Drawn and quartered: a bipolar frame of mind
Date
2001
Authors
Armstrong, Joel, author
Twarogowski, Leroy A., advisor
Turner, Ronny E., committee member
Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member
Ellerby, David A., committee member
Getty, Nilda C. Fernández, committee member
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract
I spent the past two years erasing the lines of drawing, dragging my feet over the boundary drawn in the sand, stretching the limits, both in the use of medium and the format of the final presentation. Some significant installation pieces preceded Drawn and Quartered and influenced its execution. Clothes Lines, my first installation, pinned all the senses of the viewers into the piece-visual and tactile with objects dangled in front of them, backyard sounds, sod, smell, and humidity. I gained a striking insight into my art from this work. I realized that I could take something very personal (a days worth of laundry)-and the viewers accepted it as their own personal stories. In other words, instead of them looking at my art, my art was looking at them. Emersion) the Sign of Jonah, my next installation, also invited the senses into the setting but did not dictate a landscape as conspicuously. It was grander in scale with over 200 wire fish, a 12-foot boat serving as a light source for the 30- by 4O-foot gallery, and gulf sounds and sand. It was a huge production that dealt, mostly, with memories of night-fishing as a child. Although I persistently unfolded and multiplied this imagery throughout the piece, the multiplication and duplication of images actually obscured the event portrayed by the installation. With this piece, I realized that I wanted my art to be sparser, give less direction to the viewer. That sparseness leaves spaces for the viewers to enter the installation, to participate in the work, to let the art tell their stories. I'm incited into a high level of activity by a mind that races past sleep that never rests until it's exhausted, until it has exhausted all analytical and absurd possibilities of an idea or an image. Typically, this mind-play intersects and merges with the vivid memories dwelling within me to drive me into a frenetic outputting of work. After Emersion) opened, however, I suffered from long episodes of depression in which I seemingly produced nothing at all. At odd moments, frenzied activity intersected these depressive episodes. Most mornings, though, it required effort to get out of the house. Keeping to the activities demanded from working at a full time job, and being a student, husband, father, and teacher overwhelmed me. After several panic attacks including losing my way home, I was diagnosed as bipolar (manic-depressive). Drawn and Quartered shares what it's like to live with a hypervigilant, restless mind-to look "normal" even "well-adjusted" on the outside, and feel oppressed and overwhelmed inside-to be drawn to both living hidden in shadows and noticed in spotlights. This piece was sensually sparse, even visually sparse as compared to my other installations. I invited the observer more than ever to participate in the art, but prescribed and directed participation less than ever. In Drawn and Quartered, without touching the art, the observers could see only the shadows of drawing; they could not even see the medium. In Drawn and Quartered, the observers themselves are drawn into the piece to discover the drawing from its shadows. As in my other installation pieces, art intersected life. Comments from observers and bystanders (what they told me in their own ways): Those who don't know, who offer platitudes, who become uncomfortable when they see a person's bipolarness overflow the dammed up recesses to be lived out loud, what happened to them? Some glimpsed behind the wall and gained some empathy. Many observers still kept their distance in art as in life. They did not touch, did not open up, did not understand. But those who know, who have experienced bipolarness, validated their experiences, told their own stories, made art of their own lives.
Description
Rights Access
Subject
Psychology and art
Mixed media (Art)
Installations (Art)