You Leave Me

The loss of my special orangey boy, Tommy Scrapples, has been immense. I can feel the lack, the open space where there shouldn't be, the absence of his large presence...it's much too quiet in here. It's much too loud in some ways too; the quiet being almost deafening. This death was sudden, and fairly traumatizing to witness, let alone (I'm sure) endure. It's maybe, finally, really broken me. I might be dissociating. The circumstances truly did him wrong; it was total and complete bullshit. It was not right. He was robbed, and so was I. 

Twice, I made this piece, because the first time... it was not right. 

It's enough, but it feels like not enough. 

Shock of the New

All Hail The Traveler.

Already Not Here

In the meantime...my cat died suddenly...and I may have decided that the title (above) is the new series title, since I just keep racking up more losses....or at least more than the three. I finished this piece yesterday. It's a collograph plate (technically), inked and wiped.

Hold Me While I'm Smiling

No. 3

...the concept of the “third death” in which, sometime in the future after our passing, our names are spoken for the last time...

Arrested Development

mixed media / collograph plate, inked and wiped

"Doom Days" Online Exhibition at HCC

Please feel free to scroll through:

https://horowitzartonline.cargo.site/Shana-R-Goetsch-Doom-Days

I Grieve, For You

I Feel Everything

collograph plate, inked and wiped

SWAK

collograph plate, inked and wiped

The Third Death

This summer has been full of loss for me. That's as encapsulated as I can get.

I had been so unreasonably busy and stressed out for several months, so I hadn't been able to feel the full force of the loss, of the deaths I've experienced so close to me. It was leaking out slowly, but I knew I still had more, or that I had just begun.

It took seeing someone else I care for, cry over their loss, to feel the weight of it all come crashing down on me. I was attending a virtual/zoom memorial for a mentor, colleague, and stand-up human, Fletcher Mackey, a few days ago. It was a touching tribute all around, but near the end, what really got to me was that Miss Paula cried. 

I described it later as, "I just lost my SHIT". 

I didn't actually know what I was feeling, but it was blinding, and probably allthethings; just jumbled up like a horrible, angry ball of burning-sharp-punchy. I got up and sat down like, three times. But where was I going? Nowhere. There was nowhere to go. I wanted to go to her, but realized she hadn't sent for me. But I was significantly alarmed, and I felt fierce protectiveness in seeing and hearing her struggle. The sense that I knew I could do nothing about her pain (and that it was her own, and personal) was palpable. 

So I sat back down, again and again and again.

But holy shit, was I affronted! How DARE you make Miss Paula cry!?! Outrageous! Who was I gonna have to fight?! No one. There was literally no one to direct this anger towards. I wanted someone to blame, but again, there was nothing. No one to blame, and fuckall to do about it. 

Total impotence.

I was angry with the Universe. I wanted to punch it right in its stupid, unfair face. And I was mad about the deep loss that I could see and feel from everyone and everything in that moment. I felt it collectively, intermingled with some disbelief. As someone fairly sensitive and empathetic, it was entirely too much, but I could have dealt with it....until Miss Paula.

I am still angry with the Universe, for taking such a bright star ("bangles in the sky"), way too early.

I was already SO angry with the Universe; my dad died about a month prior to Fletcher's passing, in late June. Something with his heart, it was all so sudden. It left me raw, and lost, and alone, and vacant, and scrambling. I spent all summer pushing through and surviving, so I hadn't had the time to fully grieve....for anyone.

And then I had another, more metaphorical death about a week ago ("I'm lost." -- "Yes. You are, baby"). 

I've had more deaths, of course, before... but the metaphorical ones make it that much harder for me to grieve. There's nothing tangible. What do I do with...ALLTHIS.

I received a scholarship for a Grief Work course last spring. Synchronicity determined it would start live, during my dad's funeral, so I obviously missed it (Touché, Universe). I know I have to start the course now. 

And I knew I had to MAKE stuff with my hands. And I knew I had to write.

So here I am with the start of a new series, "The Third Death". This is the first piece in the series. Better photo coming, and another piece to join it soon.

I Feel Everything
collograph plate, inked and wiped

"Doom Days", Exhibition

Coming soon to you virtually, at Howard Community College: my latest body of work, "Doom Days". 

Link to follow soon... 

Dear Debra Buck...

Hi Debbie (and other true crime rubberneckers),

Please reference the above image to learn more about the actual victim of the murder you so shallowly "reported on" recently. Please also try to be more empathetic next time, especially if there are living victims/survivors, whom also might need and look for some measure of humanity and grace in others. Maybe you could even contact said survivors BEFORE inserting their website links into your little stories. It might even be the ethical/moral thing to do!

You had a real opportunity here, to get beyond the surface of this crime and speak to issues such as family and domestic violence, trauma/C-PTSD and other mental/physical/emotional health challenges in survivors of abuse and violence, how Art can act as a change agent and source of healing...and other rich topics. But no, you couldn't even scratch the surface. I'm thoroughly disappointed in you, Debbie. Your multiple legal disclaimers don't actually cover for your lack of depth and lack of drive, unfortunately. But I do hope you enjoy the art I made for just these instances.

And I'll tell you now, what I told another hapless "reporter" a few years ago; one whom also tried to minimize my mother's personhood, and favored that of her sensational murder(er) instead: "But I assure you, she was sensational if she was anything... The relevance only lies in the loss, or absence of her. All of my work, all of me leads back to her, not him."

It's best to take the link to my website down now, Debra Buck, because who and what I am, has no relevance to what you've done either. I control the narrative here.

Hey, while you're at it, could you maybe take down the description of where my elderly father still lives too? Might be decent of you, considering.

Regards--shana

"Bats in Belfries" Work Images!

Ring of Fire, installation

an excerpt, framed (this is a photo of the misprint --spacing-- but you can get the gist)

Ring of Fire, original

Let it Burn

Firestarter: Angry + More

Firewall

Slight, Match Strike

The Psychopomp Dances with Flames

Spit Fire

Spit Fire, detail

Gaslight: HISteria

Immolation

Seraphim / The Burning Ones

The "Bats in Belfries" Exhibition is Up!

I'm just here to drop some photos and encourage you to come to the Opening Reception of Bats in Belfries, on Thursday, April 11, 2019 at 5p. I will also hold an Artist Talk on Friday, April 12th starting at 10am.  Free and Open to the public! (website)

Install with Thomas Engleman and Jereme Scott!

Bats in Belfries, art from Shana R. Goetsch & Danielle Garzelloni 

Come see my work at the two-person exhibition coming up this April. The work is up on April Fool's Day (the Universe handed that one to me, see the show statement below), April 1 - May 6, 2019. The reception will take place on Thursday, April 11th, 5:00 pm in the Rouse Company Foundation Gallery in HVPA building on Howard Community College's campus, in Columbia Maryland! Please note: this is the BIG gallery, and was therefor, a chance for me to make BIGGER work. I will be having an artist talk on April 12th am, but more details on that will be forthcoming...

Shana R. Goetsch & Danielle N. Garzelloni

Bats in Belfries, refers to an old colloquialism which presents bats as an allegory for mental illness. It relates architecture or structures to that of the mind’s own framework. In related histories, both artists have experienced unexpected, physical confrontations with bats inside their homes. If a house or building is seen as a symbol for the Self, what is it like to discover the bat inside the Self? To be inhabited by the bat? Terror, repulsion, exhilaration, fear, wonder, surprise? The nature of the work is layered in psychology and Jungian archetypes, paying particular attention to the Shadow and the Trickster.

WIP piece

A little bit more about my work

Primarily sourced from the series “Spit Fire”, the work deals with base emotions, aspects of power and control, and an influx of Trickster energy being experienced through that of the Animus. Fire, antagonism, unmitigated rage, and trauma emerge through the dualities of the image and its shadow, as well as the written word. 

_____________________________________

I know it's a hike, but I could set up some ride-shares to Columbia, if need be...I would LOVE to see you at the opening! Artist Alfonso Fernandez (MFA Hoffberger) is showing down the hall, on the same night, so it's a twofer of great #micamade exhibitions! 

Bats in Belfries at HCC

Upcoming 'FYE: Empathy' Student Exhibition! December 8th!

In this shared exhibition, FYE students in both Forum (with professor Goetsch), and Drawing: Tradition & Innovation (with professor Fernandez Vazquez) approach the subject of Empathy from differing perspectives within their artmaking. Participants actively gathered source materials for this challenge: "embarrassing" objects and "broken" objects, and/or old artworks deserving of another chance. By using "elevator speeches" to facilitate collaboration and interest, they ultimately generated acts of empathy for their found materials. Each artist has taken significant creative risks within their choices, thoughts, and actions in order to search for context, communication, and connectivity in their work.

Major Concepts include: ALCHEMY!

Context & Content, Visual Communication & Narrative, The Economy of Visual Language, Emotional Vampirism in Artists, Ethics in the Art World, Kintsugi (gold joinery), and Wabi Sabi, among other topics, such as Shame, Privilege, and the difference between having Sympathy and having Empathy.

Shared Curricula Resources 

"Brene Brown On Empathy", RSA Short

"Picasso's weapon against fascism: Why 'Guernica' is the greatest of all war paintings", Salon.com article

Paul Rucker's 2014 exhibition, "The Empathy Project", MICA's Riggs & Leidy Gallery

"Pain and Sympathy", Art 21, William Kentridge

"The Life of Death" student film by Marsha Onderstijn

Please join us, in celebrating our students, on the evening of Saturday December 8th! Hope to see you!

Been a Minute...

Yeah, I am getting worse and worse at remembering to post things on here. My apologies. Here's a recap:

So recently: Faculty exhibition at MICA

Before that: Sold this piece to my former student

Before that: My first time participating in the School 33 Open Studio Tour

Spring & Summer Shows

As usual, I am a day late and a dollar short on documenting the exhibitions I'm in...

This photo was taken during the reception for the juried show, The Modern Landscape, at RedLine Milwaukee in June. It is a very far away image of my two, tiny pieces you can see in the middle there, right above that person's head-- courtesy of Jake Hill.

And this photo is from the Faculty Exhibition at Howard Community College, which is still up! My mandalas are in the middle.

Earlier this spring was the exhibition Our Words Will Be Heard, at the Modell-Lyric in Baltimore. Here's a photo of me in front of my work, at the opening reception!

That's it for right now, Cheers!

"Our Words Will Be Heard" Exhibition!

Coming up, next week at the Modell-Lyric! Stop by and see some great work from kiddo artists, and some adult artists too, like me! ;)