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Art... and all it entails!

Life Inspiring Art

4/23/2022

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Scuba!
Below is a video shot by Melissa Davidson on our scuba trip to Cozumel.
Below that is a video in the studio of the new body of ceramic work called Divers inspired by the experience.
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A post shared by Melisa Davidson (@melisa88)

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A post shared by Art by Caroline (@carolineholmes_art)

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Synthesizing art and science into a holistic technology

12/16/2021

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The unification of art and science as a singular technology “Art-Sci” synthesized with digital new media can potentially create deeper learning experiences and broader education potentials. This is a good reason why project development should receive funding where traditionally science grants are favored over art grants in general. Art is the most holistic discipline and should be revered as such. It incorporates science, technological advancement, historical record keeping, anthropology, philosophy, aesthetics, design, engineering, problem solving, creative thinking, collaboration, psychology, self-advocacy, social advocacy, environmental advocacy, political commentary, thought provocation, inspiration, motivation, spiritual connection, physiological effects, development of intuition and instinct as well as benefits for mental health and creating community!  
Importantly, experiencing art can create an emotional response and potentially an emotional investment in environmental issues that science alone cannot.
A great example of this synthesis of art, science, technology and environmentalism is the  work by the late Nazhia Mestaoui. Her projects ask for audience participation, not only in the immediacy of using the sensor technology in her project to create a visual experience but also by directly connecting their participation to a reforestation project in the real world.
Mestaoui passed away in 2020 during her prime leaving behind a legacy of ingenious work that shows how art and contemporary technology can be used to engage people to have actionable responses in environmental issues. Her works asks the question what more can be achieved in this way?

To see a TedTalk from the artist herself copy and paste the link below
 
https://youtu.be/LtQpJ_5j_GQ 


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Thoughts about NFTs for artists...

12/5/2021

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I've been thinking about creating NFTs of my photography and other digital works  to help support my art practice. There's some appeal of a new digital marketplace that I can upload 50 of my artworks to be sold into a whole new world without having to create prints or give  50% to a gallery or slog through the algorithms on social media and other saturated online marketplaces. Like anyone else my ears pricked up at the idea of royalties forever if my work was traded digitally amongst a much broader audience than that of the elite art market. As far as I can understand, NFTs or non-fungible tokens are digital assets sold on the internet without a standardized value assigned to them. They are the latest way for art to be sold as a commodity using block-chain technology. The certificate of authenticity is the most important aspect to the NFT trade. This certificate is verified by the same global computer system that mines cryptocurrency.   Originally, crypto and block chain technology was purported to disrupt the current system of centralized financial control of government, banks and corporations with the digital ledger that was verified through the global computer system. The decentralized ideology is also an appealing part of digital currency and NFTs. With NFTs specifically the ideal is that artists can sell their work on this world wide platform, bypassing the dictatorship of the art world's elite museum, gallery and auction house syndicate. When Beeple sold a jpeg of a collage of all of the digital art he ever created for 60 million dollars, it started an NFT creating frenzy and stoked the hunger for the volatile market of cryptocurrency again. The problem is that the global computer system was designed with the same inefficiency as capitalism in terms of resource extraction and competition driving profit or results. The global computing system is made up of thousands of electricity hungry computers who all compete to verify the certificate of authenticity within the block chain. Only one "winning"computer verifies, but thousands run burning up fossil fuels in our antiquated, capitalist driven system. The more hype for NFTs, the bigger the market and the more the computers run. It is  once again a failing system because of the finite use of non-renewables that adds to a climate crisis that is ramping up. Additionally anyone can create a token and any legitimate digital art market that could exist is swamped with meaningless dross also just burning up energy and space.
So what's the solution?
First, the global computer system needs to be reformed so that it isn't based in competition, resource waste and inefficiency. Perhaps AI can be integrated to make it more efficient in a way that is synergistic.
Second, computers need to be designed in a way that generates energy instead of just using it. Systems need to be connected. Imagine if every time a token is verified, energy is created and stored in a battery.
Thirdly, Crypto and NFT markets must pay a percentage of any transaction to regenerative practices that sink carbon and must use renewable sources of energy only.
Fourthly, it should be cost prohibitive for just anyone to create an art based NFT. There must be a regulatory body that decides a minimum of artistic integrity and practice in order to be make it cost efficient for artists and have some kind of container in the digital art market.

With reform and right practices we can continue to innovate the technology to change the world and create more inclusive opportunities for artists but it needs to be done with a collaborative, regenerative mindset that prioritizes the environment otherwise continued growth means destruction is inevitable. 

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In the sanctuary of clay

11/30/2021

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I can't quite explain why working with clay makes me feel so content. The simplicity of mixing earth and fire is so primal. My work has been called primitive, magical, a discovery, both grounded in the earth and ethereal. I often wonder if it is just the expression of genetic memory remembering a time when there was no distinction among us in the socialization of class or race. Some of my work asks for its own temple, a place of reverence for Mother Earth and for her strange children to come and connect with some ancient mystery still rooted within us all and our connection to Her core. It is both my offering and healing that the work may share its energy to inspire and lift, to open portals and activate potentials. With my hands in the clay I am able to make space for magic and find true purpose.

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Self-advocacy and art making.

10/27/2021

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From the holistic perspective art is about a lot of things. If we voyage into the advanced studies arena of art and academia or the art world in general we really have to believe in ourselves and the conviction of our work. This becomes a precarious position as we receive critique and popular opinion about our place in that world from the hierarchy in place whether teacher/student or those in positions of power denying or supporting the very personal work of the artist. This is a mirror of other hierarchical systems in society like those in the medical field, the financial, the political and the various imbalances and injustices that result. So how then can art making help us with our own ability for self-advocacy? Our art is about our voice, our perspective, a personal language that only we can create. It is about deciding that that voice has a value not governed by the art market or really anyone else's taste and opinion but about its ability to be authentically expressed, felt and seen. It's about the decisions we make in the process that empower our own aesthetic and instinct. In a world where we might have to self-advocate for appropriate medical care, basic human rights and safety, can we use our art making to hone this skill that isn't taught and often seen as a defiant stance by those in positions of power?  Can we teach others to self-advocate using art?
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Self-portrait in acrylics. Age 16
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Community and Art

10/8/2021

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One of the things that I find so enriching about having an art practice, is being around others who are also passionate about making and learning. The past couple of weekends I was part of a ceramics pit fire on the beach. Something I had wanted to do since living in coastal California. Being able to safely have a fire was also quite special. There is something so ancient and connecting about gathering around a fire with others. Firing ceramics in a live fire adds another layer of ancestry to the process.
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There's quite a bit of prep that goes into it from making sure the fire is permitted in the location, no birds are nesting, the size of the fire (30 cm diameter max on Humboldt beaches), shlepping kindling, supplies, pots, food etc.. down to the site, drying out the sand with a pre-fire and making a bed of coals to lay the pots on, gathering wood to keep the fire going for several hours, making sure the fire is protected from too much off shore wind... We mostly brought bisque, high fire vessels that would have a better chance of surviving the process. We gathered feathers and seaweed, brought copper mesh and wire to wrap around some pots and in some cases wrapped them in foil. All of these things can be used to make marks on the pieces when exposed to the fire or pots just pulled from he fire.
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What I love most about the process is the surprise at the end of the burn. After the ritual of setting it all up, once we add our pieces, we relinquish all control and let the fire and the elements do their magic. We all take turns to keep the fire going. We share stories, food and silliness, admire the birds and the ocean. Sometimes things break, sometimes they get lost in the embers but mostly it's like pulling out treasures from some other era long ago.
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Therapeutics Of Clay

9/28/2021

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It wasn't until I was burned out, dizzy for three months and at the end of a grueling schedule that I finally said screw it I am am going to take ceramics classes here on the Mendocino coast. I need to get grounded and slow down, do something I've always wanted to and heal my short circuited brain. Once I started working with clay, I became obsessed. It happens that way for some people. We are called Clayheads. Some endorphin response happens when shaping lumps of earth into works of art, discoveries are made and thousands of years of genetic memory get switched on. The thread of global ancestry is illuminated, from the first artworks known, it continues to weave its way through our fingers, transformed into clay becoming new form from the inner and the ancient. 
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Then there's the deliciousness of transformation: soft moulded clay slumped, smoothed, squished into formations, which are then dried and fired into a hardened "bisqued" version. In this piece "Turkey Tail Man", I started out knowing one thing: I want to loosely shape a face. Once the personality came through and revealed a male, it was evident that he required turkey tail mushrooms to become his true self. In the above picture and video below you can see a stain I am using to bring out the details of the sculpture now it has been fired.
The piece will be fired again and the stain will be alchemized into the clay transforming the look into a finish. Carved within the face is an archetypal script I call sacred circuitry which is found in most of my ceramic work.
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The healing power of school later in life.

9/17/2021

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 When I first start to inquire about returning to school, I walked into the foyer at Berkeley City College and was so overwhelmed, it took another year for me to go back. The first time I was going through a rough patch of my life. I was living in chronic pain, depression and grief whilst surviving an abusive relationship. I had sustained an injury during my career as a massage therapist and was feeling painfully incapacitated, combined with the toxic environment and the tunnel vision of depression, I could not see any way out. At times I was suicidal. I was living in the Bay Area at the time when renting something affordable was becoming impossible and the amount of homeless people seen on the streets growing daily. I started living in a state of fear, living with an unpredictable, violent man who had no problem putting his hands around my throat, throwing me down on the floor and leaving me with bruises or living on the street, unable to work with my disability. Who was this person? Throughout my life people had told me what a strong person I was, fearless even. I was no wallflower. Where was the warrior goddess who has already survived so much? During these dark days I really came to understand the crippling effects of depression and the burning sting of victim shaming. I learned a hell of a lot about domestic violence, how pointless going to court can be and how much work there is to do on a societal level.
One day, driving on the freeway, I saw a giant billboard which said; "Now offering Multimedia Arts at Berkeley City College". It was like an arrow piercing the fog of hopelessness and maybe a way for me to find my feet again. I talked with other friends who had gone back to college and shared with them how I was so overwhelmed the first time, I didn't think I could go back to school. When they explained that they had gone through a similar experience I didn't feel so stupid and with assistance started the first steps. I returned to college at the age of 37 and at that time it was a lifeline.
I have been in school now for five years. It turns out I am a good student. I was on the Dean's list last semester, I am a member of the Phi Theta Kappa and The National Society of Leadership. I am on track to graduate this year and considering a variety of options. My overall goals are;
to facilitate art wellness practices for others, to research the therapeutic effects of ceramics and art journaling, to become proficient at visually communicating important environmental and scientific issues, to support and expand the crucial art of ecofeminism through education and focused art making, to continue to advocate for survivors of domestic violence. In addition I am learning to scuba dive with a goal of participating in coral restoration projects.
When I started on the journey of my college education, I did not know where it would lead me. I have so many interests both in art and environmental studies and now feel I am able to explore my full potential by staying the course. The most important change though, in all of this learning and enrichment, is the fact that I now believe I can do it and want to. As a result, I can encourage others to believe in themselves.

​With love
Gaiagyrl.

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Art Is A Quantum Technology

9/13/2021

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Musings about art and technology...

Art is the most holistic technology we have. Art encompasses the inner and outer realities, the inspiration and the idea, the creative process and the result.  The results can be unlimited, unlike modern science which demands a negation of a hypothesis or pseudo science which seeks proof of a hypothesis. Art is a quantum technology and could use every  technology ever known in it's unending evolution of expression as long as humans are around to be its subject. Art is a vehicle for the energy of life itself becoming manifest through the human experience and all it's ideas. Technology is the process of how ideas come to fruition through practical application. Technology is a gateway to the material expression of ideas. Technology can also be considered a form of science in the way that it has a documented history of ideas which have a self-feeding influence on society. The ability to make cave paintings to the advent of agrarian society, industry, space exploration and the integration of digital age in modern culture are all due to technology, but without the impulse of the creative spirit and its need for expression, technology would not exist.
The use of technology and art both come from the impulse to manipulate the physical world for the perceived betterment of human experience. Modern science prefers to measure it, finding expression through logic deduction in order to create. We evolve due to our ability to make art and create technologies. The scientific method is also a technology. Ultimately there is no need to dice them up as we are in an era now where the holistic utilization of interdisciplinary technology is needed for the betterment of humans and our relationship to our planet. 
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Thoughts on the artistic process...

8/31/2021

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  • "Her Rising Tide" is a reworked painting. I made the decision to paint over an intense and cathartic painting expressing rage, into something inspired by the transformative energy of the ocean where I lived. I believe the act of overpainting and transforming the energy of the work was part of a healing process. There was also something freeing about painting in an abstract manner, layering oceanic colors in paint until it became like the swirling ocean that had drawn me to it for my personal art retreat and recovery in coastal Mendocino.
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  • The above Youtube link shows a bit of that painting process and you can see the final image is much more abstract offering a different energy and message.
    The title "Her Rising Tide" has multiple meanings for me through an ecofeminist lens and as a survivor of abuse, but ultimately the core theme is about change.

    Art journaling is a good way to explore a holistic art practice. There are some links to my You Tube channel here and on the Gaiagyrl page of my website, which has some warm up exercises, especially for all the folks who say "I can't draw/paint" and "I wish I could draw/paint", (so many people have said this to me through my life) but for anyone just to get going without too much thought.

    Intentional, transformative art making is an interesting way to engage with the holistic self.
    Whilst all art could be seen as essentially transformational, there is healing potential in creating something cathartically raw, to express pain/ anger, acknowledging it, letting it have a visual voice and also deciding to change it into something else, reclaiming our own wellbeing and cultivating the growth we wish for. 
    In this process we can learn to author our own stories and one step at a time, envision and experience a process of renewal. 












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    Gaiagyrl

    Holistic art practitioner

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