STUDIO VISITS
Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote, “Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression.” Two artists respond to this statement. Well yes and no—there is a chasm and there is the surprise element when intention and vision manifest. Many times beauty and truth have a way of intervening with one’s agenda. With age and grace, hopefully we trust the chasm and relinquish control.
—Marion Wasserman In 2012, Wasserman’s video work was included in a juried exhibition the New Mexico Showcase at 516 Arts in Albuquerque. She also was part of the Currents International New Media Festival; the Center for Contemporary Art’s 8x8 show; and Santa Fe Art Institute’s Push Pin exhibition. Her work has also been shown at Axle Contemporary, and she created a video for Dancing Earth’s Walking Edge of Water performance. In 2013, Wasserman—together with creative collaborator Louis Leray—will be applying to the Currents New Media Festival and submitting a proposal for a video/light installation for a Public Art Project in New Mexico.
Creativity is no anodyne, yet to focus on the pain of creation is a romantic obsession that denies the concurrent poetics and pragmatism that propel most contemporary artists. The moment inspiration becomes destined for a tangible reality, it begins to erode under systems of taste, economies, politics, and its own physicality in the temporal, degrading world. Instead of the stereotyped tortured ego-driven artist, actual creators possess generosity and humility to allow their perfect inner visions to become imperfect things, existing in an imperfect world. Expiration is both the opposite—and the result—of inspiration.
—Nina Elder Elder will be having solo shows in 2013 at InPost Art Space, Albuquerque and at Oats Park Arts Center, Fallon, NV. As well, she will be showing work at The Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe. During 2012, her work was on view at Taos Contemporary, The Center for Visual Arts, Denver, and The New Mexico Showcase, 516 Arts, Albuquerque. ninaelder.com and itspland.org
Photographs by Anne Staveley february/march
2013
THE magazine 17