I Should Have Listened to Kierke"Jenni" - Category: Personal Stories

By Guest Blogger, Jennifer D. Barenz

I invited my sister, Jenni, to guest blog today. She is full of insight and is getting her PhD in Clinical Psychology. We were taking a walk the other day and she brought up some of interesting points. I asked her if she wouldn't mind blogging about it and I was very happy when she agreed. Enjoy! -Stephanie

Kierkegaard says, “Don’t compare yourself! It’s stupid and will make you fall down!”

The other day I was sitting in my personal library, stroking my imaginary beard, smoking a pipe filled with imported Cuban tobacco, sipping scotch, and admiring my many leather bound books. All of this gets one to thinking, “I think it’s time to read some Soren Kierkegaard.”

WARNING: I am mildly obsessed with the great philosopher and was thusly nicknamed “KierkeJenni” in college so take my loving interpretation of him as you wish.

Jenni's love obsession, Soren Kierkegaard. It should be noted that Jenni has decided to name her first son Soren. For real. 

When it comes to loving Gd, yourself, your partner, your family, your friends, your job, your art, and your life in general, there is one major thing you have to watch out for. Comparison.

Comparison is sneaky because it is not the first thing we think to watch out for, especially in American the Beautiful. In fact, it is probably one thing that Americans do best. We read People magazine (how does one not compare oneself to, “Halle Berry, Katie Perry, Julia Roberts, oh my!”). We check out which new love story is unfolding between the stars. We compare how well football players and washed up reality TV stars shake it on Dancing with the Stars. We compare women on the Bachelor. We compare FOX news with CNN with CNBC. We compare political candidates, supermarkets, flat screen TV’s, churches, diets, gyms, salaries, schools, ect…ect…ect…the list goes on. Americans know how to compare.

Comparing flat screen TV’s is one thing but when it comes to love, comparing is dangerous. When we stop what we are doing in order to look around and see what others are doing, we miss everything. Kierkegaard says, “What does comparison always lose? The moment.”

The guest blogger Jenni, taking advantage of the moment and loving her nephew. 

Regarding loving ourselves, whether we are kicking ourselves for not measuring up or thinking about how much better we are than another person, we are losing the moment. We just spent precious moments of life doing something that actually does not accomplish anything except make us feel really poopy or falsely superior. When I compare my abilities, looks, or status in life with other people – I spend more time moping and less time loving myself by actually doing the things that lead to a meaningful life. If my sister spent her whole day wandering around art galleries and trying to make her work look like someone else’s, by the end of the day she would be really upset and have a really weird looking piece of art. She would be missing out on her own creative process and all the joy, sweat, and tears that goes into making a great work of art.

When it comes to loving others, comparing is just as dangerous. What happens when we start comparing those we love and our relationships to them with the things we see in movies, in other families, or in other friendships? We spend a lot of time wishing for things that only happen when you STOP comparing. When we’re in the moment of hugging, laughing, cooking or sharing, there is no room for comparison. The minute you start thinking about how funny your loved one is compared with someone else, it’s hard to pay attention to the joke they are telling. The minute you start wondering whether your family is as close as other families, you miss the moments you should be spending asking about each other’s days. 

Word. 

So we get why comparing is stupid and gets in the way of love but why will it make you fall down?

Kierkegaard says that love is like an arrow. It starts off doing just fine, blazing through the air, getting things accomplished. But what if an arrow started to try to turn around and look at how fast it was going or which direction it was headed, or just to check his hot arrow self out? Well, then the arrow would no longer be flying through the air, it would have lost direction completely due to turning around to look at itself. It would be spiraling down to the earth and thinking, “I should have listened to Kierkegaard.”

So don’t be like that poor unfortunate arrow. Love with all your heart and leave comparison for the flat screen TV’s! 

Arrows should be shot away from you. One should always wear green tights while shooting arrows too. 

 

 

Back in the Midwest Baby - Category: Personal Stories

To all my patient readers, thanks for understanding as I took a vacation from blogging while I was traveling. I missed talking to you and I am happy to be back in the Midwest! I thought I should write about my trip and give you an overview of what I did. 

View from the commander seat in the Spaceship

As a 30th wedding anniversary present to my parents, my siblings and I chipped in for a week at a cabin in Colorado.  My sister and her family live in California and we picked Colorado as a half-way point. As kids we took a lot of family camping trips to CO, and it is a family favorite.  As a late twenty-something I never thought that packing in a car with my family to drive twenty hours to Colorado would be my idea of fun. I had visions of Chevy Chase and a disastrous road trip. My family is notorious for vacation disasters. Some of them include mud slides, bear warnings, tornados,  flash floods, and reporting missing family members (that is a whole other blog entry). I have to say though, we always have a good story and thanks to my parents I now despise traveling with anyone who might have a strict itinerary.

    

The happy couple. Thirty years and counting. Congrats mom and dad!  

 

  Our family waving goodbye to Wisconsin as we head out to Colorado. 

We packed in our rusted out Chevy Venture praying that it wouldn't explode on the way down. This car is a site to behold. It's fan only works on high so either you are freezing or sweating. It has about 150,000 miles on it. We were pretty loaded down so if we went up a hill we had to be careful about it not overheating (two weeks prior it almost exploded due to this problem.) One cool feature it has is if you press a button the door will slide open automatically. When you do this it makes a sweet little futuristic squeaking sound, so I christened it "The Spaceship." 

      

Ole's Big Game Bar and Grill is a strange little oasis in the high plains of western Nebraska. I lost my appetite very quickly as I sat next to the head of the saddest giraffe, a hissing cat, and an autographed picture of Newt Gingrich. 

Our prayers were answered and our trusty "Spaceship" took us to CO safe and sound. We stopped in Des Moines, IA and Lincoln, NE on the way out. I grew up in Lincoln and hadn't been back since we moved away 14 years ago. I don't know why but I felt pretty anxious about visiting my childhood home. I am guessing it was because I had a very idealized vision of what it looked like and I didn't want anything to change that. We visited all our favorite spots and even got to tour our old home, "the red house". The one thing I noticed was that everything seemed much smaller and more run down than I remember. My mom used to have a stall at our local farmer's market and we located the exact spot where we used to spend our Saturdays helping her. I know it sounds dramatic but a tidal wave of memories came at me as I revisited the visual vocabulary that was my childhood. You can be sure that I will be making a body of work based off of what I saw. 

          

Historic train station in Lincoln, NE    

                      

(left) Haymarket Square in downtown Lincoln. (middle) Entry way of my childhood church. (right) Visiting the "The Red House" 

We arrived in Colorado safe and sound and spent the week chillaxin' with my family. I promised myself I would climb a mountain. When I was thirteen I attended a summer camp in CO and we attempted to climb Mt. Elbert, the tallest peak in the Rocky Mountains at 14,440 ft. When I got to the tree line, I practically passed out and curled up in the fetal position on a flat rock. Because this camp didn't really have it together they just left me there by myself and when I woke up I had to descend the mountain by myself in the middle of a thunderstorm. Needless to say it was a negative experience for me and ever since then I had an irrational fear of climbing in the Rocky Mountains. So this time around I picked a more manageable climb, Twin Sisters Peak which was about 11,428 ft.  I felt really proud conquering my fears. When we got to the top we decided to not just stop at the saddle but to climb up to the peak. As we perched ourselves on an area about as big as my couch, I felt all my childhood insecurities melt away. I could see for miles and we all took turns shouting out and listening to our echoes. I enjoyed shouting things like "I love trail mix" and "I want more water."

Sista Jenni and I on top of Twin Sister's Peak.          

Opposite view from the top of Twin Sisters. My mom looks like a seasoned climber.

"I won't fight you dragon

Its all right dragon,

I am here dragon, I am here dragon. "

            

Campbell and I found a red cowgirl hat and water gun at a 5 and 10 store and the hammock where we spent most of our days. 

 

Ezra caught in the middle an auntie kissing attack. 

On the way back we accidentally drove right into the makings of a tornado in York, Nebraska. As I looked at the green sky and heard the sirens go off I thought, " It wouldn't be a Barenz road trip without a natural disaster." I looked in the front seat and saw my mom closing her eyes and sitting stick straight in the front seat, with her hands on her lap. This is what my sister and I like to jokingly call her "channeling the spirit" pose. She does this whenever she is scared and is praying for her family.  As usual, my mom's prayers worked along with my dad's lead foot, which out chased the storm at 85mph. We just missed it by five minutes according to the weather station.

Besides it's tornados York is known for their "hot air balloon" watertower

I arrived back in Milwaukee just in time for my opening at Caggio. I was very much overwhelmed by all the people that attended and their kind words. If any of you who attended are reading thanks for taking the time to come out and support me and my work. I make art because it is what I love to do and I feel a compulsion to say what I need to say. However, my audience is what motivates me to keep going on days that I am feeling depressed and overwhelmed, so thank you again. On Monday I will be posting images of the new work and discussing it's content. I hope you have a wonderful weekend! 

Opinions Are Like... - Category: Personal Stories

Someone asked me a while back if I had ever encountered harsh criticism. The answer I gave was a resounding, "YES!" And as I continue to pursue my career and hopefully become more established I can only imagine that it will get worst.

A friend of mine has been in and out of counseling the last few years. When I asked him how his sessions were going he replied that the most valuable piece of advice he received from his psychologist thus far was, "Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and they usually, always stink." 

Why do we care what people think? Oh wait, I know, we all want to be heard and validated. Duh.  I have been called some pretty awful things, as I am sure you have too. The following comments were either said to my face or I found out about them later through the grapevine. Here is sampling that relate to my career:

• "You aren't an artist."
• "You don't think like an artist."
• "Your work sucks."
• "Your work is too feminine." (well seeing that I have the defining "parts" that might be a compliment)
• "Bleh, your work sucks." (that one is different from above, because it had a gag response before it)
• "You are so naïve."
• "Your work is way too decorative." 
• "Your work is unoriginal because you stole my color palette." (sorry, I didn't know you owned the rainbow)
• "Stephanie doesn't know what she is doing."
• "I am worried Stephanie won't go anywhere."
• "I walked into your studio and was like, 'What is going on in here? This is a disaster.' "
• "Your work looks like a graphic t-shirt."(irony here: the person was wearing a graphic stretched out v-neck t-shirt.)

Here lies, Joe Crane, one of the poor souls who crossed my artwork and called it "too feminine." Lesson he learned, "Do not make chauvinistic remarks about Stephanie's work."   

You know why these were so hurtful? Because they were all things I have voiced silently to myself. Here is another thought, your opinions of yourself usually stink too. We have all heard it before but you have to be your biggest champion. There are plenty of people out there who will tell you that you suck at life so you shouldn't take the time to do that yourself.

When I was a kid, the school bully called me fat. When I went home crying to my mom, she told me that this kid's dad was in prison and that people who are hurting usually say hurtful things to others. While this is a simple lesson, it was probably one of the most valuable I ever learned. I saw the bully in a new way, someone who was operating out of hurt and pain.

I know in my insecure moments, I have ripped some very innocent parties to shreds. It isn't something I am proud of, but nonetheless we are all guilty of this behavior. Whenever I am criticizing someone I try to ask myself if I am doing it out of a place of hurt or insecurity. 

One of the innocent parties that I ripped to shreds. I have no clue why he is smiling about it. 

So the lesson I learned from all of this is that opinions usually stink, just don't listen to them. Find a group of people who have your back and can be honest with you. Seek out constructive criticism,  don't listen to the rest, and make sure you aren't your biggest bully. 

A group of individuals I trust to give me constructive criticism. Thanks guys! 

Standing At The End of the See-Saw - Category: Personal Stories

As an artist you have to have guts but be vunerable. You can't care what people think yet you have to be aware of what context you are situating yourself in. You have to make work like its your job but you have to ease up on yourself so you don't go crazy. You have to have fun yet take what you do seriously. Being creative is about balancing contradictions.  I have said the following about a million times, "I just want my life to be more balanced. I want to work out, have the perfect body, have no credit card debt, show work at all the important places, teach, draw everyday, eat no sugar, and on and on." I have heard a lot of artists say that the most important thing to them is balance, which is a very admirable thing to want. This used to be my goal up until about two months ago. I was having dinner with one of my favorite teachers from high school. She is someone that I really admire, she just got her doctorate, is writing a book, and pretty much rocks at life in every way possible. I was telling her my sob story about balance and she said something very wise that changed the way I think about my life as an artist, 

"Imagine yourself on a see-saw. Now think of yourself in the middle of that see-saw trying to keep it balanced and how much energy that takes. Wouldn't it be better for you just to walk to one end and stand there?"

(Above Image: Taken from this blog.)

The point is, sometimes trying to maintain the balancing act as an artist is too much for one person to handle. Sure you might not have the most perfect of relationships when you have a show coming up but that is the nature of the work you do, just surround yourself with people who understand. You might fall in love and be completely consumed by it, so then you may ease off on the painting for a little bit until you figure out how to be good at maintaining a relationship. You might get a new teaching job, so that  becomes your priority and you make work in the summer instead. We don't have to be one man bands, playing every freaking instrument all at once. Struggle is good to a point, but when it causes chemical imbalances, heavy drinking, bouts of crying, and days spent in bed its better to just walk to the end of the plank and say "Screw it." I don't know about you but standing at the end of the see-saw makes me much happier than wobbling around in the middle.

Anxious Ambition - Category: Personal Stories

Right now I am in the middle of a lot of big projects. This happens to me a lot, where everything seems to happen at once. I think it is just the nature of being in a creative field. You get opportunities and you have to take them and figure out how to make it work. I think my schooling did a pretty good job of preparing me for meeting deadlines but lately I have been thinking of how I can come up with a more joyful way of working.

(Above: A project I have been working on the last couple of weeks.) 

I like to make work  for the sheer joy of creating not for an audience or a gallerist. This is a hard thing to do because it is very easy to let ambition and efficiency get in the way when you have a deadline to meet.  A mentor of mine sent me an article recently that said efficiency is the opposite of creativity. I have read this before and was reminded that my need to "get things done" and "to make work" are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum and should not be confused.

In the book, The War of Art, Pressfield says  the act of creating is just ordinary work. You go to the studio, you put in the time, and you don't  go all "artsy-fartsy"* on yourself. I agree but it is my tendency to look at my work like a day job and measure my rate of production at the end of the day. My friend sent me this excerpt from the Art of Practicing and it got me thinking about all of the above, 

"We lose touch with (our) heart when we become overly ambitious. Ambition is healthy, but becomes destructive when we drive ourselves too hard. We become so anxious to get the result we want that we push our bodies and minds to do things before they are ready. Such striving might make us feel superficially good about ourselves, but it creates struggle and discomfort instead of ease and pleasure."

(Above: What will happen to you creatively if you let anxious ambition get in the way.) 

I know a lot of people who are young parents. As I have watched them go from single hood to parenthood I have noticed how parenting has totally chilled them out.  I always thought that becoming a parent would make you more anxious and ambitious (and for some I guess it probably does) but in the case of my friends and family I have seen the opposite. My take on this is that you can't force a kid to be efficient because it isn't on their radar. My three-year-old niece's day looks something like this: Pick various grasses and weeds, put them in a bucket, spray water on them, dump the bucket on head, and then run around naked.

I suppose as a parent you see how you can't make your day or child efficient. You realize life goes on and you are usually better off when you don't force things. I hope to start approaching my work more like the way my niece approaches play, but maybe minus the running around outside naked part, as my neighbors might not really like that. 

(Above: My niece at her finest. )

*This is a term that my father enjoys using when I take myself too seriously or when he approaches any sort of performance art. My younger sister also enjoys demonstrating "artsy-fartsy" behavior by coming into my studio and waving her arms and doing an "interpretive" dance while I am in painting. While I am plotting my revenge on both of them, I must say that laughing at yourself is the best way to snap out of the "anxiously ambitious" mindset.