Dear friends, colleagues and family,
Though leaves are starting to change color, it’s still quite warm in Saint Louis. This will be my first full autumn in the city, and I’m looking forward to what should be an extended version of the season here compared to what I’d experience in Minneapolis.
This newsletter feels a bit like taking inventory of the last year. I always feel like I could be doing more, even in the midst of a major health crisis, apparently. But there has been a bit going on, and this letter is longer than average, so I’m introducing the innovation of hyperlinked headings, if you want to skip to a particular section: hand update, building update, artwork update, closing.
Artwork Update
At my residency last fall in Santa Monica at the 18th Street Arts Center, I completed a set of floorplans drawn from memory of the strip clubs I worked at as a teenager. I recorded an audio narration of my process of remembering for each one and plan to create additional layers by going back to revisit each drawing/recording. For an open studio, I took one floorplan and redrew it on the floor of my space with the audio playing through speakers. This was quite effective, and I’m hoping to exhibit a further stage of it in the next year. You can get a glimpse in this video.
While in California, I was also excited to have a complete set of Issues 1 through 3 of The GRIND acquired by Los Angeles Contemporary Archives Thanks to Kayla Tange for making this connection!
This summer, the wall-mounted version of “Conduit, Caretaker, Anchor, Catalyst” was included in the Cleveland Institute of Art alumni exhibition, “Are We There Yet?”, juried by Magdalena Moskalewicz. This thrilled me because they never seem to print my alumni notes when I send them in, so it was nice to receive some acknowledgement in that context.
Earlier this year I was interviewed by Instruments of Memory, a curatorial project that focuses on memory and history in the work of women artists. I always appreciate the chance to discuss my work and see it through someone else’s eyes. Many thanks to curator Claudia Pretelin for this opportunity and Sarah E. Webb for the thoughtful questions.
Building Update
Progress has been slow, and I’m acclimating myself to this being a lifelong project. Tuckpointing continues on the brick exterior. In spring, we had the mansard roof repaired as part of that process. Matt was able to salvage slate tile from a building across the street, so now we’ve restored the historic appearance to that part of the facade. As you can see in the photos, it’s quite handsome.
On the interior, we’re in the middle of getting functional bathrooms on the upper floors. This is major, exciting stuff as it’s one of the biggest hurdles to occupancy. I’ve been lucky to find gorgeous fixtures at Refab and Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore for cheap. ReStore also has hundreds of boxes of linoleum-look tile like I want for the kitchen. So glad to be saving money somewhere on this work.
Hand Update
The injury to my C8 nerve and right hand continues to dominate my life. Last fall, things seemed on schedule for healing, but by winter it was clear something was wrong. I was referred to a specialist, who diagnosed a compression of the ulnar nerve at Guyon’s canal in my right wrist. This is something called ‘double crush’, a sort of cascade effect where a situation that may never have developed to a tipping point otherwise is triggered by another injury. After a serious setback in March, I finally had surgery on my wrist on June 18 to release the compression. The hope was that positive effects would be rather immediate. They weren’t.
Now, with occupational therapy and physical therapy—thanks to a Rauschenberg Medical Emergency Grant—I’ve had some improvements in strength, mobility and pain levels. I finally feel recovered from the surgery itself and am doing slightly better than I did a year ago. I was recently told, as I expected, that my hand will never be the same, but my OT is optimistic for more improvement. Right now, I’m just enjoying renewed levels of energy and less debilitation.
Finally, as you might guess, I’ve not been able to work for pay for over a year and a half, now. Please consider purchasing some of my printed works to alleviate my financial pain. Birchwood Palace Industries carries both “Three Seasons”, my illustrated rumination on the Midwestern porch, and “Conduit, Caretaker, Anchor, Catalyst”, the folio diagramming relationships in participatory projects. I will also be posting works for sale on Instagram in the coming months.I’m sending you all a particularly heartfelt thanks for your attention this time around. As always, please drop me a line to let me know how and what you are doing. I’m always curious to hear from you.
Until next time!
Monica
I’ve also been working on a series of drawings that diagram various relationships between artist, participant, artwork and audience as I experienced them in the project 