***

I feel like I am returning to painting after being gone for awhile. We have all been there…And I have definitely had some frustrations with getting back in. Here are some of my approaches that have helped recently.  These are extremely simple suggestions …

1. Go into the Process. Explore the materiality of whatever your working with.  And try some new mediums — whether its adding wax to oil paint or trying egg oil emulsion.  Focus on the technique.  And try to get your thoughts off of making something ‘good’.

2. Give each canvas or panel a criteria. Especially important if you are unsure of the best way to visually represent an idea and are only getting so far with drawing.  Try 4 — 5 surfaces each with their own criteria on how to structure the piece materially — i.e. stain background and the objects in the foreground very layered and built up.

3.  Have some “cheap” materials that you won’t worry about messing up.  Paper of course but also those pre-stretched, gessoed canvases can really be freeing.

4.  Have a lot of material to work with so you don’t overpaint before you have a chance to let a painting rest and distance of time to actually ‘see’ what is and isn’t working.

Half-way in on a painting and stuck ?

* Try Collage.  It is a way to figure out new painting structures, combinations, materials, colors, etc.  Paint things on aforementioned paper or pre-stretched canvas and cut-out and tape to “real” painting to see if something works.

* Color Prints.  Is there a certain area that needs to be resolved ? Print out a dozen color prints of that painting area and tape whatever your heart desires to these or drawing on it directly, etc.  This practice may generate a number of combinations that could be future material as well.

Your studio is a mess and you just can’t get motivated ?

Invite someone to come to your studio / home for a crit.  Consider someone that is not a close friend.  Schedule a week out.  And believe me in that week following up your studio will be clean and you will have made more work then usual.

What are you good at?

this is extremely valuable.  Find out in a crit what your strengths are.  Email a couple recent paintings to an old professor and ask or someone else you respect.  I recently emailed a professor I had 10 years ago and I never once since graduation asked her any art questions because I realize we are adults and supposed to be figuring out for ourselves.  Anyway, I allowed myself finally to ask her some technical questions about collage and in that response she told me my strengths.  My work has evolved since undergrad and grad so it is something to be reminded of from time to time.  Now that I know what is working and what isn’t — I can think of how to use what is working in new ways  (new to me).

What is your practice?

Come up with your own practice — include quick ways of exploring ideas in addition to processes that take longer.  I had a couple years where i was piece-mealing 4 part-time jobs together and exhausted at the end of the day working for a couple hours on one single painting —–for months.  Needless to say, I did not produce that much during that time and did not evolve ideas that fast.  Drawing is an obvious way of getting into a flow of working.  If it bores you to do it, try meeting up some friends with sketchbooks in a cafe once a week or so…also, i have struggled with how to represent this idea of mine and have not been able to figure it out through drawing or painting — so now I am actually going to make a sculpture of it and then do drawings of the sculpture or paint from the model if it turns out good enough…

This may be obvious but use ‘high energy’ for bigger moves — starting a painting, important parts technically and ‘low energy’ for less critical activities like cutting things out for collage, photographing in progress work (by the way, i photograph every session i have), writing down ideas, drawing etc. If you work a lot during the week and are tired — consider low energy work all week and then the weekend do the high energy until you can carve out more time for your practice.

Form an art ‘club’ or crit group

A few friends of mine and I used to meet once a week for a crit group.  It was a nice mix — 2 filmmakers, performance artist and writer, and painter.  very motivating if you have the right group.  It is also very nice to meet with people who work in different media/areas of art.  I think it is important to find people you enjoy hanging out with (as well as trust and have opinions you respect) or you probably won’t actually do it or maintain it.

Apply for a Residency

I can recommend Ragdale Residency in Chicago.  Outstanding but go for a month not two weeks.

Whatever you do, just do it.  The artists I know that are doing well — work A LOT on art.  it just takes a lot of work. I know we all know that.  Just want to bring that to light again because it is easy to get frustrated with progress.

And I leave you with a  Samuel Beckett quote — Fail better.

Good luck!

S

If you want to send me any in progress or recent work pics I would love to see them.  nesbitsarah (at) hotmail.com.  Below some of my own studio shots.  Also, would love to hear your practice, strategies, and so on.

It has been awhile, I apologize.  I was away for the holidays — Jena, Germany for Christmas with my boyfriend and his family; Hiddensee (Caspar David Friedrich country) for New Years + a few days, and then I was back a week only to leave again this time to Vienna to see my good friend Ai Kijima’s first solo show in Europe.  And also I have been working a lot in the studio.  I have a new studio as part of this private grant and have been busy busy. Originally I was supposed to just have the space from November 1st to mid-January but now it is extended to the end of March.

As I think I mentioned before it can be hard to find studio space here, especially reasonably priced. Though rent for living space is relatively low. I have tried working at home in a room designated just for a studio and it just didn’t work out for me. Especially now that I have this — the first real studio since grad school and I graduated in ’05! — I realize the importance of  a *real* studio. And it seemed Dee Clements’ (of PaperCrane, as you know) noticed this with her practice. Anyway, now that I am making much more work than I have in a Long time I am more aware of the changes in my work. I can see that it is taking a turn. I think the experience of living here for over a year now has definitely shaped my work. Not necessarily from looking more at German art. But really from leaving my comfort zone, adapting to a new city, culture, language.  Any kind of rut I was stuck in was destroyed to say it dramatically.

When I finish this set of 8, I am working on now — I will post the whole group. Attached is one piece I feel ready to share. I say it is 95 — 100% done.  Not sure what the title is yet. Size is 2 x 3 feet.  Egg tempera with oil.  And then a studio shot as well.  And just added another piece called Ice which I have started experimenting with collage.  All the best! more soon! — Sarah

Thanksgiving is this coming week. I worried that I might miss my favorite holiday and now have managed two dinners! one on the actual day and the other on Saturday. very exciting.
The former will even have green bean casserole, a favorite. Happy that she didn’t find Cheez Whiz which would have meant having broccoli casserole instead. Cheez Whiz. Completely forgot about that one. Microwave nachos.

So I will miss seeing my family though. Hopefully a Skype call with webcam can take place. Skype is really, really a great thing to help with the long distance. My mom who is not the most tech savvy (putting it mildly here) has somehow managed to master Skype. I can see the motivation. Her and I frequently Skype. and my brother of course. But some family and friends just aren’t turned on to it. And they simply want to wait until I am visiting or they are just busy. Both I totally get. There is also Facebook. But i find I need to detach from that from time to time and actually see more people in real life that Live here. It has taken nearly a year but I have a good group of friends forming. As is usually the case, the close ones are a very small number. But what does feel different is that there is more ‘information sharing’ for lack of a better way to say it. More looking out for each other because we are all in the same situation of trying to find our way. I feel like I was also doing that in Chicago — because art is tricky to figure out as a living don’t need to tell you all that — but the foreign country element is a bit…tricky too.

That is my rambling for tonight…

Also, I hope to get some messages from you on questions you have about living here…email me at nesbitsarah@hotmail.com.  And let me know what you are wanting to know…and I may have an answer.  I hope to get some ideas for future posts.…evidently love using trail offs.…

vG (Viele Grüße),

Sarah

Here is great footage of that historic moment.

Tonight, some German friends of mine have organized a dinner at a restaurant near Mauer Park to celebrate this day.

–sn

The meeting

Last night I was apart of a panel discussion lead by Sheila Callaghan a playwright/screenwriter from New York.  She currently writes for Showtime for the series United States of Tara, a comedy about a woman with multiple personalities.  Her new project is writing a play based on Americans in Berlin, sort of a take-off on Americans in Paris, and it will be a musical comedy.

I heard about the discussion from the Berlin Scholars Yahoo Group (which by the way if you ever decide to move to Berlin this Group is an invaluable resource).  The post was a search for artists that have been living in Berlin for less than six years.  I can be very hermit-like this time of year but I was curious to meet other artists as  I still feel like I don’t know too many here.  I replied and though I came up with a million excuses to myself (it’s Sunday night, its late — 9pm, its cold, its dark, etc.) I ended up going.  I am so glad I did because everyone else seemed to show up too.  A full table.  I was –the only– visual artist.  The group broke down like this — one visual artist, one composer, one writer, one poet, four actors, two directors.  Evidently many of the actors/directors of the Berlin Scholars noticed the connection with the Theater Group and that was an attraction.

The Berlin Story

As part of the individual introduction, we each had to recount our ‘Berlin story’ in a summarized version.  It was interesting to hear everyone’s.  I’ve told mine so often I can almost say it verbatim without thinking but for those of you wondering how I got here and why I came I will give an explanation. ~ Coming off a year long artist block, and a feeling that it was time to leave Chicago after 10 years,  I had two opportunities drawing me to Berlin -  working for Kavi Gupta’s new second location and  a show with a Berlin-based gallery, Birgit Ostermeier.    The gallery closed after two months at the end of 2008 (just re-opened September 2009 in another location in Berlin) and so I hustled and found computer freelance work, babysitting, and yes at a desperate hour cat-sitting, and made it happen.

What the other Berlin stories had in common was the people that did not have time to sufficiently prepare for the move — i.e. spend a year or more studying the language beforehand — had a harder time overall.  The Germans see a lot of foreigners moving here and evidently the consensus is not many know the language and the perception is that they aren’t trying at all or hard enough.  So it creates this general annoyance?  not sure what the right word is here.  Disgust would be too strong.  And Americans are seen to be the typical example of this type of foreigner.  And I, unfortunately fit this model though I am trying to learn the language! really, really.  I find it a difficult one and I think I am an intensive or two away from being able to hold a proper conversation.  For now, I do well saying short sentences, which means I am able to order in restaurants and cafes, make an appointment over the phone, and so on.

Expectations

Now I know there are dangers in holding expectations. I try not to have them.  But for big things like moving to a new country its like a blown up version of NYE: you pretend to not have expectations while secretly having expectations.  This panel brought up the subject and yes, a good subject point for the blog.  what did you expect when you came here? and what is different from what you expected?

- adjusting

I have to say for the second question I didn’t expect it to take so long to acclimate here.  I still feel like I am transitioning and still feel like a visitor.  I have an American friend that I have known for a long time (who by the way is fluent in the language) and he has been living in Leipzig for 8 years. I mentioned that same thing to him and he said It doesn’t go away.  It sentences like those you can almost see ringing out into the universe and then feel the hit as they come back towards you in a jarring way.  One other thing to mention is I had circumstances that caused me to move four times in one year which is very unsettling to say the least and doesn’t help too much with the acclimation process.

- with making art

My other point was that I didn’t expect it to be so hard to find a studio here or for studio space to be so expensive compared to the fairly cheap apartments.  It is hard to find studios under 200 euros, roughly 300 USD (I, as well as some friends of mine, have been on a continual studio hunt.  I have a studio (Finally!) starting November 1st but its only for 3 months so I am still on the look for something after that.

Aside from the studio dilemma, I have talked to other American artists here about making work and everyone seems to agree it’s difficult.  A friend of mine mentioned the fact about needing a certain level of comfort to then be able to really focus on your work.  There is a uneasiness, unsettling quality that i mentioned before that is pervasive and I know this sounds dramatic but I feel it everyday.  Earlier this year, I had my own apartment for about 5 months (not counting the time I was in the US this summer)  and I worked in an adjoining room to my bedroom but to be honest nearly everything I made was a complete failure somehow.  I feel really inspired by a lot of the German artists whose work I have seen and I certainly have a lot of  my own psychological ‘stuff’ to work from. That said, I think the artist block I felt in Chicago is officially over and has been.  But i just hope now, to have it all come together and to find the magic again that has hidden away while I was dealing with some serious issues of the survival sort .

I want to clarify that I think the uneasy feeling comes from a variety of factors — being a foreigner, not knowing the language sufficiently yet, not having a support system yet, working at home which is isolating, etc.  Those things which just require effort and patience.  To talk about unsettling, uneasiness is maybe to also talk about uncertainty and I found this passage interesting from the German Theater Abroad site (GTA the co-moderators of the panel discussion)  magnetic cities which attract immigrants, temporarily or permanently, for financial and political reasons, as well as for artistic reason.  Uncertain in their identities, these cities are in search of their definition and the meaning of their histories.  They do not belong to the ‘natives’, they are culturally open for new arrivals. …With their promises of personal freedom…gives its members the opportunity for self-realization.  They are the sites of the ambivalent promise of modern freedom in which individuality can be rediscovered or lost.

On November 9th this year  is the twenty year anniversary of the wall coming down.  Twenty-years.  This city that is still rebuilding itself what a metaphor for all the artists, all the dreamers arriving here.  But amidst all of this change and in the mass of others, in the city without a center, one can easily get lost.   There is fragility in a state of a flux but also tremendous possibility.  And of possibility, I have to remind myself that is why I am in Berlin.

- Sarah Nesbit

post-script

Okay I have just presented some of the challenges to living here however future posts will be more highlights of culture.  And if you find yourself looking outside at a gray dismal day and having just read a bit of a downer article — click on this link http://www.ichwerdeeinberliner.com/post/224842130/6-cafes For a funny take on the cafe culture in Berlin.

***I am still gathering info for the second part of Hidden Spaces***

This first focus is on Berlin’s attraction to hidden spaces written in two parts.

I am so fascinated with the whole hinterhof (back courtyard) phenomenon in the architecture here.  Some courtyards seem to keep expanding three or four times opening and narrowing around you and then sometimes leading one out onto another strasse.  Buried in the hinterhofs, are café’s (another piece will be completely dedicated to cafe culture) stores, and art galleries among other commercial spaces that given the location have a private feel.  However, there are more often than not residences in the hinterhofs.

And this hidden space extends to bars — café’s (need to note that there is not much difference between bars and café’s here unless it is a kneipe which is kind of a local pub otherwise the bar-café lines blur and people are drinking either at all times of day and evening.) and restaurants.  There is a bar in Prenzlauer Berg – the 5-Z (actual name is 5 Ziegen but everyone calls it by the shortened name) and for ages — I have been told — they leave the front window in a way that looks like an empty vacant space complete with an abandoned overturned table, pushed over chairs and some garbage.  The front is kept dark.  But if you know, you push open the door anyway, head through the front dark room, through yet another dark room and finally see there is a bar here after all.  (In this case, something like a pirate’s den).

And another example is the Paloma Bar in Kreuzberg.  It is in a converted dentist office from what I could find out.  From the outside the building looks unattractive — white, 70’s era architecture, vaguely looks like a space ship and appears completely vacant.  In fact the ground floor, storefront is indeed vacant.  My friend had been to this bar before and insisted against my disagreement — ’ I think if we just go inside to the second floor’ .  But soon she doubted herself  when we got to the second floor and it looked totally empty and no sounds — no voices, no music.  A door to the left had a white frame and a long rectangle window that was covered on the inside by a black curtain or sheet.  No signage of any kind.  My friend just walked up and turned the knob  — with a slight stick of the door we suddenly stumbled in to a cozy place with nice ambient light and a funny 1950’s kitschy decor– cool music playing fairly loudly (very sound proof space).  We got a drink and within an hour or so the place was packed to the point where we couldn’t move.

The more subtle expressions of hidden or perhaps just coming from a laid-back attitude are the many cafes that don’t have names.  At least no signage.  And even menus — I’m thinking of a certain place where the menus are inside of old book covers and each page decorated with collages  — where the name of the place can’t seem to be found. More attention to the cut-outs than to the name.  I like this somehow.  Anyway, my friends and I laugh about it all the time.  When we make plans no one knows the name of anything and there are so many cafes, one after another down each side of the street.

I haven’t had so much experience with hidden restaurants.  However, there is a great article on the subject in the New York Times that I recommend reading.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/travel/14headsup.html

In my encounters with hidden spaces I have never been disappointed. The unusual quality of the space — finding it, interacting with it has created very distinct memories of these places.

Check back for photos!!

Part Two will be devoted to art-related hidden spaces and in particular looking at temporary shows using temporary spaces.

Alas, I need to get photos of the places I mentioned above.  Til then here are a few from a performance the other night 10/20/09.  It took place at an unnamed location making use of a space in the process of renovation. This seems to be fairly common for temporary spaces.   The line-up was the Matt Zivich Trio comprised of Matt Zivich and Jeremy Los (Chicago), and Sonic Youth’s drummer, Steve Shelley (!) + Sonic Youth played the following night 10/21/09 at Columbia Halle.  Also playing were Tall Sirs and Nathan Baker (formerly Chicago, now Berlin).  These last two joined in with the trio at the end.  Great show.
Notice the construction (construction photo), raw space and stage,  and again here a pile of broken cement coming from stage left.