Because I am moving in the direction of using my body as a basic tool for creating work, I find myself now beginning to question the accepting or rejecting that this work often gets. A lot of beautiful things come from this alternative method of using body parts other than the hands to create work. However, while I was working on my shoot last weekend, I continued to think about how my viewer would take to what I was doing.
So why paint with all things except the customary objects like brushes? There happened to be this specific moment while I was performing my “body painting performance” last weekend where I felt that I was using all of myself in ways that I never had before. There were definite moments of awkward positions and bizarre sensations while the tempera paint sunk into the pores on my face but the act itself felt right. The entire time my mind directed my body in the directions that it would usually direct my hands; an experience where I felt in complete control of what my body was doing. There was a point where my upper leg was subconsciously ordered to apply paint to a specific part on the canvas. As much as my hands wanted to get involved they were only there to balance myself over the plates of paint where each of my body parts got there paint supply from.
While writing a good bit about the experience and thinking about how the performance made me feel, reminded me of this teacher in the county where I grew up. He was an art teacher at a high school who did his own art work outside of school that consisted of using his body parts to paint. When the school system found out what kind of art he created in his spare time, they fired him because they felt he was not setting a proper example for his students. Since recalling that story from 2007, I found a few articles about the situation and why the county felt justified firing their employee. Stated by Chesterfield County Superintendent Marcus J. Newsome in an article from the Fox News website, “The school system operates under an idea that holds respect, responsibility, honesty, and accountability as core values for all students and employees to abide, and the board clearly felt that Murmer had gone outside those parameters with his art.” I feel that the statement made by the superintendent could be seen as the county trying to make their employees conform to a certain way and deviate from building their own character. I am still confused and troubled by the decision and do not want to think of a school system bearing down on their youth’s leaders so much that the teachers can not even have a personal career outside of the education system.
Fox News Article
Stan Murmer's Website
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