Transforming Life into Art by Lisa Birzen '03
Gisela Insuaste’s life is a work of art. Literally. If you don’t believe me, walk over to Brace Commons in the East Wheelock Cluster on campus and see the painting entitled “Chimborazo" hanging on the wall.
In retrospect, this painting, which Insuaste painted during her senior year, has come to symbolize the life that, at the time, lay ahead for this emerging ’97 Dartmouth graduate and represents all the uncertainty she had yet to overcome and the ultimate clarity she had yet to achieve.
The painting’s focal point is the mountain Chimborazo, located in the Ecuadorian province by the same name, and illustrates the importance Insuaste places on physical space and people’s interaction with the environment.
Insuaste was born in New York City, New York and raised in New Jersey, but her interest in learning more about her parents’ background led her to South America and on a journey that would define the rest of her life.
Initially intending to pursue a medicine track at Dartmouth, Insuaste quickly realized that her passion lay more in anthropology and art and she eventually double majored in these two disciplines.
After taking a class with Anthropology professor, Robert Welsch, she says, “the two began to merge for me. Instead of seeing them as separate, I began to see art as a dimension of culture."
With the help of advisors, such as Susan Wright and Margot de L’Etoile, Insuaste was able to seek out the various Dartmouth grants pertaining to her newfound combination of interests.
Through both the First Year Summer Research Project Grant and the John Sloan Dickey International Internship Grant, Insuaste spent a total of two terms in Ecuador, studying the indigenous population and learning more about the culture and about herself.
Also, under the encouragement of the Studio Art faculty, Insuaste spent her junior summer “just drawing, painting and making art" at the New York Studio School in New York City.
A conversation with a Studio Art Visiting Artist during her senior year helped Insuaste realize that, for her, art was not just a hobby.
“He asked me, ‘Why is it that I am making this art? Why is it making sense? Who is it helping?’" she recalls.
In the end, she realized, “There are so many ways you can affect people’s lives and it can be through medicine, it can be through law or it can also be through art."
Unfortunately, she also adds, “There are very few of us [Studio Art majors] that dedicate ourselves to making art and continuing it professionally after we graduate. I always felt it was a waste of your time if that’s what you’re going to do only when you are in college."
She graduated from Dartmouth with the full intention of pursuing art and moved to Kansas City, Missouri.
She kept her first job out of college a mere three months before calling it quits. She was the “only non-white person in the whole town," she explains.
“What I encountered in the Mid-West was a certain mentality that I didn’t really appreciate. I wasn’t feeling comfortable in that space so I quit," she says.
She soon moved onto a more suitable environment as a result of an opportunity that presented itself when she least expected it.
In October 1998, while listening to a National Public Radio program on the Latino artist community, she called in to voice her opinion.
“As an artist, people already have certain assumptions about you. Then if you say you are a Latino artist they think about work that’s primitive and if you are a Latina artist, all of a sudden you are a woman and you are prone to certain stereotypes," she said.
The show’s guest speaker invited her to call back after the show and, during the course of their conversation, offered her her next job.
Remaining in the Kansas City area, she switched over to work at the Kansas City Art Institute Continuing Education program, teaching art to Latino students.
Being in the same town but in a different environment made all the difference. She could now focus on her work and pursue her dual interest in museum work and artistic ethnography.
Progressing forward in her career, she applied for and received two grants, one to work at the Smithsonian Center for Folk Life and Cultural Heritage in Washington D.C. and the other to return to Ecuador for one year to work with at-risk children, through Proyecto Salesiano, Chicos de la Calle in Quito.
Moving to Washington D.C. first, she extended her initial three-month internship twice in order to finish her research work and to be present at the exhibition opening in May 1999.
Her work entailed compiling information on the Latino community of the area and, following the exhibit, she seriously considered remaining at this position because “I felt that this was the kind of job I’d like doing."
One aspect of her life in D.C. needed to be addressed, however, that being the lack of time to dedicate to making art. She sought to remedy this void by once again recharging her energies in Ecuador.
Insuaste says that her frequent trips to Ecuador, in short, “transform my everything." This trip in particular was marked by a volcanic eruption, coating the city with ash, and a political uprising, characterized by police brigades, tear gas and crowds of people.
“There was a lot of political tension, social change, culture change and economic change that was happening while I was there…and for the first time, I was experiencing it not through my parents’ lens but through my own," she says.
It was also here that she grappled with the issue of her identity.
“Someone always wanted to know where you stood and who I was. It was too demanding of me at that time because I was trying to figure this out for myself as well. ‘Are you American? Are you Ecuadorian? Who are you and why are you here?’"
She sought solace with other artists in the area and, as a result, also encountered an entirely new perspective on being an artist in the United States.
“It made me question my role as an artist and how privileged we are as artists living in the United States—accessibility to materials and supplies, to historical and contemporary art literature, to museums," she recalls.
“It’s expensive to be an artist in Ecuador, where I met artists who improvised with painting and printmaking tools because they could not afford to buy proper art supplies... The fact that I used oil paints and owned a staple gun was a big deal," she further explains.
“I have an interesting relationship with Ecuador," she admits. “It was a painful experience but it was something that I needed to understand what I wanted and why I was making art and why I was interested in working with the Latino community."
Unsure of her future as she was returning to the United States, she nonetheless found herself relocating to Chicago, Illinois, within two weeks to begin work at the Chicago Historical Society, where her duties resembled her exhibition responsibilities in Washington D.C.
While already in Chicago, she decided to apply to the graduate program at the renowned School of the Arts Institute of Chicago. She was accepted and enrolled in Fall 2001.
To anyone contemplating graduate school, she warns, “First semester of grad school is always a hard time. Everyone almost says it’s a waste. And I was at an art school; I wasn’t at an academic school. And I missed being in that academic environment."
On the flip side, she says, “I knew that two years of art school was going to affect and change me and I wanted that change. All those years I was a bit hesitant to see if I really was an artist; if I really had that in me."
An honest heart-to-heart conversation with her advisors revealed that, all this time, “I was thinking too much and worrying about what it is I want to do instead of actually just doing it," she admits.
That eye-opener combined with yet another trip to Ecuador, provided Insuaste with the strength needed to change course and plunge into the new all-inclusive, all-encompassing realization of her art: loose drawings and three dimensional installations, or “visual oral histories."
“I came back knowing what my work is about and has always been about and perhaps I’ve negated it or didn’t want to admit it to myself. It is about the landscape and it is about the physical space," she concluded.
The line, thus, became an important element of her work. “In space, my eye starts to follow the line to the foreground, the background, the middle ground and making a connection and realizing that we’re all connected in some way, visually and on a physical and emotional level."
After receiving her Master in Fine Arts in 2003, she remained in Chicago, but ventured out for several more trips to Ecuador as well as a chance to return to the familiar scenery of New England.
“I always, in retrospect, blur my memory of New England with Ecuador - the Andean region and the mountains of New Hampshire," she realized.
“I was so happy to be back in New England. That space provided me with source material. I could make art without worrying about work. It was my job: making art was my work."
Returning back to Chicago, she discovered that she had been nominated for, and later received, the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Individual Emerging Artist Award, an honor of true distinction.
Living in an urban surrounding for an extended period of time, Insuaste had to “investigate that ‘lack of’ mountains and vertical, man-made structures and how do I make sense of that when I loved being outdoors."
Tying her experience of the volcanic eruption witnessed in Ecuador with the city structures she saw around her, she realized that both natural and urban landscapes are, “precarious, shifty, unstable, unpredictable, unsettled and ambiguous."
Furthermore, this instability represents and symbolizes social relations and interactions among people. Insuaste sees nature as being parallel to society, with both relying on each other to define and determine their respective futures.
Over the years, her work has come to reflect the “interconnectedness of people, places, and things."
Insuaste has had four motives guiding her throughout her self-discoveries and artistic transformations: her inquisitive personality, her passion for making art, her connection to the physical landscape and one of President James Wright’s speeches.
Two summers after graduating from Dartmouth, she attended one of his speeches in Washington D.C., where she was living at the time.
“He said ‘To go to Dartmouth is a privilege and there is social responsibility attached to that privilege’," she recalls.
“I took that to heart. I could do it through the arts. It’s been five years and I haven't forgotten about that and I don't want to forget about that either," she asserts.
“Artists have social responsibility," she explains. “We are educators, facilitators and interpreters, constantly looking at what’s around us and trying to make sense of it all, without taking any of it for granted."
Currently splitting her time between making art and teaching art to African American and Latino youth, she emphasizes “arts as a means of communication." “I want my students to push themselves and not be intimidated by the unfamiliar."
She herself has had to come to terms with the various and, at times, contradictory physical spaces of Chimborazo, Hanover and Chicago. The transformation in her art bears witness to her adjustment.
“One of my realizations about the landscape is that it’s precarious and things are constantly shifting and adjusting…we cannot take things for granted. It can fall apart, the landscape can fall into itself and then it gives birth to itself again; it crashes and then rebuilds."
For Insuaste, art parallels reality. Her memories find their way into her work. Any memorable event or experience, both heart wrenching and spiritually uplifting, attain permanence in one of her creations. In her work, she is “translating emotional experience into something more visual."
A few months ago, in August 2004, Insuaste climbed the mountain, Chimborazo. “That mountain had always been in my life since I was a little girl. Finally, I conquered it."
Standing atop the mountain, surveying familiar scenery from a new vantage point, Insuaste will certainly ‘tap’ into this moment, which, when imprinted in her memory, will undoubtedly go on to inspire many more works to come.
|
