Press Release: E. M. Corpus in SAA 10th Annual Open Studios Tour
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For Further Information, Please Contact:Edward M. Corpus emcorpus@emcanimator.com (831) 277-6673 http://emcanimator.com Exhibition: Horrendous and Beautiful Metaphors of Trauma and Transcendence
SEASIDE, CA – May 16, 2016 -- Edward M. Corpus will display a unique brand of outsider art at his home studio this coming Saturday, May 21st, one of ten local artists participating in the Seaside Artists Association 10th annual Open Studios tour. Three of his works are also on display at the Walter Lee Avery Gallery in Seaside City Hall.
Outsider Art is a category for works that defy categorization. Roger Cardinal coined the term as an English equivalent to the French Art Brut – “rough” or “raw art”. French artist Jean Dubuffet described it as art created outside the boundaries of official culture, such as by prison or psychiatric hospital inmates. “Often, outsider art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds,” according to Wikipedia’s definition.
Although Edward Corpus’ personal style contains a mixture of whimsy and psychological themes – sometimes very dark – he considers himself a humanist.“I believe many of today’s social ills stem from a system that implicitly sanctions violence and aggression, especially in its males. Sexism and division are hard-wired into this society. A profound spiritual and cultural revolution must occur, hand-in-hand with a socio-economic one, if there is to be significant change. Creative art – visual, musical, kinesthetic – can help bring about that revolution.“The dark side won’t go away by denying its existence. It needs to be acknowledged and faced. Simultaneous with embracing the dark though, you have to pose transformational alternatives – love, the reclaiming of lost creativity and relational connections among people.
“My art presents visual metaphors of both: childhood-rooted traumas, and their transcendence. As an artist I can serve as a champion for all men, women and children by way of my visual representation skills.”
The self-curated Seaside tour runs 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., a gamut of visual styles from traditional painting and drawing, mixed media and digital work, photography, metal and woodworking, for viewing and to purchase. Each studio will also issue free raffle drawings for selected artwork.
Maps to the studios of ten participating artists are available through SAA chairperson Sandra Gray (sandrag394@gmail.com) (831) 402-2274, at each tour stop and at Seaside City Hall. The Walter Lee Avery Gallery in City Hall will remain open Saturday as part of the tour. Open Ground Studios, Peace Resource Center and the Red Door Garden Galleries will also open their doors to the public as part of the tour.
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Walking the Edge of Razors: How To Survive Criticism and Critique
Don’t get me started. Well, OK. I’ve heard some shy, young, introverted artist friends recently talking about difficulties in dealing with criticism of their art and practice -- hell, dealing with criticism of their lives. (Maybe the description "shy, young, introverted artist" contains some redundancy, would you say? I know that it fit me. It still does, except for the "young" part.) So, they "got me started".
First of all, whether you’re giving or receiving "criticism", remember this:Words can heal and hurt -- sharper than a surgeon's scalpel or utility knife blade. Words can inspire others to achievement -- or to suicide. So, be careful in what you say, and how you say it.
As artists and as human beings, critiques can be useful to us – when these are respectfully and lovingly expressed; and in this world of hype and bombast, we can all stand to review the methodologies of critical thinking.Criticism and “critical” remarks? Well, these are a different and rotten kettle of fish altogether.
All too often, our first critics are our parents. What they say -- and how they say it -- can have lasting impact on our development far into adulthood.
One of the subsequent impacts of words delivered to us is on how we distinguish among critiques, criticism and critical remarks that come to us in the world outside the family -- i.e., at school, work, social life, relationships, etc., -- how we react or respond to them, and how ingrained those patterns of reaction become.
Unless we’ve resolved to become the proverbial “rock” or “island”, we have important ideas to communicate to other people, that is, socially. As creatives we communicate ideas through our art. For a creative person, whether you’re a visual artist, sculptor, potter, musician, dancer, writer… critiques of form and substance can contain information useful to us. As reality checks often this is critical information, in the sense of the critical care you receive in a hospital ER: Are your ideas sound? Are they being effectively communicated to your chosen audience? What can you do differently and better? Taking in and evaluating the potential or actual truth contained in well-conceived, respectfully presented critiques help us develop as better artists and communicators of ideas. In later blog posts, I’ll present my thoughts on how to give – and receive -- useful critiques.
For now, I want to concentrate on the altogether negative and un-useful character of criticism and critical remarks.
Criticism and critical remarks also give us information; but they're often more informative about the character of the persons delivering them. I'll expand on this elsewhere, but persons abused early in life often inherit the disease – the blood curse – of abusiveness; something to consider and keep you in perspective when confronted by an abusively critical person.
I can go on and on about this -- and if you can stand to stick around me, I often will from different angles. There are some concepts you’ll hear me harp about constantly in one context or writing or art work or another. In this post I’ll confine myself to speaking about how I personally deal with negative criticism. Maybe you can relate in some way; and if so, I’d like to hear from you so I can know if I'm presenting my case in ways that make sense to you.
First, it starts with me, and you, and respect.
Respect is the absolute minimum common denominator of any interaction among persons.Persons who act with disrespect for others in word or action are innately disrespectful for what is human in themselves.
Behind this concept of respect, I hold as truths two seemingly paradoxical assumptions, for which I’ll give neither justification nor proof. I take them on faith. Take them as you will.
I am totally unique, worthy of existence and needing no justification for existence. Since my birth there has never existed, nor will ever exist in this universe, an individual identical to me. As an artist I have a gift to be able to express my thoughts and ideas in some more or less coherent forms in visual media. Through my creative art I strive to express my absolute uniquity.
I am totally connected to every human being on Earth who has ever lived or will ever live. (An argument might even be made about being connected to every being, human or otherwise, animate or otherwise; but for the moment I won’t go there.)
I hold both to be true. I can empathize with other sentient beings because I am the same and share a life commonality, AND I am totally different. I partake of the One and the Many. I am particle and field. And, I hold these to be true about you.
In my opinion, this is the basis of self-esteem and self-confidence. If this self-confidence has not been ingrained in your thought and behavior from birth or an early age, then regaining and maintaining that confidence is not a one-shot deal.
What I'm presenting here is a component answer to the problem of criticism. It’s not necessarily an easy answer to live. It won’t be simply be “do this” and “think this way” and “poof!” negativity and negative words will never get to you. You may be at this art project for the rest of your life.
Personally I've struggled to regain and maintain that assertion of artistic and personal worth, a sense of worth beaten and bullied out of me at a young age. (Remember at the beginning I said that words could be as sharp as a utility knife blade? Nearly five decades later, I still have a scar on the back of my left hand that faces in my direction as I type. What did I as a youth slash into my flesh – a steel blade, or false beliefs? Those among you with scars -- be they emotional or physical -- let those scars be reminders of what was torn from you – and what you fight to reclaim every day of your life. Let the scars be badges proclaiming that the worst has already occurred, and you made it through at least this far. With some work, you'll make it further.)
It’s especially important to return to this assertion during the bad days. There will be bad days, right? The negativity -- like criticism -- that comes careening like rocks at your head only amplifies the negativity – the false beliefs, the critical voices, the old stories -- that you have inside your head, the ones that fester like putrid-smelling, way-laying trolls under bridges at night, or trolls who make snarky criticisms of your life.
You are unique in all creation, even to the farthest reaches of the Big Bang, and beyond. You have gifts to touch the lives of other beings on the planet, and unique ways you have or are developing to deliver those gifts through your art. So, don’t be heeding the trolls either inside your head, or those without.
It’s not always easy, yes? I want you to know -- I get it.
Do you know someone who needs to read this? Please send them here. I want to hear your comments, and theirs. And I’m open to critiques. I’ll have more to write about these subjects in the coming days.
But this is just to get me started.
I Resolve to Live and Create With Intensity In 2016
Did you fulfill your dreams and intentions this year gone by?
Did you fulfill your dreams and intentions this year gone by? Was creating art integral to those dreams? I sincerely hope that your life was fulfilling in a significant way, and wish you more of that for 2016.In one sense the transition from one year to the next on January 1st is an artifical convention in practical terms. You can choose -- resolve -- to make changes -- at any point and on any day of one's life to lose weight, gain weight, get sober, get married, make money, make art, make more money making more art...In my thinking, though, there's something to be said for what Dr. Katherine Milkman calls the "fresh-start effect".
It's a phenomenon sociologists have observed that people seem to get a boost in energy and determination when they commit to something from a "clean slate" start.
A key component concept here is "commitment". W. H. Murray, David Richo and others have expressed that once one commits wholeheartedly to some action, the universe opens up and instances of grace appear in the form of opportunities that support that commitment. From my personal experience I believe this to be true.
I've also heard it said that once one makes a resolution, the universe will throw up obstacles to "test" that resolve; but I no longer believe that to be true. The obstacles that rear their heads come not from the "universe", or God or "the Devil" or some external higher power. I believe they come from within, from the same childhood-rooted hurts that have been there a long time unresolved. I believe "New Year's resolutions" to overcome addictive behaviors so often fall by the wayside for this reason more than any external circumstance.
New Year's Days, birthdays, weddings or other sundry fresh starts can serve as symbolic but useful spiritual declarations that you've chosen -- committed -- to initiate rebirths, break out new tracks from old ruts or recognize new segments in the ongoing Gannt chart of your life.
Rituals are important and powerful.
Correlating the benchmarks of one's life with the cyclical changes of nature -- whether they be endings or new beginnings, the closing of doors or the opening of new ones is the stuff from which poetic metaphor is made, whether literary or visual.
2015 was an intense year for me, in many of the different senses of intense, good and bad, wonderful and horrid. But I resolved at the beginning of last year to live 2015 with intensity; and I'm committed to living 2016 even more so, come what may.
To what do I commit this year?
I commit to create much more art, of course -- more intense art.
Yes, some of my art is "dark". But the way out of darkness begins with an authentic acknowledgement of the real impact of dark events, not denial. Hopefully one ultimately struggles for a way through and out of the darkness, not stay enmired there. To that end I commit to make at least three compositions of hope, the yearning for transcendence, healing, joy and light for every one of darkness. I'll have more to say about this in future blog posts and newsletters.
I resolve -- commit -- to make seamless the sharing of a loving, fulfilling life and the creation of art.
I commit to sharing that fulfillment with the circle of humans and sentient nature around me. Continuing on the progress of 2015, I resolve to create more social art, find more venues for exposing the world to the concepts I have to express through my artwork.
I commit to enlarging that circle and expanding my reach.
And because I'm human, I won't necessarily get it all "right". Remember that seeming "truism" that artists/creatives/whatever/fill-in-the-blanks are their own worst critics? I resolve to practice kindness wherever and with whomever I can -- most emphatically including with myself.
Those are my resolutions and commitments in the broad strokes of the brush or chalk. There are others, more "practical" ones, of course. But the rest is just filling in the fine details. What are yours? I invite you to write me and let us know.
How My Artist's Journey Began -- and Almost Didn't
Why do I make art?…
Why do I make art? Why do the emotional tones of my artwork range from terrifying (“Walking On the Dark Side”) to the mystic and ineffable (“Transcendent”)? Why do I want you to purchase my art and keep me producing more?
This is my first blog post in my new website, and perhaps first newsletter article. (If you signed up for my newsletter, bear with me, please. This social media and content marketing thing is still awkward and unwieldy to this 1970’s hippie. I promise you I’ll get the kinks worked out. I’ve got a ton of goodies to give you.)
I was born in the Philippines some eight years after the end of World War II. My father, a veteran of that war, preceded us in journeying back to the U.S. and paved the way for my mother and me to emigrate. When I was twenty-two months of age, she and I boarded an airplane bound for the U.S.
Between 1955 and 1958 through my fourth year of age, our first residence was in New York City in a tenement building on 4th Street in the Bowery. This section on the southeast side of Manhattan Island was known as New York’s skid row even until the 1970s. We would come home to find derelict men passed out on our doorstep, reeking of urine and cheap alcohol.
We lived in a multi-floor railroad flat, so-called as the one-room apartments on each floor were stacked end-to-end, suggesting railway cars. Each apartment door opened onto the common hallway, with one shared bathroom at the far end. My only memory of that bathroom is unfortunately best left unspoken for the time being. (Maybe one day it will wind up as a piece in the "...Dark Side" gallery.)
On the positive side of the ledger, my mother would recount over the years an occurrence taking on the air of a family legend, though I have no recall of the incident itself. What I do remember is that my mother repeated with pride to whomever would listen that I -- as a three-year-old toddler -- had drawn a large and recognizable airplane on the dresser mirror, using my mother's lipstick as a crayon.
"I -- as a three-year-old toddler -- had drawn a large and recognizable airplane on the dresser mirror, using my mother's lipstick as a crayon."
What experience would a three-year-old know of airplanes? A photograph dated July 1955 gives us a clue.
My mother stands with me in her arms on an airport tarmac. Behind her is the silvery Northwest Orient "Connie" on which we flew. Big planes can make even bigger impressions to little boys.
One person to whom she undoubtedly related this story was Mr. Gordon, our landlord. I don’t know if that lipstick airplane is something Mr. Gordon ever saw, but he did see others of my youthful drawings, and knew thereby that I loved to draw.
In the hallway outside our door was a table with a thin drawer just beneath the tabletop. I recall my mother opening our door to allow me into the hallway to open that drawer each morning. I remember anticipating with excitement if Mr. Gordon had left blank paper inside for me to draw on -- typing paper, sheets of white butcher paper, hotel stationery and the like.
Besides stoking my passion for drawing, Mr. Gordon’s kindness had a farther-reaching consequence, perhaps unconscious to him or my family. Though I have no recollection of any artistic expression prior to 4th Street, or of whatever impression it would have made on anyone, I would speculate that Mr. Gordon was the first validation of my ability outside of my immediate family.
We were the proverbial “strangers in a strange land” in 1950s America. Mr. Gordon was a Caucasian man and our apartment landlord, an authority figure in the eyes of my parents, adding to the strength of that validation.
My mother recounted the lipstick airplane incident with pride, my father not so much. He was no advocate for the mirroring that ideally should be part of the parent-child relationship at that stage of development. Most likely he was ignorant of it. Encouraging my artistic side would not have been considered important, let alone necessity -- had not an outside authority figure given it social validation. For a toddler, drawing airplanes and street sweepers was as natural a function as breathing. Envisioning me as a future district attorney, doctor or politician did not enter my four-year-old mind as a valid future. For my father it was. Spilling things, saying the "wrong" things at the wrong time, making marks where marks did not belong -- he dealt harshly with these infractions.
I know nothing else of Mister Gordon, his personal character, his past history or what his future would be. For all I knew he could have been a WWII concentration camp guard on the lam. He was after all a slumlord -- at night in our apartment we could hear rats gnawing behind the walls. He might have later become a wealthy philanthropist, a Big Daddy Warbucks. Who knows? But for a crucial moment in time, he was an angel sent into my life to make that crucial intervention. For this I am grateful.
Mr. Gordon, you were one of those persons that the psychologist Alice Miller referred to as efficient witnesses.
Children are born creative, all of them, all over the world without exception. That assertion is a cornerstone of my belief.
Children have also been subjected to physical and emotional abuse all over the world, over many ages and times, some by war, poverty, neglect and other forms, too often of the most horrific kinds. The heartbreaking images of drowned and maimed coming out of the Mediterranean refugee crisis are now all too common, children with voices that cannot be heard.
Many break as individuals. Others grow into adulthood absorbing the legacy of abuse into their personal culture, such that they themselves become abusers -- or in tolerating it, the carriers of violence and self-violence as a kind of self-perpetuating social disease.
Others survive in despite, and even recover to become advocates for social justice -- for children, or others. Why is this? Why do some survive psychologically, and others not? And how do they survive? The psychologist Alice Miller was such an advocate.
Courtesy of Guardian News & Media Ltd.
She coined the term enlightened witness as a person who is willing to support harmed individuals -- children most notably -- empathize and help them to gain understanding of and healing from their own biographical past. (Incidentally, late in life she fulfilled her desire to also be a painter. Her watercolor works are in print.)
As Dr. Miller noted in her studies, the damage caused in the child neurologically and emotionally sets in before the age of four years. For me, despite my initial encounters with the psychiatric world as a teen and years of introspection afterwards, my recovery did not effectively begin in this regard until relatively late in life.
Two factors that kept me going were the same two that got me started on my journey -- the creation of art, and the experience of the mystical or divine. All my life to date I’ve been on a hero's journey, these two common threads weaving through that journey.
I would extend the definition of enlightened witness to include crucial interventions of love coming from outside the immediate family environment that recognize and reinforce a child’s sense of what is precious and unique about his or her own humanity. That person -- the efficient witness -- through a kind word or gesture may be key in the emotional survival of the child, planting a seed for a future harvest.
Many people have shown me support and kindnesses over the years. In relation to my development as an artist as relates to my childhood I now pay tribute to one of the first efficient witnesses in my life.
Thank you, Mister Gordon, wherever you are in the universe now. In my own way, through my art, my writing and the process of bettering myself each day, I’m finding ways to leave paper where it’s needed.
Okay, that’s it for now. How did I do with my first blog post? I invite you to please comment below, or email me privately. Many more to come.