Some Things From My Studio
An Artletter Through My Mind
There have been many things on my mind for the last several months. I continually question the purpose and meaning of my work in the broader context. A question I have begins to develop into a physical form (an artwork), and I then remember: art is a visual language that asks us to remember, to question, to interrogate, to explore (an artist’s favorite word), to examine, to ponder, and in some cases, to simply sit with.
When chaos enters the group chat (aka my mind), the only way I know how to sort through it is by asking questions and then questioning where those questions come from.
Using art as a way to work through these never-ending questions is the visual language I need to see, so that my world and our world make sense to me. This Artletter shares a few questions I have, a few of my artworks, and the art I have been looking at.
Question your questions and make your own answers,
With Love,
Ciarra K. Walters
Thinking About Movement:
My solo exhibition Above, Below, Within: Ciarra K. Walters recently opened at the Bronzville Center for the Arts in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is my first show focusing solely on my performance practice. I’ll talk more about the exhibition in another Artletter, I promise, but I wanted to take a second to mention the importance of movement.
Our emotions need space within our bodies. Our minds need time to rest, and our bodies need time to release. Movement is a way to do that. The way to rid the overthinking, anxiety, and just the overwhelming emotions of being alive…is through intentional movement. As Spring springs in, remember to take yourself outside and move your body, in whatever way feels good to you.
Flowing Water was shot on November 12, 2026, on my mother’s birthday, in Alexandria, Virginia.
An Exploration of Time and Memory
For the last four years, I have been questioning fragility and our human relationship to it. The eggshells have been a material I just can’t seem to get away from. In 2025, I made a three-layer “painting” titled Untitled (A Fragile Memory). 1st layer: eggshells paint/paste. 2nd: A small silkscreen print. 3rd: Wet Japanese handmade paper. When it dried, I thought I would be able to see the silkscreen, but the layer of Japanese paper made it foggy, creating an almost haunting image.
I was ready to destroy it, but instead I hung it on my studio wall. A few weeks passed before I saw something different. The blurred silkscreen made me think about how time blurs memory.
That silkscreen print is an image from one of my first Fragility Performances in grad school. Like that image in this painting, that memory is slowly slipping away, just like the memories that led to this work (losing my mother) and that first performance. All blurred by time.
This piece has had me thinking about the fragility of our memory. As I continue to age, I am constantly thinking about ways to preserve my memory. Because what is our existence without our memory?
In a time where photographers are overlooked and photographs are underappreciated, I pose the question: how do we remember without photographs? I recently read that memory is the most important function of the brain. Without it, there would be nothing to tie us to our past.
This has led me to more questions:
Without our pasts, who are we? How do we become?
Just Some Things:
My favorite thing to do is throw on an artist talk or interview while I’m in the studio or doing chores in the house. I came across this early 1980s interview of Jean Michel Basquiat and interviewer Patti Astor (who was kind of an ass). This isn’t the full interview, but half of it is here. I absolutely hated the way Astor spoke to Basquiat. From his tone to the questions he asked, it was clear (to me at least) that Patti was not a fan and did not respect Basquiat’s work. I loved how Basquiat responded to his questions, though. Like the interviewer, he is unserious, funny, and snickers the disrespect away.
10/10 recommend watching this. Kerry James Marshall's talks will always be a source I return to to help me answer my many questions. While making new work for the LA group exhibition, Giving you the best that I got, I listened to Marshall. This is one of my favorite recorded talks by him at the MCA in Chicago in 2016.
Books:
Audiobooks:
Sally Mann’s Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs
Marina Abramovic’s Walk Through Walls
Spending too much time on my screens and working to reduce that time, I have fallen in love with Audiobooks, specifically the ones narrated by the authors. Both Sally Mann’s and Marina Abramovic’s books are narrated by themselves.
Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs takes us through the lives of Sally, her husband, her husband’s family, and her side of the family. The way she weaves one story into the next, it never leaves for a dull moment. She paints a picture of the South that shows its beauty and exposes its horrors, which I appreciate coming from a white woman from Virginia. Her matter-of-fact language and tone are soothing and captivating. 8/10 recommend.
Walk Through Walls is a wild ride. Marina has lived many lives, but what has always remained evident in them all, in the words of Ai Weiwei, “Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it.” This saying is true about Marina. Her curiosity about life and ability to transform her questions and thoughts into movement, stillness, routine, and repetition are admirable and beyond inspiring. She is funny, serious, and full of stories from her artwork to her personal life. 10/10 recommend (I listened to it twice!)
Artwork:
David Hammons, Pray for America, 1969, Screenprint and pigment on paper
A few years ago, in a Studio Museum archives sale, I was lucky enough to snag the original poster from their 1985 exhibition, Tradition and Conflict: Images of a Turbulent Decade 1963-1973, featuring David Hammons’ body print, Pray for America.
I forgot about this work until I saw an old photo of the poster in my room. (See how a picture fed my memory) Pray for America. Because let’s face it, our country needs all the prayers we can get. Night after night, I think about ICE and how masked men kidnap people, whether you are a citizen or not. I think about the citizens of Iran and Palestine. Or how AI is rapidly taking over industries (as many of us predicted), and as a result, many people have lost their jobs or cannot find jobs. Or the ZERO job security in any industry, leaving us to question whether we will be out of a job sooner rather than later. What will happen if we cannot afford healthcare as independent contractors, freelancers, and artists? Who has the right to food and clean water? Headline after headline, more questions arise.
After Assata died, my sister, Hallie, said while crying, “She never got to come back home.” She never got to come back home.
Now you won’t catch me wearing an American flag, but America is my home. This is where I was born and raised. I don’t want to give up my country. I cannot erase how half of my family got here (through slavery), and how another part of my family chose to be here. And that choice has not only given me countless opportunities, but has also done the same for many members of my family in the Philippines.
At this time, when we question the direction our nation is going, we also need to question our part in that direction. What are we doing for ourselves and for each other to better the land we live on? How do we directly uplift the neighborhoods we live in? What do we want this country to look like?
I believe anything is possible, and we have the right (and opportunity) to imagine and put into practice the country we want to live in.
Artworks:
Yoko Ono and John Lennon, Bed-in, 1969, & Yoko Ono, Imagine Peace, 2022
As of lately, I have been thinking about Yoko Ono frequently. Her determination to spread love, even as one of the most hated women in the world, inspires me.
In my Artletter reviewing Ono’s most recent show at the MCA in Chicago, I wrote,
“What stood out the most to me is Ono’s throughline of advocating peace in her practice. During WWII, as a child, Ono lived through the bombings in Japan, and later in life, she violently lost her husband, John. It amazed me how this woman has continuously chosen peace after experiencing such horrors. Like Jack Whitten, instead of choosing violence, she chose her art. And in that, she has painted a world of peace and used her work to unite us and help us imagine another world and another way of being…together.”
Love is the answer to free us. It is clear in our society that we are not choosing love. Choosing to love ourselves, our neighbors, and our land. There seems to be a lack of love everywhere, and I don’t want us to forget that love is the most powerful emotion. Love is not easy. It is a choice. We have to choose to love, and that choice, unfortunately, takes more time and energy than hate or anger. Love is more than a feeling. It is action, it is discipline, it is conscious energy we choose to create, give, and keep.
As Ono said, imagine peace. When you imagine it, what does that look like in 2026? What does that feel like?
You can read my review of Yoko Ono’s Music of the Mind exhibition here.
Thanks for reading ;)
Deeply grateful for your spirit, artworks, writing, and insights.