As we move, from here to there, from fear, to caution, to spring, I mourn the losses, I contemplate the possibility-of radical listening, of art as an invisible network of resilience for the human spirit, an essential part of the rhizomatic immune system. Can it help us survive this time of challenge- in justice, in environmental devastation, in pandemics now and ahead?
I think artists can be fundamental to the conversation- if we choose to be. For now I’ve been quiet, internal, social media feels invasive even as I love to see you all. Where can we go from here? What is possible if we set our hearts to it? I hope we can talk of these things together....
I look forward to more and deeper conversations as we move forward in this time.
Anyone else? Let’s talk.....
#reliquaryforabrokenworld #laceasmetaphor #momentomori #mourningart #exvoto #thecritlab @thecritlab #artasnetworkofresilience #letstalk
I had imagined that this note would be an optimistic welcome to 2021. Instead it is more sobering. Yet I am still hopeful about the world, about artists and our work.
On Wednesday, January 6, I was on a nearly four-hour Zoom Memorial for Amy Lipton, curator and co-director of EcoArtspace, who died of cancer in December at way too young an age. There were well over a hundred people; a significant number stayed to the end. The event was filled with luminaries from Mel Chin to Merle Laderman Ukeles, offering moving tributes to this fierce advocate for the environment and for artists. I was honored to be among those asked to say a few words. I spoke of the exhibition that Amy and I co-curated, called Nurturing Nature: Artists Engage the Environment, in 2011, at the gallery at Concordia College-NY where I was director 2008-12. The exhibit was filled with works of poetic beauty and layered meaning, with thirteen artists including Jackie Brookner, Vaughn Bell, and Xavier Cortada. It remains one of my proudest curatorial projects, not least because of the opportunity to work with Amy.
The memorial was a powerful testament to Amy Lipton’s life and work, to the amazing community of artists, curators, and thinkers that she gathered about her, and to the power of art to bring joy, wonder, inspiration, healing, and movement to our lives.
While we lamented Amy’s loss, notices of the siege of the capitol began to pour in. In the span of the zoom our nation’s capital had been invaded and vandalized, the democratic process of peaceful transfer of power momentarily halted. The terrible contrast between these events was striking.
Amy was a quiet insistent peacebuilder. Peace, beauty and complexity travel a subtle road. They don’t crash into bodies and things, they encircle and entwine, take time and reflection to seep slowly into our being. They require honesty and openness, alongside a willingness to not know, to stay still in the site of greyness.
With art we dream better. Even when seemingly alone in our pursuit, as artists we bring objects into being in an act of complexity over ideology, of creativity over destruction. Daily this notion may be challenged, yet I continue to believe that art gives breath to our collective human soul.
End note for a surreal year.....
Here we are- the end of a year - of trauma and loss, hope and courage, reflection and discovery. Tasked with an accountability to our own interiority, we smash up against aspirations and limitations. We grieve the loss of so many things, travel to visit loved ones, singing together, shaking a hand, the touch of skin, the closeness of breath- hugs. Laughing over food lovingly prepared, fork reaching over plate to share a mouthful. We now tend to the fraught-ness in the daily-ness.
To make art reflects an interiority incapable of being contained, an inescapable desire that spills over from within us. The tears of the joy and the anger and the loss, the sweat of the grief, the fury of living - are too big for our insides and pour out of us as objects. It can be thrilling, this porousness, and also frightening, close to a dissolving of the space between an us and a them, between my interiority and yours. Artworks are expressions of our particularity, objects of mourning and celebration, of thinking and contemplation and of unadulterated feeling. They are ours and not ours, they are relational, set afloat into a world of their own making. Standing in front of a work of art, I am bound to another’s interiority, an intimacy embodied in an object. The separation between us and another, between us and the world, becomes fungible, even as we remain physically separate. An encounter with an artwork is an act of empathy - for the artist, the viewer, and for the artwork.
The theme of the first Crit Lab AltMFA was radical listening - as a choice and a stance, one that remains present in that excess of interiority. As 2020 rounds, this listening speaks to a yearning and a hope for our objects and for our communities. I have been humbled and honored by the generous spirit of the artists I've worked with this year, and hope to expand a practice of radical listening in the new year.
May you and yours be safe and healthy, and your holidays filled with love, through the people and the art that feed your soul.
patricia miranda, 2020
image: my interiority facing the street.
Lamentations for a Reasoned History, Main Window DUMBO
Crit Lab Survives and Thrives in 2020
2020 Crit Lab Programs and News:
2020 was year to remember, as the world closed down from a pandemic, racial justice rose to a national priority, a monumental election was held, contested, decided. We survived as artists and as a country.
In the midst of a pandemic, like the rest of the world, the Crit Lab went virtual. We had no idea what this space might offer or change for tactile object-makers. While challenges arose in quickly learning new technologies, in adapting to its language and investigating its possibilities, we explored how the digital offers a new platform for creative thinking, sharing artwork, and in-depth discussion. The fall had 6 Labs with artists from 6-7 states, gathering in the safe brave "enclosure" space of Zoom. The discussions were deep and complex, with a character framed by the unique vernacular of the digital space. We discovered different intimacies and focus, and look forward to further investigating the possibilities of the digital, as well as how these spaces can be an access to the real.
Fall 2020 had 6 Labs, 3 Main Labs and 3 NxtLvl, with artists from 6 states, gathering in the safe brave "enclosure" space of Zoom. In addition we had the first Crit Lab AltMFA, and our first Master Class.
Group Crits with our esteemed faculty began this year, including a day with Jason Stopa and Gaby Collins-Fernandez.
Private Faculty Crits now available here.
Private Consulting on administrative work with our amazing Tech Expert Florencia Escudero started and is going strong. If you need assistance with digital files, website, organizing, and more, Flo is a dream to work with.
Crit Lab faculty Gaby Collins-Fernandez came on board as the Co-Director of the AltMFA. The Lab is eternally thankful for her brilliance and hard work and are excited to work with her on AltMFA 2021!
Crit Lab 2020
Crit Lab AltMFA
November 12-15, 2020
The AltMFA brought 13 faculty and 29 artists from 9 states for a packed program of lecture, critique, drawing and and walking collaborations. Thank you to all who took part in this inspiring event.
Full program: $475. Day Rate: $175
Day rates give full access to all events and recordings for the day of registration only. Lectures and all content are reserved for participants only.
Alt MFA Master Class with Jonathan Van Dyke
13 artists from 7 states joined JVD for this innovative program.
December 5 & 12, 2020. 1-5:30pm
$275 $250 for all AltMFA registrants.
Stay Tuned for more programs and AltMFA 2021.
Crit Lab founder Patricia Miranda interviewed on Alison Stanfield's wonderful podcast on September 24, 2020.
I had a great time chatting with Alison about critique in general and about the Crit Lab in particular. She's a powerhouse!
Listen here- https://artbizsuccess.com/critique-miranda-podcast/
The Soul of the Studio
A Crit Labber who was moving studios- from a space outside to one inside her home expressed surprise at the level of grief she experienced, to leave a studio of many years, even while knowing the new studio was the right move. I responded that it makes sense to grieve; the studio is a space of the soul.
I’ve always thought this, but the conversation made me consider it more closely. The studio is where the soul of our work resides, and, for those of us who feel compelled to make art, the soul of our lives. The studio is an intimate space, one of private ruminations and explorations, a space to roam, to dream, to play. The studio is a place where the imagination is fostered, nurtured, cultivated, and grown. It is a space where success and failure are sublimated behind the complex fact of creation, with its fits and starts, its tears and joys, its triumphs and defeats (including those we easily confuse, one for the other). This is where the imagination is made resilient, robust and hearty, able to resist the daily slings and arrows that might diminish it, that cast doubt and aspersions on its value from within and without. The protection of our imagination’s autonomy is an act of resistance.
The studio is also a space we share - a space where all of the art made and all of the conversations had- in the past, present and potentialities of the future, crowd in and participate in our individual acts of creation. The collective space of the imagination is an active force in our studios at every moment, a silent partner working alongside our every action. The shared unconscious of the studio is a collaborator we cannot control, we can only welcome into our peripheral awareness. When we acknowledge its presence we play harder, tougher, more rigorously, and more humbly and soulfully, with the concerns we bring to the table. Our work then joins these conversations, from past into future- a grand dinner party of art.
Crucially, the studio exists in the material world, on the land, in the deep particularities of place. The studio grounds our work and our bodies to its specific parameters and location, the way a family or a home does. Our work is rooted there, in that space, grown by its shape and context, like an indigenous seed adapted to its environment.
To leave a studio is to leave a home, to rend a part of our psyche away from itself. The move to a new place, even a better one, does not make that wrenching less visceral in our body, less felt in our soul. We leave ghostly tracings in that space, for a party that we’ll pick up in another place, with its strange coordinates and angles, its unfamiliar windows and doors, its fresh tears and laughters and clinking of new glasses. Raise a toast to the studio, my friends, and come rejoin the party.
Both our work and our practice can make a difference in these times- they can be peace in the storm, a call to action, a force of dialogue. Always, art making is an act of our autonomy over our imaginations and our inner lives. Protecting that autonomy, that place of possibility wholly and only ours, is the what art and artists do for ourselves, and for the culture. That space needs protection - not only for ourselves, but for the collective. To imagine something that doesn't exist is to hope, the imaginary is the place of that hope, and art is a manifestation of that hope.
A common feature of repressive politics is the invasion of our inner life. The protection of creativity through the making of art is an act of resistance. An act of hope.
All art matters, we need all kinds. As we move forward, we continue to situate our work in the larger context, and discover where the work wants to take us. Let’s listen carefully to the work and to one another – there’s enormous wisdom in the listening.
Bring your greatest ambitions for your work, and let's have art take up more space in the public discourse. More art means less destruction, and we can aim that creativity all around us.
JANUARY 2020 CRIT LAB
Happy New Year!
Artists and Leadership, Artists and Love
In rooms all over the world, artists gather. They talk about materials and process, they argue about movements and terminology, they share their work in passionate critique. As in any community, they breathe together, eat and drink together, and spend hours sharing common space. The studio is solitary, and the world outside does not always notice or share our concerns. Art making is internal and introverted, while the artwork looks out at the world, forward facing, hungry to be seen.
Artists naturally build community wherever we go. Conscious communities, such as the Crit Lab, artist-run centers and spaces, museums especially regional ones, intellectual communities such as MFA programs and alt communities such as Brooklyn Institute and SciArt, create pedagogies that reflect their values. These communities often have a life span, creating dynamic programs and communities for a length of time before circumstances change, people change, things evolve or dissolve.
Sometimes leadership changes, and inevitably this changes the community. Strong leadership can build a community of respect, of listening, of ethical, kind communication, of conscious collegiality and dynamic creativity. Strong leadership can model a world we want to live into, it can reflect our values and create an environment that is rich and full of genuine friendship and yes, love.
Leadership change can be full of hope, it can be full of joy, it can be filled with grief. When a new leader models a lack of respect, a lack of listening, a measuring of quality through the lens of a market, a disregard for institutional memory and the treasure, talent and hard work that built and invested in the community, we grieve. Communities that have been so carefully and lovingly crafted can become dissolute in mere moments. Leadership matters.
When shown extraordinary leadership and community, we can all pay it forward. We can bring that respect, kindness and passion into all that we do, to model and bring into being a world that actively lives our values.
Thank you to Craig Stockwell, Lucinda Bliss, Brian Bishop, Jason Stopa, Gaby Collins-Fernandez, Jonathen VanDyke, and all the incredible colleagues at NHIA (now NEC) for modeling a community of such careful listening, passion, intellectual rigor, friendship, and art.
“Art … demands an observer’s active participation. It moves. It provokes. It infuriates. It inspires. It elevates and equalizes. And our humanity is dependent upon it…..We should not need to defend the arts—nor to protect the arts. The arts deserve celebration, not defense. They demand affirmation, not protection….
Today, our reliance on—and reverence for—short-term, market-based justifications reveals a profound imbalance in the way our society is organized. An inequality of the highest order.
And we cannot sit idly by as the imaginations of our young people are starved of the fuel to fully fire. We cannot sit idly by as their horizons are pulled in and closed off. Their dreams are curtailed. Their sense of the possible is diminished.
As democracies, we owe ourselves better. We still can be a society that celebrates art—that, literally, treasures creative expression. And must continue working to translate this aspiration into action.”
Darren Walker, Ford Foundation President
See full statement from Darren Walker here:
https://www.fordfoundation.org/about/library/speeches/open-and-free-on-arts-democracy-and-inequality/
Each month I write a free-ranging missive with my thoughts on art and life for the month's Crit Lab.
November 2019
On art, life, and the death of a loved one.....
October was a busy and difficult month. Upon arriving home from London, a decades-long dear friend became very ill after a 2-year struggle with leukemia. After nearly a month in the ICU, sadly he passed away November 1. As his health proxy, I was dealing with doctors and decisions and many hours at the hospital wishing for the best outcomes. Now I continue as his executor, to manage his affairs and try my best to honor his wishes.
I relate this personal story not for condolences. (thank you) We have all been through these experiences, or will, and will continue to, until it is our turn. These experiences make the world suddenly very small, focused only on the most immediate and important details at hand, on our loved one, on our grief. Simultaneously, these moments open the world up - to the vastness of the universe and our small place in it, to the mystery of life and consciousness, and to meditations on our purpose (and to systems of health care, the amazing work of nurses and doctors…but that’s for another note). And, in this context, to art, and to our lives as artists as a purpose, as a deep expression of our short time on earth as a unique human. We make our mark, because it matters that we do. To care for those we love, and hopefully leave a positive impact on our little plot of life through relationships and through our artwork, are fundamental acts of humanity.
There are two ways to live. You can live as if nothing is a miracle. You can live as if everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein
On a lighter note- I watched a lot of Queer Eye during this time. Five fabulous flamboyant queer dudes descend on a nominated person and "remake" their life- their hair, their clothes, their home. Can a life be remade in a 5-day makeover? Probably not. But I began to ponder what it was that I loved about this show - beyond the reality TV manufactured scenes, the makeover, and of course, the five, who truly are fabulous, and hard not to love. They come to someone who was lonely, or felt alone, unnoticed, even with families who love them, and had perhaps neglected nurturing themselves. They then pay them such close and complete attention, shower them and them alone with a focused loving light on a physical and emotional level. They spend the 5 days actually seeing this person. Under this warm empathetic light, the recipients bloom like flowers. I thought about what it means to be seen, to be known, for who you are, who you might imagine you could be. To be seen as a unique beautiful individual. And what it means to not feel seen….. The effect is remarkable.
Art is not a person, so this is not a direct comparison, but allow me to stretch the metaphor. When you bring your work to the Crit Lab and place it on the wall to be seen by the community, the work is showered with loving attention -attention that is not condescending or full of false praise. Attention that honors the work as a unique form and being. We see the work, just as it is in that moment, a unique being in the world. Under this attention, the work literally blossoms…..
So in my roundabout and, perhaps ridiculous, comparison, I think of how we come to the Crit Lab and see the work of others, and allow our work to be seen (and if art is a verb, as you know I believe it to be, I can feel seen). This is an act of love towards the work, and towards ourselves as artists.
We speak in the Crit Lab of the space of empathy that opens up in front of a work, the space where meaning is created. I would extend that to hanging the work in front of the group, and the discussions that unfold before it, as an act of empathy towards the work, and towards yourself.
Am I stretching too far? Perhaps. That's ok. I am thinking a lot about empathy and its role in the work and in our lives. Lennon Flowers, co-founder of The People’s Supper and The Dinner Party, says “we have mistaken empathy as walking in someone else’s shoes. Let us be clear, you can’t. But what we can do is witness, and accompany.”
At Crit Lab, we witness and accompany. The Crit is an act of empathy towards your work and towards yourself, and towards the work of others in the Lab. This empathetic critical attention can make our work ever more seen, and help grow it into its best self.
Art is alive, and it feeds us.
Best
patricia
I just returned from a quick whirlwind art trip to London with 6 artists, exhausted and completely inspired. Traveling to a new place (albeit one I lived in in my "youth") and seeing art is such an enlightening experience. London is a lot like NYC, an international art city, filled with world class museums and galleries. (and not insignificantly, amazing food everywhere, from the lowest to highest end!). I found that I was "looking" in a different way, perusing more openly, discovering objects and works that at home I might not otherwise spend time on. When home I tend to see new exhibitions in arenas I am interested in, look at gallery shows of new works, follow the latest discussions. At home I rarely revisit permanent collections, time periods or cultural movements outside my main interests. This is primarily a time issue, at home there is much to do- so museum and gallery visits on my rare days free are reserved for the "latest" scholarship.
Being in a new place meant my mind was free to roam, to look at objects without my usual agendas, outside my usual interests. This was liberating, enthralling, and left me all the more convinced of my love of art, and museums and galleries as institutions, even with all their (many) problematics. I felt full of the same joy as always, to see objects crafted by humans over vast time and place, and the life force, the sheer human presence all these objects represent, combined by the openness of being in a place far from home.....
a presto,
patricia
Welcome newcomers and returning Labbers!
I am looking forward to the Crit Lab fall sessions. After busy summer travels and lots of changes, it feels like it's been so long since the last sessions ended. I hope you are all well- and ready to dive in to some hearty discussion.
As the NY art season bursts open, these past two weeks I've been out looking at a lot of art. There's so much thoughtful, insightful, material, political, poetical, beautiful and fiercely singular work out there, I am inspired. It is a cacophony of art- of diverse voices, full of passion and heart and soul. The variety is astonishing, the depth is invigorating, the intensity is.....intense.
This is a great time for art - with no single dominating voice, style, genre, media. All voices and discourses are needed. Your voices matter in this symphony.
What do you care about exploring more deeply this session? What and how do you want to make your work better, and how do you want to make it matter, for you, for the times we live in? What will you commit to this session? There are no "right" strategies. There is your vision- and yours to know the way your work can speak to the world.
Articulating intentions moves us into a state of being rather than aspiration. Let's start the session with an intention- for the work, for the session as a group, for how you want to take your work to the next level- whether technically, conceptually, professionally, or all of the above. Come with an intention, one to share or keep private - a goal, a question, a concern, a hope. This will be a year of turmoil and change.
Art can be an inspiring, enlightening, calming, enraging, peacebuilding, action in the world. I am a fierce believer in the power of art – and in the work we all do as artists.
benvenuto
patricia
Visit to Jason Stopa's solo exhibition at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects
The Crit Lab was excited to visit Jason Stopa's exquisite exhibition at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects on the lower east side in Manhattan. Jason was gracious enough to join us and give us some private insights into his work and his process. Thank you Jason!
Look for more Crit Lab activities this fall!