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Something on the Horizon!

March 10, 2014March 10, 2014Ayin Es2 Comments

I’ve been working my ass off lately. Now, I’m positive that when people do “normal” things in their life, they don’t feel like they are working their “ass off,” but I sure do. I feel like my ass is missing if I just go to the store, or take a shower, or, like today, make a circle in the dirt.

That’s right. I made a circle in the dirt. And that wiped me out! So much, that I came back inside and passed out for an hour.

When I got up, I went back outside and started to fill the circle with rocks and planted a few tiny cacti around the outside of the circle. And all of that business did not make me feel nearly as tired as building that circle in the first place!

I just thought you all should know that.

Oh, before I move on to the next deal-o, I finally met Gregg Chadwick, fellow blogger, who has also had his blog up from since to DAWN OF TIME! I met him at one of Peter Clothier‘s One Hour/One Painting sessions at Rosamund Felson’s Gallery. This was on one of Marcia Roberts‘ paintings. It was an incredible experience. First of all, I had never actually done one of these with Peter, I’m ashamed to say – because I know him and I just haven’t put my ducks in line to get my ass into gear to go to one. He does these things frequently and I highly recommend doing it – on a painting you admire OR NOT! Because that doesn’t even matter. I had such a wake up call, and I am someone who believes in that saying …I think it was Agnes Martin, who said something about only needing a chair with a painting? Somebody should comment and let me know what that quote is. But my point is that I am a keen observer of paintings anyway.

But anyway, Gregg Chadwick was there and he is lovely, and I was so happy to meet him in de flesh. And now I think he might join Artists’ Matters – possibly. He’s going as my guest tomorrow night and we’ll see what happens. Check out his paintings here.

Okay, so also, I have been spending an enormous amount of time putting my Kickstarter campaign together. Yup! I am about to launch one! Any time now. You’ll see. Buckle up. This one is going to big, and I am going to be talking about this a LOT, so I certainly hope I do not become overly annoying. I mean, more annoying then I already am, but I truly need to raise funds for this goal, so bear with me. It is a very important project that I very much hope you will be able to back me on, in any way you can. Even your nice thoughts will work!

I have spent the last three weeks, and I kid you not, working on this thing, non stop! When you see it, you’ll think to yourself, How on Earth did that take her three weeks? I could have done that on my coffee break!

Well, you most certainly could have! Most people, and most eight year-olds could have done the video in about the same time the video is, which I think is something like four minutes. So, that’s the amount of time it would have take most people who know how to use an iPhone.

But apparently, I like to do things in the hardest way possible – but listen – I swear – never on purpose!

I happen to have a Sony DCR-TRV9000. If you know what that is, it was like the first tier “handicam” that was created to make HD motion pictures. You could actually make a real “Sundance” film on this thing. Not the best one ever, but it would pass. I got it for a steal a while ago, when I had this great plan to film my family and make a controversial film about how fucked up they were. My inspiration for that was most definitely: Tarnation. If you have never seen that – it is a masterpiece!

Oh, now…I guess I’m getting into the story a bit, but I’ll give you the short version.

Once I got the cam in my hands, everything changed. I had always made fun of my family in my art, but as soon as I watched it from that cam… Let’s just say I had what you call, a

Well, it was 2007 and I had a nervous breakdown. Okay?

There. Because of this camera.

And so, it sat in the bag for years! I didn’t touch it. But then I had this new idea for a project that required video. I said, Hey, I have a great cam! And I pulled it out and drove out to Joshua Tree, and low and behold, the mic started to clip, until it was just broken. I was trying to do my Kickstarter video there. It would have taken a few minutes. A take or two at the most!

I figured, I’d pull the footage off and narrate over it, but then there was no firewire to connect to the computer. I ordered one, and that didn’t work. Finally, I was so frustrated, I filmed the footage from the television on another camera and thought it looked kinda “cool.” (Not!)

When I went to narrate, I had no microphone at all. The one on my laptop was shit. So I had to buy a new one.

This is getting boring, but do you see how all this got to be three weeks?

Anyway, don’t count on three weeks equaling a great production. It’s the dorkiest thing I think I’ve ever made, but I do hope you’ll be excited about my project. So stay tuned!

The Project

March 5, 2014March 5, 2014Ayin EsLeave a comment

It’s all about the project. It’s not like I’m just now realizing that, I’m just telling you. That’s what it’s always about.

I think before I was guilty about it, and now I am more accepting of it. It’s like, now it’s all okay with me. I don’t know why I used to feel guilty, for always being on a project, for always being busy, for always doing, for being ambitious. I mean, that’s who I am, and why should I apologize for it? I think it’s been because I’ve always had a couple people in my life that I know have/had been judging me about it. They wanted me to feel ashamed about it – for whatever reason, I do not know, but fuck ’em.

Today I spent the day with one of my besties, artist, Rochelle Botello. She and I can talk about art, process, and art projects until the cows come home. What does that saying mean, anyway? Why were the cows away from home, and why is it that the time it takes them to come home is supposedly really lengthy? I understand, “until the sun comes up.” That means a lot of hours, but what’s up with those cows?

Anyhow, she and I had a good day. It feels good to be able to talk to someone else that understands all the ins and outs of the life of an artist; things like naming an exhibition, or expressing narrative in the artwork both while in you’re in the process of it, and while you’re driving down the street – kinda like texting while driving! Or even talking about where you are on your current projects. I use this blog for that a lot (obviously).

Speaking of Rochelle, and projects, we were just at a book symposium on Sunday at Otis, which was super interesting. I was also finally able to see my show there. I was blown away with how my book was displayed in the same display box with Nikki de Saint Phalle, Laura Owens, Paul McCarthy, Dieter Roth, Anat Shalev, and Carolee Schneemann! The box next to me had an amazing Kara Walker book too. Crazy. Plus, there was a beautiful Nikki de Saint Phalle accordion book out and displayed on top of one of the boxes.

The symposium had a few good speakers and a poet. Most interesting was book artist, Sarah Bryant. She had a number of books in the show and spoke a lot about her process and her different projects past, present, and future, and even did a book demonstration on how to do an accordion type folio. She made me feel so much better about being a book artist in general. Everything from how much trash I made, how fussy I am, to self imposed deadlines. I’m not the only one! I felt like I was probably in a whole audience of people just like me, and the key speaker was making us all feel like we weren’t all freaks.

Her books are all very “graphic design” looking, to me anyway, but there were a few that had such lovely elements that reminded me of old-skool typography mixed with modern, abstract minimalism. It was very aesthetic and clean, but not antiseptic or anything like that. Go to her website and check out her books. They are cool. I especially love the cut-outs in this abstract book the most.

And so speaking of books, I’m still fussing with the Monographie book. Always little “problems” I run into, and things to fix, plus shit I change my mind about. Now I’m going to bore you with some of it, because, well, why not? If you get sleepy, have some cocaine.

I decided to have one color page in the front, but not full color, just spot color. It’s such a small detail to make a large change over, but I was already making some other changes at the time, like the fact that I had spelled “foreword” wrong in a couple places (I spelled it “foreward”). I had to fix that typo anyway, and a few drawings needed changing as far as what kinds of files they needed to be.

Remember I had to learn Adobe Illustrator and InDesign “real quick” before finishing this book? Well, I realized that not every file looked “good” once they were a vector image. Drawings with lots and lots of small scribbles in them don’t work as vectors. They only work as super, high resolution jpgs, like 600 DPI, otherwise, as vectors, those scribbles lose detail and wind up looking like ink splatters.

So I had to change a few of those drawings. I also had to reformat some of the text that is in there, albeit, there isn’t much. Michael‘s foreword is barely three pages, and I only wrote a few paragraphs in the back, otherwise the whole book is just drawings – more than 60 now. The entire book is 154 pages total.

And that’s the final count. It’s done. The PDF is finished, formatted and ready for the printer, and the front and back cover plates (for letterpress) are being ordered tomorrow. And I’ll be dammed if I lift another finger, other than signing and numbering them!

I used to do all my own letterpressing, but Bill will take it from here. I just need to put together a few bucks.

And speaking of a few bucks, that brings me to my Kickstarter project…

Okay, I’m tired. To be continued! Oh, I’m not done yet. I’m never done.

(All these photos were taken by Rochelle Botello.)

From A to E

February 25, 2014February 25, 2014Ayin EsLeave a comment

Dang IT, dang IT! I have SO MUCH to tell and so little time to tell it in. And I’ve been off of my blog for so long, I don’t even know if I can remember all the little holes I have to fill in since I’ve been away from it all.

Okay, I went to Palm Springs. That was great! I had fun, fun, fun! Why? Because:

a. The Diebenkorn show was beyond phenomenal!

b. Shulamit Gallery participated in the Palm Springs Fine Art Fair.

c. I got to see my very close friends, whom I stayed with while I was there: (Dennis and Jean).

d. I went to Joshua Tree to shoot some Kickstarter footage.

e. A surprise interview happened with Colliding Words TV, a YouTube channel for art and artists!

I think if I stick to from A to E, I will be fine. So here we go:

The Diebenkorn Show

I knew I was going to really like this exhibition, which was why I thought of it as a destination in and of itself, but something very significant happened when I got to the museum.

First of, for some reason, I dressed up. I wore a dress! I never wear dresses. It was for practice I suppose, because I was going to a dinner a couple nights afterward, and I wanted to wear a little black dress that night, so I wore a little blue dress just like it to the museum. I didn’t think I was going to run into anyone, but I ran into Mat and Leigh. That was fine because they are my friends. Even if I looked ridiculous, I would have felt half way comfortable with them, so that was good.

But when I turned the corner to see the first paintings of Richard Diebenkorn’s, oh my God! There were three beautiful abstracts hanging straight away. The one in the middle was the largest of the three, with little poles and wires on the ground so you wouldn’t come within three feet of it. The others had tape on the floor I think, for the same idea. These paintings were perfectly painted. You would not be able to know that from just a picture. You’d have to SEE this in real life.

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Then, I just kept walking through. I saw more abstracts and it just got better. I thought I’d be done at that point, as far as being impressed. I’m not one for figurative, much less still lifes. But Jesus! It kept getting even better! This guy painted EVERYTHING perfectly! I couldn’t believe how in LOVE I was with his brushstrokes, and how much permission he gave me, FOR ME to paint anything I wanted too! What an inspiration! If you missed that show, you’re just nuts!

Okay, so anyway, The Fair. The Fair was great. I was in this fair last year, as some of you might remember, with not so great results, and I’m not talking about sales here. Fuck sales. That’s not what this is about.

I was afraid to go to Palm Spring this time around, honestly. I didn’t want there to be a repeat of last year. I didn’t want a bunch of disappointments, nor did I want to have any expectations – which I didn’t. I don’t think I really had any major ones last year either to be honest. I only wanted my work in the show. That was all I really “expected,” as that’s what I was told. But bygones, and all that. So, this time, I didn’t even expect that – seriously!

When I got to the Shulamit booth, I was very pleasantly surprised. Shula, Anne, and Lauren were there, (wo)manning the booth, which was curated, might I say, superior to every other booth I walked passed on my way to theirs. It was sparse, and very well thought out, capturing subtle coloring from Jona’s photographs, to the veins of Soraya’s sculptures, my And and Not painting, and David’s interactive light piece. It was beautiful!

I think I have to come back later to do C, D and E. I am just so busy with other crap at the moment. Hey, I tried!

A Day of Ghosts

January 23, 2014January 24, 2014Ayin EsLeave a comment

Today was a freaky day. It was like I got a lot done, but it seemed like I was just fucking off all day. It was weird.

I must remember that there is a certain amount of important work that happens in art that is not physical, and not tangible, yet feasible and meaningful. Today was a day like that.

I finished writing my Project Proposal for my next exhibition. Now, maybe you’re thinking, your gallery makes you write a proposal? No, they certainly do not. I do stuff like this for my own self. I’m a weirdo. I have my reasons for being weird like this too. Trust me, all that will come out in the open eventually. For now, just trust me when I tell you that I am weird like this for a reason.

For now, it helps me to write all this stuff out, and organize it, and my thoughts, so I can have a better grasp on what I’m doing for the next year or so. And today, it all just hit me and fell perfectly into place: the trip out to the desert, the paintings, the drawings, the installation, all of it. Even the name of the show for God sake! Do I dare splain? No. I do not.

I also chatted with a friend today and brought up all these rather heavy subjects that I thought were fine for me to chat about, but apparently NOT! I got really upset. Next thing I knew, I went from celebrating what I had accomplished the first half of my day, to feeling like a piece of poop on a stick. There are a select few people that get to me, and talking about those people …I don’t know. Every time I think I am threw with all that pain, or being affected by those people, I’m right back where I started!

Okay, so here is a work in progress, (I don’t usually show those, but this is very different!) and it is very small: just 12 x 12 inches. This one is going slow, as they all have been lately. I don’t mind that though.

It’s on unfinished (raw) canvas. I thought that would be “fun.” All of what you see so far is acrylic, which is also so very different for me. More like a giant pain in the ass! I am not a fan, nor am I very good with acrylics.

I recently finished a couple others. This one, my favorite is Bulletproof 2, and older painting that I turned upside down and painted over, but didn’t fully cover:

This one is 24 x 24 inches.

I also finished these two:

That’s Helicopter Pants (11″ x 14″) and New Years (4″ x 4″).

I know it looks like I did all this stuff in a month, but all but New Years had all been started long ago. New Years is the only one I started and finished in 2014.

Conclusion?

Onward.

I Guess I Missed the New Year’s Bash

January 15, 2014January 19, 2014Ayin Es2 Comments

I guess I missed the New Year’s bash. I woke up late. Two weeks late. Last time I checked, it was December 17th and all was well. Then, the shit hit the fan.

Is life ever calm? Not for me it isn’t. Another medication change came a couple of days later, and so did the untimely death of my only cousin. The only real cousin I grew up with anyway. I have one on my dad’s side, but she is much older than I and I only spent very little time with her and her kids for about year when I was eight years old back when I lived in Allentown, Pennsylvania. And truthfully, I lived there on and off during that year. I won’t go into why. That’s a whole other story.

My mother had only one sibling – my Aunt Susan. She only had two children: a son who is five years older and a daughter five years younger than I am. He was sent away to live with his biological father when he was 15. I only saw him once after that, but Lisa, my younger cousin, lived in Los Angeles half the time, Pittsburgh, then Alabama the rest of the time.

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My mom and Susie were close, although they fought a lot of the time too. Sometimes we would visit them and wind up flying home early because my mother and Susie just couldn’t get along for more than three days in a row under the same roof. It was easier when Susie lived in LA. She had her own place, but honestly, Lisa had always annoyed me. She was five years younger after all, and she had a big personality. She was rebellious, disrespected my aunt, and later got into drugs. I didn’t like her, probably because I didn’t have a good influence on her. My brother and I weren’t ones to talk sense into her since I had been doing drugs myself earlier and my brother continued to do them for many years before he finally got clean.

lisa

Lisa only had momentary stints of sobriety, but she was never really able to conquer her addiction problems. She put my aunt through a lot of stress and drama, and for that I had a difficult time with just even loving her, let alone being nice to her. And for years it was like that, but just a couple months ago, I went out to Alabama with my brother to see Susie. She had just gone through five rounds of chemotherapy. Believe it or not, she had been in Stage 4 cancer, so we planned a trip out there thinking it might be the last time we would get to see her, but days before our plans, we learned that her cancer went into complete remission! It would now be a celebration visit. We also learned that Lisa had been sober – for the most part – for the last nine months because she was pregnant with a baby boy. Susie didn’t want to tell me that she was staying with her at the house because she thought I wouldn’t want to come and stay there because Lisa would be in the same house, but under the circumstances, I didn’t mind at all. But that goes to show you just how much I have been mad at my cousin.

Truly, I have been mad at her because I love her, and because I love my aunt. The last thing I wanted was for Lisa to cause Susie any more stress than she already had been going through now that she had cancer. Not only that, but Susie adopted one of Lisa’s children, Damon, now 10, who has Autism. She has been raising Damon and giving him a loving upbringing, not to mention stellar care through the best schools and programs available to him. She totally stepped up when Lisa couldn’t and wouldn’t, and he’s a great kid – incredibly bright.

So, when I got there, to my surprise, I found that Lisa and her husband had been helping Susan out with doctor appointments, meals, rides, picking up her medicine, helping her up and down the stairs, and just being there for her totally while she was getting her treatments the entire time. I spent a lot of time with Lisa and got to know her all over again and learned that I had been misjudging her, that avoiding her was only making it easier for me to “dislike” her. The less I knew her, the easier it was to stay mad, but almost instantly, it was very easy to see what a sweetheart she really was, and such a good soul. There was just no denying it. How could I not love this person? She was the kind of person that would literally give you the clothes off her back if you needed them before herself.

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About a week after we got back home, she had little Samuel, and she seemed to be so happy, but, almost six weeks after that, and just a few days before Christmas, she died.

She was just 40 years old.

This all hit me harder than I expected. It was something none of us should have been surprised about though, as we always thought about this. We all thought this could happen one day with her. For years it’s been on our minds, yet, all of us felt complete shock. How? I don’t know, but we did. Maybe it was the baby. Maybe it was the fact that she was doing so well and it felt different this time. Maybe we all secretly thought it wouldn’t really happen. That only happens to other addicts in other people’s families.

So, I guess you can say, I haven’t been in real good shape lately. I haven’t much felt like writing in my blog, or posting on G+ or Facebook, painting or socializing, talking on the phone, or doing much of anything other than going to therapy. I’m just now getting used to my med change, so that’s some good news – knock on teak.

However, Michael went out of town the first week of January, so I buried myself in finishing the drawing book (Carol Es une Monographie de Lignes) while he was gone. It’s done! I’m just waiting for two things: for Michael to write the foreword, and, I have to save a few bucks for the offset printing. I may do a small Kickstarter or a hatchfund.

Last night I met with my critique group, which I don’t think I have ever mentioned on my blog before. Have I? No. I haven’t. First of all, I do not like to call it a critique group because it is much, much more than that. Second of all, we actually had more like a year-end/new year party last night, not a typical meeting.

So last night is really the second time I have socialized at all whatsoever in almost a month. The first time was Monday when I had Rochelle Botello over. Last night was interesting. I still feel like I’m in a fog, or a dream. I’ve been pretty disassociated. Things seem unreal to me. It can be scary. It wasn’t so scary when Rochelle came over. She is a pretty close friend and I didn’t have to drive anywhere, plus we didn’t leave my house. We just stayed here and talked and had coffee. Perfect for me. Last night was a potluck kinda thing. But I suppose I should explain the group a little bit?

Artists’ Matters. That’s what it’s called. It’s headed by Ellie Blankfort and Peter Clothier. Besides that, there are eight to 10 of us, but not usually at any one given time. I’d say eight is the most that show up at once. I’ve been in for about a year now and I’m one of the newer members. Some have been in for 15+ years. We meet once a month from 7:00-10:00 p.m. and talk about everything from what has been going on in the studio, to personal issues, to business and process techniques, to doing critiques on member’s artworks. We are known to do certain book assignments and talk about various articles, get into heated debates, visit each other’s studios, and last night in particular, we were given these little 4×4 inch canvases to do whatever we wanted to do on them, plus talk about our intentions and goals for 2014. Anyway, we spent so much time on dinner and telling stories that we kinda had to rush through the little canvases and didn’t much get around to talking about our intentions for the year, but it sure was fun to see what everybody made on their 4x4s, as Ellie started to call them.

Today I am actually going to paint, that is, if I ever get done with this blog post.