Gnoming

The first documented reference to a gnome was by a Swiss alchemist Phollip von Hohenheim (or Paracelsus) in the 1500's. Paracelsus studied ancient Greek elemental philosophies and implemented those ideas into his scientific practices. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Paracelsus recoded that gnomes were earth based creatures, "described as capable of moving through solid earth as fish move through water".

German artist Philipp Griebel created the first decorative garden gnome from ceramics in the 1800's. Superstition was that these earth creatures (called a Gartenzweg/garden dwarf) would ward off garden predators and contribute to maintaining the gardens at night. Since gardening was an avidly pursued pastime in the area - Griebel's gnomes were vastly popular.

A large number of people associate the Traveling Gnome Prank or "Gnoming" with the popular French film Amelie (2001), where the protagonist releases her father's gnome and sends him off on a traveling adventure which is recoded through a succession of Polaroid pictures. However, this practice initially began to occur as far back as the 1980's. In fact in 1997 a French organization termed le Front pour la Liberation des Nains de Jardin (The Front for the Liberation of Garden Gnomes) was organized to release gnomes from suburban exploitative servitude.

In the spirit of the nomadic gnomes everywhere, Nina Grosser's Traveling Gnomess travels the world reporting back on her adventures though pictures and commentary.

Shakespeare's Greatness

Birthplace of William Shakespeare

Stratford-Upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England

Situated on the river Avon in the British West Midlands, tourists flock to take a look though the town where William Shakespeare was born, married to his wife Anne and buried in the local church.

In his play Twelfth Night, Shakespeare writes,

"Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them" (Act II, Scene V).

But how is greatness evaluated? Or as Virginia Woolf questions “What conditions are necessary for the creation of works of art?” (Woolf, 25) When answering her question, we must take into account the author’s upbringing. The times and situation in which they were born are so imperative because as Woolf mentions, “…genius like Shakespeare’s is not born among laboring, uneducated, servile people” (Woolf, 48). As I learned while in Stratford, Shakespeare himself was born into an affluent family who were well respected in his hometown. However, upon arriving in London he was ridiculed by university educated writers who viewed him as an upstart with a bloated head. Woolf also goes on to write that there are exceptions or deviations from the norm, just like there are a few shining examples of early women writers.

Linda Nochlin, in her article, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” also points out great artists were more likely to be successful if they had the fortunate circumstance of being privileged in the patriarchal hierarchy and not because of some fairy tale concept of genius,

“…things as they are and as they have been, in the arts as in a hundred other areas, are stultifying, oppressive, and discouraging to all those…who did not have the good fortune to be born white, preferably middle class and, above all, male. The fault lies…in our institutions and our education” (Nochlin, 150).

All these societal features made it more possible for the artist to focus on their art.

I agree with both Nochlin and Woolf that throughout history there are factors which improve ones chances of being remembered or even having the ability to create at all. Luckily, I believe that the role of women in academic society is improving and is dramatically better then what had to be overcome to create even a mediocre body of work half a century ago. Now a day, women, along with men, have the opportunity of cultivating the circumstances which help inspire creation - the ability to educate oneself and afford an environment in which one can produce work without restraint

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Nochlin, Linda. “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Women, Art, and Power and Other Essays. Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1989. 144-178.

Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. New York: Harcourt, 1989.

The Traveling Gnomess

Nina Grosser, 8"x10", 2010

Watercolor Pencil on Watercolor Paper

Gnomess Painting in Progress

Tate Modern Museum in London

Last Friday I visited the Tate Modern in London. This untitled instillation piece was completed by Jannis Kounellis in 1979 from charcoal, paper, real arrows and stuffed birds. (The Traveling Gnomess has been photoshopped into her charcoal city habitat.)

According to the museum, "One of the leading figures associated with the Arte Povera movement, Kounellis regards the art gallery as a theatrical space where real life and fiction merge. He has described the industrial scene shown in this work as archetypal nineteenth-century townscape, and explained that the individual drawings are like sketches make on the surface of the water, which last only for a second. The two birds, a jackdaw and a hooded crow, have been seen as symbolizing the death throes of imaginative freedom."

Arte Povera ("poor art") is a modernist Italian movement which I have only recently become aware of. The Tate Modern, in fact, has an entire room dedicated to work by these artists. They were primarily working in the late 1960's - early 1970's in reaction to an economic downturn. The movement used organic or recycled material and focused on conceptual issues which appear to be inspired by Duchamp's "readymade" sculptures.