Marilyn Minter Lecture

Marilyn Minter Lecture at SFAI_

Hi everyone. I went to the lecture and it was so packed. Not so much fun sitting on the stairs. But worth it none the less. 

I'm sure everyone is familiar with her work, its AMAZING her photography and paintings are pretty impossible to tell apart. She presented her best pieces from the past 25+ years I believe. Every single thing was just beautiful. 

The attention and time she accorded to"boring" objects that she was painting at the time was well spent, even simple shavings of linolium (spelling?) were rendered in the highest quality and because they were so perfectly done, they became these beautiful and breathtaking creations. 

Marilyn talked about reflections and how we see ourselves when she presented some work having to do with mirrors, I found this interesting because it made me think about how I perceive myself. How I'm often thinking about what I look like and not typically how I'm looking at myself. If that amounts to anything of substance. I suppose I was most interested in her ideas of reclaiming images such as porn images and the heat she felt from the art community at the time. The bad reputation she got for going where no females had really gone before inspires me. The fact that she went there, and in the end was successful with her Art whether or not the community liked it I think is truly exceptional. I'm inspired by the way she followed her heart and her mind to take her far and the strong trust she puts in her own work. Trusting yourself is a big part of creating anything. I think it was Ann who during seminar asked, "How do I remind myself that I am the first and last person I have to answer to?" or something to that effect. But anyways, thats a profound question and it came up again when I was listening to the lecture.

Another quick thing, Minter mentioned that she had no choice in the matter of making art, and that even though at the time she felt her reputation was ruined that she wasn't going to stop. I'm sure most of us understand what that feels like, having no choice in creating something and at times wondering what the hell we do it for.  A piece of advice regarding making art that she gave at the lecture: When you lose track of time, you're doing something right. Stay with it. 

I wasn't going to go to the lecture due to a bad migraine. But I'm really glad that I sucked it up and went. 

[Cocoa]