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B R I G H T C L I P P I N G S
by Catherine Cross Uehara July 6th - August 18th, 2018 yəhaw̓ Like snippets of futures past and present, ' B R I G H T C L I P P I N G S ' attempts to quantify and celebrate ten complicated years in subsidized artist housing in Seattle. ‘A troublesome farewell to Harbor Lofts’. A struggling emergence from a certain kind of shell. There is this idea: one could make a shell / show : a show/shell out of one’s own body fluids, and the detritus of ones own existence, but that would be gross. This show is similar but much less disgusting.
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Opening reception: Friday, July 6th, 2018, 6-9pm
Food & drink and informal walkthrough with artist:
Saturday, July 21, 2018, 1:30 - 4:00pm
Interview with Catherine
June, 2018
cogean?: Can you expand on why your upcoming farewell is troublesome?
Catherine Cross Uehara: This space is FRAUGHT from beginning to end! So complicated, right?
From the beginning: I got the place after Christopher Hoff died… in this room. I have shared space with ghosts – sometimes I wonder about folks I haven’t seen on the street in a while and I wonder whether they have died or moved onto something better, Christopher’s death was so untimely and so so sad.
The room is beautiful, though, except for the second hand crack-smoke and the misery and the language and the addiction of folks pissing and sleeping on the street outside – pissing on the doorstep – I’ve lived here in this building for 10 years – it has become a part of me somehow. Only now do I realize that it has maybe had NEGATIVE effects on me (???) (laughs) it seems obvious now that I am thinking about moving out.
c?: So what recharges/nourishes you?
CCU: Aside from nonverbal communication (ART and ANIMAL), Nature. BEING OUTSIDE. Gardening. Lol. I haven’t had a garden in what, 14 years now? I haven’t had outdoor space that I felt safe in for more than 10!
I’m looking forward to having a garden again.
c?: How important are journals/sketchbooks in your practice?
INSTRUMENTAL. The journals and sketch books are the most important thing right now. They put “processing” in my process, for sure. They are [when I can FIND them in the chaos that I have nested around me] what I would grab if the building was on fire.
c?: When asked “Is it possible for you to separate your work from your life?”, artist Sarah Morris responded “I don’t know if there’s a separation. I don’t think there probably is much; I think it’s all one thing.” Would you say that applies to your life as well?
CCU: {Googles Sarah Morris} clears throat… guffaws.
I should fist say that although I went to grad school in New York at Hunter College (Wade Guyton told me my work was weird, I had Theory and Crit with Robert Morris, etc.) and got my undergrad degree at UC Davis – where Wayne Thiebaud would wander into the room if I left my door open, I generally don’t read the art magazines – so I don’t really know “who people are” currently – except for the local art celebs. I don’t “keep up” – and I APPRECIATE YOU SO MUCH for bringing Sarah Morris to my attention! Jesus… lol. The only way I know anything TODAY about what is going on in the “ART WORLD” is really from who I follow on Instagram, what I read in the Sunday NYT, the New Yorker Magazine and Public Radio.
There have been so many wonderful things that have happened to me because I was lucky enough to be where I was when I was there – that there is this kind of tangle of art/life fibers that I like to look at.
In answer to your question: YES. I would say that my art IS my life(.)
There is no separation – I know this because strangers on the street have accused me of being a performance artist. That’s why I say that this show is somehow about the whole thing – I think talking about my unpaid bills piled up is as valid a subject as the play of light across the wall – although, I think that SO FAR I’ve been more interested in the light – for sure, and getting to a place where those bills weren’t piled up so damned high!
Although I SELF-IDENTIFY as a “PAINTER”, because of my space, and my confidence level which varies WIDELY– and the art handling gigs I do, I am not the kind of Painter (right now) that shows up at the studio for 8 hours a day and gets down to business – like a job – and then goes home at night think each minute detail in the total volume of my life tells a story of some kind – and, ideally – if some mega-collector or patron wanted to recognize me or my work – I would invite them to buy the WHOLE thing – and I could flap my wings and fly away from it like a butterfly.
c?: Where are you finding inspiration these days?
CCU: Visually? The natural world and the way light falls and is held by water vapor. I think I learned from Roberts Irwin & Smithson, and James Turrell- and My old dog, HUGO who had the disco-ball epiphany – to appreciate light… it’s just not enough for me by itself yet to be the only thing my art is about.
Where do I NOT find inspiration might be a more specific question. EDITING is what I feel least good at. I do NOT find inspiration in web design at the moment*
I hope that changes. I HOPE that as I am able to focus more and more that these things will become nearly as enjoyable to me as the feeling of ink sinking into thirsty paper. I realize that NOT editing or being interested in web design – is fairly childish, impractical and immature – considering it would be helpful to communicating something about my process as well as a place for storing and archiving besides Instagram (my favorite filing system).
c?: Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams keeps coming up - can you explain its significance?
CCU: omgggg... I love Werner Herzog's 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams' so much... thank you for asking! Netflix calls me "CEREBRAL" and "I will not dispute that characterization". I have been comparing my apartment (on the corner in Pioneer Square - where ONE WOULD GO were one to buy CRACK (hypertext/link to Crack Cocaine Expose') [Editor: We couldn't find it.]- and how I feel about it - to this movie ever since I found out they were selling my building - so maybe for the last few months or so... it seems it will be sold to the *Chief Seattle Club*, which is chillingly appropriate as WE ARE ON STOLEN INDIGENOUS LAND I am uncharacteristically docile about the loss of this FANTASTIC affordable apartment in SEATTLE. (earlier today my neighbor asked me if I would sign a petition and participate in a PROTEST to keep this building from being torn down and I told her I would NOT. UGH! I AM SO CONFLICTED. I WANT TO SUPPORT THE CAUSE OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING! I TRULY DO! BUT, I BELIEVE IN MY HEART that this space is meant for the indigenous folks, anyway - especially since *christopher martin hoff* died in this apartment, and the Research that my grandparents - particularly my grandmother - participated in... about which MORE inner conflict.... it feels appropriate to set his spirit free and also to let go of it myself. Lately I've been having some hope about the future and it feels like this cocoon I have made for myself - like a cave... the most female of architectures*, with the accreted evidence of my existence IS the EVIDENCE of MY REAL WORK which is a Journey/Process. I would posit, that a complete understanding of my entire process can be excavated IN VARIOUS WAYS some of those things are paintings. That things inside this cavity are all *IMBUED* by their very nature - because I say so! Voila! that's the magic of writing! It feels like I reject formalism(is that true?). I would "proceed to market" with any of these SCALABLE contingencies - my last boyfriend was an autistic person that taught me this way to talk - directly. I learn from everything. Isn't that weird? Each of us has a language... some people are "good with language" but that doesn't mean but I digress... the real work is paying attention to the digression, which I do best when I am alone... and which has been the TRUE GIFT of this affordable artist loft apartment - that I have started to learn my own mind - that is to write it down and document it. THAT IS ALSO THE WORK - but also I am instantly opposed to "documentation" and there lies the opportunity to FARM OUT the labor to teams of people who would do those things. I propose a worldwide corporation with myself at the helm. LOL. let me know if you want in. dont worry. lol. im already looking for my successor.. so it's like a spiral - a quark - a quasar - Romanesco cauliflower, (an intern or a team of people could figure out which word fits best with the intention of ... (artificial distraction of some kind) 'squirrel!' (fart emoji)
c?: Whaaaaat?
CCU: I KNOW! And, you know how I am about loss and impending loss... it kind of drives my work. Yeah... like the show I did for my dog George at the butcher shop... well, this show is very 'IMBUED' with that same anxiety- only, this time it's this feeling of loss for this specific and *RARE* AFFORDABLE ARTIST HOUSING IN SEATTLE in 2018 : the Cave of Forgotten Dreams ... I should just market it as that - and thrive off the instant confusion... is it the Movie or the Apartment, lol, get it? yeah...... welcome to MY mind.
cogean?: Can you expand on why your upcoming farewell is troublesome?
Catherine Cross Uehara: This space is FRAUGHT from beginning to end! So complicated, right?
From the beginning: I got the place after Christopher Hoff died… in this room. I have shared space with ghosts – sometimes I wonder about folks I haven’t seen on the street in a while and I wonder whether they have died or moved onto something better, Christopher’s death was so untimely and so so sad.
The room is beautiful, though, except for the second hand crack-smoke and the misery and the language and the addiction of folks pissing and sleeping on the street outside – pissing on the doorstep – I’ve lived here in this building for 10 years – it has become a part of me somehow. Only now do I realize that it has maybe had NEGATIVE effects on me (???) (laughs) it seems obvious now that I am thinking about moving out.
c?: So what recharges/nourishes you?
CCU: Aside from nonverbal communication (ART and ANIMAL), Nature. BEING OUTSIDE. Gardening. Lol. I haven’t had a garden in what, 14 years now? I haven’t had outdoor space that I felt safe in for more than 10!
I’m looking forward to having a garden again.
c?: How important are journals/sketchbooks in your practice?
INSTRUMENTAL. The journals and sketch books are the most important thing right now. They put “processing” in my process, for sure. They are [when I can FIND them in the chaos that I have nested around me] what I would grab if the building was on fire.
c?: When asked “Is it possible for you to separate your work from your life?”, artist Sarah Morris responded “I don’t know if there’s a separation. I don’t think there probably is much; I think it’s all one thing.” Would you say that applies to your life as well?
CCU: {Googles Sarah Morris} clears throat… guffaws.
I should fist say that although I went to grad school in New York at Hunter College (Wade Guyton told me my work was weird, I had Theory and Crit with Robert Morris, etc.) and got my undergrad degree at UC Davis – where Wayne Thiebaud would wander into the room if I left my door open, I generally don’t read the art magazines – so I don’t really know “who people are” currently – except for the local art celebs. I don’t “keep up” – and I APPRECIATE YOU SO MUCH for bringing Sarah Morris to my attention! Jesus… lol. The only way I know anything TODAY about what is going on in the “ART WORLD” is really from who I follow on Instagram, what I read in the Sunday NYT, the New Yorker Magazine and Public Radio.
There have been so many wonderful things that have happened to me because I was lucky enough to be where I was when I was there – that there is this kind of tangle of art/life fibers that I like to look at.
In answer to your question: YES. I would say that my art IS my life(.)
There is no separation – I know this because strangers on the street have accused me of being a performance artist. That’s why I say that this show is somehow about the whole thing – I think talking about my unpaid bills piled up is as valid a subject as the play of light across the wall – although, I think that SO FAR I’ve been more interested in the light – for sure, and getting to a place where those bills weren’t piled up so damned high!
Although I SELF-IDENTIFY as a “PAINTER”, because of my space, and my confidence level which varies WIDELY– and the art handling gigs I do, I am not the kind of Painter (right now) that shows up at the studio for 8 hours a day and gets down to business – like a job – and then goes home at night think each minute detail in the total volume of my life tells a story of some kind – and, ideally – if some mega-collector or patron wanted to recognize me or my work – I would invite them to buy the WHOLE thing – and I could flap my wings and fly away from it like a butterfly.
c?: Where are you finding inspiration these days?
CCU: Visually? The natural world and the way light falls and is held by water vapor. I think I learned from Roberts Irwin & Smithson, and James Turrell- and My old dog, HUGO who had the disco-ball epiphany – to appreciate light… it’s just not enough for me by itself yet to be the only thing my art is about.
Where do I NOT find inspiration might be a more specific question. EDITING is what I feel least good at. I do NOT find inspiration in web design at the moment*
I hope that changes. I HOPE that as I am able to focus more and more that these things will become nearly as enjoyable to me as the feeling of ink sinking into thirsty paper. I realize that NOT editing or being interested in web design – is fairly childish, impractical and immature – considering it would be helpful to communicating something about my process as well as a place for storing and archiving besides Instagram (my favorite filing system).
c?: Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams keeps coming up - can you explain its significance?
CCU: omgggg... I love Werner Herzog's 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams' so much... thank you for asking! Netflix calls me "CEREBRAL" and "I will not dispute that characterization". I have been comparing my apartment (on the corner in Pioneer Square - where ONE WOULD GO were one to buy CRACK (hypertext/link to Crack Cocaine Expose') [Editor: We couldn't find it.]- and how I feel about it - to this movie ever since I found out they were selling my building - so maybe for the last few months or so... it seems it will be sold to the *Chief Seattle Club*, which is chillingly appropriate as WE ARE ON STOLEN INDIGENOUS LAND I am uncharacteristically docile about the loss of this FANTASTIC affordable apartment in SEATTLE. (earlier today my neighbor asked me if I would sign a petition and participate in a PROTEST to keep this building from being torn down and I told her I would NOT. UGH! I AM SO CONFLICTED. I WANT TO SUPPORT THE CAUSE OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING! I TRULY DO! BUT, I BELIEVE IN MY HEART that this space is meant for the indigenous folks, anyway - especially since *christopher martin hoff* died in this apartment, and the Research that my grandparents - particularly my grandmother - participated in... about which MORE inner conflict.... it feels appropriate to set his spirit free and also to let go of it myself. Lately I've been having some hope about the future and it feels like this cocoon I have made for myself - like a cave... the most female of architectures*, with the accreted evidence of my existence IS the EVIDENCE of MY REAL WORK which is a Journey/Process. I would posit, that a complete understanding of my entire process can be excavated IN VARIOUS WAYS some of those things are paintings. That things inside this cavity are all *IMBUED* by their very nature - because I say so! Voila! that's the magic of writing! It feels like I reject formalism(is that true?). I would "proceed to market" with any of these SCALABLE contingencies - my last boyfriend was an autistic person that taught me this way to talk - directly. I learn from everything. Isn't that weird? Each of us has a language... some people are "good with language" but that doesn't mean but I digress... the real work is paying attention to the digression, which I do best when I am alone... and which has been the TRUE GIFT of this affordable artist loft apartment - that I have started to learn my own mind - that is to write it down and document it. THAT IS ALSO THE WORK - but also I am instantly opposed to "documentation" and there lies the opportunity to FARM OUT the labor to teams of people who would do those things. I propose a worldwide corporation with myself at the helm. LOL. let me know if you want in. dont worry. lol. im already looking for my successor.. so it's like a spiral - a quark - a quasar - Romanesco cauliflower, (an intern or a team of people could figure out which word fits best with the intention of ... (artificial distraction of some kind) 'squirrel!' (fart emoji)
c?: Whaaaaat?
CCU: I KNOW! And, you know how I am about loss and impending loss... it kind of drives my work. Yeah... like the show I did for my dog George at the butcher shop... well, this show is very 'IMBUED' with that same anxiety- only, this time it's this feeling of loss for this specific and *RARE* AFFORDABLE ARTIST HOUSING IN SEATTLE in 2018 : the Cave of Forgotten Dreams ... I should just market it as that - and thrive off the instant confusion... is it the Movie or the Apartment, lol, get it? yeah...... welcome to MY mind.
Living with Catherine Cross Uehara's Bright Clippings.
September 2018
July and August, more than other months, maybe even more than February, are months that stand magically still. Time warps and everything takes either longer or shorter than it should. Moving quickly is impossible, and the only appealing thing to do is look at beautiful things. It’s the perfect time to paint our fence, its bold red stain too much for us, but that will wait until September, when the school year starts and the 16+ years of conditioning to get back to work kicks in. Even the air is disinclined to busy along its course around the globe, leaving us to breathe in the consequences of our species’ actions and look at the monstrous beauty of a reddened sun - a sun that, for the moment at least, can be seen differently, and covered in the red light that passes through the smoke, we see the world differently.
A similar time-stasis and light shift has been triggered in our front rooms by way of Catherine Cross Uehara’s show Bright Clippings.
The show is an homage to an ordered simulation of the sculptural work of her life at home, a space composed of shattered boundaries between work and life, public and private, complete and ongoing. A home, moreover, that she will only occupy for a few more months before fully resettling in Bremerton.
Catherine refers to herself mostly as a painter, and her obvious deftness with classical technique is clear. Undeniably beautiful floral paintings on canvas and floral sketches pulled from her sketchbook and pinned to the walls, are all composed of lovely brushwork. But more than just painting, Catherine’s work is interested in the four dimensions that her painting takes place in. For Catherine it’s not just the paintings that are the art - it’s the paintings, in space, and over time that matters. The element of time is explored through the paintings on view in the show, though indeed all of Catherine’s works struggle against the notion of completion. Some of the canvasses have barely a few layers of foundational color, while others are years old and ongoing. They are like slow-ripening fruit, available for consuming at any time, their flavor and texture from refreshing-bitter to drunken-sweet.
Along with the element of time, the element of space manifests in the show. Through the assemblage of objects, books and small artworks arranged on the bookcase in our living room, in the spontaneously but artfully arranged ikebana pieces, the faux wood sofa with pillows with the likeness of an ape from Planet of the Apes, the markers of the space where the paintings and drawings have been created, a sample of the loam of materials and possibilities of Catherine’s soon-to-be-vacated studio and apartment.
In the same way that the smoke from the fires filters out certain wavelengths of light, allowing us to hone in on a particular spectrum and look more directly at the light, this show, in pulling just certain elements of her work, process and life, Bright Clippings reveals some of the more particular elements of Catherine’s work and allows us to hear a few notes in the symphonic regeneration process of her work. The summer gives us this glimpse, this slow moment and segment in time, a brief moment before we all get back to work and the artworks from the show rejoin the churn of life in a new place.
A similar time-stasis and light shift has been triggered in our front rooms by way of Catherine Cross Uehara’s show Bright Clippings.
The show is an homage to an ordered simulation of the sculptural work of her life at home, a space composed of shattered boundaries between work and life, public and private, complete and ongoing. A home, moreover, that she will only occupy for a few more months before fully resettling in Bremerton.
Catherine refers to herself mostly as a painter, and her obvious deftness with classical technique is clear. Undeniably beautiful floral paintings on canvas and floral sketches pulled from her sketchbook and pinned to the walls, are all composed of lovely brushwork. But more than just painting, Catherine’s work is interested in the four dimensions that her painting takes place in. For Catherine it’s not just the paintings that are the art - it’s the paintings, in space, and over time that matters. The element of time is explored through the paintings on view in the show, though indeed all of Catherine’s works struggle against the notion of completion. Some of the canvasses have barely a few layers of foundational color, while others are years old and ongoing. They are like slow-ripening fruit, available for consuming at any time, their flavor and texture from refreshing-bitter to drunken-sweet.
Along with the element of time, the element of space manifests in the show. Through the assemblage of objects, books and small artworks arranged on the bookcase in our living room, in the spontaneously but artfully arranged ikebana pieces, the faux wood sofa with pillows with the likeness of an ape from Planet of the Apes, the markers of the space where the paintings and drawings have been created, a sample of the loam of materials and possibilities of Catherine’s soon-to-be-vacated studio and apartment.
In the same way that the smoke from the fires filters out certain wavelengths of light, allowing us to hone in on a particular spectrum and look more directly at the light, this show, in pulling just certain elements of her work, process and life, Bright Clippings reveals some of the more particular elements of Catherine’s work and allows us to hear a few notes in the symphonic regeneration process of her work. The summer gives us this glimpse, this slow moment and segment in time, a brief moment before we all get back to work and the artworks from the show rejoin the churn of life in a new place.
One of Catherine's pieces from B R I G H T C L I P P I N G S was selected as a finalist for the City Arts Art Walk Awards, Fall 2018.
