I think a lot about the concept of home. To me, home is the place where we feel we belong. Therefore, it is a place with which we are in relationship and communion. It can be our bodies, geographies, communities, and work. I imagine that our great journey is always a journey of returning home.
The word nostalgia is defined as a wistful desire to return to a former time in one's life, home, or homeland; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time. Its roots are Greek: Nostos to return home and Algos pain.
This past week, I discovered documentation of my becoming the artist I am, or rather documentation of my nascent understanding of myself as an artist, compiled and collected on an abandoned Facebook page. When I saw myself and my work from then, I felt Nostos and Algos. It is said that nostalgia is rectified by returning to the place one yearns for. I have spoken before about the whorls of one's life, the spinning of time where one moves ahead but in the path of a spiral, and in this way, one is in a state of continuous returning. Seeing myself then, I witnessed my self-recognition as a process artist. There was a post where I simply declared:
"Oh! Of course, I am a process artist!"
I remember when this name came to me like a hand offering a gift from the sky. This identity as a process artist helped me to feel at home in my practice. I belonged amongst other artists whose artwork emphasized the making versus the made object. Before this discovery, I struggled with a feeling of not fitting in. Yes, I was painting (sort of) with dirt, fabrics, plants, dust etc. but I was not interested so much in showing the paintings as I was in sharing the experience I encountered with the materials and nature. This dialogue between myself and the making would culminate in ideas that translated into experiential lessons I shared with others, which became Creativity + Courage™.
Later, I found home and shelter as a social sculptor or socially engaged artist, where I still reside. This is my occupation, the place I occupy. Here, I am settled in the Hudson Valley habitat. I live in my four-wall house, my body, my mind, and I have poetry and prose rooms here, and it seems my basement has a ceramics studio. A forsaken easel with fresh oil sticks is ready and waiting in the living room. The attic is stacked with neatly folded fabrics, yarns, and wool. There is a library full of partially written books and a closet overflowing with gowns. I love my home, and yet when I looked back this week, I felt Nostos and Algos. Particularly when I saw my blog post about my Second Nature. I yearn for deep solitude and intimacy with nature.
Recently I’ve been introduced to a new word related to nostalgia; solastalgia, i.e., stress caused by environmental change.
Solastagia was introduced in 2005 as a word to describe the devastation of a place due to climate change. Solastagia describes the experience of chronic trauma and hopelessness due to distressing changes to one's home environment.
I wonder if, when we look back, we are not more likely to experience solastalgia than nostalgia. For many reasons. One may be because we are quickly adapting to a technologically advanced place that is increasing our speed, distracting us with demanding communication, and decreasing our connection with nature and the privacy and intimacy of our unique lived experience.
I've thought about the communication speeds from a little more than a century ago. A person's message could not arrive faster than a horse cantor or a train (excluding psychic methods). There was a luxurious amount of space between words and ideas. If traveling to see a friend by carriage, one would only have a book and the view as entertainment. Many people simply walked.
Our time is truncated by the busyness of our days. Have you noticed that the more you do, the less well you feel? Time is our one equally shared resource; no person has more time in a day. How we spend our time is wildly unequal for multiple reasons, not all of which are personal choices.
This past week, I drew in my journal all the many things I wanted to do, trying to strategically choose between keepers and trash. However, I realized it was not the right question. It is not a question of what I want to do; rather, the question I need help answering is: How do I want to spend my life? It’s the WAY not the WHAT for me. I am a process artist.
PS. It seems the work of our lifetime is to create our home together in ways that honor each other's unique needs. I am someone with bipolar needs, in that I need isolation, and I need community learning spaces. It's a work in process to find balance. Are you home? Are you seeking your home? Are you about to leave your home? Are you refurbishing your home to better fit you?
⬇️⬇️THIS WAS THE OLD BLOGPOST FOUND ON OLD FACEBOOK(2012)⬇️⬇️
Dawn Breeze, 2012
Second Nature, originally Latin secundum naturam, "according to nature".
I am coming in to my accordance with nature; I am coming in to my authentic and original nature as a person and as an artist. I am coming in to my innate self through my second nature, through my artistic process. What is this? What does this becoming look like?
Oneness. My artwork is a communion with nature; it is a collaboration that is not a depiction of nature but rather a shared experience with nature that culminates with a creation. However, I consider the art to begin at the same point of ending in a constant state of transformation and flux. My art is my experience of life and my art practice is my second nature.
To watch ‘Daydream’ in process go to:
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn…It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful, but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of the arts.
-Henry David Thoreau Walden
I’m so glad this note introduced you to the Process Artist. It has a great feminist history branching out of conceptual art. It’s funny, I think somewhere around 2013-2015 I went to an artists conference that focused on Socially Engaged practice. One of the main topics of the conference was our collective effort in determining the name of our practice or discipline. We could identify markers and subtypes within our collective and there was clearly lineage but no umbrella name that everyone could agree too. There is something powerful about a name—it creates belonging. But it also creates exclusion. I’ve been observing the amazing movement of trans people and have been witnessing the wrangling with language as we collectively try to better understand one another. It’s interesting because once we understand something through language we start to fit into it. But before we have the words the being and doing still exist we just don’t know how to communicate the nuance and so on one hand there is freedom without a label and on the other hand there is belonging with a label. I love you trying on Process Artist cuz I think that’s what we do—we try on labels like hermit crab shells. Does this feel right? Can I wiggle around more now? Maybe specific language helps us to direct our attention to detail? Anyways—I love the sound of your work and you know I’m a big fan of painting with toes, tongues, whatever…cuz I’m more interested in what it feels like then what the painting looks like—I am interested in connecting with possibility and that is what I’m interested in quantifying. Now that you’ve painted with your tongue can you imagine more possibilities exist? More possible possibilities=more ways….
https://open.substack.com/pub/alexlewis/p/i-lost-my-queen-too?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1twbac
Of interest on notions of Home.