Season of Change

by Beth E. Wilson, November 24, 2008

As I write this, the results are in—and apparently, the majority of American voters have decided that it’s time for a change. I have the feeling that we are about to see more changes than any of us could anticipate, what with the global economic recession, the state government thrown into a budget crunch, and a half dozen other crisis points and instabilities thrown in for good measure. Change can be a scary prospect, even when the time is ripe and embracing it will ultimately bring better times, a better situation.

I find myself at something of a crossroads here as well—after writing this column, “Lucid Dreaming” for the past nine years, I find that the time has come to let it go. I recently started a full-time lecturer position at SUNY New Paltz, which this semester involves teaching four courses plus organizing an exhibition for the Dorsky Museum, a workload that makes writing the monthly column an impossible task to keep up. This was not an easy decision to reach, and certainly not one to be made lightly, but at a certain point I need to realize that there’s only so much of me to go around. I do recall that back when Brian Mahoney first asked me to write the regular art column, back in 1999, my first response was to say that I needed to consider the offer, mostly so I could decide whether I would be capable of making the proper commitment to a regular monthly review. As it turns out, I only skipped two months of that time altogether, producing 108 columns, totaling something in the vicinity of 120,000 words. (How’s that for commitment?)

Of course, my primary commitment over these years has been to recognize and to articulate something of the amazing, constantly developing art scene up and down the length of the Hudson Valley (and sometimes a bit beyond). If I were to sit down and make a list of all the many talented, smart, oddball, fascinating artists, gallery owners, and general art-world characters I’ve met—most of them as a direct result of writing the column—I could fill these pages twice over. There’s definitely a critical mass of thoughtful, artistically inclined people in our region, and this makes possible the rich, eccentric, magnificently nuanced mix of people, ideas, and work that has made up the scene that I’ve come to know and appreciate so well all these years.

There are many artists I first discovered in the context of a group exhibition here, an intriguing press release there, and whose work I’ve witnessed as it has developed over time. Indelibly engraved on my memory, for example, are the beautiful and moving performances of Eeo Stubblefield, in particular Who Cares?, which she staged in a storefront for the Ellenville “10x10x10” show a few years ago. Focused on the human tragedy of civilian deaths in Iraq, she collected terrible images from the conflict of dead men, women, and children from various sources on the internet, and printed them onto simple pieces of cloth. Dressed in a black burqa, she then constructed a ritualized process of scrubbing these imprinted cloths (as though trying to remove the bloodstains), then pinning them to a simple white cloth that served as a tunic for bundles of fresh-cut grasses and flowers, totem-like reminders of the children killed and injured. Accompanied by plaintive a capella singing, witnessing one of these performances was by turns emotionally raw and engaging, cathartic and draining. The power of Eeo’s ability to channel her immense compassion into such communicable form is something that I feel truly privileged to have experienced firsthand.