DTH Omnibus Page 5
Thursday November 15, 1990
MS.
Bright artist enjoys practicing her
By CARA BONNETT
Guest Writer
Masie Sirisena stands at the
easel, her dark hair tied back
in a bright turquoise
I I headband, her jeans spat
"" tered with colors from past
works. She's been working on this
particular painting for two weeks,
painstakingly layering greens and
golds and reds in search of the perfect
shade.
She steps back from the wet can
vas, studying it intently. Brushing
away a stray wisp of hair, she leaves a
track of green paint across her cheek.
An occupational hazard, she explains
with a smile. She doesn't own a piece
of clothing that's not stained with
paint somewhere.
At the semester's end, Sirisena, a
senior art major at UNC-CH, will
have eight paintings to show for her
hours of labor at the easel. And she
will have the satisfaction of artistic
accomplishment. "It's different from
being a poli-sci major or an English
major," she says. "In art, what you
have to show at the end is something
you've produced. You've incorporated
your knowledge and changed it into
your own experience. In a way, you
become the painting, just like an ac
tor becomes a character or a musician
becomes the piece of music he plays.
It gets confusing sometimes."
She once again turns her attention
to the canvas. Around her, other
student artists struggle over their own
canvases, and the thick smell of tur
pentine dominates. The painting
professor wanders from one easel to
the next, his comments rare, his praise
rarer. An hour from now, the paint
ing room will empty, and Sirisena will
put away her brushes until the class'
next three-hour session. But for the
DTH Grant Halverson
Freedom of speech. Censorship. Jesse Helms. All these things are topics of "Extremely Visible: Art and Artifacts of the Helms Era,"
on exhibit in the Union Gallery through Saturday, Nov. 17. Increase Maready uses Xerox as her medium in this work, titled
"Posters." A constant flow of observers discuss and debate the works of Maready and the many other artists featured in the exhibit.
moment, everything outside the
boundaries of the canvas is second
ary. Such is the education of an artist.
Sirisena knew since she was 10
that her drawing talent could lead her
to a career in art. Teachers in high
school encouraged her, but her par
ents insisted she get a college degree,
"to have something to fall back on."
While no one ever told her not to be
an artist, "most people just humored
me. My mother thought painting was
something people did as a hobby. 1
don't know. Maybe now they're just
humoring someone who's 21."
She started college majoring in
radio, television and motion pictures,
aiming for a career in filmmaking.
She didn't sign up for her first art class
until her junior year. "I denied it
because it was so painful. Painting is
so close to me, and I was scared of
being vulnerable. Finally, I took a
drawing class and I told myself, 'Maybe
I'll change my major but only if I
get an A.' I got an A. Then I took a
painting class, and I said, 'Maybe I'll
stay in the department but only if
I make an A.' I made a B plus. I stayed
anyway. At some point, you have to
admit, 'This is what I am.'"
She hasn't regretted the decision.
"You don't know how nice it is," she
grins, "to walk into a building with
paint on your jeans and have nobody
stare at you.
"I don't think people who aren't
artists understand the appeal. Doing
art is living on the wire, with a lot of
passion and love. A lot of people
don't understand passion, or they're
jealous or disgusted by it. Then there
are the people who say, 'That's just
the way Hasie is.'"
Women in the past weren't sup
posed to have passion at all, she points
out. Sirisena identifies in particular
with Mary Cassatt, an "eccentric"
19th-century painter who turned
down several marriage proposals be
cause she dedicated so much time and
passion to her art. "I see in her a
woman who made a choice to be
alone, and I don't think she ever
regretted it," Sirisena says. "I don't
know how she made the decision.
Either she wasn't playing with a full
deck or she was very brave. But if
there were women like that then,
there certainly can be women like
"Most people just humored me. My mother
thought painting was something people did
as, a hobby. I don't know. Maybe now
they're just humoring someone who's 21."
Hasie Sirisena, UNC art major
that now."
Beth Grabowski is one of Sir isena's
role models. Grabowski, an assistant
professor in UNC-CH's studio art
department, is one of the few women
in the state earning a national reputa
tion for herself as a printmaker and
painter. Her work was shown in 12
exhibitions last year.
Tracing paper, tools and metal cans
filled with brushes cover every flat
surface in Grabowski's studio. Against
one wall are framed prints ready to be
sent to Los Angeles for a national
exhibition. Half-finished works adorn
the other walls
Women's issues have always served
as a main subject for her art, but she's
noticed some changes in her work
3
over the last few months. "My work
always comes directly from my life,"
says Grabowski, whose first child is
due this winter. "Now that I'm preg
nant, I find myself making birth
pieces." She gestures at a nearby can
vas on the wall. "There's a big vagina.
It just happened."
Like Sirisena, Grabowski didn't
start off in art. Instead, she majored in
architecture at the University of Vir
ginia. She began to maintain her own
studio as an artist after she graduated.
"You need to do something on your
own like that to prove to yourself that
the drive is there. As a student, you're
learning a lot about art and you have
some good ideas, but you're structured
by the school. Your deadlines are set
by other people."
Education doesn't teach women
artists the economic realities either.
Less than 5 percent of the artists in
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York are women. Even smaller
galleries are reluctant to exhibit fe
male artists' work, especially if it
tackles issues such as lesbianism.
"Men call a higher price and earn
more respect," Grabowski says.
"When gallery owners are looking for
an investment, they go with the sure
thing, and the system perpetuates it
self. It takes a brave person to stake
out the unknown and make a politi
cal statement, and it is still a political
statement to exhibit women artists."
She is quick to point out that most of
the shows in which she has won awards
were juried by women.
Sirisena knows she will face dis
crimination. Even now, though most
of her classmates in the art department
are female, most of the names she
memorizes in her art history classes
are male.
"There's always been the myth of
the male genius who overcame all
odds to become an artist," Sirisena
says. "That's not true. Men have al
ways had more advantages, and
women are fighting a well-established
attitude that people don't question. I
realized early on that it was going to
be hard for someone who's a woman
and who's not white to be an artist in
America."
But that just increases her deter
mination. "I can't spend my life say
ing, 'I can't do this because someone
said I can't.' I probably have no idea
how hard it will be. But it might be
quite easy. You never know."
Her biggest challenge, she says, is
not to overcome discrimination, but
to better understand the self she seeks
passion
to express. "I paint about being Hasie.
I don't want to be someone who beats
people over the head with the fact
that I'm a woman, Asian and op
pressed. I don't want attention for
that because there's so much else in
my life. I'm a whole person. And what
I love about doing something non
verbal is that it gives me a beautiful,
subtle way to be a person."
In the meantime, she devotes at
least 50 hours a week to her art. Many
nights she doesn't leave the art build
ing until late, going home exhausted
and short-tempered. "Art isn't an
admirable thing a lot of the time," she
says. "People think of it as self-centered,
self-indulgent, and it is. When
you're doing art, you can't let other
parts of your life interfere. If you're
concentrating, you can't pay atten
tion to other people in your life."
To add to the difficulty, she faces a
tough transition from the creative,
physical world of the canvas to the
verbal world outside. "It's a struggle
trying to talk to people right after I
leave the art room," she says. "I find
that I talk less to people all around
because I've found another way to
talk."
Often other artists are the only
ones who understand. One of
Sirisena's close friends, Ruth Ann
Wood ley, is a piano performance
major in the UNC-CH music depart
ment. Though the two work in differ
ent areas, they speak the same lan
guage when it comes to art, Woodley
says.
"I look at any painting and I'm
clueless," Woodley admits. "Still I
think music and art are just different
aspects of the same thing. There's
something in you, and you can put it
on the canvas or play it on the piano.
If you're lucky enough to find a pas
sion, you'll find other people who
have it, too. Hasie and I talk a lot
about times when we've really cap
tured something well, or when we've
communicated something so that
somebody got it. Those are the two
classes of great experiences, and she
understands."
The two also share a common fear
of failure. As Woodley describes it,
"When my teacher's sitting there, five
inches away, expecting me to produce
emotion, I get scared. If he says, 'Make
me cry,' and I can't make him cry, I'll
feel stupid for trying.
But fear of failure hasn't stopped
Sirisena yet. "What is success in art
anyway?" she asks. "Selling a painting
for a million dollars or doing some
thingyou're happy with?Other artists
might make more money or get more
recognition, but you can't judge life
on a 1 to 10 scale like that.
"Some people leave art school and
become famous right away. Other
people don't get famous until they're
in their 50s. Some people die and
become famous. Some people never
become famous. You can't go by that.
I just need to be the most honest
person I can be. It's a constant struggle,
but then, you ought to struggle in
your life to be better than what you
are."