Foundations- Entrances and Exits
Fragment- "Loud" Series, 6inchex 9inches- 2003
Since 2003 I have torn, ripped, reconfigured and collected fragments from the work while in the studio, I felt did not hold up to par. Those elements of my work I could cut out, dismember, extract. Was reminiscent of how I felt treated as a young Blackman throughout my life. This process also was a result of feeling like the “other”- the kid that made it out of the hardships and to academia. But that all came at a price. The price was being too, comfortable with mutilation, critically dismembering and reclaiming the fragments that helped make sense of my world. Like- bits of rubble in the cities and neighborhoods, communities destroyed in the spirit of renewal or rebirth.
Considering the foundations that help determine and focus my artistic practice and vision and how life experience is still a catalyst within the content of my work. When I think about my entrance into this world, my biggest successes have been rooted in the care, guidance and knowledge of a diverse group of women. I was lucky enough to not only have my Black father, uncles, cousins, and other male mentors in my life.
But the women, no matter their experience or culture, starting with the Black women- my mother, grandmothers and aunties, sistas, and cousins - always showing up. Taught me those lessons, not so popular with the masses. Lessons in love and nurturing. Lessons of how to care for the land, prepare food. Elevate the mind and navigate tough times, unimaginable experiences that brought at times- a lot – of trauma. Yet the joy, the love, the unrelenting truth is what I would say is the main – Foundation that is rooted in my work. Which brings me to my intentional acknowledgement of the old adage- “make something out of nothing”.
These strong resourceful women picked up all the physical, emotional, financial and familial fragments to weave together the best they could for themselves and their families. It’s not coincidental that Audre Lorde, Octavia Butler, Bell Hooks to name a few are the pillars of my bookshelves and critical thinking as I navigate academia and the artworld, as a practicing artist and arts educator. One that is knee deep in learning how to be okay with the beautiful uneven, rough edged- fragments that are a part of my story and my practice.
The women that have helped patch, reinforce, nail, bolt, weave, feed, hold, support, mend, cultivate- my foundations have these common footings – one from the city or urban experience and the other in the land, from rural attributes. They always encouraged me to grow and fight, to protect and secure my creativity, my fragmented story and non- linear journey.
Meditating on - Marshall Berman’s “All that is Solid Melts into Air”. Berman, via the eyes of Baudelaire touches upon the transition(s) and/ or the creation of the boulevards under Napoleon III and Georges Eugene Haussmann. Berman describes the blasting, the displacement of the “people” the families, artists, the poor, vulnerable, those who became victim to the “rubble” as the boulevards were created. Yes, to bring the masses together, to bring commerce and a way to connect all the “people” of this time in Paris. A way of connecting the masses on a scale that was to benefit them “all”.
Born in 1975- Berman’s “All that is Solid, Melts into Air” was published in 1982- making me only 7 years of age when this line of thought was shared. I find it noteworthy, that his writings helped shape this Black artist’s view on the world after decades of creating and moving throughout it. Not to forget that the artist and one of my most challenging professors – Helen O’Leary was a direct influencer on my access and study of this type of literature. Around 1998 or so, a blip of a moment after Rodney King got attacked by police officers and L.A. burned for some time. Rough times socially and culturally for a young man of color trying to find his way amidst again- the “rubble”.
“This primal scene reveals some of the deepest ironies and contradictions in modern city life. The setting that makes all urban humanity a great extended “family of eyes” also brings forth the discarded stepchildren of that family.”
-Marshall Berman “All that is Solid Melts into Air”
Most of my friends and those even I found had become family by undergraduate and graduate school. Those that were a part of my “tribe” Usually were the discarded, the underestimated, the marginalized, the “other”. Those of us that felt and lived as the stepchildren of both our geographies and families proper.
“Visions From the Street Series”,digital photo 2012 - Gregory J. Rose
Being of Generation X and living the real time effects of - Regan omics, the Crack Epidemic, AIDS, the introductions to the complex intersections in music, Hip- Hop, Rock, Rap, Country, Pop, Punk. The growing number of us- kids looking to the “Street” on skateboards and fighting Neo Nazi gangs and police. Just trying to fit into the fragmented and broken worlds at large. Trying to make the best of our landscapes and lives. Are just some of the fractural like intersections that formed out of the urban piles of rubble.
By 2011 my work was starting to integrate more digital elements such as digital photography, scanning, use of draw and paint programs. How I began to do this was by finding fragments of visual inspiration while I took my daily walks in the morning and at night. I loved and still do document – my surroundings. Those intimate moments on the walls, billboards, mailboxes, in bathrooms of bars and cafes- concert venues. Along the sidewalks and scrolled across garages. Found on the public walls of businesses and institutions. That visual battle: The gang tags the surface, only to be marked by another gang. The city and its residents paint over this communication with patches of beige, bright white, or grey- at times other colors to match the architecture. Yet most times it’s a few shades and values off. Soon the pasted posters and advertisements come over the boarded-up businesses that have since fallen under hard times.
Soon mother nature makes herself know and the patina – the rust reds and at times mint greens from the metals in the air water and building materials coat the marks made by the parties mentioned above. The graffiti artists those that work rogue and those that work with and within the system. Make their coded messages in the name of the people and neighborhoods. Emotional and critical representations of lost lives and dreams to come.
This cycle continues and grows over time. Attempts to eliminate this battle over territory- after the “Fire Next Time”. Like my immediate and extended families here in the Twin Cities experienced after the death of George Floyd. I get mesmerized by this visual play of power and territory. The multi-generational and economic play visually shifting in real time as I capture these special fragmented, fractural – moments that serve as real time codes, and marks that lead me on my walks in collected memory. Hence- I share with you the above image of “Visions from the Streets”. That covers, the Midwest, the East Coast namely NY, and Venice, Italy to date.
“Visions From the Street Series” Digital Photo 2016 – Venice Italy - Gregory J. Rose
Conversely, during complex and challenging times, I would be sent - to rural areas of NJ where my family originates from. I participated in the Boy Scouts and other rural and wilderness experiences that would remove me from the city culture and place me face to face with those elders that found a home and a life by the and with the land. I have come the realization that the land and the cities I experience. Give me the visual foundations that allow me “Entry” into new places, spaces and experiences, which feed my work.
"Entry" Mixed Media on Panel 13"x17" framed 2018- Gregory J. Rose
These foundations gifted by women and sorted by my paths in life experience is how I navigate the ways I enter and exit- places, spaces and time. There are forces beyond my control that would like to predetermine how I enter and/ or exit- anywhere- at any time. Intersections and contradictions have created space to see and find the opportunity in the cracks, holes of deteriorating materials considered- cornerstones. The diverse sizes and placement- and forms- of entrances and exits- throughout physical and philosophical spaces held by keepers, are being redrawn and reconfigured- by the dreamers and the makers.
Foundations in our history may be- built on top of earth that is soaked in the blood and tears of many of our ancestors, family(s)- and mother earth. Cities, towns, who communities built on sacred land taken, rather than shared, respected and loved. Now burned, flooded, pushed, bulldozed to rubble. “Rooted” - Foundations compromised by overarching reaches into our lush and bountiful lands, now taken back- by the plants and animals we once saw as just food and resources.
Culturally – there seems to be a lack of creating foundations so that no matter- we “all” can - enter and exit, any spaces, geographies- places that have compromised its children, elders and lands. In return for immediate gratifications and compensations that open holes, cracks and further erode precarious foundations built on limiting and controlling- “Freedom”. Yet, advertised as the next – “oasis”, the “new frontier”- the undiscovered “Eden”.
“Entry” into new territory is always uncomfortable. I tell my students that you know you are on the right path and learning, when you are uncomfortable. When you really start to “look” at the world differently. Not from the front or back door, not from the main windows we see in our “spaces” our “homes”. Rather, when you can see the cracks, the holes in your foundations. When you can begin to build from where you are most vulnerable, where you may feel the weakest. Entering new experiences framed, by spaces- places that are uncharted- I thrive. Like those that came before me I feel that I am a pioneer in the Midwest. An unofficial new wave “Buffalo Soldier”. Forging a better balance than I was taught in my past.
A balance between foundations built and those inherited. So, I look to the cities, the boulevards, the urban spaces as they lead me towards those pathways in the wildernesses, to the creeks and valleys, to the land Like my work, those topographical qualities, those “street” qualities and references all- keep saying the same thing- Welcome.
I am one of those stepchildren of the city. My foundations are those discarded fragments that I find in and outside of the studio. Those stories and experiences that are never linear, yet always within a life affirming risk, opening my eyes and mind- to “see” the world, where I choose how I enter and exit.
Foundation(s) built on relationships that at times are very contradictory, precarious, insidious at times even. Although- the way I- we; put the pieces back together can make for a very strong, and solid foundation(s). A way for those who can “see” the old and new- the yet encountered messaged within the winds on our faces. Can you see the codes on the walls, the billboards, the garbage trucks, cans and mailboxes. The fragmented minded poets tagging bathroom stalls in our local watering holes.
Can you comprehend, those symbols shared within those landscapes we all encounter, avoid and/ or embrace? The maps envisioned and key- written out in real time as most of us live and die on the boulevards of our past, present and future(s). The evidence of territorial wars fought by those who live on the boulevards, and those that destroyed to build – what is considered advancement. Can you hear our elders speak to us on the creaking limbs of those trees they hung from? Is that why you are so scared of the “woods”?
Welcome home, welcome back, welcome in, you are welcome to eat, rest your soul. “Home” takes on many forms. Forms are used to mold and construct – foundations. My foundations are built on fragments. A Fragmented and non-linear travel through space and time. A space that is at times transcendent. Yet, rooted in the “street” and planted in the earth.
Gregory J Rose 2023 at home in the studio
