Many people doing simple things well
Learning to Love You More compiles some of the most interesting participatory pieces from Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher’s website of the same name
By Adam Schragin
Published: December 12th, 2007 | 1:50am
Miranda July is on a roll. After the publication of this year’s on-target, sweetly sad short-story collection No One Belongs Here More Than You
The submitted participatory results include paper models of furniture, drawings and photography, or simply the written word, and the content of the work ranges from delightfully amateurish and rough around the edges to professional and focused. The uniting theme of creation from suggestion ties the work together, and the realms of emotion expressed in these pieces are even more startling than the breadth of artwork; we’re confronted with happy nostalgia, embittered regret, resilience, and a continuum of hope.
July and Feltcher explain the impetus for the project this way: “Sometimes it seems like the moment we let go of trying to be original, we actually feel something new — which was the whole point of being artists in the first place.” Of the assignments, some are more lighthearted, like “45: Reread your favorite book from fifth grade,” or “50: Take a flash photo under your bed,” which uncovers a wealth of fuzzy felines. “62: Make an educational public plaque” resulted in signage posted outside of libraries and subways explaining how to set a table or use iambic pentameter, and the lovely “39: Take a picture of your parents kissing” reappears throughout the book, with one particularly poignant work gracing the cover.
One of the greatest attributes of Learning to Love You More
And while we aren’t often granted the chance to watch the aftereffects of the LTLYM projects in people’s lives, in at least one sublime instance we are. In an essay at the tail end of the book, artist Jacinda Russell describes how she tenuously decided to tackle “14: Write your life story in less than a day,” very uncertain that she wanted to sign the project under her own name. The story involved her father’s extramarital affair and the children that resulted from the union, whom she never met, and she decided to publish the entry without the benefit of blanket anonymity. After some negative experiences resulting from her candidness, Russell was one day sent an e-mail from an address she didn’t recognize, which ended up being from Tim and David Haslet, her separated half-siblings, also artists. It’s an amazing turn of events and one that wouldn’t have been possible without the impetus to share given by LTLYM or Russell’s uncharacteristic candor.
Also at the conclusion of LTLYM is a very academic essay by art professor Julia Bryan-Wilson, useful if you’re interested in framing LTLYM in the current theme of “crowdsourced” art, or to trace it back to movements from decades previous including “Fluxus,” “Coceptualism,” etc. While a nice inclusion, the works included in LTLYM, unlike art movements radically more complex or less populist, aren’t those that call out for strenuous over-examination or which require severe academic focus. Instead, its appeal and basic philosophy are easily expressed, as by Bryan-Wilson herself in the title of her essay: “Many People Doing Simple Things Well.”
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ABOUT THE BOOK
Learning to Love You More
By Harrell Fletcher and Miranda July
158 pages
$19.95
Issue #34
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