“What greater sorrow than being forced to leave behind my native earth?” -Euripides
We live in a world full of displacement. As you sit and read these words, 70 million people are forcibly driven from their homes only to establish ghost lives in another place, a makeshift community, a shadow of their former existence. Each day we wake and feel the security of our place in the world is a day when others wake and know nothing more clearly than that they are far from home unlikely to ever return. This lack of permanence speaks to the wider human condition, the buried knowledge that everything we have, we know, we are can and will one day be lost.
Patrick Dougher lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. At present, he is actively working in his studio. His current project uses collage and paint and he has a solo exhibition coming up in the approaching weeks. Much of the work for this show he hasn’t seen in some time which he says feels like reuniting with old friends. The exhibition, titled God Body, will be on view at Contemporary African Diasporan Arts in Brooklyn. To hear more about this and about Dougher’s other work, listen to the complete interview.
Jamie Martinez is at work on a series based on the poetry and glyphs of Mayans. Titled I am One With the Jaguar, Martinez’s work plays with Mayan glyphs to create paintings and clay pieces. The pieces are based on stories from the Mayan culture and focus largely on transitions, like crossing over from one world into another. To hear more about this work and the stories that inspire it, listen to the complete interview.
A Few Words to Keep in your Pocket:
Do not cling to the permanent, rather accept that the only assurance in life is that everything around us in in flux whether we see it or not.
Interviews are available on iTunes as podcasts, and for Android please click here. All weekly essay pieces in a shareable format are here. The full archive of interviews here.
Books to Read
What are you reading? Add your titles to our reading list here. Patrick Dougher draws inspiration from Wild Seed by Octavia Butler. Jamie Martinez is reading Open Veins of Latin Ameria: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano.
International Paper Triennial is accepting submissions from artists all over the world who work with paper. This international triennial offers three monetary prizes as well as an award voted on by the audience. To read more about it and to submit your own work, visit the website. Deadline is November 15.
Deadlines
Weekly Edited Grant and Residency Deadlines – review the list here.
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Brainard Carey is an author, artist and educator. He is the director of Praxis Center for Aesthetics. He has written six books for artists; Making it in the Art World, New Markets for Artists, The Art World Demystified, Fund Your Dreams Like a Creative Genius, Sell Online Like a Creative Genius and Succeed with Social Media Like a Creative Genius.