CURATOR: JOAN SCHUMAN
“A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.”
Noah, you emailed me this Paul Cezanne sentiment the very week I was reading about curators working more from the heart and less from the head. I think these sentiments instill in us a sense of camaraderie. Using an art-like practice to collect and present work is something we both do. We take one hat off and turn it around, move to the next desk; and we become artist-curators. Inherent in how people make their art or what they call it or where they present is this WHY: why paint? why collect sounds? why work in film? why write? why install? why curate?
(Of course, Noah, why curate online?)
Poet Anne Waldman’s vow to always write coexists with her vow to always do poetics community work: “Like Buddhism, poetry is a vow to be a bridge, a boat, a fountain pen, a typewriter, a publisher, a school to anyone who needs these vehicles.” Trickhouse is that boat. To see the breadth of freedom Trickhouse invites is refreshing. You don’t always know where you’re going when you arrive. What a relief to be allowed to wander.
One last thing, and where better to draw from than fiction with John Berger’s mid-20th-century painter of our time: it is not the creation which constitutes an event; the event is the way it is welcomed by others.