Although I have been writing for most of my life, it was only about two years ago that I began to think of myself as a writer. As a teen and twenty-something in the 90’s and 2000’s, I wrote poetry obsessively, mostly about boys. Although I would spend time rigorously editing and refining my words, I rarely shared my written work with anyone, keeping it stashed away in secret journals, notebooks and on random scraps of paper.
There is an existing notion that is described well by the idiom, “Jack of All Trades, Master of None”. True or no, the idea is that we can only excel in one or few areas. For much of my life, I adhered to this belief. I was a visual artist, not a writer, and I devoted all of my creative energy to my visual art practice. But, as I tell my students now, an artist’s life is filled to the brim with writing and words. Titles for paintings and titles for shows, statements, proposals, interviews and biographies—the words artists write are often an entry point for those who are unfamiliar with our visual work. Like many artists, I struggle with my own artist statement, often feeling that I do not have enough distance to describe my own work adequately through the lean precision of written language. That being said, the struggle of writing about my own work is often where I learn the most and ultimately find clarity about what I am actually doing in the studio. Furthermore, when we allow critics and historians to control the discourse around our work, we lose some of our own agency in the grander narrative. I am now a firm believer that artists should find (or make!) opportunities to write and talk about their own work and the work of others.
If memory serves, Nikki, Katherine and I started monthly Zoom meetings in Spring 2020, during Covid quarantine. Nikki (who, if she doesn’t mind me saying, has a sun placement in the cardinal water-sign of Cancer) initiated the group and to her I am forever thankful. Our conversations over the past three years have created an intimacy, trust and solidarity that, prior to this experience, I had only come close to achieving with my grad school cohort. In late 2021, we started Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way together, a book that I had written off as something that I did not need. I am not and have never been a blocked artist. I have too many ideas, and not enough time. Little did I know, this topic would be broached in the book and I would willingly stagger through the process of redefining my own relationship to time, boundaries and definition(s) of success. Somehow, through the process of writing regular morning pages and weekly check-ins, I started to see my writing as an important component of my creative practice, and a practice that needed sustained care and nurturing in its own right.
Among other things, I want this blog to function as a low-stakes way of practicing my writing. What I have learned from the pleasure and pain of a 15+ year professional artistic practice, is that the work is the practice. That it is a wheel, not a straight line, and I learn immensely from a willingness to dig deep, make mistakes and play. However, I would like for it to be broader and more generative than journal writing—I want to engage with other creatives and facilitate conversations with artists around the world. I want to share ideas and create new communities.
Since October of 2021, I have been writing as Tools for Better Living on Instagram. Although this process has been fun, I want to expand on some of the ideas that I have begun on IG, but without the mindless scrolling or the word limitations (although as a Mercury in Sag person, word limits may be a good thing….). I plan to write about art, care and healing, curate mini-exhibitions of images of artists’ work and write reviews about shows that I see in person. From time to time, I will interview artists about their studio practice, prioritizing artists who are underrepresented in the traditional art world. I plan to write an honest account of the little things that I notice in the studio—routines, daily rituals, successes and struggles. I want to suss out my feelings about the biggest of all beasts for artists—rejection. How do we respond to perceived failures and fuck ups? I want to write about how we keep going as artists in the face of many obstacles and the incredible joy and magic of living a creative life.
Lauren Rice is a visual artist, writer, educator and mother of two based in suburban Richmond, VA. She is a somewhat skeptical astrology nerd with a Pisces rising, Scorpio sun, Taurus moon and a 10th house Sagittarius stellium. Originally from Atlanta, GA, Rice has made her home in many American cities, including Detroit, Brooklyn, Washington DC and Athens, OH. Although she identifies as a painter, Rice often works on and with paper through the combined modalities of collage, painting, drawing and sculpture. She has exhibited her work in solo, collaborative and group exhibitions at venues such as Cuchifritos Gallery and Project Space (NYC), Vox Populi (Philadelphia), Tiger Strikes Asteroid (NYC), Neon Heater (Findlay, OH), ICA Baltimore (Baltimore), Shockoe Artspace (Richmond), The Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (Virginia Beach), Transformer (DC) and Spring Break Art Show (NYC), among many others. In 2022, she was a participant in Burnaway Magazine’s Arts Writing Incubator Criticism as Care. She teaches at Longwood University where she is an Associate Professor of Art. Rice lives with her husband and artistic collaborator, Brian Barr, and their two children in a house with a garden on a street surrounded by big, old oak trees. For better or worse, Rice is a wearer of rose-colored glasses and is an avid supporter of all underdogs.
www.lauren-rice.com
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