Camilla Jerome | Bodies of Water
A warm summer rainstorm with no thunder or lightning, just rain and wind. The lake is a misty green, the sand churned up by crashing waves– and like so many times before, we run and dive. We bob and dunk and float. The push becomes the pull. The rise and the fall. The coming and now the going.
I crave the sweet relief from pain that only water offers. Whether it is my salty tears, a hot bath, a swim in a lake in summer, or braving the sea’s freezing temperatures, water is where the pain subsides—remission in intensity—a temporary alleviation.
My body does not exist in a fixed state but a fluid one. Like the ocean changes with the wind – from blue to green to yellow and white – my disability is perpetually unpredictable, affecting my mobility and embodied knowledge of the world. Every day differs from the last, and I cannot expect the same tomorrow.
We moved to Nahant, Massachusetts, at the height of my illness, and the ocean has become my muse. It is where I heal, breathe, float, and find relief from pain. I collect water from where I swim and bathe and use the samples as a part of my performative painting and cameraless photographic process. The water mixes with cyanotype and is exposed to UV light as I paint and layer the light-sensitive emulsion, salt, sand, soap, and seaweed to create varying tones and textures that emulate water and its ability to disrupt expectations.
Bodies of Water is the visualization and meditation on disability as a fluid state. The process creates space for moments of pure presence and reacting to nature’s elements, similar to the day-to-day management of disability and chronic illness. Through these works, I generate a new frame for representing the experience of disability. Each light painting is an edition of one relating to the unique understanding of each person with impairments to rethink the metrics by which disability has been historically defined.
Laura Chasman | A Shrewdness of Apes
The first time I put my hands in clay I was in Oaxaca, taking an introductory pottery workshop. The experience was not unlike the feeling of sinking my fingers in the soil while gardening, or manipulating soft dough while making a piecrust. The physicality, the texture, how responsive the clay was to touch and the simplicity of working with one medium were all so appealing. Artists need to love their materials, and I found a new material to love. Without hesitation, the earthiness of the clay brought to mind the image of an ape, an animal that I have felt an attachment to since 1980. It started with a dream: I was going to my family reunion dressed in a gorilla suit, the head of the gorilla tucked under my arm. I woke up amused, went in to my studio and made a small gouache self-portrait of this dream image. (I have included it in this show). My gorilla portrait inspired an entire series of biographical gouache collages.Although my primates did not appear formally in my art after that, they remained a part of my aesthetic vocabulary. Now I had an opportunity to return to my apes, this time using clay, a medium that resonated so well with this subject matter.
I began looking closely at chimpanzees, that species of ape that are our closest living relatives, sharing 98% of our DNA. But my clay chimps are not about scientific interest, but my empathic response to them. Their bodies are a lot like ours, and their range of emotions so relatable - I can see myself in them. There are times I am expressing my own emotions, as much as theirs. I imagine what it would be like to live in the natural world, and when I think about that, I cannot help but reflect on all of the perils that threaten their existence.
As a painter my work has always been about my desire to capture a likeness and the feeling of my subjects, always working to achieve a freer, more expressive approach. With the same intent, I have turned to clay creating unembellished, emotive portraits of these sentient beings.
