foul mood

I am in a foul mood for one reason or another, so I thought I would rant a bit about my subject of choice.
The New York Times had an article in the Arts section today about a four year old whose paintings are being compared to Jackson Pollock’s. Well, duh. That is not a hard one figure out. They are quite similar. I have seen his paintings as well as the kid’s. Nearly identical. Now, I am all for creativity and people calling whatever they want to call art art and I understand the movement of the time. I think it should be left to the creator of the work. A friend sent over a story about some dude’s installation in some fancy museum being mistaken by the janitor for trash, so the janitor threw it out. If its art to the artist and the fancy museum curator, fine. The thing that really annoys me is that all of this work, the little kid’s paintings, Pollock’s work and the ‘trash’ installation all sell for ridiculous amounts of money. Artists like to crawl up their own behinds and take themselves really seriously and make all kinds of deep statements that they feel should be worth somebody’s yearly salary to own. Folks in the art industry promote this. I don’t like artists myself. They are flaky…and weird. To assume that your painting or whatever your craft is really worth so much money is arrogant. People buy it because people will buy anything especially if there is enough hype and they think they are the only ones to have it. Its an investment. It has little to do with art. And the perpetuation of that practice has been virtually the death of art… or at least the institutionalization of it. It becomes inaccessible and gives the illusion that you have some rare talent or insight into some mystery and thus should be highly paid for it.. Obviously not true from looking at the kid’s art and Pollock’s art. Its the same. Shoot, I could do it….

pony ride

My sister and I jokingly refer to my rare opportunities to ride horses as my ‘pony ride’. She is an accomplished rider and riding instructor and is tolerant of me in the ring riding around while she teaches. I have loved horses all my life. Horses sent me on the quest to become an artist. As a kid I would copy pictures of horses onto loose leaf paper with a number 2 pencil. I had a binder full of drawings of horses….just horses. So for me the rare chance I get to be around them is like eating nothing but junk food for a day or traveling somewhere exciting. Maybe heaven. As the problems with my hip get worse I really don’t know how far I can go with riding. It is a issue that has begun to effect sitting at my drafting table, as well. Any extended period of immobility causes me discomfort. I often lament to my husband that I had not a thing wrong with me until I entered my thirties. Then came some sort of unidentifiable hip issue, allergies and the big one: endometriosis. I am convinced that they are all tied together somehow….someway and that they are meant to be. So, when I get to embark on a ‘pony ride’ I experience a hint of heaven and when my infirmities speak I remember that I am not supposed to live here…….

fast food entertainment

I decided a few months ago that television is slowly eating away my life and that I needed to read more so I started ‘Joan of Arc- Her Story’ by Regine Pernoud. I found it really hard to absorb being written in a academic style. So I picked up ‘Hemingway’ by Kenneth Lynn……I still had a hard time wanting to skip passages and get on with it. I suddenly realized how damaging t.v. has been…… I want to use a remote control for the books as well to get to the interesting parts. Fast food entertainment has made me REALLY LAZY. And though we don’t watch nearly as much television as a lot of folks, I am totally shocked at how much it has formed how I work. When I begin a new painting I find myself demanding subconsciously that it already be done or that I should just easily create the work and get on with the next. I am so divided in my focus jumping from one thing to the next like flipping channels. I hate that.

the great aloneness

There is a great aloneness to making art. No one tells you which ideas to pursue or how to convey those ideas. In each moment that an aspect of a work is confronted…a direction chosen in its progression…the death of countless others occurs. And when the completion of that work comes there is almost a mourning over what a piece could have been had you chosen another approach. So the decision making process in creating a work of art is overwhelming. With artists like myself who work largely from a surreal and imagined realm these issues are magnified ten-fold. I don’t use a set of rules and techniques to tell me how to work and I don’t copy from what I see. Those who work in this way have most of their work done for them once they master the assigned rules. Someone long before has already figured out the techniques and someone has already created the subject. On the rare occasion that I work from conscious reality not only do I find fewer challenges but I also find myself less interested…..

vincent

….in the low tide of my creative ocean. One of my heroes Vincent Van Gogh produced over 2,100 works in his short lifetime…..but then again he also shot himself at 37.

Most things have been on the back burner as we begin planning our move to D.C. in pursuit of graduate school. It is unbelievably expensive to live in the metro area and we are awaking to the reality that Atlanta is one of the most affordable cities in which to live….we didn’t know just how good we have it. As daunting as the high rents, pet rent (what a rip-off…), and ridiculous non-refundable deposits are to a student and an artist, we push on. Our life philosophy with shoes on……

I saw some guy with a t-shirt on that said "A lot of art is boring"……..right on.

Fruit Pie Factory

Craig and I like to compare dreams we’ve had thinking our dream can out do the others in weirdness. Mine are always bizarre and novel-like. So this morning he tells me about his dream that he was in class and all the students in there were none of the people that are actually in the class and then some girl stands up and offers favors to the professor in exchange for a good grade. What’s weird about that? I knew I had won this one…

In my dream I was a nine year old werewolf boy who was the head of a large and successful fruit pie industry. I lived in a big mansion and often visited my factory down the road. My fruit pie factory employed a unique hydrolic system to make the pies and on one visit I fell into the hydrolic system which was much like a big fast moving moat. I was in trouble because I was small and could not swim well. But because I was not liked as an employer, the employees took their time getting me out and left me along the moat where. being exhausted, I slept for the night. Upon waking I was angered to see that my servant had not taken me home or even brought me a blanket, so I chased her down in my car and shot her with an antique rifle. Then, of course, I had to flee. I was pursued by Frankie Muniz, the kid from ‘Malcolm in the Middle’ who was intent on turning me in….. no wonder I am always tired in the morning.

I'm glad you got to see me........

Me with my granddad and grandma…

My grandfather passed away a few weeks ago. It really is the end of an era for our family. He is the patriarch of the family…a sort of firstborn of a family of five children and thirteen grandkids. A few months ago I saw him. His health had really deteriorated and a bunch of the family were all hanging about the house. He wasn’t feeling well and was in a mood and he looked at me and said of his house full of family, "I am the one who started all this mess".
A wonderfully intellegent and witty man, he had lots of great true stories and exaggerated tales of life as a sailor as well as too-the-point advice and opinions on various matters. My mother always said, "There are two things you do not discuss with daddy. Politics and religion". These are subjects that he had the opportunity to offend many folks about over the course of his life.

Of the dozen or so grandchildren I am number two. Up until recently my aunts, uncles and cousins have all pretty much stayed in the tidewater area. I was the black sheep that left the flock in my teens, but my first fifteen years I saw him and my grandmother often because we did a lot of family things together then. Without fail when we would leave his house he would always say, "I’m glad you got to see me". Thats the common experience we ALL had with him. He said that to everyone. We even talked about that at his viewing..something humerous to remember. But I have my own personal memories. My graddad is responsible for my love of butterscotch candy and honeysuckle blossoms, two lovely and simple things for a granddaughter to remember a grandfather by.
Thanks, granddaddy. I am glad I got to see you, too.

the creative life

A fine commentary on art critics…..the painting “The Experts” by Decamps…..brilliant.
We’ve been away and it has been difficult to get back into the flow. Creative work is different. One cannot 9 to 5 it…… although there is the voice that echoes in the corner of my mind to squeeze the work into a standard progression. But its dangerous and damaging to make circular creativity fit into the square hole of a work day. It is all day every day, the creative life. I find it soaks everything I do from cooking to repairing old furniture and it is the breath of life for me.

the beast

I have had more than a few people comment that the characters in my work look just like me. Well, of course. And I completely embrace that. I never noticed it before, but that makes total sense. My work is about me and what is in me. It isn’t about reflecting what is on the outside. That is an easy task. My work is about mining and exposing the beast….. and the exposure of that beast is absolutely essential to becoming fully creative and in finding out who you REALLY are. Look at artwork and you can see plainly who is mining and who is mimicking (and let me say that mimicking is fine if that is your thing…). Like mining work or not, it is stark in its obviousness of TRUTH. It is the artists’ own work…. out of the soul of that person. There is nothing more exciting than that.

to post or ot to post

I have been vacillating on the proposition of actually posting the diary. Being a rather private person and being riddled with the faint hue of something called fear of rejection, I wavered, but as I have walked these last months the philosophy that I hold concerning art has been greatly challenged and continues to bubble up in my life… maybe someone might benefit, and if not, I benefit enormously by just putting it into space. A catharsis, if you will.
There are recurrent themes or objects in the work of an artist. We are prone to force ourselves away from these if the fear of repeating ourselves. Or we ignore them because of the pressure of wanting to fit in. But the repetition of them is a very reflection of the soul.. it is who you are as an artist. Though there may be a deepening and transforming of these elements as an artist grows, they remain interwoven into the structure of the work in some way. The stamp of the unique soul……

traditionalism

DEATH TO THE ART NAZI. Traditionalism is the death of the creative process. I am now convinced of this. The perpetuation of the elitist attitude in the world of art is the demise of real art. Art is one of the few wonders of the world that is completely subjective and the idea that an artist is only an artist if he or she completes a checklist of technical acrobatics is wholly antithetical to the heart and soul of the creative process! I liken it to religion. Do these things well and you are an artist… don’t do them or do them "poorly" (whatever that means) or have no interest in them and you cannot possibly be an artist. Ah! The pharisees and the true followers…. very distinct.