Kvetches

Jealous of You

May 23, 2014May 23, 2014Ayin EsLeave a comment

Do I get jealous of you? Isn’t jealousy a natural feeling? Animals get jealous. I see my dog get that way all the time.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with jealousy. I think it’s a good thing.

I’m talking about as an artist.

As a drummer, this feeling inspired me. I loved it when someone was better than me. I really did. It made me happy. Few things make me happy.

But there’s a big difference between envy and schadenfreude, or hating someone for their successes. I guess it’s all how you channel it.

In music it was a lot easier. It inspired me when someone was a better drummer. Maybe it was a little harder when it was a closer competition though, I will admit that. Like if another drummer was auditioning for the same gig – of course I didn’t want him to get it over me. I suppose I hoping for some misfortune to rain down upon him. Ha! (Nothing too serious, of course.)

Okay, I’m guilty.

I guess what got me thinking about this is because I normally don’t mind the fact that I generally like other people’s art more than my own. I mean, I do. If I didn’t, I’d hang my own art all over my house. I like my own art, don’t get me wrong, but I’m too fickle about it. There are days I really hate it with a passion.

I don’t get that way with other people’s work. If I love it, I usually keep loving it more with time.

What am I getting at exactly?

Well, my friend, Brian Novatny, is having his first solo show in many years. He is showing all new paintings and drawings and his style has evolved drastically over all this time, and now, I am absolutely in love with the work I have seen of his so far, especially this painting:

BRIAN NOVATNY, SAILOR'S DIARY — BRIAN NOVATNY, SAILOR’S DIARY

He sent it to me in the invite for his upcoming show, which opens next Thursday at 6:PM at Mulherin + Pollard in NYC.

I used to show with Brian at George Billis Gallery. In fact, we were supposed to have a 2-person show in 2010, but some stuff happened that I can’t talk about. The “stuff” made us both mad and that made us bond over some drinks in Chelsea, then again the next night on the Lower East Side, then again the next night somewhere else, I’m not sure. It got to be a blur after that, but we’re buddies now.

Anyway, I either want this painting, wish I had painted this painting myself, or just feel like shit about myself today. Maybe that’s all that jealousy is really. Feeling like shit about yourself that day. It has to be.

But I’m not sure.

Does my dog feel like shit about herself?

Transition

April 22, 2014April 22, 2014Ayin EsLeave a comment

I often have dreams about places I’ve lived, studios I’ve had. They are mixed up in my head and sort of blended together, and I’m usually moving in the dream. Sometimes I am in the middle of the two places, a lot of times Michael and I are splitting up. I suppose we dream about what we fear the most. Sometimes we are just separated because someone has to stay in one of the houses while in transition. Somebody has to stay and paint the new place, spackle the holes in the old place — something like that.

Anyway, all this cleaning out the studio, and thinking about how to fit everything in some future home had me thinking I guess – had me dreaming, and worrying – about transitions.

I am getting ready for my big trip and it is going to be all about transition. It’s actually starting to scare me a little. Sometimes when I’m scared of something, I look it up in the dictionary. Defining it usually takes the “heavy” significance out of it for me. It gives me a sense of control or something, but this time it more or less scared the shit out of me more!

tran·si·tion

[tran-zish–uh n, –sish-]
noun
1. movement, passage, or change from one position, state, stage, subject, concept, etc., to another;change: the transition from adolescence to adulthood.

Yup! That about sums it up! That’s what the plan is. That’s exactly what I was setting out to do.

So why would I get cold feet?

Okay, it’s not cold feet. Believe me, I am excited and I am so looking forward to it. I’m just a little scared. Mostly… curious.

I think I love that the word “passage” is in the definition. Yeah. I like it. Passage… Like I will come out of this a new artist, a new person. Hopefully, an improved one. But we’ll see. You know, that’s all about confidence? It really is. Because there’s no such thing as being a “good” artist. Not really.

In other news, I have a few pictures of how Monographie is looking. See?

They are not the greatest photos on Earth, but it’s a little peek for you. At least I’m giving you something! Jeez, stop complaining.

Here’s the front:

And the back. (Clever, eh?)

I think it’s looking pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty lovely. Don’t you think? Don’t you want one?

The inside is even better! (Horn tootin’!)

Making Space — The Impossible Task!

April 20, 2014April 20, 2014Ayin EsLeave a comment

I don’t know how much different this blog post is about to be from the post I just made on my Exodus Project Blog, but here goes.

I just finished cleaning and straightening up my studio, Rubber Soul. I have a studio visit tomorrow with a curator, plus it had been an utter mess for months.

I was even able to clean out my flat files and organize them. I can’t believe I got to those! People think I’m so organized already. Now I am! I’m pretty proud of myself, I must say. I was just throwing stuff in there willy-nilly, and thought I had a “system,” but it wasn’t quite working out. I think I needed to have an inoperative system for about six years before I knew how to make an operative one, if that makes sense. Ha ha ha!

Now it’s so fucking clean and organized and exactly right this time, I want to shout it to the heavens! (I get to excited about this stuff!) And hey, maybe this will work for other artists for all I know. Once I split things up this way, I was like, oh yeah, duh! So here are my drawers from top to bottom, and of course, many only pertain to me, specifically:

Surfaces – All the nice, clean paper I have yet to make art on. I even divided those up into big flat bags and marked them (#300 cold press Fabriano, etc.).
Wraps – Anything that will wrap a single sheet of paper/print for a buyer or to ship. Paper or clear envelopes, “stiffiners,” large envelopes, acid-free paper wrap, cardboard, etc.
Originals – Large original work on paper that’s too large to fit in any of my portfolio books.
Journal Project – All the original drawings from my Journal Project.
Cut Patterns – A bunch of patterns that I’ve already cut, plus all of the master patterns for future cuts. These are for both paintings, and the Journal Project.

Large Prints – Prints over 20 inches in either direction.
Artists’ Books – These are mostly the ones I pull out for display. I keep the “fresh” ones in boxes somewhere else.
Small Prints – I have a lot of these.
Portfolios – I keep all my portfolio books of works on paper in here, large and small.
OPP – Other people’s works on paper: originals, prints, and photographs.

Yeah, I love to organize. Can’t cha tell? If you can’t tell from the above, those are two different cabinets. I have a really big one, which is the top one, and a medium one, which is the bottom one. Come to think about it, I often wonder if my 2nd one is the smallest version of those Maylines. Not that it’s a Mayline, it’s some other brand. I’ll have to measure it sometime and figure it out.

But it doesn’t even flippin matter since it works for me. They both work for me and I really don’t know what I’d do without them. However, I don’t think I could ever afford – and I’m not even talking money – another one. I don’t have the real estate. I don’t even have the real estate for everything I have now!

I lose sleep at night thinking about how much art shit I have! How much art furniture and painting storage I have. It makes me nuts!!! It really does. If I ever had to move and I couldn’t have a two car garage with a little back extension (yeah – like where am I going to find that???), then I don’t know what I would do!

Then again, I can also consider it this way: Some artists need a studio space, and a 500 square foot studio is not very big at all. I would just have to figure out how to pay for it …again!

Post on April 15th From Google+

April 17, 2014Ayin EsLeave a comment

My Aunt Susie died today. She was my mom’s only sibling – her little sister. She would have been 71 this year. It’s crazy how there was a little bit of longevity for the women in my family (at least early eighties), and they both died before they were 72. What’s in store for me, I wonder?

Susan was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer about a year ago. She went through five rounds of chemo and miraculously won. She was in remission for a few months.

Just a few months

Then it mastisized all over her brain, and progressed rapidly, yet, at the same time, slowly. I don’t know which it was. All I know is that the last month has been a blur. She’s been confused. She’s been totally lucid. She’s been in denial. And she’s been lovely, as usual.

Not four months ago, her only daughter, Lisa, passed away at 40. She literally JUST given birth to a sweet baby boy named Sammy. So Susie took on Sammy, as well as Lisa’s other child, (who just turned 10), Damon. Damon also has autism by the way.

I suppose I should also mention that Damon and Sammy’s father could not live without Lisa – took her death pretty hard – and a week before my aunt collapsed and entered hospice, he also died.

And so today, Damon and Sammy, over the past four months, have lost Mom, Dad, and Nana – who was really their entire world. They are currently in the Alabama (Tuscaloosa) foster care system.

Susie has been taking care of Damon since he was born. She actually adopted him from the get-go, and Sammy too was/is (I don’t know – WAS) in her legal guardianship as well. My cousin and her husband, though the nicest people you’ve probably have ever met, struggled with addiction for many years. Luckily, Lisa stayed clean throughout her pregnancy with Sammy. He is a strong, healthy boy – and honestly, he’s not going to remember much of what has happened over the last few months. Anyway – they were never going to get legal custody of either kid because of their antics.

Now Damon… He’s the cutest kid. Everybody says that about their own family, but I swear, spend five minutes with him and you’ll be laughing and crying at the same time because he’s so fucking, hysterically cute!

That poor kid, Jesus Christ!

Well, can you believe this? My brother is going to adopt these boys.

It’s going to take a little bit of time because the laws are whack, and bureaucracy is like a bag of shit on fire under your nose, but everything is going as fast as humanly possible, and we should have these kids here within three months, maybe sooner.

With all the death we (my brother and I) have experienced over the past few years, finally something beautiful comes with it.

#cancersucks #adoption #death #autism

Sad, Frustrated, Angry, Horrified, Worried, and Freaked Out

March 23, 2014March 23, 2014Ayin EsLeave a comment

My Aunt Susie is still hanging on! The doctor decided to try five radiation treatments since there were some other medications that seemed to be working somewhat when she was still in the hospital, in hopes it would make her more lucid, specifically about the children. There’s been a whole dilemma about the boys. Now, doctors at hospices do not usually “treat” their patients, but we have some extenuating circumstances here.

I wasn’t going to blog about this, but here I go. It’s one of those stories that no one would ever believe if it weren’t true, so I’m just going to start at the beginning.

My mother only had/has one sibling, my Aunt Susan. My dad was an orphan and the youngest – by far – in his family, and he was born before the Great Depression, so everyone is dead. My point? Susie was really “it.”

She had two kids, my two cousins, Allan and Lisa. I only have one sibling too, my brother Mike. Allan was a little older than Mike; Lisa was a little younger than I.

Allan became estranged from the family. No one knows why, but it’s been well over 20 years.

My aunt adopted one of Lisa’s children who is autistic. He is nine. Lisa and her husband could not take care of him.

They recently had another son a few months ago, but if you have been reading my blog posts, Lisa just died at the end of December, and her husband died a couple of weeks ago.

Susie has been taking care of the baby and the nine year old, even though she had been diagnosed with breast cancer last year and has recently gone through multiple rounds of chemotherapy, and she’s 70!

My brother and I were just out there (Tuscaloosa, Alabama) in November, before Lisa had the baby, and Susie was in remission, but the Wednesday before last, she collapsed. The cancer came back and mastisized all over her brain. The doctors gave her about a week to live.

On that same day, the Department of Human Resources took the boys and called me about where to place them. I gave them my brother’s contact info, but they never contacted him. They told me they were going to have an “emergency hearing” in less than 48 hours, and we were told that a family friend would go to this hearing and take the kids until we could figure out what to do.

But this family friend did not go to the hearing and the boys were placed in a long-term foster family. Now my brother is fighting to get custody. All of this because we could not act fast enough, and because we had no idea that this family friend didn’t go to the hearing.

The state of Alabama won’t do much because they say that we are five steps of kinship away from these kids and they only allow for four (how they figure it that way, I’m not sure. I thought I was a pretty good genealogist too.), otherwise they would work on an interstate guardianship right away. Instead, they are making my brother’s family go through an intensive home study, adoption process that could take up to eight months. Meanwhile, the kids are staying with strangers in a foster home. Our highly autistic nine year old cousin has to go to a completely different school, he is off his routine, and he has no family around. He just lost both his parents and is about to lose his Nana!

The little family I have left is a little bit sad, frustrated, angry, horrified, worried and freaked out.