On File...
I want to write on this further (and edit!) but for now these are my immediate and messy thoughts on where I feel I am as an artist. At 34 my practice has been all over the place, it was safe for a long time, I made sculptures of birds, trying to describe my inner life in some metatphorical way which was easily digestible to an audience specific to glass, I was good at that, and only on occasion would I make work that was important to me as a person, as an artist, I think very rarely in my time before graduate school starting in 2015, rarely those important-to-me-as-an-artist artworks were glass sculptures. This is one of those other works, a drawing which was etched in my brain since my daughter arrived to the ICU at 8 months, following open heart surgery. My moments with her, going into the surgical suite were horrific ones as a mother, I had to hold her down as the anesthetist placed the gas mask over her face, as I had done twice before for her catheter procedures and have done since. And now her tiny bluish body was there on a hospital bed, stapled and stitched back together, tubes snaking from her ribs. I left to the room next door to pump milk from my breasts and cry.
I think the title for this drawing is Filed Away, which is been it’s own existence since it was made, it is currently living in a portfolio case in Buffalo, NY in either my sister’s home or my parent’s, and they don’t know about this drawing, and no one does really, just as most people don’t know of FJ’s on going heart problems; she is having another catheter procedure in a couple weeks. This drawing came to mind today, after I attended a floor talk by Jacqueline Fahey of her show Suburbanites, at Pah Homestead here in Auckland, NZ. Fahey bravely went about pursuing her career as an artist making paintings about her life, her life as a suburban mum to two girls, and continued this practice, painting her life and her feelings and frustrations for 70 years, she is 90 this year and although she no longer paints, is working on writing her third book. Fahey is the original Artist-Parent-Academic (she taught painting at Elam School of Fine Art in the 80s and 90s) Her early paintings, the ones which I have seen, are not amazing, but at some point in the 70s (?) she found her true voice, they became fearless. I’m eager to read more about her work, and the two books she has published, I want to know what happened, what sparked that change in her art.
I think, I am so anxious often about my artwork making sense as a whole, and I file away works that do not fit in with what I am doing at the moment, where in actuality these things develop over time and not everything needs to make sense to other things, they are part of a larger whole.
On a lighter note, do an image search of Fahey’s paintings and check out the way she paints seagulls, cats, and especially dogs, they are a joy.
Katherine Rutecki, Filed Away, oil stick on paper hanging file, 420x600mm, 2013
Jacqueline Fahey and myself, 16th February, 2020
3 July 2020 Post Script
I’m writing and including drawing here on very personal family events. I do not talk about such things as children’s health on social media but I also feel as an artist it is important to have a dialogue, I think I am comfortable on my own site here to do so. Do not share such posts of mine on Facebook, etc., I will follow up and delete them.
