Every time I think I’m above it all, I find myself right back, flat-faced, molded, to the hard surface of the ground.
By “above it all,” I don’t mean in some condescending sort of way. I mean transcendent, like I’ve finally graduated, or matured somehow – where the little things no longer bother me. You’d think I’d have a real thick skin by now.
No such luck.
Just been working in the studio on and off. Thought I’d say hello to my blog.
Hello.
It took me some time to make the five journal sketches for the aleph painting. Seems pretty silly to spend the time when I’m going to be covering them up with paint! But I’ll admit, I did sorta keep that in mind while I was doing them. It was in the back of my head anyway.
I think they still turned out looking the same as always, but at first it was a little bit hard to get back into the swing of things. They always say…or someone said, inspiration will come to you, but it has to find you working. Or something like that. And so it did. After the second or third piece, it was like I was doing journal drawings everyday again, and it made me want to start that practice up again too.
A couple of the drawings have to do with the project and a few of them don’t. One of them is about snakes and Sleestacks for some reason. Don’t ask. I have no idea where this stuff comes from, but I’d like to do more, more, more.
Oh, if only more time existed on the Earth.
So, I stuck those drawings onto my canvas. This is a 34 x 34 inch canvas and I used a clear, matte acrylic polymer made by Nova Color when sticking these things on – I use it when sticking anything on to my canvases. It’s pretty thick and pasty stuff, sorta like cake frosting. It goes on white and dries clear, as you can see. That manila paper I’m using is #125, so I do need strong stuff that’s going to brush on evenly to prevent air bubbles and such. This polymer stuff is great for collage. You should look into it if you do collage.
I have to say, when I shot this picture wider, all it did was distract me. I mean, once I downloaded it into Photoshop. All the little things in the background started to freak me out – the little things that needed to be done. I started to obsess on them.
A. Like this box of photos. They don’t belong in the studio. They are supposed to be put into albums. I meant to do that in memory of my aunt, but I just don’t have the time for “extra curricular” activities these days.
B. That’s a box filled with Ethereal Research Laboratories Etherecals, Bacterribles, and Imaginodds that still need to be shoved into Erlenmeyer flasks.
C. A Blick return I need to pack up and bring to UPS.
D. An older work that needs special packing because of the pins sticking out of it. It needs to be packed up and put away before it starts to get dusty.
E. Those are two small white panels I’m supposed to do pin drawings on. They are pending commissions!
F. I need the top to that. I just need to fish it out and stick it back on there. I’m pretty sure I know where it is.
G. OMG! How long has THIS been like this?! This painting has the weight of a few of the same size paintings leaning up against it. Did I explain that correctly? It is facing the wrong way. The canvas side should be facing away from the table so that the weight distributes evenly. Now I have to move it all and it’s a bigger pain than it might seem.
Here’s the thing with this space. Pretty much everything needs to be put away in its place in order for me to have the space to work. I’ve found that I can’t really work on more than one painting at a time unless I want to be up to my knees in clutter – which I’ve done before when I’m really into things. I suppose I can let it ride. But I like to start with a clean slate.
H . That painting is white (obviously), and needs to be wrapped up and put away. (I had it out for a studio visit.)
Well, that’s what happened when I downloaded this picture from my camera. It sucks to be me.
Anyway, I put the first very light layer of white over the drawings, but you can hardly tell.
Later today I’ll probably do a really light beige in some areas and see what happens there.
I should do it before the day ends because tomorrow I’ll be receiving the Dan prints and will most likely be working on painting those new À la Dan Kabbalah and Special 16 Dans.
Hi! I’m back.
You’d know that if you’ve been reading my other blog though. Have you? Well you probably should.
It’s not totally filled with religious crap. There is LOTS of art stuff going on there too ya know. You have to understand, this is the project I am going to be working on for a year or more, so I’ll be talking a lot about this stuff, but I’m not trying to be preaching it. I’m just doing research for the back layer designs of my paintings. There’s a story there. There’s a reason.
I just do not want to become annoying with it. I’m sure I already am! I’m almost half way through it. The kabbalah stuff anyway. There’s only 22 letters. Ya gotta bear with me. I’m not trying to be “super Jew” or anything.
One of the tricky things is how to decipher what to write over here as opposed to what I post over there. Pretty tricky sis. I bet you think I have some kind of premeditated formula or something, don’t you? Ha! You’re so wrong. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.
What I do know is that yesterday I was typing about some things on the other blog that made me want to mention some things over here. Excuse me if I recap a little bit from what I was saying yesterday, but I was talking about the paintings that are going to come (one day — soon. I mean, I’ll get to them any time now) and how excited I am about making them!
I was saying how I felt weird about posting my preliminary work. And I really do – on either blog! It’s not like I have purposely been hiding it, but I guess it’s that I have been purposely hiding it.
I mean, what artist really wants another artist to see how they got from here to there, unless they have Leonardo da Vinci sketches, studies, or highly rendered layouts with grids and rulers all worked out for the proportions they are going to enlarge their perfect sketches to onto their perfectly primered canvases? There are artists like that! And sure, I’d show that shit off too! “Please, come into my studio, see my preliminary sketches? Aren’t they pleeeasing to the eye? I’ve even made some of them into etchings. Would you like some whhhite whhhine??”
Yeah, then I’d have no problem scanning up all my little sketches to show you basically what’s been in my head before I put paint to canvas. That would be easy. They just seem so, I don’t know, private. Are they for you?
Yesterday for instance, I was talking about how I had a couple different directions where I wanted to take a new concept in my head since I’ve been out to Joshua Tree. I was explaining a little bit about how I work and how I don’t like to waste much time.
This is why I’ll go with the quickie sketch, except when I want something more rendered. Then I will “quickie” it in watercolor – because this will help me find basic lines.
And I know this does nothing to keep my actual drawing skills sharp. In fact, I admit that when I don’t sit down to draw realism – which, mind you, I am able to do (not from life though, only from 2D references) – my skill muscle gets all weak and flabby! It gets a little harder. I am a little slower. I just don’t need to do it very often. I frankly don’t want to do it unless something calls for it. A tree, a sink, a brain, an element I want to look real.
However, it’s true what they say: If you don’t use it, you lose it.
So, I had this idea to put scaffolding in the paintings, like against the rocks. This was before I went out there. It started out as climbers, their gear, which reminded me of scaffolding, then window washers – then window washers on scaffolding washing the rocks, then maybe just in the backgrounds. Anyway, I was exploring how I want to work with them.
Like this. It’s just a little bit different in the way I wanted to go about it:
Those two are the same rough concept.
Yesterday I said, what if I want to go the route where I use the more “rendered” window washer guy? Then, I would simplify him until he had the least amount of lines so he was just recognizable as what he is without him looking “real” or illustrated. So I’d probably fill a small sketchbook until I liked him in a variety of positions.
But then I said that I wasn’t leaning that way. I was going in the other direction (like the top drawing), and I was afraid to show the rest of the sketches in this book.
Well, here goes!
These are obviously getting a lot simpler, and in some, the window washer is not even making an appearance. I think he’s on a smoke break, or he’s in the loo. Maybe I fired him. Times are tough and everybody has been out of work lately. Why should he be any different? He should be standing in line with the rest of this country for his unemployment check.
I didn’t mean to fire him. It’s not like I’m taking a bigger paycheck now that he’s gone. I will most likely hire him on various freelance jobs. We’ll see.
In the meantime, These drawings sure suck. I know that’s what you’re probably thinking. I don’t care. Really. I like second, third and last the most. Those are my favorites. But if you ask me on another day, I might be with you and feel that they all are shit. I’m fickle like that. Some days I think I like the work and some days I know I’m a hack.
I think the trick is to keep your balance somehow. However you can do it. I do not have a problem while walking this tightrope and falling on the megalomaniac side, but if and when I do, I welcome it. I think it would be good for me. My issues are that I fall A LOT on the other side, and a fall a long way down.
But you must ask, how then do you continue? How do you continue to create art, pursue a career in art, and publicly exhibit your own work if what you say is true?
That is a good question!
I learned a long time ago, that life lesson we all know. Or maybe we all don’t know. There’s a lot of people that actually don’t know: Do or die.
Do or die might sound super dire for those of you that think art is “cute” or a “choice,” but as a child NOBODY believed in me. I am really not exaggerating when I say nobody. If I didn’t believe in myself, then who?
Think about being a kid for a minute and think about who you lived for. I can’t answer that for you, but it was most likely the person or adult that believed in you. Probably way more than you even believed in yourself. You probably didn’t even think much about who or what you were, or maybe you didn’t think much about it at all because you probably didn’t have to. You were too busy being a kid! That’s what you’re supposed to do! 🙂
Well, you had every reason in this world to live!
Now, I’m not saying “you” like it’s everybody besides me. You may be in the same boat as I am/was – or much, much worse. I am not alone, and this is not a contest. I am just saying it is how I learned: Do or die.
So, it never matters to me if I like my stuff or if I think it’s a pile of dung. Those days come and they go. What matters is that I believe in myself even when I don’t believe in myself.
It’s my job.
If you are wondering where I am, I’ll be in Joshua Tree for the next 10 days. I will be posting daily on ExodusJoshuaTree.com/blog in the meantime.
Forgive me if I don’t answer many emails while I’m gone, as I will be mostly focus on my project.
Check it out if you can. 🙂
Bye for now.
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.