Art & Process

How Thouse Thou Blog?

May 17, 2013May 17, 2013Ayin EsLeave a comment

I keep telling myself that I will start writing a new blog post at least twice a week. How do people do that, I wonder? Especially working artists. Especially working artists that are also writing a book, with friends and a life, that go to art shows, that have partners, that like to garden and watch a bit of TV, go to a couple of movies a month and have a dog?

If you have the answer to these questions, please reply, or email me. I’d like to know.

Since I have blogged, or rather, wrote the little review about the Avenue 50 show, Seven Beauties, on the Huffington Post, I have finished a couple of new paintings. Perhaps one of them I finished before that, called In Training. I mentioned it in a previous blog post. I was nearly finished with it then, but I had to allow that yellow to dry before I went back and cleaned up those black outlines. So here it is finished:

This is like the rest of the series: 24 x 24 inches, Oil on birch panel.

Yellow takes forever to dry, as I am learning – so does orange! I am still working on Rabbi Says. So in the meantime, I finished up another piece that I now know is my most favorite in the whole series! It only took two days, but I thought about it for a month. I even want it to be the cover for my book, if that’s possible. It’s called, Survivor: 24 x 24 inches, oil on birch panel:

Still wet, I took these and about 4 others with me to Shulamit Gallery yesterday down at Venice Beach. We had been trying to set up a meeting for a few weeks, actually for a studio visit, but that’s not going to happen until July. So, they asked me if I could come there with a few originals and paper works along with a few of my artists’ books. I would up staying there for nearly three hours. It went very well and we all know each other a little better. What will become of it, I do not know because I’m not absolutely sure I want to be in a gallery again just yet.

But maybe by the time they offer me something, IF they offer me something, I will be.

In the meantime, I just feel so good about painting right now, I’m just going to keep on going on my merry way. I am loving this path.

Speaking of the book, I finally got back to working on it just a bit. I even interviewed a couple people from my past and I think that is going to help me a little in writing this because we don’t always remember things exactly the way they happened. I probably will only use a fraction of these interviews, but I think it’s good to reconnect, let people know they might appear in the manuscript, and in what context – especially if I am going to be making fun of them.

No one gets made fun of more than me, and that I can guarantee all of them!

One of them was an ex-boyfriend. He is significant for a few of reasons. First of all, he pretty much turned me on to oil painting. The relationship was a whirlwind: very unlike me to move in with someone so fast, and then it ended as fast as it flew together, yet I learned a lot about art: the application of it, a little bit about the sales of it, the dichotomy of it, and some of the hard lessons. I think he was the first person I dated outside of my own circles and I learned a lot about sharing, compromise, tolerance, acceptance, all in such a short amount of time. At the time, I am not sure I even knew I was learning this. Ha!

I also am importing in a shit load of data from, get this, on-line forum dialog! I have typed more about my viewpoints on art than I have even talked about to any one person. So now I have to weed through all of that stuff and use it where it’s usable.

I was also lucky enough to make a couple of sales in the past couple weeks so I could get more panels – small ones – so in the next couple months I will have more affordable works on hand, which I think is smart.

That’s all for now.

Spring Newsletter Addendum

May 3, 2013February 14, 2022Ayin EsLeave a comment

Yesterday, late afternoon, I sent out my Spring Newsletter. It was the first time I ever used Mail Chimp, which is an email marketing/list manager. There were some good things and not so good things about it, but even worse, I was so impatient to send out the letter in the new template, I neither proofread it or edited it!

Now I am mortified.

First of all, in my Google account, my contacts are beautifully organized. I have my Newsletter List: People I know want to receive my seasonal newsletters because they specifically signed up for them, or I personally asked them if they wanted to be on the list – and they agreed. Then I have my SoCal List: Local People I promote to when I am having a significant exhibition in the Los Angeles Area; my Promote List: Galleries and news media that might like to know about a press release that relates to art, particularly mine; No Spam: People that do not want any mail from me unless it is personal; Family: A group of top priority people that are, or might as well be, family; Book Promote: BookArts people that I can promote to when I have a new handmade book to pedal.

But, when I tried to import my Newsletter List into the Monkey Mail, it pulled in every contact I ever had. So, I have annoyed every contact on all my other lists. Shame, shame, SHAME on me!

Now, for the actual writing in the newsletter, WHAT AN EMBARRASSMENT! I probably started three different chains of thought that I never even finished. I just left them floating out in space like some kind of airhead. THEN, there was reference to spin art that I DID edit out, yet I referred to it later in the paragraph, giving the reader no sign or signal as to why I would mention LSD or “spinning,” which only made me look like a complete ding dong!

What I meant to say there was: what if there was an artist that created circular spin splatter paintings, and that was all he did for 20 years? Every day, he went into his studio and created these paintings that all looked extremely similar to one another and he sold every single one of them for a large amount of money. Enough money to pay for his house, his car, his wife’s, and put his three kids through college. A LOT of money. Do you think he is doing these paintings for himself, the money, the process, his audience, the father that never loved him, some or all of the above?

That was really the question I was posing.

What I didn’t share then afterwards, was my own personal strife, outcome, realization, etc. regarding the same question: Who am I trying to please? And all this time before I recently pondered this question, who was I trying to please?

Wow, so many people other than me. Mostly, the made-up God in my head. Do you have one of those? In psychology it is called the Super Ego. That was usually my problem, and not just with art.

Now, it must be me. Id, id, id, id, id! I want to paint what I want to see. Period. Life is too short to try for anything else. That million dollar idea…what if I didn’t like how it looked? It would probably look stupid. Look at all the other million dollar ideas out there. Would you want that over your fireplace? There are very few I would want to own. I know what I like and I know I can make it, so there it is.

Now, I know there were some other points in that newsletter I forgot to tie up, but I’m starting to get spaced out again. So, until I can just trade my brain in for something better, see you on the flip-flop.

Art and Madness, Jews and Sadness

April 29, 2013April 29, 2013Ayin Es4 Comments

Let’s see, what the hell have I been doin’ that I can’t write a measly blog post for the last several days? And how can I be tired?

I know I have been painting. I am nearly done with number 6, which is now called, In Training.

Took a while. Now I have to let that yellow oil paint dry before I can go back in there with the black and tighten up my mistakes. There were plenty.

You saw the black one already (King of This, AKA Number 4), so I can’t use that one as an excuse. Number 5, Rabbi Says, will take the longest time of all because I am painting around words, but I do not think I have even shown the preliminary drawing for that one – or anything about that one yet. Okay, so here it is so far. It doesn’t look like much yet:

So far I have done the black, the white and the purple. It really doesn’t look very spectacular does it? I have a kind of half sketch/half Photoshop deal. I’ll pull that in…

That gives a better idea, I mean, without the painterly feel, because I lay the paint on pretty thick. You should see my art in person sometime.

I went through a lot of hemming and hawing with this fucking thing too. The cartoony rabbi, should he be there or not? Should he be there like that or not? I tried numerous alternatives. The rabbi was represented differently: as a black hat on a stick, as a hei, a hei with a hat, with and without peyos (the little curly hairs on the sides of, usually, an Orthodox Jewish man’s head), a more “proper” cartoon – that one would consider more “respectful” of the rabbi, yet it’s not about The Rabbi in particular exactly, and it’s not about Judaism either!

However, I am referring to Rabbi Moshe Feinstein. THE Reb Moshe (1895-1986). Descendant of writers of the Talmud, Father of North American Jewish Law and blah blah blah…

Now, I have a big problem with authority on anything. That’s just how I am. But part of being Jewish is to question, to study, to learn, and to be a scholar as much as possible. Reb Moshe would have told us that. Even the meaning of Israel, which Jacob was renamed for, is “one who wrestles with God.” It is supposed to be a struggle. So I chose to leave the funny looking rabbi the way he was! And still, I struggle with it.

He is spouting out part of an actual quote of Rabbi Feinstein’s, which says, “There are many times when a person feels that he cannot move forward because a dark cloud hangs over him. One should know, however, that nothing can stop him! Sometimes one can make a path through the cloud…”

Pretty nice, eh? Ya, I liked it.

Now, likewise, I had pause with the wheels on In Training –

still on the cartoony thing, stay with me…

I thought to my self, self, should I put wheels on this composition? Should I leave it be? Without them, it’s more of a “grown up” work of art. Or is it design? Shit, I sure as hell don’t want it to be that! I do think putting wheels on it would be pretty funny. But then, does that make my work a joke? Maybe all my work is a fucking joke! Uh oh. It will make it “cute.” There’s that “cute” thing again. Run away-run away! …but you can’t run away from your self…

Okay, so. I can’t control it if someone else thinks my work is “cute.” Let em. I’m quite serious – well, I mean, about my art. I am very serious about my art actually. Can’t you people see that? As far as making it a bit funny, well, I can’t help it. If I could be a comedian, I’d do it. But alas, I don’t think even I am that depressed.

Ohhhh, bad stab and my comic pals. I apologize. But they get paid about as much as I do, and they are far more talented.

Anyhow, Funny-looking rabbi with one leg and sharp teeth, kooky wheels on my figure 8 design, little feet on most everything else, and I wonder why I can’t afford gas.

however, that nothing

April 23, 2013April 23, 2013Ayin EsLeave a comment

Here is a new painting! Number 4:

It is called, “King of This.” It’s 24 x 24 inches, oil and pencil on birch panel.

I betcha wouldn’t think that would take a long time, but it did. Oy vhey did it ever. I can’t say why. I hardly know why myself, but here it is now, finished.

The one that is taking the most time, and believe me, I have been working on it between all these other ones, is Number 5, “Rabbi Says.” It has a partial quote on it from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein going around in a sort of spiral and I previously had to paint the outlines, then the lettering, and now I am painting the colors around the letters. Today I painted around the words, “however, that nothing” and it’s not that it took all day, it just took a long fucking time!

Before that I spent a longer time messing about with the photograph above in Photoshop, and before that I was at the post office, if you must know.

Here is Number 6 on my easel:

Change of Plans: No More Seven or Eight

April 9, 2013April 10, 2013Ayin EsLeave a comment

No more seven or eight in that grouping of new paintings I’ve been talking about for the last two weeks. Try more like six.

I just took an inventory in my studio, which didn’t take long, because I have plum run out of canvases and panels!

Back in 2009, when I won the Pollock-Krasner award, I stocked up on supplies. I mean I stocked up like there was going to be no tomorrow or a nuclear war or something!

I used most of that money and bought as many art supplies as I could fit in my garage studio – and that was when I knew I’d have a second studio. So I was flush for about four or five years. I’m not joking.

Well, it’s been about four years now – and it’s not like I don’t have anything to paint on. I have a fair amount of big stuff. I could paint out the rest of this year, and probably into half, or more, of 2014. I have a few 34-inch, 36-inch, and up to 60-inch canvases here, but I made a decision a while ago, and that was: paint smaller.

Why?

The hard truth of selling those sizes translates into $4750 to $8250, and last time I looked, there’s been an economic recession for even the upper middle class (well, they seem to say so) since around 2008.

Whether that’s true or not, things like art are not in these God-fearing American’s sights – unless they are tried and true investments. And I know where I stand. I’m not a full-time idiot.

So, for edjumacated purposes, I am keeping my painting sizes at $3K and under. Well, with the minor exception of a few that crack the $4K barrier. Because some ideas require BIGGER SPACE! Ya know what I mean, bean?

Now, if you think that $4k sounds like a lot of money, don’t even make me begin to justify it. Don’t make me compare being an artist to people with “normal” jobs. Please don’t make me talk about how many hours we put in next to the 40-hour-weeker people. Don’t make me give you a slice of reality. Please stop, no, don’t…

Okay, well, usually, if you are lucky enough to have a gallery that represents you, or that will host a show for you, and, you can manage to get your solo show together once a year – that is – if you work at lightening speeds – most exhibits only hang for about four short weeks. You have one month out of the year to bring your buyers to the slaughter.

But the reality: you will have a solo every year and a half to two years, if you have a venue. That’s really about the pace you’d be able to get enough new work completed to exhibit. Because you’re looking at getting together 12-18 pieces in a full rage of sizes and price points.

Now, if you’re going to sell any of these masterpieces, 10 to 1, it will be on the night at the opening reception. I have never understood this personally. Why would someone spend so much money on an impulse buy?

You’d think they’d want to go home and think about it for a while, push a few numbers, take a few measurements, and come back when they’re sure, but that’s not how it works with art.

They are usually afraid someone else might get it before them, so they buy it before someone else gets it and that’s usually the frenzy of the opening night, and it’s usually between the early part of the night and the height to the evening. Not when it slows down and people start to say goodbye.

Then, when you do sell, 50% of any sales you make go to the gallery that so graciously lent you their walls. You also have to split, but not always, any advertising you did for the exhibit, wine and cheese, etc., and sometimes, but not always, the invitations and stamps.

So let’s say you sold two of your larger pieces at $8K, three of your 30-inch pieces at $4200, and two of your $5K pieces? Provided you were able to make all those in a year’s time, plus a few little ones. Oy! Like you were some kind of Keebler elf! I mean, this would be almost a sell out show! This is pretty damn good! Reason to celebrate. Your peers would be seething in jealousy – yet happy for you too (don’t get me wrong).

But you have only made $17,300 for the whole year before taxes and any Chex Mix fees you have yet to pay back. If you are the main bread winner of your house, let’s hope he or she doesn’t leave you, and good luck — I am really sorry if you have children in this picture.

Personally, I haven’t raised my prices since 2009! Everyone else in this recession has, yet people still balk when they hear any price of any size painting.

Since I left the gallery, I’ve finally been going through some things and I have been slightly pulling down the prices of my larger pieces even more! But I have been pulling the prices of my smaller works on paper UP, slightly. Everything else is the same, more or less.

If some of you thought I was going to slash my prices in half because I left my gallery, you were wrong.

So I will be doing a lot of work on paper after I finish up these last six ideas. Okay, maybe I’ll do seven, but certainly not eight. I just don’t have enough panels.

I LOVE working on paper, so it’s not like it’s a jail sentence. I can’t wait really. I have a ton of paper. I love paper. Paper turns me on baby!