Thoughts on the Deb Sokolow Lecture

Attended the Deb Sokolow guest lecture, and immediately I was glad I did. Animated and funny, Deb opened with the question " When you talk about your art, where do you start?" the answer-- as for most artist-- was an art crisis.

After a critique of her work that was less than pleasant, she took a hiatus from art making. This part of her story is what amazes me the most because she wasn't even thinking about making art and she came up with one of my favorite pieces of work, which she doesn't even consider her art just a personal project. A question was asked at the end of whether or not Deb was looking for inspiration during her hiatus. Deb replied that she was trying to avoid everything "Art." She went on to say, " I think there was a very lucky moment to see a connection. What would you rather be doing instead of art then that thing becomes the art."

Her artwork involves a lot of text mixed in with imagery. The story being told is based in fact [her research can take up to a year] but often departs the truth from there. Even though the actual story may be a work of fiction I feel like Deb is bringing attention to real subjects, an awareness of the world so to speak. I would say she likes to explore conspiracy theories [as seen in her piece on the Denver airport and the Pentagon restaurant. The finished pieces remind me of how I take notes in class and draw connections to other things to help me remember. My favorite thing however is when the question was asked about her Rocky piece being a personal project and whether or not she saw it differently now, she responded that she changed the voice from 1st person to 2nd. In essence she is giving the viewer the voice of the piece and I find that extremely powerful.