letting go

View of branch/fleece sculptures in my studio at Vermont Studio Center, 2008

All that art that has been made…. A blessing and a curse. Why do we make it? (That’s a rhetorical question.) Years of art-making = a lot of old art. The worst is the big stuff, the awkward mixed-media sculpture, the fragile stuff, the found object assemblages, the large paintings, not to mention the framed things under glass.

It’s shocking how it multiplies.. the older the artist gets, the more old art there is.

“A New Bamboo Cross Statement” salt-fired porcelain, black bamboo.
16″ diam. x 18″ h. 1977 ©2014 Karen Rand Anderson

Some years after graduating from art school (where I majored in ceramics) I stopped making art. For 10 years, when I became a wife, then a mother, from 1985-1995, I focused on life without art-making (however, there was still plenty of old art to haul around.) And then I reclaimed who I was, who I am. I started making art again (it saved my sanity) and the work slowly began to pile up— pastels, paintings, figure drawings, then mixed media collages, and assemblages, and then sculpture, and then graduate school, and whoa!~ !

I recently had to take full responsibility for many years-worth of my old work, loads of old art which I had conveniently forgotten about, stored at my old home. The past several weeks have been a stressful marathon of clearing out my old home and studio, which was just sold. A bittersweet event. Though I have not lived there for the past four years, the place still harbored a lot of my old art (and art books and art supplies, not to mention memories) My ex-husband and I designed and built it, in 1995, and the amount of artwork that was still there was overwhelming.

It was not only my own work I had to determine what to do with, but that of my two daughters— also artists, both prolific (think large paintings, some of them in the 6×8 foot range, and art school portfolios, and more that I just CAN’T throw out… )

The questions always remain— is it good art? Maybe, some of it. Meaningful? Maybe to me, on some level, but to others? And does anyone want this stuff? And what the hell does one DO with it all??

I did the sacrificial bonfire, tossing bad paintings and sculptures that I once thought were.. well, pretty good.. into the flames. The work was at one time meaningful, as a record of personal creativity, but not worth keeping. In the end, lots of stuff went to the dump. (And my garage, and my basement, and into a storage unit…not to mention my studio, which is overly-full at the moment.)

I also discovered that some paintings were “borrowed”, or lifted, from my home studio after I moved away… they just disappeared. (there were various people coming and going from that locale. I still am not sure just how much was taken. I keep remembering various pieces, wondering.. hmmmm… what happened to that one?)

Some paintings have been donated to non-profits, like Art Connection RI and to galleries with permanent collections, like Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art.

I’ve donated art countless times to good-cause fund-raisers. (I’m pretty much done with that. I’m tired of being asked to contribute my art, with no recompense, to raise money for “a good cause”) Some pieces have gone to friends who really loved them.

What do you do with old art that is taking up space? Give it away? Donate it? Burn it? Take it to the dump? Put it in storage? If you feel like it, add to the conversation.

“Nesting Fleecebox” drawing: gouache, acrylic and graphite on paper 30×30″ 2008
sculpture: charred paper, bronze wire, acrylic, black birch branches, sheep’s fleece. 34x27x12″ 2008. (Collection Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art, University of Conn.) ©2014 Karen Rand Anderson

Every so often, we need to clean it up, the mess. Maybe your studio is your kitchen table, your basement or garage, a corner of the living room, a loft, or a space in an old mill—it’s wherever you make your art. My studio has been all of these places, and I am one of those notoriously right-brained artists, whose work is, for the most part, all over the map (more about that later) and also all over the floor, walls, and every available horizontal surface. I revel in my creative process, which includes but is not limited to drawing, painting, gluing, wiring, tearing, twisting, building, sawing, sketching, stitching, hammering, and writing. Until suddenly—there comes a point where things are getting lost in the creative mess. Like tools and materials, self-confidence, motivation and vision. Focus, intention and drive.

This is, I kid you not, my studio in process of being cleaned up and reorganized a few weeks ago.

As artists, we (some of us) love our messes, but when they get out of hand, well, one has to clean them up in order to move forward. Move things around, rearrange, pitch, let go. Put the old work away to make room for the new. It’s a challenge, at least for me—letting go of old work, past mistakes, and people who are no longer part of the picture. But when the cleaning up thing takes place, it’s amazing what happens… new ideas, new people, new work all begin to show up.

Embarrassing…!! But that’s why I’m here, doing this– putting myself into a new and courageous place. (Just getting into the studio is pretty damn courageous, especially when it looked like this. )

Is your studio practice fueled by headlong creative onslaught, or focused and preconceived concepts? Are you organized and methodical in your art approach, or energetic and spontaneous? (I guess it’s fairly obvious which one I am.)

Truth be told, I would love to have little elves come in once a week and tidy things up in my studio. But then, they probably wouldn’t know where to begin, and I probably wouldn’t be able to work in such an organized space. (Hmm. Food for thought.)

My faithful studio assistant, Theo.

cleaning up the studio

Karen Rand Anderson: art, life and so on

#25. What to do with OLD ART? (suggestions welcome) part I

#4. Cleaning it up

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