Shock and Boredom

What do you find shocking or boring? Can you pinpoint moments in your life when these definitions were defined? How have they changed overtime?

Is there a core consistency that remains through the changes?

When I was young I had far less access to information. A variety of ideas were generally more difficult to find due to limits in technology and social norms that controlled media. Even within that less accessible world I was raised in more restricted conditions.

The religion my family practiced, the Church of Christ, deemed most expressions outside of dedication to Christ as inappropriate or forbidden. The followers have a variety of interpretations of what that means. Some families raise their daughters with strict clothing and hairstyle requirements, make-up restrictions and teach them that being a wife and mother is their only option as an adult. Other, more progressive families -they would hate me calling them progressive- offer caretaking careers as acceptable options, nursing and teaching are most appropriate, and allow more freedom in physical presentation. My family was on the low end of progressive. I had some freedom in how I presented myself, was trained to cook, clean and care for my siblings and there were nurses in my family. Poverty also affected my options. My mother did not work outside the home and my father’s income struggled to support our large family. They simply could not pay for me to attend college so I wasn’t encouraged in that direction. I was also just good at housework and caring for children. I became a wife and mother, even after choosing to leave the church. It was what I was confident I could do well.

I am a great mother. It is the one thing I am truly confident about. Since my children reached adulthood I have been exploring the wider world that has been made available through technology. There is so much to learn! The shocking things I have come across create an energetic buzz of curiosity inside me. Sometimes a shocking thing causes me to feel anger while another brings me joy. I see both as good opportunities because they provide energy and drive for me to learn more. Getting lost in the information gets overwhelming at times. That is when I pull back from absorbing new things and switch to analyzing the past and trying to reconcile my past experience with future plans. I can’t hang around and do nothing. My brain just doesn’t work that way. I must have something to absorb, dissect or build. It, I, can be quite annoying. When I lock in on something I can’t let it go. Then other times the analyzing can become tedious and boring. The repetitive themes can make it difficult to maintain focus. This boredom is important. It creates a different kind of opportunity for thought. It makes my brain feel mushy and flexible. My memories flow and my ability to think about them in a new way becomes easier.

The shock followed by boredom is important. It’s like tightening a muscle to get it to relax. I learned that from a yoga video. I used to struggled to relax. I was locked in constant stress trying to be a good caregiver for everyone around me. At a time when VHS tapes were the standard video access, I bought a random yoga video that promised relaxation. As I laid on the floor, face up with my eyes closed, the woman on the video told me to let the tension flow out of my body.    It    was   not   happening.    I could not sense the difference between being tense and being relaxed. Then she advised, if the viewer was struggling to relax, to tighten the muscle then let it go and let the tension flow out of the body. I squeezed my fists tight, pulled my shoulders toward my neck, squeezed my butt and flexed my calves and toes as tight as I could then let them go. I felt as if I could float away. Light and free. I became obsessed with this section of the video, rewinding it over and over until I had the pattern memorized. Experiencing shock tightens my brain and the boredom lets thought flow.

Obsession, intrusive thoughts and epiphany are all part of my creative process. Or, perhaps, my creative process focuses my obsessions and intrusive thoughts into epiphanies. All I know is this way of working gives me an abundance of ideas and energy for creating work. The rhythm created in my energy level from switching back and forth between experiencing shock and then pulling back to the boredom of my personal history couples well with my obsession/intrusive thought and epiphany cycle. This cycle could be called ups and downs but that suggests one is better than the other. That isn’t true. They have equal value. One is usually more entertaining so other people seem more interested in the shocking portion. But the parts that get boring are really important. They offer a slower processing. They offer more opportunity for deeper understanding. My epiphanies come during this slower time. They can pop up out of nowhere and reference something I haven’t thought about in weeks or even months if I’ve gone too long without this slow processing time. I cannot make them happen. No amount of pressure to produce can make my brain work on someone else’s timeline. It’s been a problem.

I should clarify. It’s been a problem for others. It works for me. I value my system. It took me decades to figure out how to best use my brain. I spent a lot of time beating myself up for not working the “right” way, or at least the way I have been told is the right or best way. No one else knows what it is like to live with my brain. Only I can figure out how to best use it to achieve what I want to achieve. I have been trying to figure out how to explain how my brain works because I think there are people who will understand it and feel less alone. This writing is part of it. My recent experiments has been a messy version as well.

My self-portraits have gradually increased in confidence and exposure. When I first started painting myself it was extremely difficult. I struggled to look at my own body, it was shocking for me, so the resulting paintings were more reserved. I spent long hours slowly breaking my body into abstract details in order to break my attachment to the history of my self-image. Now, after 5+ years, I think could live as a nudist without embarrassment and my resulting paintings are not as reserved. This process of being comfortable with my body happened through the process of shock/boredom that I have been developing since I had the epiphany that I needed to get over the hatred of my body through self-portraiture. With my dick pic paintings, I take something that has been presented in a shocking way and I spend slow time finding all the details and thinking about the individual model and my history with men. I lovingly apply paint to shape a gentle representation of these penises -which are just normal body parts with functioning erections. I get lost in the paint and the subject and appreciating my love for the penis -accepting the reality of the part belonging to an individual human being and letting go of my history with men.

I have been trying to expand my work to installations. I have thought about installations for a long time but didn’t realize that is what I was doing. I get grand ideas. I don’t just think of one painting. I think in series. I think about how to connect them. I call my ideas epiphanies because of they tend to be grandiose. One of my oldest ideas is a series that would take an entire gallery and use painting, sculpture, sound, scent, and light to guide the viewer through my memory of the worst night of my life. It happened when I was 16 and I had the idea at least a decade ago. I have never made anything for it but I have played the walk-through over in my mind hundreds of times. I haven’t made the installation because I do not have the knowledge to pull it off right. I may never get the opportunity. I can hear the negativity from someone in my life who thinks it is their job to tell me everything I want to do is wrong, impossible or a bad idea. I used to have a voice in my head that did that and somehow now, after restraining the inner voice, it exists in my real life and has been making me miserable.

I have made 3 pieces intended to learn about installations over the last nine months. The first one, Body and Brain, was a simple combination of small paintings and handwritten words on paper. It had sexual references and explored the way I process the comments I receive online. The second, Pornography Installation, was more complicated with multiple walls to walk around, larger paintings, a sculpture, an opportunity to interact through notes, printed and handwritten words, a webcam and computer. It had bolder sexual references. The third, Memories of Grandpa Joe, had multiple sculptures in various states of completion, paintings as sculpture, and an opportunity to interact with me in-person. All 3 pieces were experiments. I don’t know what I am doing. I have viewed installations but I haven’t been taught what an installation is supposed to be or how to effectively make one. I can’t figure out how to make an effective installation without the opportunity to learn from experimenting.

This combination of accepting how I work, experimenting with installations, and being burdened with the negativity of others is coalescing into a realization about what I want to provide for my viewers. I want to provide opportunities to be shocked and bored. I am trying to connect with people like me. It seems simple but its not. Nothing about me is simple. The people I want to connect with need and enjoy extremes. Specifically extremes that energize their mind to the point of it radiating through their body. They crave to be shocked but also need to be boredom. They don’t want to be blatantly entertained; it feels shallow. They need complication; it helps them focus. They want the opportunity to understand others but don’t want to be spoon fed. They need to be able to ask questions but they don’t require answers. They’d rather be told there isn’t an answer than be told a half-truth or lie. They like to sit in the awkwardness of shock and find quiet comfort in boredom. If this sounds like you I hope to make work for you. I know I haven’t figured it out yet but I feel like I’m getting closer.

Kris