FINAL

ART425

Artist Statement Draft (SEE GOOGLE DOC LINK BELOW FOR MORE)

Final Project

Emily Gayle

With the use of arts-based research I have conducted a performance art piece that integrates my two fields of study, printmaking and yoga. As a new yoga teacher and a printmaker, I want to understand these practices together to create my own way of impacting my students and audience through my niche. I video-taped myself doing a 30 minute yoga flow with a painted body to make marks on my mat, providing a second documented visual of the performance. Arts-based research (ABR) is defined as, “[research that] adapts the tenets of the creative arts in social research in order to make that research publicly accessible, evocative, and engaged.” This methodological genre assists me as I move through motions on my mat to create imprints and express complex feelings of lived experiences. There is the imprint of the mat itself, as it captures snapshots of my poses, and there are imprints in the mind-body connection. This performance piece is a representation of  Western yogic culture in combination with ABR. I use Blumenfeld-Jones’ article, “The Artistic Process and Arts-Based Research” to explain my ways of awareness throughout the performance process, broken down into three main sections. Before diving into the ways of awareness, I will first address the social challenges of performance art and my aesthetic choices. It is also necessary for me to address the fact that I am only a beginner teacher and I still have lots to learn, including lessons from this experience.

One challenge when conducting performance art is that it represents a culture. The yoga culture in the United States is different from the yoga culture in India. Collectively, yoga practitioners in the West use yoga for fitness, bodily and mental health, and to meet like-minded people. It is important that I know exactly who I am representing in my performance, which is myself as a part of this Western yogic culture. It has been stated that there are always personal consequences to putting yourself out there when conducting performance art because it is meant to have an audience and it is important to be sensitive to them. Risk of judgement or offending others is always possible. I have never considered myself to be a performance artist until this project, which is why I want to make sure I am sensitive to my audience and their opinions without getting too caught up in fear. Performative inquiry is described as an embodied practice which the performer must be in tune with bodily insights. With this performance piece, I embody both a yogi and an artist. 

There are some specific aesthetic choices I made for this art piece. They are doing an indoor performance, wearing nude clothing, and using a white yoga mat with black acrylic paint. Partly because it was cold, I chose to do an indoor performance. It also was more appealing for me to feel comfortable and safe at home because it is such an intimate subject. I used what I had available, which was my apartment dining room with average lighting. I placed newsprint paper on the ground to keep the floors easy to clean up after. The nude clothing is significant because in my midterm, I discovered my body is the paintbrush and way of expression. I wanted it to look and feel as primal as possible without actually being naked because the body is the vessel that allows me to move through space on my mat. The white mat with black ink is for simplicity. Although it was really fun making this piece, I want my viewers to take it seriously and think about the deeper meanings. Adding color would be a level-up for this research, but I did not feel ready to dive into the world of color on top of everything else I was exploring. During the performance, I kept in mind the ways of awareness I wanted to harness in the following paragraphs. 

To dive deeper into my ABR, I analyze components of my performance through ways of awareness as explained in Blumenfeld-Jones, Donald S’s article, “The Artistic Process and Arts-Based Research.” Ways of Awareness are described as...  I divided my yoga flow into three sections: warm-up integration, building heat, and drawing inward. Each section has at least one attached way of awareness that explains my state of mind during the performance. The first two sections are my interpretation of Blumenfeld-Jones’s categorization of performance ways of awareness, while the last section is a personal addition. 

Warming up to my performance includes determining and immersing myself into my space and body. Jones sections the awareness of determining into witnessing the scene, finding worthy of interest, and visualizing how to render the work artistically. My interpretation of determining is to set up my space, and apply the paint. Here, I recognize that I am making an art piece, but the focus is on the process rather than the outcome. I apply the paint to myself and move to the next stage: Immersing. Jones describes his way of immersing as, “a moment of internalized state” and “immerse myself with the form and materials I have chosen.” While making this piece, I found it difficult to be fully immersed. I was worried about the camera and the paint. I had to let go and just move on like I would normally to begin to wake up my body and tap into my breath with poses like child’s pose and cat/cow (figures 1 and 2). Breathing is very important in yoga because it provides imprints of where the body should be during that breath. Inhales should match up with heart openers or upward lifting movements while exhales match with doward closing shapes. This pattern structures the entire flow, so it is important to integrate it during the warm-up. My awareness of determination and immersion allowed me to connect to myself, clear my mind, and move forward with the performance. 

Building heat in the body requires both the previous awarenesses of determination and immersion, but also recruits objective observation, assessing rightness, and bodily remembering. Jones uses objective observations to step back from the performance to address if it is unfolding to be what he is seeking and to reestablish his feelings. I translate this as focusing inward, taking a vinyasa, and ujjayi breathing. When I began to move around my mat more in this phase, I was able to distract myself more from the camera that was watching me, therefore focusing inward. Doing movements I was comfortable with like taking a vinyasa and reconnecting with the breath helped me overcome any distractions or fears of vulnerability. Taking a vinyasa is moving from chaturanga (low plank pose) to upward facing dog, and to downward facing dog (figures 3-6). I was building heat and needed my ujjayi breathing to maintain a stable mind. In yoga, we use this breathing technique to tap into the parasympathetic nervous system as it is an audible breath in and out through the nose. Ujjayi breathing slows the breath which improves oxygen saturation, lowers blood pressure, and reduces anxiety, according to a European study conducted by professors of neuroscience, medicine, and psychology. During my practice, I was able to connect with my ujjayi breathing to stay focused on the process.

Assessing rightness is the next way of awareness that Jones discusses which in this case is also applicable to the building heat section of the flow. He uses this idea to choreograph an aesthetically pleasing performance. I use this idea to understand the myofascial lines of  anatomy and listening to my body intuitively. I ask myself questions like, “does this make sense in my body,” and “is there a peak pose I am leading up to that I need to warm up for?” With the understanding of myofascial lines, I can appropriately address these questions. Myofascial lines are the lines of tensegrity within the muscles, joints, and connective tissue of the body. It is important to work the body outside-in to have the greatest victory towards the final poses while minimizing injury risk. I started the sequence from the ground on all fours and moving slowly towards standing postures which allowed my body to adjust appropriately when I began to do more complex postures like triangle pose (figure 7). 

Bodily remembering, also used for building internal heat, is the last way of awareness suggested by Jones. It is similar to understanding the body’s myofascial lines because it creates imprints in the body-mind connection for later postures. Jones uses muscle memory as a choreographer, but it is also applied in yoga. Once I am aware of a cue such as from forward fold: “inhale halfway lift,” it is pressed into my mind to always do a small lengthening half lift in every shape of the sequence. This idea goes for other poses like gazing at my fingertips. To me, the pose is not complete until I seal it with turning my head to gaze at my hand (figure 8). This is because it is so ingrained in my mind and body from practicing the same poses over and over again. 

Finally, the last section of my flow is shifting my energy inward. The yoga practice for many is a lead up to meditation. Cooling down postures like supine twist slow the heart rate back down and allow for a peaceful final resting pose, savasana (figure 9). The reason behind practicing yoga is to release the fluctuations in the mind, finding ease from suffering. When thinking about gaze, there is intuition inside myself telling me to move certain ways and maintain steady breath, but there also is the gaze of the camera and the impact it had on me during and after the performance. My inward gaze was altered by the camera’s presence because I am simply not used to doing yoga as a performance. It felt wrong to me, although added extra challenges of letting go of fear and judgement. I have always been very camera shy, and I knew that this would be hard for me to do, which is why I felt like I had to do it. By finding ease within that extent of vulnerability, I can grow my yoga practice as well as be ready to face more challenges in the future.  

Bibliography

Blumenfeld- Jones, Donald S.. “Qualitative Inquiry.” The Artistic Process and Arts-Based Research. 22 no. 5 (2015): Pages 322-333. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800415620212. 

B.K.S. Iyengar. Light on Life. United States: Rodale, 2005.

Chilton, Gioia, and Leavy, Patricia. “Arts-Based Research: Merging Social Research and the Creative Arts.” The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research. (2020): Pages 600–632. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190847388.013.27.

Mason, Heather, Matteo Vandoni, Giacomo deBarbieri, Erwan Codrons, Veena Ugargol, and Luciano Bernardi. “Cardiovascular and Respiratory Effect of Yogic Slow Breathing in the Yoga Beginner: What Is the Best Approach?” Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine (ECAM) (January 2013): 1–7. doi:10.1155/2013/743504.

Myers, Thomas W.. “Anatomy Trains.” Myofascial Meridians for Manual and Movement Therapists. United Kingdom: Elsevier, (2009): Page

Pelias, Ronald J. "Performative Inquiry: Embodiment and Its Challenges." In Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., (2008): Pages 186-194. doi: 10.4135/9781452226545.