Books

Suffering Succotash

December 17, 2013December 17, 2013Ayin Es3 Comments

This just in!

All this talk about Carol Es une Monographie de Lignes. All this work. All the drawing is easy. I love it.

But all the scanning. All this Photoshoping – cleaning up little specks and pencil markings, discolorations and formatting the images – it’s all been getting to me. It’s just taking a long fucking time and I have been obsessing over it way too much, and that’s MY fault. I created my own deadline, and I create my own suffering. Me and only me. I do this to myself!

I think I can’t go back into the studio until I accomplish x,y, and z. I’m not the only artist that does this. It’s common. At least it’s common for those of us that are dedicated to the work. It’s a workaholic thing too. Either way, it’s some bullshit. We don’t have to do anything. Not if we invented it in the first place. We can create, and uncreate. Invent, and uninvent.

I invented this deadline for a few reasons and none of those reasons are important enough that I can’t change it. In fact, I’m not even going to make a date! Carol Es une Monographie de Lignes will get done when I finish it. It is hereby a “spare time” project. I’ll work on it (in Photoshop) when I’m bored. It is no longer the “front burner” project. In fact, there is hereby NO front burner project!

The only thing I “have to” do is make a pin drawing on a small panel, then map out a few more as an installation I will be doing at the Palm Springs Fine Art Fair February 13-16, 2014.

For now, I would like to get back into the studio. That is, if I have my own permission.

May I Carol?

Yes Carol, you may.

Okay. That’s it.

Now, before I forget, I would like to take the time to thank my friend Peter Clothier for mentioning me and my blog on his much more interesting blog, The Buddha Diaries. If you get a chance, please check it out because, not only is Peter a wonderful writer of art, art criticism, fiction and poetry, but he writes about everything under the sun, moon, and stars – including his personal life (and personally, I find that stuff the most interesting – the voyeur I am) – and, you just might find yourself discovering new things about the spiritual self you didn’t know you had. Seriously!

Also, I know it’s late in the fast-pace game of the art world and the world of media, but Mat, if you’re reading this, or if not (either way), I wanted to congratulate my good friend Mat Gleason for getting the cover of Arts and Culture section of the LA Times! A full article was written about Mat and Coagula, and the gallery, which you can read on line here. Mat doesn’t need the LA Times to legitimize his place in the Los Angeles art scene. We all know who he is and have seen the no-bullshit empire he has organically built from the ground up, honestly, 99% all by himself – punk rock style – over the last 20+ years. I just think the article is a damn BIG deal. At the same time I think it’s funny how long it takes the mainstream NEWSpaper to catch on to the Truth.

Just Wanna Hug my Easel

December 14, 2013December 15, 2013Ayin Es1 Comment

I finally am getting a handle on this book of drawings. Carol Es une Monographie de Lignes is going to have 60 drawings in it and I have finished many of them. I have 23 more to go and I don’t know what a handful of them are going to look like yet, but that is part of the fun!

What I really want is to just get back to painting. All I have been doing is thinking about painting and I haven’t painted in so very long. Drawing is important and I see how very important it truly is. It’s something that needs to be a daily practice if you want to be a painter. If you want to be an artist. If you want to communicate visually on a consistent basis. It exercises that part of your brain and makes it like a muscle that works itself out. You become Hercules! Lifting giant boulders gets to be really easy – but you’re going to get super bored if there are no boulders for you to easily lift!

Get me in the studio for Christ sake! For the sake of the baby Jesus, or for the sake of my sanity. I have never even met the baby Jesus, but I have met my bad brains, so just get me in there already!

A couple things I started – eons ago…

I started it at the same time I started the little one that I finished very recently – the one that I just posted in my last blog post. All I did with that one though, was added a spot color of turquoise, and it was done! I didn’t expect it to just happen like that, but that was all it needed. It was hard for me to walk away from it at that point too, but I did.

This one above, I have simple plans for as well, but not as simple as the last one.

Then, I have been thinking a LOT about my older work. I mean, not that old, but my work with all the patterns in them. The pattern paintings. And you know I stopped making any paintings with patterns in them this last year (don’t know if you noticed) because I thought I “should.” But between you and me, I actually have quite a lot of fun with that process! I have loved collage from as far back as I can remember.

I think I thought that I would not be evolving unless I gave it all up and just used paint, and nothing else for a while. Which I think I did. I have. But lately I have had an itch I need to scratch. I want to incorporate what I have been doing: the drawing, the painting, the simplicity, the new ideas – and bring it into the pattern painting process and see what happens.

I posted this piece as a Work-in-Progress on WetCanvas a couple days ago…

and someone said there was a foreboding feeling about it, which was very interesting.

I said, “this is actually a painting from 2004 or 2005 (I’d have to look it up because I signed it in the Hebrew year at the time.) It was part of a vertical triptych that I grew to dislike very much, so I decided to wreck it by breaking it up (recently) and I turned the middle piece (called Bulletproof) upside down and started painting the black arc lines.

Some of you guys got me thinking, as well as some others, and MYSELF, about my older work with the patterns. I felt like I HAD to give it all up or I wouldn’t be evolving, but maybe that’s not the case after all. Maybe I can incorporate it still and take it to another level. So it’s been on my mind.

So with this one, I feel like I was just playing around. I will finish it at some point, maybe before the new year. I hope.

The arc was like an entrance to something else – a new place, but still, a dark place. Or at least not a “funny” place. A serious place.”

But… I don’t know what the hell I am saying. All I know is that I’m just feeling a bit overwhelmed lately not being able to finish anything in particular. My list of things to do just goes on and on and on with no feeling of accomplishment in sight. Well — it’s in sight, but not for a while and I’m an impatient nut when it comes to finishing the task at hand.

I hope to finish the drawings for the book sometime in January.

I’d like to cut away from those book drawings and paint for a week straight the week of Xmas.

All I wanna do is spend some time in the studio. I wanna hug that easel of mine and welcome myself back into the fold.

A Swell Field of Rye

December 3, 2013December 3, 2013Ayin EsLeave a comment

Okay, so here’s a new painting. It’s called. Don’t Wait Up. It’s only 12 x 12 inches. (Oil on birch panel.)

But I haven’t been painting. I finished that like two weeks ago. Or something like that. I started it in the summer, if you can believe it.

I’ve been inundated with books. That chapbook. Houses. Then the one I’m working on now: Carol Es une Monographie de Lignes, which has become a lot more work than I had originally planned.

I originally planned 12 drawings for the first chapter, 29 for the second, eight for the third, and 10 for the fourth. That’s not the case at all anymore. I already have 16 and going for the first, 35 for the second, and hopefully I won’t go over on the last two. I may have to edit.

The thing is, I haven’t drawn all the drawings yet. I start them in pencil, then I go over them in black ink, then I try as hard as possible to erase whatever pencil is still there (but that’s impossible). Then, I have to scan them in and bring em into Photoshop, bring them up to 400% and go over every millimeter to make sure there are no spots, hairs, or light pencil marks on them. Whew!

Many of you Photoshop geeks probably think I should just use the magic wand on them, but as you know, that fucks up the edges of the natural line and makes them weird. I don’t like how that magic wand handles that, even if I contract them by 1 pixel, so I don’t like to use it. So there. Bleh.

So… I do it the hard way and go over it with my eye, and, very carefully, take a paintbrush and white out the specs of dust, and NO, I don’t have one of those mouse pen tablets. I do it with a plain old mouse, like some kind of savage!

Each drawing takes forever is what I’m telling you. Some take more time than others. For instance, editing this:

takes a lot less time than, say, something like this:

That’s just an example of the sorts of drawings that will be in the Invention and Preliminaries chapter – because they represent two different stages of my work over the years.

I may not even use that particular angel. I might use a different one. Or I might use another one, or even a few! I mean, I painted angels for a good 10 years.

Oh, you didn’t know that? Good! I’m not all that proud of it. It’s like hearing the music you played with your band from when you were a teenager. It’s a little embarrassing, although a lot of people liked them. I sold a lot of angel paintings. I must of made a few dozen at least.

Breaking away from that was weird. For years I could have sworn I was creating them under the ~~idea~~, or feeling, of lament for a lost lover. Someone I couldn’t get over for years and years – but then – one day – I realized…

Aaalll those paintings; all that paint; all that creativity, time, planning, emotion, tears and sadness; my guts splattered all over every canvas wasn’t about him at all. It was about me. I was the angel. Not him.

So I think that’s what made me stop painting angels. I’m pretty sure. Oh…that, and I fell in love with mjp.

Anyway, so off track. I sat down here to write because I wanted to vent. I wanted to get my feelings out. Ever need to just do that? Well I’m super-dooper in need of that right now!

You know what I remember most about Catcher in the Rye? It’s probably what everybody remembers for all I know, but it’s the end when he steps off the curb. I read it such a long time ago, so I don’t remember where he was going, but he was somewhere in Manhattan and he’s walking and he steps off the curb, and it was like he entered into the other side right then and there in that one step – out of reality. And in that moment, he goes into a dissociative state that he never returns from. Translation: he goes insane.

And it hits you that this is the point in the book where he goes crazy, yet it also hits you, that you’ve been on his side the entire time – he’s the protagonist after all – but it occurs to you that he has been crazy the entire time, but neither you nor he knew it.

When people said he was practically yelling, speaking too loudly, asking him to lower his voice – you realize now that he was in a manic state, not just passionate. It wasn’t the other people like he thought were weird. It was him! I don’t know about you, but right at that brilliant ending, all I wanted to do was flip back to the first page and read it all over again, having this new epiphany and a completely different point of view on Holden Caulfield at that new moment…

My point in all this really was not to talk about one of my favorite books of all time, no.

*sigh*

Lately – I am walking and I am feeling like the next step will be the one that goes on forever off the curb.

And I’m not sure what to do about it.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

I have a good friend coming over tomorrow after I see my doctor (my Lupus doc) and she is going to help me get a grip on my ultra awesome sewing machine that I’ve had for a long time (years) but really don’t know how to work. Maybe that will make me feel better?

So What’s Going On?

November 18, 2013November 18, 2013Ayin Es1 Comment

I never know what to write on this damn blog. I’d say it’s like the red recording light goes on and I freeze up, but it’s not like that at all. Because when I used to record music, that red recording light would come on, and it was like the very best would come out of my bones and muscles.

I think it’s more like where do I start? How do I catch up from the place I was before?

Usually, when I write, I seem to work out my troubles just by typing out the words. So maybe I should start there.

Lately, my mind has been chaotic. Too many untied loose ends everywhere, and this has caused me to start making lists again. I’ve been doing it for the past several months, but I haven’t been super neurotic about keeping up with it – which is a good thing. I used to have a list problem and I don’t want that to happen again. I used to make lists every day, sometimes more than once, and even if I did something that wasn’t on the list, I’d write it on there afterwards, put a box next to it, just so I could put an “X” in the box.

I think the medication has really helped me with being so crazy about lists. I haven’t made any in years. But lately, I’ve had so many miscellaneous things I’ve had to finish, that I had to make a list, just so I wouldn’t forget to finish up on all the things I really needed to get done, because I was starting to really forget!

But the more things that went on the list, the more overwhelmed I have become with how much shit I need to get done. Especially since everything isn’t even on the list! There are pending items as well.

For instance, I applied for a table at the next LA Art Book Fair at MOCA. If I get in, then if I thought I was busy now, then the shit is going to hit the fan! Not only will I have to get all my books together (not that big a deal), but I will be trying to get my new book together: Carol Es une Monographie de Lignes, and make a few original drawings inside those, plus drawings for the new chapbooks I still haven’t yet drawn in.

I also will want to make a bunch of new prints, like 16 Dans:

Some embellished etchings:

I will also be making prints of the cover of Today’s Quandary.:

dickvector

And a few other drawings I have up my sleeve…

If I don’t get it, I am still going to be busy in February because I am doing a small pin installation for Shulamit Gallery at the Palm Springs Fine Art Fair. It was almost a year ago now, when I went there last year and wound up crying my eyes out at that stupid fair, but I have a feeling that this year it’s going to be much, much better. 🙂

Speaking of fairs, as you know, Miami week is coming up and I will be with Shulamit at booth E21 at CONTEXT. They will have a large drawing installation of mine there, as part of my Journal Project, so if you are going – please check it out and tell me if they installed it correctly. 😉 Just kidding, I know they will. I trust them.

I have been working on my drawings for the new book, while finishing up two small paintings that I started in the summer, and of course, I stupidly started yet another. But it’s only like 11 x 14 inches, really small, so it’s like not starting any new painting at all, right? Right.

I finished the little 12 x 12 inch one. I just haven’t been able to get a good picture of it.

My hair is different now. I still have dreadlocks, but I brushed out about 15 of my front dreads, and cut them into bangs – which was a giant decision! Then I colored the ends of many of my dreads so that they could actually be deciphered as separate dreadlocks because it looked like I just had a pile of brown poops on my head. Now I look quite a bit more festive. mjp took a picture, see?

Quick EDIT:

I thought it would be fun to show you a sneak peek of the Shulamit booth at CONTEXT MIAMI:

Art Miami 2013 November 7, 2013 Shulamit Gallery (1)

What am I? Winner? Loser? Role Model for Narcissists?

October 18, 2013October 18, 2013Ayin Es2 Comments

I’ve been working on that COLA grant and not much in the way of art. I forgot about that damn thing. Saying “the COLA grant” is just a short way of saying the 2014-15 City of Los Angeles’ Department of Cultural Affairs Grant Program Application for the Individual Artist Master Fellowship.

I have applied for this grant every year since I have been eligible. You are eligible when you have had 15 or more years of professional experience. The only year I did not apply was last year. I guess I was just disheartened and felt like it was useless to apply anymore, so I don’t know why I am applying now, but I am. A friend of mine won last year. Actually, a friend of mine wins every year. Every year, at least one or two people I know pretty well wins. Same goes for the CalFund.

However, I applied for the Pollock-Krasner award seven times before I finally got it. I’m sure I have mentioned that thousands of times. I mention that because I want to be encouraging to other artists to keep trying. Don’t get discouraged. Stay on track. Keep going. Don’t let those poopers get you down. Yet here I am complaining.

You tell me. How can I express my own frustrations and honest insecurities while trying to be some sort of role model? That’s a toughy. Because I try to be candid as I possibly can here. I’m not full of shit. I might be full of myself, and I might not even be anybody’s role model, but I really do want to help other artists that are trying to do what I’m doing. I certainly know what it’s like – the feeling of running in place and getting nowhere. You look down and see that you’re just digging a hole into the dirt. And when you do that, there’s nothing else to do but climb out of it. There is nothing else to do. No one else is going to pull you out either.

Sure, you might have the good fortune of having a loving partner or friends, or a loving mom that tells you that you’re wonderful. That your art is fabulous. “You’re the biggest genius on the face of the Earth!” That’s nice to hear. But you and I know it goes in one ear and out the other when you don’t feel the same way about it than they do. YOU have to feel it. And you can get grants and awards and win the MacArthur (wouldn’t that be something!?), but other than taking you out of poverty for the moment, it’s not going to change how you feel about your art. Trust me. You have to believe in yourself. That’s why there’s nothing else to do than to dig yourself out of the hole and keep going.

But I wasn’t even going to talk about that. Nope. I really wasn’t. I was going to show you a few of my mediocre, colored pencil drawings that I happened to scan from some of the Today’s Quandary. books. Here are a strange few:

Lastly, but not leastly, I have another painting on the Huffington Post’s Image Blog! That’s always nice. Good promotion. I think anyway. No, I KNOW! I am grateful as all hell to be on that site. It’s kind of surreal that I have my own art on there, and that I can blog on there whenever I want as well. I just need to get my article writing chops up to par.

Anywho, thanks for reading, you!

Now I’m going to make a CD for my little sister of music that I myself have played on as the drummer. But I have to make it “age appropriate.” Now that’s going to be a challenge. No, not from the Extinct. It’s the band Circle of Power that’s going to be a problem. She loves rap too. A real quandary that is.