July 21, 2011

Groups and Movements.

I came across the Stuckists a few years ago after getting an email from Detroit Mona for an exhibit called Unplugged @ Mona featuring Stella Vine.* Detroit appeared on my radar because I was in a small show in Detroit that same year. I checked out her work, saw her connection to the Stuckists and became interested in doing more research about them. I'm easily excitable. I'm not a group person, but every now and then I long to join an art group. I've been this way all my life. As a child, Christian bookstores had the same effect on me.

At the time most of my paintings were predominately abstract. What little figurative work I did was on the down low, and mostly little drawings. I drew a lot in 2005 and 2006. I just looked at my image folder. I scanned over 348 drawings from those two years. 2007 was a slow year for drawing but I did 72 paintings. I've since destroyed a lot of the drawings and a few paintings before moving. Moving under duress will do that. I left my 12-pound weights back there too, because I started freaking out about how much moving all my cargo was going to cost. Twenty-four pounds was the tipping point for me that day.

Mary Addison Hackett (me)
The Norwhal, Ogden Nash and The Parthenon, 2005,
ink on vellum

Mary Addison Hackett (me)
Untitled, 2005
 ink on vellum

What little figurative work I did was on the down low:
Mary Addison Hackett (me)
Double Portrait Self-Portrait, 2006
graphite on found stationery (modified for Internet use.)

Every now and then a figurative painting would occur.
Mary Addison Hackett
"Balloon Man," 2006 (?)
 acrylic on canvas
20" x 16"
I forgot about the Stuckists for awhile and then the other day I met Susan Constance online through a conversation with Steven LaRose and discovered she had been a Stuckist at one point. I got all excited again.

As of late, I'm pretty much 20 for 20 with their manifesto, and over the last few years have been drifting over to the whole idea of Remodernism, though I personally wasn't calling it anything. The further away from the centrifuge, the more I have in common. I'm considering starting a Nashville group. The only requirement is a founder. Perfect.

I was at the Train Car Stdio early this morning. I needed to finish my left eye.
Mary Addison Hackett
"Self-Portrait with Two Selves," 2011
oil on canvas
20 x 16 in.

* Stella Vine is an ex Stuckist.  According to wikipedia:
In June 2000, Stella Vine went to a talk given by Childish and Thomson on Stuckism and Remodernism in London.[49] At the end of May 2001, she exhibited some of her paintings publicly for the first time in the Vote Stuckist show in Brixton, and formed The Westminster Stuckists group.[48] On 4 June, she took part in a Stuckist demonstration in Trafalgar Square.[49][50] By 10 July, she renamed her group The Unstuckists.[51] In mid-August, Thomson and Vine were married.[52] A work by her was shown in the Stuckist show in Paris, which ended in mid-November, by which time she had rejected the Stuckists,[48] and the marriage had ended.

Long live short attention spans. 

7 comments:

Carla said...

"The only requirement is a founder" har-har

"..enriching society by giving shared form to individual experience and an individual form to shared experience." I feel the need to defend individual exploration, and many parts of the manifesto address the value of such work really well.

Elaine Mari said...

I have embraced many of the Stuckist ideas for a couple of years now, they have the best disclaimer ever; #20. Stuckism embraces all that it denounces. We only denounce that which stops at the starting point — Stuckism starts at the stopping point!

I love being let off the hook, just in case I'm not understanding something the way I should and sign up for Armageddon.

Carla said...

Also, that portrait kicks butt.

M.A.H. said...

Which one? Me on the motorcycle? ; \
Someone else liked it too. I thought it was a bit simply painted, but I like the gist of it. Particularly the fact that my eyes are on two different focal points and my left cheek overlaps the canvas.

Carla said...

The newest one, although both the motorcycle one and the earlier pencil are great. Last night I dreamed you showed up with these really cool ceramic creatures for the show. I had just made some too, and they were all really funny. Mine were breaking into pieces, and you were wondering if you had fired yours long enough. It was a low-level and sort of fun anxiety.

F. A. Alsbach said...

You are welcome to join us. One of the more radically different things about the Stuckists is the insistence upon inclusiveness rather than exclusivity. Skill and experience are not necessary, only a sincere effort to make something aesthetically beautiful.

Floyd Alsbach

Founder, Missouri Valley Stuckist's

M.A.H. said...

Thanks Floyd, I was thinking about starting a Nashville group, but it would be great to link up with existing groups as well.

It's over.

Nov 7, 2020. Tears of joy and relief. It's been unreal and I'm ready to get back to a sense of normalcy. The desert has been tough.