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Magdolene Dykstra
143 Plays5 years ago
You are really going to enjoy this deep dive into profound questions with Canadian Artist MAGDOLENE DYKSTRA. Her work with clay prompts the viewer to consider profound questions of ecology, elementals, growth, decay, the climate and art. I really love her Artist Statement that helps to describe the sheer profundity of her project . . .
A desire to understand my place in the universe drives my work. Using sculpture and installation, my work meditates on the unfathomable multiplicity of humanity. My compositions are inspired by microbiology, finding lineage in the Romantic artists of the 19th century who used their paintings to evoke the sublime by reminding the viewer of their diminutive status in relation to grand landscapes. In contrast to macro landscapes, I site the sublime in microbial terrain. In a time of environmental endangerment, my aesthetic of cellular accumulation references the vast numbers of the human race, swarming beyond what is sustainable. I compose my work using primarily unfired clay, imparting these roiling masses with precarity to reflect on the fragility of our collective existence.
Whatt is the role of the individual within the horde?
My sculpted paintings merge my interest in the foreign terrain of microbiology with an examination of what Barnett Newman called the “abstract sublime”. These works reference Abstract Expressionism’s use of immense scale to evoke feelings of transcendence. Within my work, each individual is absurdly insignificant except for its interconnectedness to everything around them. Gathered en masse, these lifeforms overwhelm the structure upon which they grow. Drawing on the ephemeral works of land artist Richard Long, my Interventions contextualize the microbial forms in the landscape. Despite the accumulating number of cells in each Intervention, they cannot withstand the elements, ultimately returning to the earth.
Just as prehistoric artists recorded their presence using pigments of the earth, I use clay to explore my relationship to the earth and the universe. Sculpture, installation, and drawing allow me to make the unseen tangible. Using clay connects me to rituals and cultures throughout human history. This primordial material bears the memory of the earliest artists, all the way back to the cave of Le Tuc d’Audoubert in France, where a bull and cow sculpted in raw clay have lain for about 15,000 years. I am one of many makers throughout human history who uses this material to explore my link to the rest of the universe. Instead of relying on the ability of fired clay to withstand time, I use raw clay in order to embrace ephemerality. Impermanence enhances preciousness. The things that don’t last demand more careful attention.
http://magdolenedykstra.com/
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host, Dan Vellante. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer. I'm gonna, I'm gonna launch in and I'll just introduce you and let's just, let's get into the questions. Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. All right.
00:00:27
Speaker
We're with Magdalene Dykstra. Magdalene is an artist, actually up in the province of Ontario, Canada. She's based in St. Catharines, which is actually near Niagara-on-the-Lake. And Magdalene, I told you that Niagara-on-the-Lake is actually where I got married years ago. A beautiful, beautiful area. We can actually be our first guest from
00:00:54
Speaker
from Canada, and I just wanted to welcome you on the show, Magdalene Dykstra. Thank you so much, Ken. I'm looking forward to it.
Choosing Art Over Medicine
00:01:03
Speaker
One of the first questions we ask is to just kind of go way back and just kind of wondering what you were like as a young human. Were you always an artist? Were you interested in artistic things? And in general, what were you like? How do you see yourself back then? I was an awkward kid.
00:01:24
Speaker
I remember playing a lot with my younger sister and we would entertain ourselves just making up games as kids do. Some of my earliest memories of consciously creating are back in grade school. I remember
00:01:46
Speaker
staying up really late with my bedside light on and working on this pointillist landscape for some assignment for school. And as a kid, you don't stay up late with your bedside light on for homework. But you don't stay up late in bed past your bedtime to do math homework. So I remember that was a fun, it was something I wanted to spend time on.
00:02:14
Speaker
I remember, this is a weird memory, but I remember drawing a horse in like grade seven maybe or grade six and a classmate of mine tried to draw a horse too and couldn't quite get there. And I was like, yeah, I got that. I did that. So you just felt, you just felt, did you feel like kind of maybe a natural ability or an inclination that you could, that you could do it well? Yeah. Yeah. I think I felt like.
00:02:44
Speaker
Yeah, it was a way I could carve out a little identity for myself in that moment. Yeah, my peer to peer relationships weren't easy as a kid, like I tended to have one or two friends at a time. Because that seemed to be all I could handle. So yeah, yeah, I think it was a matter of carving out a little space for myself.
00:03:09
Speaker
And then all through high school, I took art classes and it was a peaceful place for me to be. And then that ultimately led me to continuing it in university, even though the plan was to become a doctor like my mom.
00:03:25
Speaker
Um, so my plan was to go to school for biology for my, um, for my bachelor's degree and then continue on the track to going into medicine. But I was also studying art as a, uh, a double degree and, um, yeah, art took over. So, uh, that's how it began. What did, um, what did mom
Influence of Art Teachers
00:03:49
Speaker
think of what I would see to be your related endeavor. She wasn't a fan. It's funny because she was the one who suggested to me that I wouldn't focus on science in undergrad. She said, oh, you love art. Take that too.
00:04:06
Speaker
Um, so I think it's bitter in the butt a little bit because um It was uh, I think halfway through my third year in undergrad that I knew I was not continuing into medicine and that's the year you're supposed to take the mcat And uh, i'm telling my mom this i'm telling her, you know, i'm i'm not going to med school It's not happening and she's like, well, you know, just take the test just in case
00:04:30
Speaker
So she held out hope. I don't think she was too thrilled at the lack of security in an artist's life. So she's supportive now, though, which is wonderful. That's great. And you mentioned finding a place or some security in home, even within high school in the art classes.
00:04:56
Speaker
And you're an art teacher and you've taught at different levels. I mean, was there particular moments within that environment that really kind of were formative for you in deciding to actually teach art? No. I remember there were several sort of hazy memories that would, I think, piece together to
00:05:25
Speaker
contribute to me going into education.
Impactful Artworks and Experiences
00:05:29
Speaker
I mean, one clear memory I have is Mrs. Knapp, who was my, I think, grade eight teacher, or maybe it was younger than that, actually. I remember one day she held up my, I think it was a rock
00:05:47
Speaker
sculpture assignment or something like that. And she held up my assignment and said, good job. And this is really well done. And just feeling validated by Mrs. Knapp, my teacher, was an extremely, obviously extremely powerful. I'm still talking about it. But getting into education was actually
00:06:15
Speaker
Yeah, it wasn't like a really dramatic powerful decision that I made to get into education. It just kind of ended up happening. And as far as the types of art that you create, we're going to do a deeper dive in a little bit as far as your process for working with clay and what you've been doing with that. But just in general, as you developed,
00:06:42
Speaker
Were there particular art styles you liked to create and liked to enjoy as a consumer or a viewer of art? Yeah. I think one of the works that has always stood out in my memory was one of Robert Motherwell's
00:07:09
Speaker
elegy to the Spanish Republic. It's one of the abstract expressionist school. And the one that I saw was at the Albright Knox Gallery in Buffalo. And it was this larger than life painting. And
00:07:25
Speaker
I was, I think, still in high school and I didn't know any of the ideas behind this painting or behind the movement or anything like that. But I remember just being stopped in my tracks in front of this painting that must have been something like 10 feet tall by, I don't know, maybe 15, 20 feet wide, something like that. But it completely swallowed me up. And even though I was totally self-conscious about
00:07:54
Speaker
just stopping and I actually had to sit down on the gallery floor. I couldn't really leave the painting. And I just remember being struck by these massive sort of swaths of black that blocked out all the color in the background. And without being able to articulate it at that time, I think I was experiencing a sort of emotional resonance with
00:08:23
Speaker
what Motherwell was thinking about, maybe not thinking about in terms of like, it's not as though my experience and his experience would have had conscious connections, but I think there was an emotional connection with it. Like his work was about grieving what was happening in Spain at the time and
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah, so works like Motherwell's Elegy series have always stopped me in my tracks.
00:08:55
Speaker
But I had a similar moment like that with one of Mark Rothko's paintings. I couldn't tell you which one, which colors. I just remember I got closer and closer to this seemingly super simple square slash rectangle of color. But I kept getting closer and closer to it until I could allow my peripheral vision to sort of fuzz out.
00:09:21
Speaker
That color just kind of bent around my entire field of vision. Yeah, so my recent research has gone back to those intense experiences with those abstract painters. I love your description, which is kind of, you know, revealing of just being
00:09:45
Speaker
in the museum and you're describing the, you know, the emotion and trying to grapple with that and how it impacted you, you know, physically like laying down and you see the gestures that people make in museums. I'm fascinated. I am really fascinated by museum goers. I mean, for me, I realized years ago that it was kind of a, there was a spiritual aspect of art museums for me that you know what I mean? And, um,
00:10:14
Speaker
I had conversations from that point where, you know, people describe it very similarly. I know for sure that when believers go to church, they're having some sort of similar experience that I am going to a museum and it's, it, I find the, uh, you know, who's going to the museum, the patrons to be very interesting in the sense of like, why are they there? And like, are they,
00:10:40
Speaker
going too close to the painting, which that's my only problem. I try to get like I want to live in it. Yeah. Yeah. You're one of those rule breakers, like you go across the rope. I try. I try not to. I really do. And I'm saying this to all, you know, to everybody, you're not supposed to do that. But I know that I push it because I just want to see what I can get out of it. And it's that it's the emotion. It's just trying to be enveloped.
00:11:08
Speaker
within that.
Creating Enveloping Art
00:11:10
Speaker
So those type of experiences for you help, I'd imagine were just transformative as far as the power that art held over you. But is that why you create or can you answer the question why you create art yourself? That's such a hard question. Life would be a lot easier if I didn't insist on doing this.
00:11:37
Speaker
I think there's something about wanting to see an idea that's in my head as this foggy, barely there sort of image. But the only way I can see it is to actually make it, because it's this weird foggy idea that's in my head. I've never seen it before. So there's something of that.
00:12:09
Speaker
I am drawn to artworks that have a feeling of they could completely absorb you, just swallow you up and float you in their color or in their just massive scale. So I think there is something of that in the way I try to make my work.
00:12:37
Speaker
I think there's also something about just insisting on I am here.
00:12:48
Speaker
I've been looking back into some of the earliest art forms, the cave paintings, and one of the things that just absolutely stopped me in my tracks, it wasn't the paintings of animals on the rocks, which we're all kind of used to by now, but I recently learned about these handprints and these silhouettes of hands in caves around the world, but the ones that I had encountered I think were in a cave in France.
00:13:17
Speaker
It just struck me as like there's all sorts of theories about whether this was part of a ritual and this and that. But without looking into all that, what struck me was it was just the most foundational way of saying I was here, this is my mark. And it really, it really struck a chord with me. And I think there's something about that in making art that it's especially in making something that has
00:13:47
Speaker
some physical presence. It's saying I'm here. I am worth looking at. I am visible. I deserve to be seen. I really, I really connect to what you say there. Um, you know, I've been doing this podcast for a bit in the, you know, trying to define what art is, and I have a very extremely rudimentary sense of it and it connects to some of the words you just used for me.
00:14:14
Speaker
Art is like three words, it seems, right now. Look at this. Yeah. Look at this. Just look at this. And there's a component here from what you're saying. It's like worthy of memory. I existed. Here it is. There's something to look at.
00:14:35
Speaker
and there's a, I don't know, maybe a primitive aspect to that. But I want to, using the word primitive, I want to talk to you about your exhibit. And I want to try to give the listeners, you're going to help me with this, give them a sense of, you know, what it is about your art, because you work in
'Raw' Exhibit at Gardiner Museum
00:14:54
Speaker
a unique field. I'm going to read, you have an exhibit as part of some artists who work with clay.
00:15:01
Speaker
in Toronto at the Gardiner Museum. The exhibit itself is called Raw. I'm going to read to you about raw and clay. After I read this, I want you to take us into a deeper dive as far as how you work with clay and what you create now.
00:15:24
Speaker
It states that raw clay is emerging as a compelling medium for contemporary art, taking on new relevance as conversations around identity, visibility, and survival on our planet develop. From sticky and wet to dry and powdery, raw clay speaks to primal themes like the land, the body, and memory. Perhaps most significantly, clay reaffirms our essential connection to the Earth.
00:15:49
Speaker
As digital screens come to dominate our vision and disconnect us from an increasingly threatened environment, Clay takes on a critical role in resisting our withdrawal into the virtual. Clay has seen, this is me talking now, not the guard. Clay has this primitive component, it seems, elemental almost. Tell us how you work with Clay and what you create.
00:16:22
Speaker
So what I do is I form clay into microbial forms. So what I do is I look at microscopic
00:16:35
Speaker
photography, microscopic images. And the method I've used to develop my work is that based on those images, I'll take clay and I'll form a simplified template, maybe five inches by five inches. And I'll pour a plaster mold of that, which will capture the
00:17:04
Speaker
hundreds, if not thousands, of individual cells that I've formed on this original, on this template. And then using that plaster mold, I form large installations or wall sculptures that continue to build on that idea of cellular accumulation. So in the installation at the Gardner Museum, for example, there are several modules
00:17:34
Speaker
of microbial growth that appear to be coming out of the wall. For my wall sculptures, they're on panels, so they speak the language of painting being on a sort of confined space of that panel. And then I leave all my work raw, which is why I'm in raw at the Gardner Museum.
Art's Political Nature and Climate Change
00:18:01
Speaker
um for me what that is is about thinking about my individual transients and um also our transients as a species especially as climate change becomes more and more of a pressing concern um i i try to have hope i'm not a naturally hopeful person um but it the more we learn about climate change and the more we see the consistent
00:18:30
Speaker
um resistance of our institutions and our governments to actually be dealing with it in a meaningful way I I don't I I struggle to have hope that our species will be able to stick around forever Yeah, and I I and I want to let if you part of me just jump in in there because you know i've had two or three guests and all these things are
00:19:00
Speaker
You know just just deeply related right and I found that The artists that I've interviewed who you know depict, you know animals or maybe something within nature in your what I would say elemental the creations that that That that you do, you know, there's a connection to those forms of life and processes that are threatened and I I believe within that then our art has this
00:19:30
Speaker
you know, very distinct role. It's either within advocacy or there's even the discussion of artists I've always dealt with in times of political turmoil or crisis or possible, you know, a crisis of the magnitude with climate change that artists role is, you know, both threatened in the amplified, right? You're in a unique role to say, holy shit, take a look at like what's happening right now.
00:19:57
Speaker
Or on the other hand, it's being like, why are you creating art, man? Everything's burning, right? So you end up being, I feel that you must feel squarely placed within that dynamic of what to do right now. Do you feel the same way? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't make art to make a political statement. That's never been my push.
00:20:29
Speaker
But I think to do something like this is, I don't think you can get away from making some sort of statement, some sort of value statement. To make the work I'm making, it's not meant to be sold necessarily, although I could compromise on that. But the installation at the Gardner Museum, for example, that's not a saleable product.
00:20:59
Speaker
it stands in the face of the model we're living in, which is the things you spend your time on should have monetary value. That's how we've been taught to survive, right? You get a job, you spend your time on that job, that gives you money to buy food and then numb out on Netflix. So I think even though
00:21:20
Speaker
I'm not necessarily driven to make my work based out of a Meeting to make a political statement. I think there is something inherently political in making this work um But I will i'll acknowledge like i've been reading more about um land artists who have gone before me so artists who are citing their work out in the wilderness out in the landscape and or um
00:21:49
Speaker
making work that has to do with that land. And there's quite a range within those artists, but I've been learning about some artists who have worked with scientists and have used their voice as artists in collaboration with those scientists to highlight important information in regards to climate change and environmental catastrophe
00:22:19
Speaker
um And I I see that that work and I think oh, maybe I should make work like that But I know deep down that is not what i'm Driven to make and it it wouldn't be as much as i'm concerned about climate change. It's not what i'm authentically driven to make so the tension between um using my artwork to say holy shit like
00:22:50
Speaker
This is a disaster. We need to look at this. The tension between that side and I don't know what's the other side. For the longest time, I've never been able to just make a pretty picture that can sell. Not throwing any shade on people who do that, it's just not where I am able to operate.
00:23:18
Speaker
I'm trying to find where I can be in the space between an overtly activist artist and an artist who is disengaging, whether from self-preservation or just needing to heal from all the tension and anger we are living with right now. I'm trying to find a space in the middle somewhere.
00:23:40
Speaker
Yeah. And I understand, I understand that. And those are great questions. And how much of it is in your control? I mean, if you think, let me, let me, we, we talked a little bit previously and this is the, this is what I want to focus
Evolving Nature of Art
00:23:52
Speaker
on. I was fascinated when you're describing some parts of, again, going back to your process and going back to the art itself, where both within your work, we're at the raw exhibit, you know, there's going to be, um,
00:24:07
Speaker
pieces that you add to it. And then there were other artists there where it's clear that the art itself is changing on a physical, chemical level beyond ways that I understand as the exhibit goes on. So there we're talking about an artist who set those things into motion, but also can't predict the exact outcomes of how things appear and they show themselves.
00:24:37
Speaker
Tell, I like, I'm just overwhelmed and fascinated by the idea of how an art piece is created and how it develops on its own in that space. Can you talk a little bit about how, yes, you're setting up that display and how the artwork itself made out of clay that you do will change over time? Well, for the raw exhibition,
00:25:05
Speaker
my installation will essentially will continue to grow in scale. So right now it is pretty dominant in a just off center place on this wall. So this wall is 35 feet wide and just off off to the left of center. There's a fairly dominant collection of mass of my cellular accumulation.
00:25:33
Speaker
And then there are a couple of thinner bits of accumulation on either side of that. So what I'll be doing throughout the exhibition period is continuing to add. So my plan is to not only continue to fill up that one wall, but even jump to another location in the gallery to suggest a continuing spread of infection.
00:26:01
Speaker
the root idea for the installation in raw was it came from a book written by james lovelock he's an independent scientist and environmentalist out of the uk and uh he um the book that i read by him was called the vanishing face of gaia he was um he's been best known for his gaia hypothesis which
00:26:27
Speaker
um puts forth the idea that the earth is essentially a living system just like a human body and that all the systems all the systems within The living earth work together to maintain balance but just like a human body it can get sick when things are out of balance and So from there he coined this new term called polyanthropenemia
00:26:54
Speaker
poly meaning many, anthro referring to humans, and panemia just to add a disease tone on the end. If you think of anemia, that's the disease of having too little iron, so it's taking that suffix and adding on. So that's where
00:27:14
Speaker
my installation idea came from was, what if the Earth started taking over the gallery space? What if the immune system started pushing in to the gallery space? And if that was the case, it would continue to grow and spread until it would ultimately completely dominate that space and take it back.
00:27:36
Speaker
So that's why my installation will continue to grow. It'll continue to accumulate more and more modules and more and more staining on the walls. And this will take, what are the exhibit dates again for the raw exhibit? Right. So it officially opens March 5th. So in just over a week, I think that is now. And it runs to June 7th.
00:28:06
Speaker
All right. Since I first started talking, I've been fascinated with the kind of the changing art and just the dynamic of change. When we think of art, I think a lot of times we're talking about maybe a slice in time or a photograph, you know, capturing a moment, you know, and creating some permanence around it. I think the challenging idea always is when there's a dynamic piece of art, you know, that changes formally in ways that you can see.
00:28:35
Speaker
that you can see. I wanted to find out what your theory of art is, of what it is. I wanted to ask you, what is art? It's very big. The more I learn, the more I can't put a fine line around that.
00:29:05
Speaker
I forget the artist's name, but I was learning, I was reading a little bit about conceptual art and apparently there was an artist who said that something like every shoe shop in, I think it was New York, was his artwork.
00:29:26
Speaker
the artist just claimed that and I mean, that's the foundation of conceptual art. It's the idea rather than the execution. So what is art? It's continually shifting. I mean, for me, art is a way of meditating on how I fit in
00:29:56
Speaker
to this world. So the reason I use cellular accumulation is to have an aesthetic that allows me to think about myself as an individual cell and every other human individual as an individual cell, and then to visualize my place in that massive accumulation. And for me, I find comfort in that, in knowing that
00:30:22
Speaker
Oh, okay. All the things I'm stressing about. It's okay. Cause it's all this little cell. It's not a big deal. It all passes. Um, just sort of remember your not remember your place in terms of like disciplining a child, but just have context for how you fit into the big picture. Um,
00:30:48
Speaker
So yeah, but I think art also has the power to shape the way we then as a species continue to shape our world. I mean, I'm still thinking about Castle's performance this past Thursday on February 20th, and they talk about
00:31:15
Speaker
the issues of visibility for trans people, the presence of power in being visible and acknowledged, but also the vulnerability in terms of, I mean, in most recent events with bathroom laws and in forcing trans people to use bathrooms that are quote unquote in line with their birth
00:31:44
Speaker
birth sex versus their gender of choice That's an enforced visibility that that poses risk, right? and What I've been impressed with with castle's career is their work isn't only making themselves visible as an individual but
00:32:07
Speaker
they're helping to make visible the concerns of their community. And in that way, I view Castles as an artist who is helping to perhaps change the way we think about things and perhaps change the way societies help to change the way societies move forward.
Art and Societal Change
00:32:27
Speaker
Ideally, I think that's what art is, is creative gestures that
00:32:35
Speaker
help us to reconsider how we want to be as a species on this planet. Yeah. And then I think there's a component underlying that I know you grappled with intellectually, but just within that, there are political components to the choices that we make and individuals who are represented or not. And I think even within your work, the fact that you're representing
00:33:04
Speaker
you know, earth, right? Like bringing that into the foreground of your material that you're using. And I think that's incredible. And I've been really inspired by, you know, your description of the performance that you saw as well, which is in Castle, of course, is part of the raw exhibit that you're part of.
00:33:31
Speaker
I got another question for you. I mean, it's clear that throughout your life and what you're trying to express and do with art, it's been an important part of your identity. How does art in your creating art help you live your life? That's such a hard question.
00:34:03
Speaker
Um, I mean, it, it's such a hard question. Part of me wishes I wasn't that I didn't feel driven to make. And then to get my work out into the public sphere, part of me wishes I could just keep a job and read books and cuddle with my cats and, and husband too. Sure. But, um, uh,
00:34:32
Speaker
how does art help me live? I, it's so hard to answer that because it's not, it doesn't feel like a choice anymore. I mean, it always is. I suppose I could shut this down, I guess, and I don't know, maybe swap out the studio table for a pool table or something. I mean, I could talk about how, you know, art is supposed to be very therapeutic and I'm not going to deny that like, especially as a kid, art was my therapy and
00:35:02
Speaker
You know, it's still very sort of balancing, I'll say, for me emotionally. So there's that component. I mean, I think even if I wasn't making quote unquote art, whatever that continues to evolve to be, I have to have some way of
00:35:32
Speaker
continuing to meditate on how I fit in to the mess that we are, we being humans. Sure. But gosh, yeah. Well, let me let me ask you this, this different one, because I would almost forget to ask the question. I wrote it down earlier, but
Artistic Process and Intuition
00:35:58
Speaker
Going back to as far as what you do right what you do in life. You're talking about you know You know kind of you'd be a doctor and there was the artist component And then you became an artist, but it seemed very clear to me when you're discussing your artistic Process it sounded like the process of a of a of a doctor examining on a cellular level so I
00:36:25
Speaker
I think I could have asked you that question in an interview where said is like, oh, what's your, you know, what's your life like as as a doctor? Tell me about that. And you might have answered it very similarly. So yeah, as part of, you know, actually. Yeah, go ahead. Now that you bring that up.
00:36:42
Speaker
I've been getting to know my mom more, like adult to adult and just human to human rather than mom and daughter. And part of that has been understanding that she actually views her profession, being a doctor, as quite intuitive. There's a lot of just needing to follow her gut. Like, yes, there's the science, but there's so much they don't know. I don't think she would be upset by me saying that.
00:37:11
Speaker
you know, any doctor who's a reasonable human would acknowledge that there's still so much they just don't know. And in talking to her about that, I think she was she was pointing out to me that there's creativity in that. And so so I think even if I wasn't an artist, there would be creativity elsewhere, I think.
00:37:38
Speaker
any balanced human being finds a way of expressing creativity, whether it's baking, sewing, through medicine, packing their kids' lunches. I think we all find ways to express our creativity. I think perhaps the way art has helped me to evolve, let me put it that way as opposed to live, because living's a messy business. I think the way being an artist has helped me to evolve is
00:38:09
Speaker
to really force me to let go of control, which I fight against every damn day. And I think it's helping me to practice living in ambiguity and just not knowing, like living in doubt and trying to find a way to be okay with that.
00:38:35
Speaker
Um, like when I start an artwork, I may have sketches, I may have scale drawings and plans, but until I was in the Gardner Museum installing that, that first stage of the installation, I didn't really know what it was going to look like. And that's terrifying. But, um, you know, either.
00:38:56
Speaker
I get scared and I run away and I don't do it or I feel the fear and acknowledge it and do it anyway. And I think being an artist has helped me to cultivate some more bravery just because it's such, it's such a strange thing to do. There's no set path. There's no way, one way to be an artist. You just have to sort of take one step after another and
00:39:25
Speaker
There's a lot of faith and a lot of trust that comes into that. Yeah, our conversations led me to think a lot about the different categories. I mean, even the type of questions asking about art and medicine. And I think, you know, if you look historically, when you blur the distinctions amongst, say, professions and inquiries, you'll see kind of like, you know, great, great artists like, you know, Michelangelo and Da Vinci and see things like anatomy, medicine,
00:39:53
Speaker
you know, early physics, mathematics, art, painting, you know, there was there was so many components and there wasn't necessarily the categorization. And I'm as a philosopher, we tend to be very, very interested in areas where categories either fail or they can be challenged, whether something is this or not that. And because in that ambiguity and in some of our conversation, while it makes you feel uncomfortable,
Asserting Existence Through Art
00:40:23
Speaker
that there's a good fertile area to inquire. And I've asked you some really tough questions. So I'm going to ask you a super, super easy one. Why is there something? No, seriously. I'm being facetious, of course. But the big question I was just going to ask you is, with all that stuff, why is there something rather than nothing?
00:40:52
Speaker
You know, I think really deep down it's about asserting for me anyway that I'm here. I remember being up in the top viewing towers of one of the cathedrals in Germany. I want to say it was
00:41:21
Speaker
in Cologne, maybe, I don't remember. But I remember being so offended when I saw all these like, Joe was here 1994 or something on this incredible structure that claimed lives in its construction and was supposed to be dedicated to God and was just this amazing
00:41:51
Speaker
feet. And then, you know, all these people were just like, oh, yeah, Elhart M. 2002 or something. But I think that gesture of writing, you know, I was here on the on a, you know, the viewing station of a cathedral. I don't know how different that is to
00:42:22
Speaker
stenciling your hand in a prehistoric cave to drawing, to taking photos that record what you notice, to sculpting strange accumulations of cellular growth using clay. I really think at the base of it, the reason for me that there's something out of nothing is our drive to assert that we were here for a moment.
00:42:52
Speaker
I really appreciate that. For some reason, when you were talking, I did think about this painting. And it was a cover of a New Yorker, and I think it was by the artist Adrian Tomine. And there are various places. I know there's one in Paris, and there might be one in the US somewhere, where people, you would see lovers, they kind of like put a lock onto the link, right? So you've seen or heard of this.
00:43:22
Speaker
And it was just kind of dark but fascinating painting where there were couples doing that and right behind them was the guy with the bolt cutter, with the lock cutter. And just kind of cleaning up afterwards. And I just thought there was just this incredible tension within it where people are just saying, hey, we're in love. We exist. We're putting a lock on this place.
00:43:49
Speaker
You know, we're drawing our names in the cement or in the tree and, you know, there's other forces saying that's all right. We're just going to clear it out. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Whether it's the bolt cutter or nature or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. That's the next thing. That's the next thing I was thinking of was nature was the exact next next thing that would kind of clear it out and possibly erase what we're trying to say. Um, um,
00:44:17
Speaker
Magdalene, I had such a wonderful time talking to you, and there's a lot of components of your work that I think listeners, in order to get more of a full experience, would be useful for you to kind of help point them towards how they can connect to your work online, and maybe just mention again that exhibit that you're involved in.
00:44:45
Speaker
So can you can you help guide the listeners to to your work and how they can uh experience what you do Yeah, absolutely. Um, my website is magdalene dykstra.com So that's m a g d o l e n e d y k s t r a dot com And of course i'm on instagram. Um, my handle is at
00:45:10
Speaker
Maggie Dykstra, but it's not Maggie the way you would think of spelling it. It's actually M-A-G-I because my middle name is Isis. Yeah, so it's MAG-I Dykstra on Instagram. And I would really encourage anyone who's listening to check out Raw at the Gardiner Museum. I think the Gardiners website is
00:45:34
Speaker
Oh, shoot. I think it's gardnermuseum.on.ca. It's in Toronto, correct? It is. So if you just Google, oh, sorry, it's gardnermuseum.com. So D-A-R-D-I-N-E-R museum. And like, even if you Google it, gardnermuseumraw.com,
00:46:02
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure they'll be posting images of the castle's performance. And the other artists included in the show with us are Linda Swanson, whose work I can only describe as visual poetry. She works with water as it transforms various powders, clay powders and ingredients that are often put in clay and glazes, and the water
00:46:32
Speaker
completes the work for her. She sort of acts as a facilitator for the materials. So there will be images of her work. And also Azza Elsadique is in the exhibit and their work deals with memory and the dissolution of memory. So yeah, I would encourage your listeners to check out Ra at the Gardiner Museum.
00:46:58
Speaker
Thank you so much. And I appreciate you mentioning the other artists as well as part of that exhibit, because it seems just an incredible living and dynamic piece. And just to pull it out, Middle Name Isis, that's absolutely incredible. That one just went past. It's an incredible middle name that you have. And yeah, I hope. Great timing right now.
00:47:28
Speaker
People know history and legends and can extend their thinking throughout. They can get there. That's all we need. Magdalene Dijkstra, thank you so much for spending time with us. And I'm going to encourage all listeners to kind of take a look at her work. There's a dynamic component that's just easier to easier to try to see and experience if you can.
00:47:55
Speaker
And Magdalene just wanted to thank you for your time and for visiting something rather than nothing. Thank you so much, Ken. Thanks for reaching out. Have a great day. See you. Bye bye. You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing.