A Long Stay In New York City
A Long Stay in New York City
06 14 2005
I am writing this report as a requirement for the fellowship grant I received from the Starr Foundation through the Asian Cultural Council, New York. The grant included a six month program with the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York, a weeklong artist stay with the Lafayette Experimental Print Program and collaboration with printmaker Curlee Holton and other artists in Pennsylvania, artist interaction with numerous contemporary asian and European artists, immersion with current new york city art exhibitions, a week long trip to Chicago Institute of Contemporary Art, the Chicago Museum of Modern Art and other contemporary landmarks in Chicago, an apprenticeship with printmaker Lisa H. Mackie that culminated in solo exhibition at Lisa H. Mackie Studios, collaborative group exhibitions and a published dvd.
September 2003
During my preparations to stay in the states, the ACC people have been very helpful and offered me relevant and enough information to give me a very comfortable trip.This was to be my first stay abroad.I had my orientation with the city through the generous help of Margaret Cogswell who brought me to different functions and events during these first few months. She knew a lot of the artists and events that I would be much interested and more. She provided numerous tips and excursions that I really enjoyed. I was able to visit numerous landmarks and typical new york sites. I was able to meet artists like Curlee Holton, Lisa Mackie et al and to visit their private studios.
October 2003
I was able to apply to some printmaking institutions, compare their standards and visit them. I was able to compare more printing facilities and spaces that I would need in the future. I was able to meet different artist at this time, opened other future opportunities for me as I further interacted with fellow multi-disciplined artists with the Asian Cultural Council and the International Studio and Curatorial Program. The month of November is one of the busiest in the art community. It offered me the perspective to see the contrasts and appreciate the nuances.
December 2003
I was able to launch successfully my open studios with the International studio and Curatorial Program. This two-day event wherein I prepared my three-month-long production for formal viewing and opened it to the New York audiences alongside other artists in the same program is very much inspirational for me. It offered me more than I could say and made up a very distinct perspective of the art community of the city. With 26 fellow artists I had been working with for a few months I was able to gather insights and experiences to present professionally my works.I was able to go to Chicago and visit the different landmarks, museum and galleries there. I was able to join fellow iscp artists on there stay. I was able to compare the artist community in Chicago with the ones I meet in New York City. January 2004Imbibed the city lights...
February 2004
This is the culmination of my stay at the International Studio and Curatorial Program. I have been able to work with my relief prints and create over 40 designs, with my drawings over 60 pieces and over 30 pieces of large paintings. The ISCP people have been immensely supportive and shared theirexpertise and knowledge willingly.
March 2004
Went around the city some more with friends and fellow artists.
April 2004
I was able to meet and work with Lisa Mackie and her artists at the Lisa H. Mackie Studios. Here I worked with her with my relief prints and my etchings. I was able to learn different techniques and presentations of printmaking during this time. During my ten-day workshop she taught me different technique to prepare my works. I was able to join her on her visits with other galleries and exhibitions. It was a very close and friendly working relations and I hope to be able to work with her more in the future. I was able to do about 30 printworks of different designs during the period I worked with her. I was able to know the different places that I could purchase materials for my printmaking. I was able to culminate my stay in her studio with a solo exhibition ' Colle Prints' wherein I had the regular showing of my works with my fellow artists, friends and the critics that I met during my stay.During this period I started working with the Chashama group of artists wherein I was able to secure a subsidized space and work alongside New Yorker artists and foreign ones. I was also able to stay at the Tribeca District and create new works. Here I was able to meet over 60 artists currently working in the 2 level institution. I was able to work with the Director Janusz Jaworski and his fellows to open again my studio to the public during the Chashama Open Studios.
May 2004
During this time, I was able to join the new ISCP artists and be able to collaborate with them. These are the new 26 artists staying at the International Studio and Curatorial Program and for their stay I played a small part in the preparation.I created new works at the Chashama studios and hone my painting and Drawing. I was able to talk with fellow curators and artists. During the other open studios in different parts of New York I was able to visit as both an artist and curator. I wished that I could also work extensively in this profession as to complement more my learning. I began to get an overview on the contrasts of New York artists and Contemporary Filipino artists. Working there as an artist and learning the curatorial aspect of contemporary New York exhibitions, I gained more.
June 2004
The end of my extended stay in New York has been very hectic as I had decided to leave a lot of the things to do at the last possible moment. I have decided to budget much of my grant to allow me to stay longer and to this ACC has been very supportive. ACC has offered me the Jackson Heights apartment 6F for part of my extended stay and to that I am grateful. I know that I have gone over all of my budget by this time. I received the last portion to tide me at this point. I enjoyed very much my stay there and I am very thankful. I left on June 14, 2005 and had a very nice trip going home to the Philippines.
ACC Grant 2003-200 4 Asian Cultural Council Grantees
Questionnaire provided by Patrick Flores
These questions are meant to source themes and narratives to guide the curation of a possible exhibition of Asian Cultural Council grantees . These will focus on two aspects: experience and process. Responding to these questions involves memory work and a creative recollection of the grant and the world it had opened up for the participants.
Experience
What were your initial impressions of the place in which you were settled as a grantee?
New York City is probably one of the well known places to immerse oneself in Contemporary Art. One tends to be a bit overwhelmed at first. I felt it and in response I lessened my expectations and kept myself focused on what i needed to do on a day to day basis. I was able to impress upon myself that it was just a bit crowded City than what I am used to. One discovers that there are other places just as challenging to engage in and then become expectant to finish this experience to continue your journey.
What were the natural environment and the cultural atmosphere like?
I was in New York in early September 2003 until June 14 2004. I felt the different climates changed so fast and that the impressions created were too fleeting and intangible for me to really sink myself in. I felt like a participant in a transitory place with four different seasons as backdrop settings. I was also quite like an outsider completely able to distance oneself effectively and at the next moment immerse oneself in the thick of things.The cultural atmosphere was both distancing and informative. Sometimes it was oppressive and debase. It was very much familiar and at the same time completely alien.
Was there a particular energy that struck you?
The City seethed with tension and yet was very much dynamic and competitive. There was too much expectation and expectancy in danger. Most tend to be trapped in extremes.
Was there a peculiar trait in people or a sensibility that was distinct?
Most are competitive and aggressive. They tend to be brutal for any distinction they could get and yet some artists also tend to be passive, complacent, shallow and naive.That made the place interesting and how did you identify with it? I figured that there would just be a bit more of the things that I am used to and that anything new could be learned and absorb without skipping a beat or learning completely anew.
How did your expectations of the place square with its actuality?
I largely depended on my own choices and as i went about the City and met some of its transient inhabitants i basically just expected a logical and/or sane result to my efforts and interactions. It was met with the barest of expectations and topped simply.
What sort of materials (media, ideas, encounters) did you work on and work through during your stay in the residency?
I was lucky enough to be able to explore, continue and at the same time discover most of the media that i wanted to try and have tried before. I basically recreated, explored, experimented, repatterned and reinvented my media and ideas. I went about in my encounters in a case to case basis. I painted, did installations, shot photographs, drew large work and did printmaking. I started initial collaborating and corroborating with artists, curators and the people i met there regardless of nationality. I made myself efficient in securing whatever i needed and very much independent. I repossessed most of my materials in their original settings.
How did you transform this experience into something tangible like art or a theory?
A ten months stay is much too short for any theory and yet it was satisfying to affirm whatever you have started before. It was very much just a rediscovering of what you knew before and applying it to the same principles in a different time and place. I appropriated and reconstructed.
Process
In the course of your grant, how did you make sense of the said experience and turn this into a process of doing and making art, or forming concepts pertinent to your practice as artist, critic, or cultural worker?
I created an atmosphere that helped me discipline myself and yet allowed me flexibility to create works that expressed my sentiments and reality. A regimen that is anchored in discovery and reevaluations of simple and complex experiences that come to me in day to day relations.
What were the processes involved in doing art and making objects or performances within a different setting?
.recognizance/discovery
.learning
.reevaluation
.loss/destruction
.rediscovery/finding
.reinvention and affirming
How did this relate to your previous ways or techniques of doing art and making objects?
It continued and reinvented the process. it also made it much more satisfying to reaffirm ones efforts and discoveries. It opened up new interpretations and created a bigger audience that consists of professionals and contemporaries. It helped critique my ways and techniques and reaffirmed them. The envisioned exhibition will dwell on both
experience and process in the context of a residency that enables agents of art to address the demands of a new milieu and the obligations of an artful intervention. It will hopefully reflect on a kind of interaction between artistic experience/process and the system of objects generated in cross-border exchanges.
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06 14 2005
I am writing this report as a requirement for the fellowship grant I received from the Starr Foundation through the Asian Cultural Council, New York. The grant included a six month program with the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York, a weeklong artist stay with the Lafayette Experimental Print Program and collaboration with printmaker Curlee Holton and other artists in Pennsylvania, artist interaction with numerous contemporary asian and European artists, immersion with current new york city art exhibitions, a week long trip to Chicago Institute of Contemporary Art, the Chicago Museum of Modern Art and other contemporary landmarks in Chicago, an apprenticeship with printmaker Lisa H. Mackie that culminated in solo exhibition at Lisa H. Mackie Studios, collaborative group exhibitions and a published dvd.
September 2003
During my preparations to stay in the states, the ACC people have been very helpful and offered me relevant and enough information to give me a very comfortable trip.This was to be my first stay abroad.I had my orientation with the city through the generous help of Margaret Cogswell who brought me to different functions and events during these first few months. She knew a lot of the artists and events that I would be much interested and more. She provided numerous tips and excursions that I really enjoyed. I was able to visit numerous landmarks and typical new york sites. I was able to meet artists like Curlee Holton, Lisa Mackie et al and to visit their private studios.
October 2003
I was able to apply to some printmaking institutions, compare their standards and visit them. I was able to compare more printing facilities and spaces that I would need in the future. I was able to meet different artist at this time, opened other future opportunities for me as I further interacted with fellow multi-disciplined artists with the Asian Cultural Council and the International Studio and Curatorial Program. The month of November is one of the busiest in the art community. It offered me the perspective to see the contrasts and appreciate the nuances.
December 2003
I was able to launch successfully my open studios with the International studio and Curatorial Program. This two-day event wherein I prepared my three-month-long production for formal viewing and opened it to the New York audiences alongside other artists in the same program is very much inspirational for me. It offered me more than I could say and made up a very distinct perspective of the art community of the city. With 26 fellow artists I had been working with for a few months I was able to gather insights and experiences to present professionally my works.I was able to go to Chicago and visit the different landmarks, museum and galleries there. I was able to join fellow iscp artists on there stay. I was able to compare the artist community in Chicago with the ones I meet in New York City. January 2004Imbibed the city lights...
February 2004
This is the culmination of my stay at the International Studio and Curatorial Program. I have been able to work with my relief prints and create over 40 designs, with my drawings over 60 pieces and over 30 pieces of large paintings. The ISCP people have been immensely supportive and shared theirexpertise and knowledge willingly.
March 2004
Went around the city some more with friends and fellow artists.
April 2004
I was able to meet and work with Lisa Mackie and her artists at the Lisa H. Mackie Studios. Here I worked with her with my relief prints and my etchings. I was able to learn different techniques and presentations of printmaking during this time. During my ten-day workshop she taught me different technique to prepare my works. I was able to join her on her visits with other galleries and exhibitions. It was a very close and friendly working relations and I hope to be able to work with her more in the future. I was able to do about 30 printworks of different designs during the period I worked with her. I was able to know the different places that I could purchase materials for my printmaking. I was able to culminate my stay in her studio with a solo exhibition ' Colle Prints' wherein I had the regular showing of my works with my fellow artists, friends and the critics that I met during my stay.During this period I started working with the Chashama group of artists wherein I was able to secure a subsidized space and work alongside New Yorker artists and foreign ones. I was also able to stay at the Tribeca District and create new works. Here I was able to meet over 60 artists currently working in the 2 level institution. I was able to work with the Director Janusz Jaworski and his fellows to open again my studio to the public during the Chashama Open Studios.
May 2004
During this time, I was able to join the new ISCP artists and be able to collaborate with them. These are the new 26 artists staying at the International Studio and Curatorial Program and for their stay I played a small part in the preparation.I created new works at the Chashama studios and hone my painting and Drawing. I was able to talk with fellow curators and artists. During the other open studios in different parts of New York I was able to visit as both an artist and curator. I wished that I could also work extensively in this profession as to complement more my learning. I began to get an overview on the contrasts of New York artists and Contemporary Filipino artists. Working there as an artist and learning the curatorial aspect of contemporary New York exhibitions, I gained more.
June 2004
The end of my extended stay in New York has been very hectic as I had decided to leave a lot of the things to do at the last possible moment. I have decided to budget much of my grant to allow me to stay longer and to this ACC has been very supportive. ACC has offered me the Jackson Heights apartment 6F for part of my extended stay and to that I am grateful. I know that I have gone over all of my budget by this time. I received the last portion to tide me at this point. I enjoyed very much my stay there and I am very thankful. I left on June 14, 2005 and had a very nice trip going home to the Philippines.
ACC Grant 2003-200 4 Asian Cultural Council Grantees
Questionnaire provided by Patrick Flores
These questions are meant to source themes and narratives to guide the curation of a possible exhibition of Asian Cultural Council grantees . These will focus on two aspects: experience and process. Responding to these questions involves memory work and a creative recollection of the grant and the world it had opened up for the participants.
Experience
What were your initial impressions of the place in which you were settled as a grantee?
New York City is probably one of the well known places to immerse oneself in Contemporary Art. One tends to be a bit overwhelmed at first. I felt it and in response I lessened my expectations and kept myself focused on what i needed to do on a day to day basis. I was able to impress upon myself that it was just a bit crowded City than what I am used to. One discovers that there are other places just as challenging to engage in and then become expectant to finish this experience to continue your journey.
What were the natural environment and the cultural atmosphere like?
I was in New York in early September 2003 until June 14 2004. I felt the different climates changed so fast and that the impressions created were too fleeting and intangible for me to really sink myself in. I felt like a participant in a transitory place with four different seasons as backdrop settings. I was also quite like an outsider completely able to distance oneself effectively and at the next moment immerse oneself in the thick of things.The cultural atmosphere was both distancing and informative. Sometimes it was oppressive and debase. It was very much familiar and at the same time completely alien.
Was there a particular energy that struck you?
The City seethed with tension and yet was very much dynamic and competitive. There was too much expectation and expectancy in danger. Most tend to be trapped in extremes.
Was there a peculiar trait in people or a sensibility that was distinct?
Most are competitive and aggressive. They tend to be brutal for any distinction they could get and yet some artists also tend to be passive, complacent, shallow and naive.That made the place interesting and how did you identify with it? I figured that there would just be a bit more of the things that I am used to and that anything new could be learned and absorb without skipping a beat or learning completely anew.
How did your expectations of the place square with its actuality?
I largely depended on my own choices and as i went about the City and met some of its transient inhabitants i basically just expected a logical and/or sane result to my efforts and interactions. It was met with the barest of expectations and topped simply.
What sort of materials (media, ideas, encounters) did you work on and work through during your stay in the residency?
I was lucky enough to be able to explore, continue and at the same time discover most of the media that i wanted to try and have tried before. I basically recreated, explored, experimented, repatterned and reinvented my media and ideas. I went about in my encounters in a case to case basis. I painted, did installations, shot photographs, drew large work and did printmaking. I started initial collaborating and corroborating with artists, curators and the people i met there regardless of nationality. I made myself efficient in securing whatever i needed and very much independent. I repossessed most of my materials in their original settings.
How did you transform this experience into something tangible like art or a theory?
A ten months stay is much too short for any theory and yet it was satisfying to affirm whatever you have started before. It was very much just a rediscovering of what you knew before and applying it to the same principles in a different time and place. I appropriated and reconstructed.
Process
In the course of your grant, how did you make sense of the said experience and turn this into a process of doing and making art, or forming concepts pertinent to your practice as artist, critic, or cultural worker?
I created an atmosphere that helped me discipline myself and yet allowed me flexibility to create works that expressed my sentiments and reality. A regimen that is anchored in discovery and reevaluations of simple and complex experiences that come to me in day to day relations.
What were the processes involved in doing art and making objects or performances within a different setting?
.recognizance/discovery
.learning
.reevaluation
.loss/destruction
.rediscovery/finding
.reinvention and affirming
How did this relate to your previous ways or techniques of doing art and making objects?
It continued and reinvented the process. it also made it much more satisfying to reaffirm ones efforts and discoveries. It opened up new interpretations and created a bigger audience that consists of professionals and contemporaries. It helped critique my ways and techniques and reaffirmed them. The envisioned exhibition will dwell on both
experience and process in the context of a residency that enables agents of art to address the demands of a new milieu and the obligations of an artful intervention. It will hopefully reflect on a kind of interaction between artistic experience/process and the system of objects generated in cross-border exchanges.
Amiel Gerald A. Roldan™
Mandaluyong City, Philippines
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