Clearing the glass

Kristen Joy Emack at Gallery Kayafas and "Limitless Translations" at Fountain Street Gallery

Kristen Joy Emack, “Misty,” in “Book of Saints” at Gallery Kayafas.

When I was first writing art reviews, I saw a group show at a gallery in Chinatown. All I remember about the exhibit is one painter’s abstract work, slashy and angry and colorful. He said in an artist’s statement that it was a response to childhood trauma, which included grisly acts that would have headlined the nightly news. My sense – perhaps because the statement frightened me – was that he must have hallucinated it.

The recovered memory movement was at its height. “The process of hunting for abuse memories and overcoming the patient’s ‘denial’ was not a subtle one,” writes journalist Ethan Watters in a 2022 New York Times essay. Watters co-authored a book about the movement, “Making Monsters,” in 1994. Therapists at the time, he said, used techniques more likely to distort memory than recover it.

I don’t doubt the artist’s paintings were an authentic expression. That doesn’t make them good paintings, and the content of his statement shut me down. I no longer have the review I wrote in the Boston Phoenix, but I know I did not respond with great understanding or empathy. I opted for a clever quip, instead, and wrote the art off as art therapy. Shortly after, the painter’s partner wrote me a letter calling me to task.

I apologized. There was no call to be cruelly witty in the face of suffering.

 I think there were three reasons I reacted like that:

–Raw emotion isn’t enough on its own to make good art.

–The statement scared me.

–I was a young art critic trying to prove something by being funny.

Rebecca Skinner, "House of Blues." Photograph on aluminum, 'in “Limitless Translations” at Fountain Street Gallery.

We all bring our personal stuff to art, artists and viewers alike. A critic gets a pulpit and can feel important, and ego can get in the way in the same way it can for an artist. Maybe we’re young and just finding our way. Maybe we have some other block or internalized fear we’re not even conscious of that hinders expression. Or maybe (and I’m guessing this is the case with the Chinatown painter’s work) the process isn’t finished enough for a decent product.

I just saw “Limitless Translations: The Artist as Storyteller” at Fountain Street Gallery (here’s my review in the Globe).  The artworks there were chosen by each artist as an emblem of their own particular brew of history, culture, family, aesthetic, materials, world view, and approach to making. It’s a poignant, personal member show in the wake of Fountain Street’s announcement that it will close on March 31.

Sylvia Vander Sluis, “Passage V,” mixed media. In “Limitless Translations” at Fountain Street Gallery.

A good artwork must stand on its own. It must be able to reach out and into a viewer without explanation.

Color is like candy for me, and I was drawn to painter Robert Sullivan’s enigmatic narratives made more mysterious by his abstract use of tone. I’m moved by the bruised presence of absence, and Rebecca Skinner’s lush photographs of abandoned buildings pulled me in. I loved Sylvia Vander Sluis’s “Passage V” (top), made to mark the transition of a loved one from life to death, partly because I was drawn to the making of it, and could imagine the solace found in crafting a such a vessel.

Robert Sullivan, "Altus." Oil on panel. In “Limitless Translations” at Fountain Street Gallery.

Good art conveys nuanced ideas, emotions, stories; it holds contradictions. An artist needs technical chops, a large and curious mind, and the patience to let a process unfold. An art object that hits home carries a piece of the artist’s soul. It’s not easy for anyone to clear the fog from the glass and let their soul shine through. How the artist got there (life experience, studio experience) is what makes the glass clear. It’s what imbues the art with juice.

This week I also had the privilege of meeting and writing about photographer Kristen Joy Emack, whose show “Book of Saints” is at Gallery Kayafas.

Kristen’s light shines. She has polished her glass. She makes portraits you want to sit in front of indefinitely; she finds a tender essence in her subjects, who – like her – are facing the brutalities of being a lower-income Cantabrigian in a high-flying tech economy. Cambridge “is really not sustainable,” Kristen said. “For many, many families.”

“Book of Saints” follows Kristen’s first project, “Cousins,” published in book form (from l’Artiere) last November. It documents the vitality of the relationship among three girls of color over 13 years: Kristen’s daughter and her three nieces. When I spoke with photography curator, educator, and podcaster J. Sybylla Smith about “Cousins,” the conversation got expansive.

“We’ve been sold a bill of goods of sameness, of ‘good, better, best,’” Smith said.

That bill of goods applies to society; girls of color aren’t at the top of the heap in this world. It also applies to a standard of excellence that merely positions an artwork in context within art history or the art market.

Smith, who consults with photographers, is all about process. “I try to help people become conscious of the process and letting their process lead the work,” she said. “None of us see the same thing from the same place. Turn the mirror in. See how you see.” (Here’s more about how she works).

As a critic, I can stand behind my pulpit and render pithy judgments, but that’s a pretty foggy way to be. Any good critic brings subjectivity into her reviews – criticism is another form of art. The trend now (in art and society) is toward subjectivity, and owning the peculiarities and riches of our own particular brews, which may not fit any bill of goods. That’s threatening to the status quo, of course. But contemporary art by definition threatens the status quo. Let’s keep the glass clean and shine the light.

Kristen Joy Emack, “New Year’s.” From “Cousins.”