Vally Nomidou's paper sculptures first caught my attention because of their resemblance to Gehard Demetz's wooden children. But as much as I am captured by Demetz's little ghosts, there's something about Nomidou's creations that seem more raw, more real, though they are, in fact, made of something more processed . Both artists have chosen, with some purpose, we must assume, a subgroup of humanity as their subject matter. Demetz has chosen children, a classification he could once claim, while Nomidou has chosen women (of various ages), a classification to which she will always lay claim. There is mediation between vulnerability and strength which is echoed in material form. Their materials are the same, and yet they are not. Both are hewn from plants and trees--alive things made un-alive--and reconstituted as strange, Pinocchio-like creatures who aren't alive, but are, or would like nothing more than to be so.
I read a wonderfularticle on Nomidou's Let it Bleed exhibition, written by Dr. Lina Tsikouta-Deimezi. She discusses the roles of Existentialism, Phenomenology, and Freudian psychoanalysis in Nomidou's work, quoting Sartre: "Existence precedes essence." I like the trajectory this gives the art. It is as though the form has come to being, materialized as the precursor of some phantom will. Its existence is a process begun in the form, which is partially-but-not-completely dormant. They're not sentient in the way that Demetz's sculptures are. These are more like the crumbling white skins left behind by serpents than the serpents themselves.
I think it is worth noting that, unlike Demetz's children, Vally Nomidou's women don't ever really seem to engage the viewer. Some of them lift their heads and look forward, but never with the same self-possession as their wooden counterparts. The majority cast their closed eyes downward, tired, sad, dejected, or ashamed, perhaps.
In some of Nomidou's women and girls, holes bored into the skull or slashes made in the torso show a stratification of newsprint and cardboard which are really all different versions of the same thing. There is no true inner framework, no difference between core and crust. In some places paper innards spill out like film from a much-loved cassette, while in others we see wire and seams, as though bits of flesh have only been closed together over that percolating consciousness.
When I was writing my undergraduate thesis, I found Natalie Kosoi's 2005 article on the relationship of Rothko's paintings to Sartre's and Heidegger's philosophies very helpful because it posited that art as a medium reveals an essential human anxiety about the inevitability of death.For Heidegger, it is the primordial condition of “nothingness” which constitutes all that is anything. Existence is realized only in relation to the nothingness of which a thing is born, that which surrounds it, and that which it must become upon death/non-existence. Anything that exists does so like a tiny light turned on temporarily in a dark room; there is a force, unseen and unseeable, which turns it on, a period during which it burns, and a force that turns it off, returning the room to darkness. But without the darkness, the light would be meaningless; sudden light in a room already illuminated goes unnoticed. The human being is thus constituted by his eventual return to non-being (death). In Nomidou's work, I find this with the interplay between sculptures that are inhabited, and sculptures that are not. Most especially, in sculptures which are becoming inhabited. It is directional, and almost a inversion of Heidegger's theory of non-being.
Last night Moody and I watched a squirrel wrestle with a twig on our garage roof for 20 minutes. Never in my life have I seen a squirrel act this way. It was love. Between the squirrel and the twig, that is. He’d (we decided the thing was male, and named Darwin, if you wanted to know) hop back about ten feet, crouch down low like a cat, then race at this twig, rolling with it once he’d gotten a good grip, once, twice, and so on, until the thing finally escaped him and he was forced to begin again. Once in a while, he’d catch the tree that presses up against the side of the garage looking at him the wrong way, and give it a good wallop, in the form of a back-flip done against its trunk. We’ve adopted this squirrel as our own, though there’s no telling when he’ll come round again.
Having dutifully staked my claim in the Rochester real estate jungle back in May, I have now been here for almost three months, and have the following to say: Rochester is weird, and so are its squirrels. But so am I, and so is Moody, and though our various breeds of weird don’t entirely sync all of the time, we’re watching crack-smoking squirrels and working at low-paying jobs and surviving post-Vassar life, which is really all you can ask for. There’s also a big, beefy Womp Womp (or groundhog, for those who don’t care for the Poughkeepsie vernacular) that lives in our garage and gets pissed when Moody tries to take out the recycling. I’m gonna go ahead and name her Nancy. Since not everyone takes as much glee as I do in naming wild animals, I will sum up the rest of my wilderness experiences without details: I have a muskrat named Lyle, a roof-cat named Wilson, and 3,000 ants (now dead, or dying) named after the various emotions experienced by Moody and I as we discovered and smooshed them (Sorrow, Dismay, Rage, Hysteria, etc.).
The only ATM within walking distance is human. The big, jolly woman at the Caribbean foods store across the street from us will give you cash back on your debit card, for the smart-shopper’s fee of $2.00, which is cheaper than any ATM, and also friendlier. This woman, I’ve decided, has some kind of superpower, because she seems to work 24 hours a day, in a pint-size, non-air-conditioned market with a mean temperature of 115 degrees Fahrenheit. Doesn’t sweat a drop.
While our much-appreciated Caribbean foods cashier might be keeping cool, we are not. The last four weeks have given us 100 degree temperatures and humidity levels which have made even my pin-straight mop frizz out. When Moody and I are watching movies together, a curious Velcro effect happens where an innocently-placed head on his shoulder turns into a bizarre mess whereby my hair sticks to his, quite determinedly. I happen to think dirty blonde suits him, but Moody does not agree.
Last week we finally caved and dragged our double mattress out onto our sun porch, where the air is cooler and we can more effectively spy on our neighbors. There’s Roof Guy (the human population seems to enjoy roof-frolicking as much as the animal population here in Rochester), who has a shiny bald head, never wears shoes, and suns his shiny bald head on our garage roof whenever the sun comes out. There’s also our downstairs neighbor, who Moody has met but whose name Moody cannot remember, which could make for awkward laundry room interactions. He has a Puerto Rican flag in his window, which he takes down on the weekends when our landlady comes around, since “window signs or hangings of any kind” are a violation of the lease agreement.
The dryer in the basement is evil. Normally, it should take four quarters to effectively dry a medium-size load of laundry, but not with this beast. 8, sometimes 12 quarters are needed, and that’s not including what’s needed to make the washer wash. Quarters have become like gold to us, and we never seem to have enough. We’ve taken to fooling the machines with international currency of various origins. The British 10 pence piece works particularly well, roughly resembling the size and heft of the scarce American quarter. How have we gotten to a state of things where British currency is more abundant than American? I do not know. I hope our landlady is extremely puzzled.
So. To sum it up.
Things Which I Have Deemed Notable About Rochester In My Three Months of Residence:
1.) Its machines are smart, but I am smarter.
2.) You can only go about 2/3 of the way back into a Caribbean foods store before you start to see disturbing animal remains. Stick to the front.
3.) The busses don’t actually operate on an organized schedule. They pretty much go wherever they want, whenever they want. Like, if the driver is hungry, that bus is going to Burger King.
4.) Ants are prolific, and do not necessarily need food to survive. They will eat each other. And you.
5.) Rochester is not the tundra. It is not.
6.) Even if you squint, URochester is not as pretty as Vassar.
7.) If you go to the Family Dollar at any time of the day or night, you will be offered drugs. Five minutes later when you exit the store with laundry detergent and Sour Patch Kids, you will be offered drugs again.
(Update: Moody just remembered. Puerto Rican NeighborMan’s name is Ricky)
I have a lot of appreciation for tattoos. They confuse what is beautiful and what is grotesque, and represent an ultimate sacrifice of mark-making, making body canvas so that the most basic act of art-- the making of the mark-- is taken to the most basic site. The body. Tattoo artists fascinate me. I love to paint on myself(part II), and on others, but my paint is pain-free. And washable. And free. The steadiness of my hand is important only in the shortest of terms.
I've wanted a tattoo for quite a while, but never discovered that image that seemed to me necessary.
Here are some of my favorite designs on people-other-than-myself.
As an aside, I've been quite settled on a certain tattoo (not pictured here) for a few months now, and I think it might materialize in the near future. We'll see.
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.