Almost anything goes in this time of contemporary artistic production as long as an artist can ‘back’ their ideas and the position they operate from. This expanding territory of production and engagement is an exciting potential for working artists, providing freedom to self-determine ones modus operandi within an expanding support system to engage the world with. While this is an exciting growth it is also potentially dangerous. The un-named and historically ambiguous position that Art1 operates from has created a rootless position to the production of culture. This rootlessness or, universal position has historically established itself as the gatekeeper and continues to unconsciously perpetuate a hierarchical aesthetic ordering of culture. In this cycle of non-acknowledgment of itself, it continues to estrange forms of creative labor -and therefor communities of people- and maintain segregated cultural spaces rendering it unable to effectively relate to historically othered forms of American art and cultural production.
This has created a need to clarify the origins and values of Art as we know it. This is an open attempt to do some clarifying, in writing and in the work of my practice. My practice is inspired by the places I physically inhabit and my relationship with the: people, history, intangible connections and material aspects that create the conditions as they are through the filter of my White-Female-Midwestern-American experience. My practice takes up the everydayness of art and culture and its connective and transformative capacity for mutually building self awareness and relationships with others in a place; while also using Art to disrupt established unconscious values in the institution and in the personal
