me – part 2
In order to introduce you to aspects of my life and work I decided to display a kind of shortcut of selected pieces, in roughly 10-year steps.
1961 Oct
I took my mother seriously, how could I not?
When I was 16 I met carpenters in Sweden. They severely warned me about illusions of carpentry and my suggestions about Canada.
When I was 17 I went on a course – made whistles out of metal pipes with three holes, played them with my left hand and a drum with my right. I liked a girl and started an exchange by letter. I drew myself with coloured pens and sent it to her. She didn’t mention it in her response. That turned me off. 3 years later I met her studying to become a primary school teacher. Could that be my future?
When I was 8 I made a model out of plywood with a fret saw for my boyfriend. There was no response. I was hurt. Looking back, I realise how much I depend
on a response, not praise.
I went through the demands of schools like meals in front of me that I was to eat – not forced to – but without discussion.
When I was 19 after the so-called “Reifeprüfung”, meaning “Statement of Maturity” I showed the biology teacher my book of flowers I had collected and pressed. I thought she would be interested, but instead she told me off “Why did you not show this earlier? I would have given you a better mark.” I separated schoolwork from pleasure. “Work” had to be done. I was “gewissenhaft” (conscientious).
I took part in “Musische Wochen” = musical, dance- and theatre events and also offered my help with the organisation and the running of group activities. Should I become an events organiser? But I knew I wasn’t good with money.
I spent a month in the office of an architect known to us. and felt it was tedious to work on tasteless housing projects. I couldn’t identify with it.
Then I set my mind on the possibility of becoming an art teacher. That would allow me enough freedom with an income and spare time, (so I thought.)
I took part in an art course in the Academy of Art in Stuttgart, recommended by my parents. The competition between the students and the selection of best results by the professor left me feeling undermined.
I went through application forms for the Academy Kassel and was impressed by examples of work done in their entrance exams.
I approached the art school in another state within West Germany, very near to us, the Institute of Education in Art and Crafts in Mainz. I knew that the number of students accepted would depend on the need for employment possibilities. I cautiously joint a foundation course of the design school in Wiesbaden, before applying to Mainz.
I managed to show my portfolio to a professor to assess my suitability. He hardly looked at it, then said I could have saved my time attending that design course, but if I wanted I could join the more than 200 people who had already applied. From the 200 only 20 would be chosen (after a week of work assessment). To my great astonishment I went through all this and was accepted!
When do we want to be noticed,
mentioned,
responded to?
When do we like not to be referred to,
not to be praised,
not to be criticised?
When do we feel undermined,
not to be found out,
not to be exposed?
When do we hide away,
what is precious to us?
Are artists over-sensitive,
even selfish
And if so, WHY?
When do we want to be noticed,
mentioned,
responded to?
When do we like not to be referred to,
not to be praised,
not to be criticised?
When do we feel undermined,
not to be found out,
not to be exposed?
When do we hide away,
what is precious to us?
Are artists over-sensitive,
even selfish
And if so, WHY?
FIRST YEAR DRAWING TASK: FURRY ANIMALS
April 1962
The first year was an all-round introduction into techniques that could be useful in the classrooms of a secondary school:
Drawing, Printing, Casting, Carving, Painting, Bookbinding, Scriptwriting and later Photography. It was a jolly atmosphere to start with but great sadness occurred when the director died who was instrumental to the creation of this uniquely creative place. An example was an orchestra with instruments made out of scrap by students who then played at his funeral.
A student from our course asked me to travel with him to Rome in his tiny Goggomobil. Practically without any money and completely unprepared I agreed. We formally applied to a drawing course in the Accademia Dell’ Arte. We spent four months in Rome and in Sicily. Essentially I tested my drawing skills in the markets and streets. It became obvious to me that I was interested in movements.
When we came back the Institute had changed. A new Director was in place and his changes demanded attention. He introduced two new subjects: Early child psychology and lectures on up-to-date, living, artists. I disliked him and felt all this was fairly unnecessary. In the final oral exam I did badly not realising that I had spoilt my entire efforts over the many years. Every other subject I finished with a first or second. I can’t complain, because I met several people that I greatly admired :
The teacher MR STARKE in my special subject WOODWORK was one of them. His patience, help and advice did me really helped me and I flourished.
My model dolls house, a toy as a panel building (Plattenbau) inspired b y THE BAUHAUS, produced in the woodwork class.
The theology professor MR BRAUN, a stocky little force and his research to find the first possible documents in the NT, the New Testament about what Jesus really said and stood up for stunned me. He named his study RADICALISM. His lecture room was always packed. Even I could follow him in my tiny New Testament in Greek, as I had studied the language in school. He also understood my position as an art student and made allowances in the oral exam concerning parables, his special subject.
I can’t forget another professor MR RINTELEN who came to our Institute to teach Philosophy. I happened to have a godfather who was a mathematician and who became well known through his book about Kierkegaard. I did well about existentialism. He recognised my name and knew my uncle’s book. That started us off.
I loved reading the short stories by ALBERT CAMUS.
My four years older and one year younger brother and me were mostly brought up by our mother’s friend aunt Gathi, who designed this board game of our escape.
These sculptures were meant to be used, unfolded and changed by people.
All these studies were completely unexpected to me before I realised t that I need a “Beifach” meaning an additional subject to teach in school if required. I chose religion because of the many links to art history, and, Art History was another subject I had to study anyway. I even wrote a thesis in that department. My result can be found in Uni Mainz because it is a research on sculptures influenced by France into the area of the state Rheinland Pfalz. Travelling around I researched 10 tympana.
The reader might not understand this heap of studies outside and on top of all my studies. I myself am astonished that I couldn’t shake this off. But from 1965 to 1967 I practically withdrew into one room, my studio, in an unfinished student’s compound, and painted whilst listening to string quartets and French chansons. I felt that was me.
This box was designed for two reasons, one to keep games or the other to hold sewing stuff. It never worked for these purposes. It remains to be an artwork and for me a gesture to be open and flexible for different uses. This toy needs to be played.
The reader might not understand this heap of studies outside and on top of all art works. I myself am astonished that I couldn’t shake this off and talk for it. But from 1965 to 1967 I practically withdrew into one room, my studio, in an unfinished student’s compound, and painted whilst listening to string quartets and french chansons. I felt that was me.
I could never explain that this turning on the wall was not a take of Duchamp but an emotional reflection on ins and outs
After my Italy trip I met a woman in the course above me. She was younger but finished her course a year earlier because her subject Textile Design was an acceptable subject then to teach in a secondary school. We became close friends.
We married in Jan 1968, but not in a church.
Before applying for the job as a civil servant to teach in a state secondary school you do teaching practise and teaching theory. My wife did this training at a school near Koblenz whilst I took time off to paint.
With the little money she earned we lived on top of a wash house.
The 1968 uprising and the activities following after that in Berlin and Frankfurt made a deep impression on me. Thinking about my role as artist and teacher I lived mentally through gender discussions, communes, exchange of partners, open sex education, happenings, literature of Freud, Reich and Marx.
Though the two books you could not read nor get to look at in Libraries at the time in Germany were
Hitler’s Mein Kampf and Marx ‘s Das Kapital !!!
Then it became my turn to join a teacher training course and I applied and got accepted to study in Braunschweig. There was a reason. I was keen to know more about puppet making and street theatre and knew the only person in Germany who was a professor for this kind of coursework. Halfway through my course I found out that they were looking for art teachers in Bremen. This was the town my mother loved and told me about. Being from Hamburg as a child she with her family met other members in Bremen for weekends and holidays. She was full of it. One of her contacts, (a couple) helped us to make our start easier. We moved into a top flat of a house, it felt like Montmartre. I loved it and really moved in with excitement. My partner’s dress-making skills came to light as bits and pieces, including furniture, were left in the streets for everybody to take before the removal. In no time we had new furniture and shelves to our liking.
I achieved a first for change because I liked and impressed my course leader. My written work was about JOSEPH BEUYS. He survived a crash with his airplane in Siberia through Shamans who smeared his body with fat, wrapped him in felt and put him on a sledge pulled by dogs to the nearest village. This is his impressive healing story but what influenced me even more is the fact that he as a professor acted against the rules of the Art Academy in Düsseldorf and accepted all students who wanted to study with him.
He created his kind of experimental Art School in London.
His controversial call was EVERYBODY IS AN ARTIST. I modelled my teaching on this statement.
was accepted to teach with a staff nearly all around my age in a new school at the edge of Bremen. Within a week I had to teach six different classes with about at least 25 children of different ages in each class. Overriding all known curricula I did essentially the same in all classes. I handed out newspapers, looked at and discussed the content and images and then invited all to make life-size puppets, filling up old clothes and forming heads out of paper. A panel of pupils judged with me the results democratically. This was displayed in an exhibition in the corridor of the school together with the pictures that inspired them We produced a booklet about this project and handed it to parents. There was a mixed response and lots of questions to answer.
In the following year I brought in six super-8 cameras and handed them out.
The cassettes in the cameras had to be posted but were sent back. After a week the films could be projected. Then in groups, films were planned and filmed around the school. I insisted that it had to be shot scene after scene and therefore really very carefully planned.
These film shows filled two parent nights and got the support of the young headteacher to develop my teaching further in this direction. I was also invited to join a seminar about new approaches to teaching and in my case to teach media studies.
In 1971 I casually said to my ‘partner’, in passing, after school, “I would like to go to London for a year to study film. Her answer came spontaneously in 2 short sentences:
“Jetzt reicht’s” = “that’s enough” and “dann bleib ich aber nicht allein” = “if so, I won’t remain on my own”. It was a brisk and clear response. It was a confrontation and a battle line between us and shocking for me, but I felt, we could resolve it. She, though, stuck to it, right to the end of that year and beyond into the next when indeed I made it a reality to go to London. Here are the differences between us. I like radicalism but not in this confrontational way. I am reflective and open for solutions. She was not and bonded with one of my friends. I was deeply hurt and left her. I thought about a legal battle to take our child but it would have destroyed her life and mine. Also, I had a severe chest bone problem and needed an operation. For four months I didn’t go to school and then left school, and as it turned out Bremen all together.
Bremen was one of the few progressive States, as a town, with a proud tradition of mayors who were practical and socially orientated. You could avoid paying the State Church tax if you officially distanced yourself. As a fully trained teacher and woman with a child you can take advantage of a half-time job for 6 years without losing the right to be fully employed afterwards. We made use of that. I was proud of it.
If a marriage wasn’t consummated for a year a divorce could be applied for. My partner took this option. My hope was that she might rethink her relationship to me. In a way she did the same as me and decided to start with a clean cut again. The difference is, I couldn’t get her out of my mind because of Cora and me and of the way I am.
Our life expectations turned out to be very different. New experiences I was keen on, the projects I did in school were threatened by curricula demands. My colleagues were only looking for their house building and pensions but otherwise fall victim to constant moaning about everything. Two of my colleagues were dismissed because of their communist tendencies and lost their jobs. It was his making, chancellor Willy Brand’s rules, this man who was one of my heroes. I changed my mind.
But what about our child?
I tried to find a compromise and applied for a job on offer to teach in a German School in Peru. That would have bound us together again as a family. She said NO.
I accepted the offer to spend a year in London to study film without any salary but my job safe when I return, I was lucky, I had inherited money from my ‘Kierkegaard’ uncle to get me through that year.
But what about Cora?
Her life involved two fathers and her mother never openly managed to talk to each other.
Despite everything I didn’t break through that,
AESTHETIC and COMMUNICATION = Ästhetik und Kommunikation
The title of a magazine for a new politically oriented teaching in the 70s
– What about OUR communication?
I noticed her in passing, she said “Jetzt reichts”, that’s enough
– Is “beiläufig”? = casual, in passing, when we set the rule for instant recognition of the TRUTH, as we notice things in seconds?
– do we tend to react in silence? Do we feel guilty when not?
• did I take my judgements for granted as ours: to live modestly,
• with no career ambitions
• with no mortgage and pension savings
• – but with sex, love, tolerance and care?
• What about learning from experience – first of all?
– Do we trust and feel trustworthy when that is not recognised by others?
– When we feel a crisis coming, do we wait
or rush to divert misunderstanding and harm?
When do we seek help?
What kind of mending works?
Is a “peaceful neighbourhood” a successful notion?
– IS a no response right or hurtful?
– When do you need to settle or to fight?
Next – 70s – 80s