving on the board of CoCA, an organization I have fierce allegience to. My catalog Kate Vrijmoet: Essential Gestures is available on Lulu.com.

I've also spent time in my studio making the space more welcoming, inviting, gracious--applying some of the principles I've learned in Leadership Eastside.

My professional goals for 2017 include:

Blog regularly
Create new work
Work on new water paintings. I'm going to be incorporating non-white people into this series. In light of our social/political climate, this is my way of contributing to the normalization and greater acceptance in our culture being anything but caucasian. I'm nervous about this because I'm concerned some people will deliberately misconstrue the meaning because of how high racial tensions are now. But this is my truth. I have to live with my life, my history, my past. And my past includes being befuddled by the constant barrage of racist remarks in my household growing up. These paintings are one way of both examining it and working to undo some of the damage.
By the end of the year have a body of galleriable work
Continue with my book group, right now we're reading Rudolf Arnheim's Art and Visual Perception
Continue with professional development
Get back to developing my database development software solution
write 3+ grant applications
Apply to 10 art institutions
Make a regular studio schedule
Read through the research I've recently received
Research how to get my work into museums

Here's our film from The Incredible Intensity of Just Being Human. Special Thanks to Issaquah Schools Foundation and ArtEAST

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Transformation Film Preview

Fri, 21 Oct 2016 17:28:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

See a preview of this stunning project produced by YoungArts. I'm so proud to be a part of this.

Our film, Variations on Breathing, will be released November 5

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12 steps to working with people who live with mental illness

Wed, 06 Jul 2016 13:38:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

12 steps to working with people who live with mental illness

I made a decision early in the planning stages of The Incredible Intensity of Just Being Human not to include palliative programming. Recently, I listened to an NPR podcast that had me thinking about. The podcast was about a town in Belgium, Geel, that has a population of about 30,000, and approximately 45% of the population is living with mental illness. People come from all over the world live in Geel. The residents foster those living with mental illness, sometimes for decades. Those afflicted with mental illness see substantive improvements in their quality of life, their relationships and their ability to function day to day. It’s been suggested that the reason for this is total acceptance. The incoming residents are accepted for exactly who they are, as they are. The community is not trying to change or fix them.

In 2014 I made The curatorial decision to exclude remedy programming, in spite of many event suggestions like yoga, dietary lectures for health, meditation sessions, etc. I was concerned that including these components would send the message that people are not accepted for who they are, or that people need to be fixed. I was concerned that visitors might get the mistaken impression that we thought they were broken. I also was concerned that it would put the artists in the position of assuming a level of professional care and knowledge about mental illness that we didn’t have. I was concerned that remedy programming would reinforce stigma

[above: Randy Revellie, key note speech at Seattle City Hall Exhibit, January 2015. Also pictured, Mayor Murray and Representative Brady Walikinshaw. Photo Credit: Mark Lubinhauer]

It is often more difficult to overcome the stigma of mental illness than to recover from the illness itself. It took less than a month to diagnose and control my mental illness; it took four years to overcome the stigma.

Stigma is associated with a mistaken belief that mental illness reflects a personal weakness, a character flaw, or immoral behavior. While I may be guilty of all three of these, they have nothing to do with my mental illness.

The factors creating the stigma are fear, ignorance, and shame – fear of people living with a mental illness; ignorance of the illness; and the inability to overcome the shame wrongly associated with mental illness.

The ongoing stigma of mental illness prevents people from acknowledging their illness and seeking treatment. The stigma and discrimination tells individuals with a mental illness they are not valued by our society.

Please remember: people with a mental illness deserve parity, not discrimination; compassion, not indifference; understanding, not ignorance; and respect, not stigma.

We can help create a just, humane, and healthy society – a society in which all people are accorded respect, dignity, and the opportunity to achieve their full potential free from stigma and discrimination. –Randy Revelle, former King County Executive, Overcoming the Stigma

The Act of Othering

What stigma is that? It’s a subject that I, and the other participating artists, know well.

The Incredible Intensity of Just Being Human brings together citizens, artists, community leaders, and community-based organizations, to examine what might happen if stigma were set aside. That is, if artifacted and unnecessary barriers between people were overturned, in favor of many fewer assumptions and prejudices. Who is mentally healthy, after all, and who is not? And, according to whom?

[Above: crowd shot from Issaquah opening talks April 2016]

Well-being, in the usual sense, is a point on a continuum. Who among us is so firmly anchored at just that point that we can “other” people who seem too far away? Perhaps the very act of othering the mentally ill is superstitious, not rational. Perhaps we other people mainly to make ourselves feel safer from the most frightening, life-altering ills we can witness or imagine. What if we opted to be braver and less judgmental than that? To walk into the incredible intensity of just being human to find gifts, not fears or failures?

Not only to engage, but to participate in the work by examining the old and the new paradigms. I believe – we believe – there is freedom there, for all. Those who do not apply a stigma are as freed as those to whom it has been wrongly applied. A definite gain to the mainstream is learning to recognize the humanity in others who have become untethered. In Martin Buber’s phrase, it is in formulating the “I and thou” that our real strength is found. It is our differences that make us vulnerable, and our vulnerabilities that make us cherished.

What to expect when working with those who have been othered.

There are prevailing stereotypes about persons living with mental illness that prevail. Most common among them is the idea that those living with mental illness cannot be counted on to follow through or complete a task. Indeed, some people living with mental illness have diminished motivation either due to their mental illness or to the medications they use to regulate their mental illness.

But it is categorically untrue that one cannot work with someone living with mental illness. Additionally, there are man positives outcomes.

First of all, one in four people every year are diagnosed with a mental illness. So, you’re likely already working with someone who is struggling and you don’t know it. But for those members of the community I’ve worked with that are “out” and have chronic difficulties, I have learned that there are some things I can do to help with positive outcomes.

[Above: Sam Foster performs at soft opening Issaquah, Blakely Hall, April 2016]

12 steps to creating a productive work relationship with persons living with mental illness.

Manage my own expectations. Set reasonable expectations for myself and my collaborator. Learn what the boundaries are. Operate within in them.
Be flexible.
Listen.
Create opportunities for open ended solutions. Don’t push my agenda but embrace what my collaborator can bring to the table. Be open to it unexpected solutions.
Give everyone enough time. Begin earlier, or have a longer lead time to accomplish tasks
Don’t rely on one type of communication, use what’s best for my partner, email, phone, text, in person, third party. Take the time to learn what works and use it.
Close the loop in communication. Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. Every time. Immediately.
Prompt: Confirm expectations, dates, meeting times, phone numbers, send out reminders
Ask: Are you comfortable with this? How can I make this work for you? What do you need?
Never take it personally. As difficult as an interaction may be, imagine how much harder it is for the person on the other side of it.
Show appreciation, acceptance and compassion. Don’t pass judgment.
Show up. The most important thing any involved party can do is simply to show up. Being present is 95% of human interaction.

In 2014 I started working with June Sekiguchi’s son Quin, who speaks openly about living with schizo-affective disorder. He was working with the exhibit to create the QR code program. It was a sizeable job that required juggling many contributors schedules, as well as keeping track of a plethora of documentation. One of our steering committee members partnered with Quin to work on the project. I took on the collection of materials and programming. Quin took on the piece of the project that most appealed to him, the video and audio recordings.

The_Risk_Final.mp3 This is a recording Quin made of my reader for my painting, And the vacuum cleaner swallows its bag.

The following year we produced the exhibit for the Issaquah community. At the opening, June and Quin were featured speakers. It was important they to speak directly to the community where Quin grew up. They introduced themselves, their story and the key note speaker Ellen Forney. Quin spoke first, briefly, and then June spoke while Quin stood at her side. There was not a dry eye in the room. We all saw Quin for the beautiful human being his is, both through his own grace and through his mother’s love.

Afterwards Quin approached me, sheepish, and to my surprise he apologized for not “bringing it.” I was so surprised. I saw the whole presentation as an enormous success. Quin showed up. He stood on the stage and said this is who I am and then stayed there, present, while his mother spoke. It was so moving, and important and had a lasting impact on all who were there that night.

[Above: Quin Breeland and June Sekiguchi speaking at the opening in Issaquah April 2016. Background, Ellen Forney's book: Marbles]

So here I am- just one person in this crowd- touched in so many ways by mental illness- in a crowd of people who are similarly touched- in a community who is similarly touched- in a region, in a state, in a country…. And yet what do we do? For the most part, we pretend. We pretend everything is fine with ourselves, with our children, for to do otherwise is to risk the permanent stigma of a socially unacceptable diagnosis. I have a son who is gay. I can stand here and state that fact with little fear of judgment or stigma for him—or for me. 5 years ago that would not have been the case. And yet, it is easier for me to tell you that fact about him than that he is currently experiencing significant depression.

And so how do we shatter the stigma? I believe we step out of our silos of silence and we talk about it so much that it becomes common knowledge—that for our brains to take ill, the same way our bodies take ill—is a common occurrence. We courageously state our truths…about ourselves, about our loved ones… and we trust that over time, our speaking up will encourage others to speak up until one day, words like depression, bi-polar, anxiety, schizophrenia will just be words—and not damaging labels. –Robin Callahan, Director, Issaquah Schools Foundation

[Above: Robin Callahan, Issaquah Schools Foundation, opening the exhibit, right: MaryLou Pauly, deputy Council President, filling in for Mayor Butler]

The Rewards

The rewards of working with persons living with mental illness are many. The experience is enriching, vibrant, and joyful. Often solutions are presented that I never would have imagined.

The late art critic Robert Hughes observed, “Art teaches us something about the world we live in.” We are all human beings having a human experience. It’s intense, incredibly intense. If art must teach us something about the world we live in, then perhaps it teaches us to reach out to others, that to dig deeper reaps rewards, and that we share the human condition. To share is the antithesis of labeling, and the path to overturning stigma. “Nothing human is alien to me,” as Goethe remarked.

Sources:

Link to podcast http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/07/01/484083305/for-centuries-a-small-town-has-embraced-strangers-with-mental-illness

Photos: Matthew Pachecko and Lelia Saghafi

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Why taking a break is important for artists

Wed, 23 Mar 2016 10:44:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

I can think of lots of reasons to take a break from work.

For me, the biggest impact has been that I've been able to get away from the incessant approval machine.

Even though I have intrinsic motivation for my art practice, when I constantly looking for opportunities to advance my career including seeking favorable industry and public opinion as necessary to particpate in a wider dialog about art, the extrinsic forces seem to overtake the intrinsic motivation. This results in too much inward focus...I mean outside looking in, instead of me looking outward from inside my own creative processes. That leads to an increase in anxiety and a decrease in perception of self-worth.

So, Taking a break is a confidence booster.

The other benefit for me is that it gives me space to work on my practice of looking, my practice of learning to really see. This is the foundation of all of my work and it remains intact and strong.

It allows me to reevaluate my current work, where it's headed and what ideas I want to implement going forward.

It allows me to reconnect with people in my life who are important to me. We all need this. As animals, we're social and need the connection in a physical (not virtual) space with our friends, loved ones and colleagues.

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Image Macros for Incredible Exhibit

Tue, 19 Jan 2016 14:07:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

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Why taking a break is important to your creative process

Sat, 08 Aug 2015 17:23:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

Why it’s important to give yourself permission to take a break.

[Art] isn't about being in the studio, it's about being in the world. - Robert Irwin

A couple of years ago a local gallery owner paid me a visit with an eye towards representation. For the most part, I was a non-participating spectator at this meeting. The gallery owner talked about all the things he thinks it takes to be a bankable artist and by the end he had talked himself out of representing me.

Needless to say, I found the entire experience disconcerting. Worse, I was left with negative self-talk in the wake of his monologue. “You’re not a real artist, you’re only spending x-hours in the studio this week.”

Because of training and professional background in a creative field, I expected to be inured against this kind of stereotypical thinking. Instead, I allowed the gallerist’s comments to take up residency in my head.

Luckily, something happened recently to remind me of what I know to be true and to release the extrinsic expectations of that gallery owner.

“If there’s one fatal flaw of the die-hard fanatic, it’s that she always wants to do more. [sic] But somewhere along the line bad things start happening [which are] signs that it’s time for some R&R. The notion of rest and recovery can be vexing, especially if you’ve got specific goals in mind or an event coming up [sic]. But truthfully, R&R is key to achieving your goals.” 1

Through my direct experience as a creative director and my research in creativity studies I understand the importance of taking a break. Condensed – the creative process includes four basic steps: Research, Brainstorm, Incubate, Aha! Research can be studio time, but could also be non-studio time. It could be exploring other art forms, reading articles of interest, taking a class. Incubate means “do something else, stop thinking actively about the problem you’re solving.” i.e. take a break.

“A growing body of evidence shows that taking regular breaks from mental tasks improves productivity and creativity — and that skipping breaks can lead to stress and exhaustion.” 2

In October I went back to training with weights in the gym. I like lifting weights, there’s something very satisfying about it. I’m following a specific program that changes from week to week. When I began, the program I follow advised 60 second breaks between sets. Now that I’m onto heavier weights and shorter reps, the program advises 105 seconds between sets. That feels like a very long time in the gym. But those breaks are necessary in order for muscles to recover. It also advices occasional whole week breaks. In addition, cardiovascular interval training is a physical reminder of how important a full recovery is in order to begin again with full power.

This summer I got a request for an interview from a professor doing research for a book on how artists are creative. He interviewed me (and over 50 artists before me) about how much time I spend in the studio and other ways I spend my time. I spent a lot of time thinking about my creative time in ways I hadn’t for a long time – if ever. Following the interview I asked him what his big take-aways were from the interviews?

I was heartened to read his response

-a definition of "studio" that is quite dramatically different from a single space, production based paradigm and more of a "Research and development" model, with multiple physical and conceptual platforms, that is bounded within set parameters of time.
-the nature and degree of the investment into support practices (reading, writing, image gathering, viewing), which is almost never less 25% of production time (10 production hours = at least 2.5 hours of support) and frequently goes as high as 1:1.

A new study overturns a decades-old theory about the nature of attention and demonstrates that even brief diversions from a task can dramatically improve one's ability to focus on that task for prolonged periods. 3

This month I felt liberated when I left my studio behind to pursue some other activities. While I was occupied doing non-art studio things, ideas started to float to my conscious mind. Ideas I was excited about getting into the studio to produce. In truth, I’m a lot like other creative people, I have many more ideas than I have time to bring to fruition and I don’t always know which idea to pursue. When I take a break I gain clarity.

1. Oxygen Magazine, February 2015, Eight simple rules to make your training more effective: rest, recovery and results, by Joe Wuebben. p. 95

2. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/jobs/take-breaks-regularly-to-stay-on-schedule-workstation.html?_r=0

June 2012 NYTimes Phyllis Korkki

3. Brief diversions vastly improve focus, researchers find, February 8, 2011, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110208131529.htm

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Non-ordinary Connections

Sat, 01 Aug 2015 13:10:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

Non-ordinary Connection

Art connects us. It tells us we’re human, we’re like one another, we feel the same emotions. My mission as a human being, and my job as an artist, is to use art to create deep connections among us. Those deep connections already exist, but sometimes convention rewards us for ignoring them. The greater rewards, however, come from exploring them.

Non-ordinary Connection is a form of artwork called Social Sculpture, audience participation pieces in which the work itself is interdependent on the involved actions of the audience within the work, but more importantly with each other.

Social practice art, also referred to as Social Sculpture or Ironic Participation, is art that brings people together. Art critic Clair Bishop said that social art “Assumes the creative energy of participatory practices. It re-humanizes or at least de-alienates a society rendered numb and fragmented by the instrumentality of capitalism.”

My work deals with permission, scale, access and boundaries. Social Sculpture brings to light the crisis in relationship between art and society by appropriating its audience. It’s born out of an authentic desire to engage my audience. It goes beyond the pleasure principle to cross a threshold that can produce a change by recreating then revealing a blind spot—making the invisible visible.

Speaking at a conference for the Tate Modern in 2013, Shannon Jackson, in Social Turns: in Theory and Across the Arts, made the point that social practice art illuminates viewers’ interdependence and highlights the hidden relationship of people who appear non-relational. “Often political, it has its origins in Marxist theory: the reciprocal and all-sided dependence of the very individuals who are indifferent to one another is precisely what forms their social connection.”

Thus, social practice art reveals the interdependence of people who thought of themselves as independent, or even alienated, from one another. Its aesthetics are not beauty, but discomfort, antagonism and opposition.

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The Attraction of Aversion: Why we can't look away

Sun, 26 Jul 2015 11:30:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

Averse Attractions: Why we can't look away

I'm delighted to see that the discussion about the grotesque is in the mainstream again. I wrote about this several years ago: The psychological attraction of gore

Recently the Huffington Post started a discussion about the draw of and accessability to horrific and gory images, memes, and internet clips. Why we can't stop watching disgusting videos:

"Disgust actually acted like a cognitive interrupt. You forgot what you saw before that because the disgusting stuff became the only salient thing in that message," Rubenking explained.

Coupled with that is "the urge and the need to tell someone else" about what you've seen, said Know Your Meme editor Brad Kim, who appeared on the HuffPost Live segment along with Rubenking.

"To borrow the words of the Internet axiom, 'What has been seen cannot be unseen. But what has not yet been seen but [is] discouraged to see, must be seen,'" Kim said. "This is kind of the underlying psychology that drives people to say, 'Oh yeah, I want to see and I want to know how disgusted I can get.'"

And there actually is a cognitive benefit to watching and sharing extreme content.

"Part of that can be explained by inherently being humans and wanting to learn from what is disgusting, so you don't become the disgusting dead body or you don't eat the wrong thing," Rubenking said. "There is something very cool and social about disgust responses that we don't see in regards to all different types of memes."

From top: Rodin-Gates of Hell 1917, Louise Bourgeois-Maman 1996, Felix Nussbaum-Fear 1941, Isaac Cordal-Cement Eclipses, Artemisia Genileschi-Judith Beaheading 1614, Hieronymous Bosch-Harrowing of Hell c:1500

Great art makes us uncomfortable because it deals with the most basic, universal aspects of the human experience. It establishes a connection between the artist and the viewer based on shared emotions and common understandings of feelings such as happiness, anger, and pain. It takes these fragments of the human psyche and reflects back who and what we are. It triggers our past, our sense memory, and how we come to understand the world in which we exist. Great art drills down into the universal and uncomfortable ontological questions that have occupied humankind for generations. Is this real? Where is consciousness?

2010 CoCA press release:

[sic] the artist’s radical project is immediately apparent in her “accident series” in which a single figure is in the process of a horrific (and usually grotesquely bloody) accident with a chainsaw, shotgun, axe or similar tools and weapons. Her handling of the paint matches the situation’s goriness – melting bodies tossing explosive splatters of blood. Often, her subjects seem not yet to be aware of the violence they have perpetrated on themselves: The viewer plays the role of the witness much as he might watch a horror movie – completely aware of the violence and agony that awaits the victim’s realization.

Vrijmoet’s subject, however, is less the gore than the moment the gore marks: A moment of waking, of a new consciousness, of self-awareness. Her subject is trauma itself – the word coming from the German for “dream.” The accidents mark the rest of the victim’s life, whether it is merely to be a few more seconds or to lived from then on without an arm, a leg or an eye – or with deep physical and psychological scars.

The idea of waking is what draws Vrijmoet’s main bodies of work together.

This is not a phenomena new to the age of connectivity. Afterall, in 1757 Edmond Burke wrote "Astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror." -Edmund Burke, On the Sublime

Goya, Saturn devouring his children

In his CoCA catalog essay titled: The Accidental Purist: Kate Vrijmoet and the American Sublime Art Critic Dan Kany writes:

There is no denying one of the most historically important and powerful painters of Western culture was Fransciso Goya. Late in life and at the peak of his powers, Goya painted directly onto the wall of his home a series of paintings known as the Black Paintings. The most famous of these is Saturn Devouring his Son, after the Roman god who ate his children in a desperate attempt to ward off the prophecy that one would ultimately overthrow him.

It is arguably the most brutal painting to scale the heights of the canon of Western art history. On a sheer black background, a wide-eyed and maniacally desperate Saturn – a naked giant – bites off his son’s left forearm having already devoured his head and right arm. The naked (adult) body hangs limp though squeezed by the madness of his terrified father. The body could be that of any viewer.

What makes this painting so terrifying is that the viewer identifies with the decapitated body. It provides scale in the face of the insanely violent monster. It lets us see ourselves in the image.

It’s worth asking why such a painting is so powerful, so captivating and so compelling. The answer goes beyond sympathy for this victim of cannibalistic filicide. We ask ourselves what kind of person would paint this picture. Who, moreover, would paint this for permanent display in his own dining room?

The paintings of Kate Vrijmoet’s Accident series raise similar questions in the face of more contemporary incidents of raucous blood and gore.

In a recent Salon article on why we can't look away: "One anonymous internet user said, ‘You almost can’t believe that a group of people could be so pitiless as to carry out something so cruel and bestial, and you need to have it con?rmed . . . Watching them evokes a mixture of emotions – mainly distress at the obvious fear and suffering of the victim, but also revulsion at the gore, and anger against the perpetrators.’"

Eric Wilson wrote a book about why we can't look away. Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck examines our fascination with darkness and evil and discusses our curiosity about death asking the question: What makes these spectacles so irresistible?

These are my creepy little kids at an opening of my zombie paintings in 2011. I love their willingness to fully embodied the spirit of the whole event.

The artist gives us madness, death and suffering and asks us how we plan to come to terms with what she’s shown us. That’s what makes art memorable. That’s what distinguishes Neel, Chicago and Emin from artists who don’t understand the power she has to connect us. It’s what marks the work of Sexton and Plath as time-less. And what I hope will set me apart as well.

Death is one of two universal experiences. In large part, my work deals with birth and death and our ability to be conscious and present in between the two. I am fascinated by our relationships to the world and each other, and how they affect our beliefs about our existence.

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Why you do it

Mon, 25 May 2015 21:37:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

Why you do it, that is the question to answer.

"People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it."

Simon Sinec said that to explain successful endeavors. So, why do you do it?

It is my mission as a human and my job as an artist to use art to create deep connections among us.

Here is what Kandinsky wrote on the subject: The artist has a triple responsibility to the non-artists: (1) He must repay the talent which he has; (2) his deeds, feelings, and thoughts, as those of every man, create a spiritual atmosphere which is either pure or poisonous. (3) These deeds and thoughts are materials for his creations, which themselves exercise influence on the spiritual atmosphere. The artist is not only a king, as Peladan says, because he has great power, but also because he has great duties.

I’m in a conversation with the viewer, a very complex conversation, one that functions on visceral, emotional, instinctual, visual, spiritual, neurological and intellectual levels. How awesome is that?! And as if that weren’t already too much awesomeness to take, I get to have this conversation with any medium or combination I choose, and often do!- installation, painting, performance, sound, food, sculpture, curating, writing.

The true work of art, Kandinsky observed, detaches itself from the artist and takes on its own life, becoming an independent being animated with spiritual breath. In my work I do not so much accede to this as seek it. How can it be any other way? Art connects us. It tells us we’re human, we’re like each other, we feel. That’s my mission as a human and my job as an artist to bring about situations through art where this can happen. If art must teach us something about the world we live in, it teaches us that we must reach out to others, that to dig deeper reaps rewards, and that we share the human condition.

People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Why do you create art?

Bibliography:

The politics of the social

Simon Sinec: Start with why

Regarding the artist purpose and spirituality

The respectful conversation: viewer intention and responsibility in the art experience

The Incredible Intensity of Just Being Human, Exhibit Catalog, Kate Vrijmoet, David Francis, Gayle Clemans, Grace Boey

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Time to Rally around the Artist-Museum Partnership Act: S 931

Fri, 08 May 2015 13:37:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

I was very excited to learn today that

Senator Leahy has introduced an important amendment to the tax law and it's now sitting with the Committee on Finance.

S. 931 To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide that a deduction equal to fair market value shall be allowed for charitable contributions of literary, musical, artistic, or scholarly compositions created by the donor.

Full text of the bill is below. In the meantime I've contacted my state Senator, Maria Cantwell and sent her the following letter in support of this proposed bill.

Dear Senator Cantwell,

On April 14, Senator Leahy introduced bill S 931. I am writing to express my support of this amendment to the tax law.

I see that with one proposal, this proposal solves two major (major in my professional world) problems with the existing tax code: donation value when work is donated by the maker, and separating the artwork from the copyright ownership.

Please support this legislation so that it becomes law.

There are over 2 million full-time visual artists in the USA, how many museums, art centers and arts-related charitable organizations that will also be positively impacted by this bill...I don't know the numbers on that.

About a year ago I wrote an essay "The broader economic impact of donating your art" that hit a collective nerve. Millions of readers accessed the article, it was republished in several countries and translated to French. The article went viral 5 times since I've written it and it remains the most popular web-hit on my site. I tell you this both to indicate my investment in the outcome and how broadly this issue affects the nation.

A vibrant arts community is an indicator of a strong economy. This proposed bill helps keep the arts strong. When this passes, the arts community can exhale a collective sigh of relief.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help see this legislation pass.

Respectfully yours, Kate Vrijmoet

Feel free to use some of what I've written in your own letters to your legislators sitting on the Committee on Finance

And if you can think of other ways to engage our community to support S931, please let us know in the comments below. Thank you.

And Thank you Senator Leahy!

Art_Tax_Deduction.pdf

114TH CONGRESS

1ST SESSION S. 931

To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide that a deduction

equal to fair market value shall be allowed for charitable contributions

of literary, musical, artistic, or scholarly compositions created by the

donor.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

APRIL 14, 2015

Mr. LEAHY introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred

to the Committee on Finance

A BILL

To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide

that a deduction equal to fair market value shall be

allowed for charitable contributions of literary, musical,

artistic, or scholarly compositions created by the donor.

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa

2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Artist-Museum Part

5 nership Act’’.

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Doc 2015-11023 (6 pgs)

•S 931 IS

1 SEC. 2. CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS OF CERTAIN ITEMS

2 CREATED BY THE TAXPAYER.

3 (a) IN GENERAL.—Subsection (e) of section 170 of

4 the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (relating to certain

5 contributions of ordinary income and capital gain prop

6 erty) is amended by adding at the end the following new

7 paragraph:

8 ‘‘(8) SPECIAL RULE FOR CERTAIN CONTRIBU

9 TIONS OF LITERARY, MUSICAL, OR ARTISTIC COM

10 POSITIONS.—

11 ‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—In the case of a quali

12 fied artistic charitable contribution—

13 ‘‘(i) the amount of such contribution

14 shall be the fair market value of the prop

15 erty contributed (determined at the time of

16 such contribution), and

17 ‘‘(ii) no reduction in the amount of

18 such contribution shall be made under

19 paragraph (1).

20 ‘‘(B) QUALIFIED ARTISTIC CHARITABLE

21 CONTRIBUTION.—For purposes of this para

22 graph, the term ‘qualified artistic charitable

23 contribution’ means a charitable contribution of

24 any literary, musical, artistic, or scholarly com

25 position, or similar property, or the copyright

26 thereon (or both), but only if—

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Doc 2015-11023 (6 pgs)

•S 931 IS

1 ‘‘(i) such property was created by the

2 personal efforts of the taxpayer making

3 such contribution no less than 18 months

4 prior to such contribution,

5 ‘‘(ii) the taxpayer—

6 ‘‘(I) has received a qualified ap

7 praisal of the fair market value of

8 such property in accordance with the

9 regulations under this section, and

10 ‘‘(II) attaches to the taxpayer’s

11 income tax return for the taxable year

12 in which such contribution was made

13 a copy of such appraisal,

14 ‘‘(iii) the donee is an organization de

15 scribed in subsection (b)(1)(A),

16 ‘‘(iv) the use of such property by the

17 donee is related to the purpose or function

18 constituting the basis for the donee’s ex

19 emption under section 501 (or, in the case

20 of a governmental unit, to any purpose or

21 function described under subsection (c)),

22 ‘‘(v) the taxpayer receives from the

23 donee a written statement representing

24 that the donee’s use of the property will be

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•S 931 IS

1 in accordance with the provisions of clause

2 (iv), and

3 ‘‘(vi) the written appraisal referred to

4 in clause (ii) includes evidence of the ex

5 tent (if any) to which property created by

6 the personal efforts of the taxpayer and of

7 the same type as the donated property is

8 or has been—

9 ‘‘(I) owned, maintained, and dis

10 played by organizations described in

11 subsection (b)(1)(A), and

12 ‘‘(II) sold to or exchanged by

13 persons other than the taxpayer,

14 donee, or any related person (as de

15 fined in section 465(b)(3)(C)).

16 ‘‘(C) MAXIMUM DOLLAR LIMITATION; NO

17 CARRYOVER OF INCREASED DEDUCTION.—The

18 increase in the deduction under this section by

19 reason of this paragraph for any taxable year—

20 ‘‘(i) shall not exceed the artistic ad

21 justed gross income of the taxpayer for

22 such taxable year, and

23 ‘‘(ii) shall not be taken into account in

24 determining the amount which may be car-

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•S 931 IS

1 ried from such taxable year under sub

2 section (d).

3 ‘‘(D) ARTISTIC ADJUSTED GROSS IN

4 COME.—For purposes of this paragraph, the

5 term ‘artistic adjusted gross income’ means

6 that portion of the adjusted gross income of the

7 taxpayer for the taxable year attributable to—

8 ‘‘(i) income from the sale or use of

9 property created by the personal efforts of

10 the taxpayer which is of the same type as

11 the donated property, and

12 ‘‘(ii) income from teaching, lecturing,

13 performing, or similar activity with respect

14 to property described in clause (i).

15 ‘‘(E) PARAGRAPH NOT TO APPLY TO CER

16 TAIN CONTRIBUTIONS.—Subparagraph (A) shall

17 not apply to any charitable contribution of any

18 letter, memorandum, or similar property which

19 was written, prepared, or produced by or for an

20 individual while the individual is an officer or

21 employee of any person (including any govern

22 ment agency or instrumentality) unless such

23 letter, memorandum, or similar property is en

24 tirely personal.

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•S 931 IS

1 ‘‘(F) COPYRIGHT TREATED AS SEPARATE

2 PROPERTY FOR PARTIAL INTEREST RULE.—In

3 the case of a qualified artistic charitable con

4 tribution, the tangible literary, musical, artistic,

5 or scholarly composition, or similar property

6 and the copyright on such work shall be treated

7 as separate properties for purposes of this para

8 graph and subsection (f)(3).’’.

9 (b) EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendment made by

10 this section shall apply to contributions made after the

11 date of the enactment of this Act in taxable years ending

12 after such date.

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Artist Resale Royalty Law Survives (CA), Now what?

Thu, 07 May 2015 11:44:00 UTC

Omphaloskepsis Blog

Aug 25, 2011

CARR law survives, now what?

Can we roll this out to the rest of the country?

I've never understood why artists in music, writing, acting, and film-making receive royalties, but visual artists do not. I support artists receiving resale royalties on their work.

Excerpted From Hyperallergic this week:

On Tuesday the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals delivered its ruling on the California Resale Royalty Act (CRRA), deeming it unconstitutional but, unlike the District Court that examined it back in 2012, deciding that the offending clause could be removed without having to strike the entire act. The decision is being heralded as victory by resale royalties advocates, who are hoping that similar legislation can be implemented at the federal level; most developed countries have laws in place to ensure that visual artists are compensated when their works are sold at auction.

The California law has been on the books since 1976 and requires sellers to pay artists 5% of the sale price when an artwork is sold at an auction in the state, or at an out-of-state auction by a seller based in California. It came under examination after artists Chuck Close and Laddie John Dill and the estate of sculptor Robert Graham filed a lawsuit against Christie’s and Sotheby’s demanding resale royalties from past auctions. Both the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the District Court found that the provision that applies to all sellers based in California regardless of where the sale took place violates a clause in the US Constitution that prevents one state’s laws from affecting interstate commerce.

“For example, if a California resident has a part-time apartment in New York, buys a sculpture in New York from a North Dakota artist to furnish her apartment, and later sells the sculpture to a friend in New York, the Act requires the payment of a royalty to the North Dakota artist — even if the sculpture, the artist, and the buyer never traveled to, or had any connection with, California,” wrote Judge Susan Graber in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision. “We easily conclude that the royalty requirement, as applied to out-of-state sales by California residents, violates the dormant Commerce Clause.”

However, while the District Court claimed that this made the entire CRRA unconstitutional, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the six offending words — “the seller resides in California or” — should be stricken, rather than striking the entire act.

“ARS (Artists Rights Society) has every reason to believe that the California Resale Royalty Act will survive as amended,” said ARS founder and president Theodore Feder in a statement on Wednesday. “It follows in our view that a Resale Royalty Act should be instituted on a federal level, and for that reason we are ardent supporters of the measure introduced by Congressman Jerrold Nadler of New York, called The Art Act, which would apply the royalty to all the states.”