Bronwyn Walls is a New Orleans based artist sharing studio updates throughout October as part of the SHE Digital Artist Residency Program.

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Week 2: October 10

Co-regulation in the Art Space

In psychology, co-regulation is defined as a "continuous unfolding of individual action that is susceptible to being continuously modified by the continuously changing actions of the partner".

~!~Wow~!~ What a beautiful, simple yet complex idea.

(Continuous, continuous, continuous.)

Using this definition, and applying it to the art space, I'm thinking about replacing the word "partner" with three different ideas: my artwork, the artwork that I interact with, and my art community.

...With my artwork-

Maybe artwork does not necessarily take continuously changing actions. However, it does serve to reflect and dialogue with my mood, my thoughts, and the space that we inhabit together.

Each time that I enter my studio, my completed works and works in progress say something new to me. And I work to react. Some ways that I may react include: moving a piece to a new place in the room, so it can catch the light a certain way; painting over a painting that I painted 4 months ago; pulling a small detail from an older piece and bringing it into new context.

Co-regulation with personal artwork gets more complicated when the work moves out of the studio and becomes visible to others. I'm not even going to go there.

...With artwork that I interact with-

In this case, the continuously changing actions of the work are mostly driven by the context. For example, I may see a photograph on Instagram and compare my experience to the experiences of the past 30 images that I just scrolled past. Later, I may see the same piece, printed large scale and framed in a gallery. It's my work, then, to adjust my perception to the new context.

Place matters, and so does background, information about the artist, personal memories, etc.

...With art community-

Co-regulating with the art community may be harder to define.

Do I modify my actions according to the actions of the art community? It's inevitable to a certain degree. However, I think it's important to be directly conscious of how my work dialogues with the work of artist friends, other artists in my city or region, and the larger art world. It's important to me to be part of that dialogue, no matter how small my voice.

What I’m listening to: Relational Somatics with Lucién Demaris on Healing Justice (Podcast)

What I'm looking at: David Onri Anderson (Paintings)

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