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by Ralitza Ivanova

Beyond the Form: Presenting Visual Artist Janet Morrow


Starting this article was not easy. Not because I found the artist I am about to present uninspiring - on the contrary, Janet Morrow’s work is rich in emotional and conceptual messages. But precisely that richness was hard to discuss because it reflects something about her that is different. At first, I was unwilling to focus on the characteristics which distinguish her from the rest. Because, I thought, Janet is an artist like any other person who works in the field - unique but, after all, a Creative Person as any actor, writer, musician or dancer. Last March I heard a debate on the “Third Programme”, the National Greek radio station for classical & jazz music, where several women artists discussed whether people should focus on the ethnicity, gender and/or any other external feature of a creator or simply concentrate on their work. This may well be one of those questions without clear-cut answers in that identity, personal experience and content of the work are often intertwined in the arts. And I think this is the case with the protagonist of this article – her difference is central to the works she’s created so far. But like most phenomena in the universe, if you look at it close enough you’ll find that a whole new world emerges.

Janet Morrow is a Texas-based visual artist who creates conceptual art. She uses wide variety of materials to create installations which convey specific ideas. When Janet was in her mid-thirties she lost her hearing due to an auto-immune inner ear disease. Subsequently, themes like deafness, being different and social exclusion became central to her work as an artist.

Morrow’s works have been exhibited in galleries across Washington, Minneapolis, Austin, Nottingham (UK) and many other venues. Currently she teaches Disability Studies for the University of Texas (Arlington) and Art Appreciation for Tarrant County College. She has presented research and lectures at The Modern Museum of Art in Forth Worth, Society for Disability Studies Conference, The University of Texas and The University of North Texas.

J. Morrow "Snow Garden" exhibition at Box 13 Artspace, Houston, TX 2015

You might have noticed that I deliberately try to avoid the word ‘disability’ as much as possible. That is because I simply don’t like it. In my opinion, a negative meaning has been attached to the term, almost as if it strips people off their powers. In my work as music therapist I have found that most of the ‘disabled’ individuals posses unexpected abilities. Often their courage and strength are greater than those of a ‘normal’ person in that they need to find a way out from the limitations that life has imposed on them, while dealing with social pressure at the same time. In a word, the form / outside appearance may conceal a very different content / inner substance. That is why I preferred asking Janet questions about her work and art in general. Here are her thoughts:

Q1: Janet, could you tell us something about why you chose visual art as a means for expressing yourself? What attracted you to this art medium?

J.M: As a child, I was quite naturally drawn to visual art-making and if someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would answer, unequivocally, "an artist". But when I was 14, my family moved to a rural area in East Texas and the school didn't have an art programme at all. I grieved a little, but moved on to other things - and became an appreciator of art rather than a maker of it. Years later, as an adult, I lost my hearing and became deaf. The sales and marketing work I had been doing was very hearing-dependent and I began looking for something else I could do. I took a few art classes at the local community college and all of my early love of art-making came rushing back in like a huge ocean wave. I think it was stronger for being put on hold all those years. By-the-way, I teach art at the community college now. I owe them a debt of gratitude I can never fully repay for helping me find my way again.

Q2: How would you explain the term 'conceptual art' to someone who has never heard of it?

J.M: To me, conceptual art simply means that the meaning or concept is the most important thing, its raison d'etre. As such, choice of media, technique, style...everything else, is secondary to expression of the concept. However, all of those other factors DO matter and hopefully the artist's choices should add up to result in the best, most powerful expression of that concept possible.

Q3: In your text "Teaching Philosphy" you write that you guide your art students through all the stages of creating an art work - from identifying a worthy for expression concept, through the researchth around a particular idea, the realisation of the artwork and, finally, the developing of the communication skills for discussing the work. And you add: "I strongly believe that the most powerful art is almost always at least partially autobiographical and one of my favourite tasks in teaching is helping students discover all that is interesting, unique and poigniant about the narrative of their own lives". In that sense, could you say that studying art(s) is like learning about oneself?

J.M: I do believe that studying art, if one does it with intent to explore and grow, is an adventure in learning about oneself. One of the most exciting and fun parts of being an art teacher is seeing, once students have mastered some basic techniques, what happens when they begin to find their artistic "voice". The work suddenly becomes rich and powerful and there is that "PING!" of authenticity. The REALLY magical part to me is that often an artist's voice or their thesis involves some aspect of the self that they may have considered undesirable or even shameful in the past. This was my experience with making art about deafness and disability. Which seques into your next question...

Q4: Would you like to share with us what you have learned about yourself?

J.M: In the beginning, I thought that it would be a mistake to make art about deafness and disability because people who had not had the same life experience as me would not find it interesting. What I discovered, however, is that EVERYONE has issues of difference. Although my work is specific to my own experience, others overlay their own struggles and find their own relevance.

I have found that my main desire in making art is to initiate conversations with people. Whether they like the work or not isn't really important; it seems to spark thought and give us something to talk about. Of course, my hope is always that from conversation will come more shared understanding and tolerance. This seems to be a gentle way of encouraging that to happen.

J. Morrow, "White Noise" (sugar, found aluminium tray), 2012

Q5: In the above-mentioned text ["Teaching Philosophy"] you express your belief that art changes the world in that it changes ourselves, by challenging our convictions and introducing us to new ways of thinking. Do you regard art an effective way to challenge the society's stereotypes and/or misconceptions?

J.M: Perhaps because I am deaf and so dependent on the visual, I feel that a strong visual image can cut through peoples' defences and make an impression and change a heart when words and arguments have failed. I am thinking here of world-changing images such as photographer Nick Ut's Napalm Girl of 1972, or more recently photographs of Syrian child, Omran Daqneesh. How can anyone see those images and be quite the same afterwards?

Q6: You use gnomes and sugar in quite a few of your works - could you tell us why?

J.M: I started working with sugar in 2010 after my husband's diagnosis with a brain tumour. For myself, and possibly for other artists who use art as a means of visual journaling of external processing of thoughts and emotions, when something "bad" happens, there is a period of artistic silence when one is just awash in grief and horror. Then art is the rope you grab to start to pull yourself out of that "miry pit". Sugar just felt inexplicably and perfectly "right" for this particular work and later for other work exammining disability. It speaks effortlessly of the sweetness and fragility of our human experience. It is fraught with cultural associations, from sweets made for birthdays and parties to the sugary treats we bring to the sickbed or the wake to comfort those who are left behind. It has a soft, crystalline beauty which I find endlessly satisfying. I will say that it is a difficult medium with which to work and not archival at all. The past couple of years I have begun using resin, sometimes flocked or coated in other materials, in an attempt to combat these difficulties. But honestly, sugar STILL feels conceptually the most right...

So, the gnomes...Because of my own disabilities and the fact that I teach Disabilty Studies, I reflect on disability A LOT. The gnomes emerged as a metaphor for people with disabilities. People view them as comical, possibly somewhat loveable, but also pitiful and slightly creepy. Gnomes are not viewed as creatures wielding power or capable of making decisions for themselves. All of this is indicative to me of the way our culture continues to trivialize and stigmatize disability. Quite frankly, I am tired of it. By utilizing gnomes, in my artwork, which people find vaguely amusing, I am doing that thing of attempting to sneak past their defences so I can say, "Oh, come one, people. Get over it, already - it's just a body."

J. Morrow "Binary Codes" (50 painted and flocked statues cast in polyester resin and displayed on custom-made aluminium shelves 9' x 15' x 9'), 2016

Q7: Could you explain your ideas behind the works "Binary Codes" and "Tick, Tock, The Game Is Locked"?

J.M: Well, I am afraid this is continuing my rant from the answer to the question above. About "Tick, Tock, The Game Is Locked" , when I was a little girl living in Memphis, Tennessee, we had this thing we would do on the playground. When we had as many people as we wanted in a game, we little girls would stand in a circle, link our pinkie fingers together and swing our tiny arms back and forth as we recited this rhyme:

Tick-Tock, the game is locked and nobody else can play.

And if they do, we'll take our shoe, and beat them black and blue.

I see parallels constantly in the way groups "coagulate" to entrench their sameness and exclude anyone else who is different. As adults, we are more subtle, but we still do it.

"Binary Codes" is also examining patterns of inclusion and exclusion. Instead of looking at group behaviour, however, "Binary Codes" is commenting on the way we polarize. Rather than acknowledging that human embodiment is located on continuums and that societal roles are constructed, not immutable, we seem inexorably drawn to structures of polarization: us/them, black/white, male/female, gay/heterosexual, able-bodied/disables, etc.

J. Morrow "Tick, Tock, The Game Is Locked" (sugar and other media), 2014

Q8: Are you working on a new idea at the moment?

J.M: Art-making has exhilarating periods of inspiration and creation, alternating with excruciatingly dull periods of slogging through potential ideas and learning new skills. I am in a slogging period right now...working on some ideas for discussing diversity in the city of Forth Worth and trying to teach myself digital 3D modelling.

Hopefully this interview-article could bring the audience closer to the personality of the artist, as well as show her thinking behind the works she has created. It may be valuable to take some time and reflect on how often we as individuals and society actually become acquainted, and to what extent, with the Content instead of focussing on the Form. And last but not least, perhaps it is evident for many that here, once again, we are witnessing what the human spirit and the transformational power of art can achieve together.

 

Source:

www.morrowartproductions.com


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