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Suffering Succotash

Ayin 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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

Thanksgiving Television

Ayin Es2 Comments

It’s already December 2nd! Right smack in the middle of Chanukah, and Thanksgiving flew by like, like…like some kind of bat out of hell!

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I hope your Thanksgiving was pleasant. Ours sure was. We have a tradition here: Turkey pot pies.

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No, I don’t make turkey pot pies from scratch. Wouldn’t that be quaint? How Martha Stewart of me! Can you see it? Those of you that really know me, can you see me doing that? Yeah? Well stop laughing, because I actually do bake sometimes! I even own a beautiful apron I bought from Anthropologie, one of my favorite stores, I must admit. However, I have to wait until they have extraordinary sales, which they do.

But back to baking turkey pot pies, which I did NOT do for Thanksgiving. Why would I when Marie Calendars makes frozen ones that taste amazing!?

So Chanukah, turkey pot pies, and a few episodes of my new favorite show: Orange is the New Black. 

I am in love with this show and I am sadly almost finished with the season. I’ll be watching the last episode tonight. I hate when that happens! I hardly like television, but when I fall in love with a TV show, I really look forward to watching it every week. It gives me something to look forward to that isn’t art, and that requires absolutely nothing from me. I don’t have to leave the house or speak to anyone or “be” any way. It’s a brainless activity that keeps me engaged – fully engaged – where I can escape without using an ounce of my energy or resources.

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I mean, I’m sure that is no different than why most people watch TV, but I have to say that TV has always been a very strange radiation death box to me throughout my life. I have been, for the most part, anti-television. I’m not sure why exactly. It was never used as a punishment upon me as a child or anything like that. We were free to watch as much or as little TV as we wanted to. It was always on.  Always. And even at age 7, 8, 9, etc., that just bothered me. It made it impossible for me to focus. So maybe that’s why.

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That doesn’t mean I didn’t watch it. I did. Certain shows were like heroin. I could watch them over and over again. Anything with Snoopy in it, which only played during the holidays anyway (so it was a treat every time!), Bugs Bunny and all Warner Bros. animation, and other animated shows, such as Mighty Mouse, Tom & Jerry, The Flintstones, Popeye, and Heckle and Jeckle – if you can remember them. When I was really young, I was absolutely crazy for a cartoon called Kimba the White Lion. It’s the cartoon that that was completely ripped from the dead hands of Tezuka Osamu (the inventor of anime), stolen to create the very successful Lion King via Walt Disney. Just remember that every time you see those Disney characters with the BIG EYES.

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Of course Disney claims that all this is coincidental and blah blah blah, so I have to state that the above is purely my personal opinion and based on my “feelings,” not at all a proven fact and untrue; nobody stole anything from anyone.  They are just two very similar stories. Kimba the White Lion and The Lion King are both great though.

Besides animation, of which I am a great fan of – it probably influenced me to become an artist in fact – there were other shows I could watch over and over, like The Twilight Zone, I love Lucy, and ……………………well, everything else was shit. It made me want to drill screws into my toes or drive a nail gun into my temple, or push a staple gun into my forehead, or hammer a needle nose pliers straight up my nose. Whatever tools you happen to have lying around, I’ll use them if someone doesn’t turn off the fucking TV!

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I just didn’t get why it was on all the time, even when no one was there watching it. If you wanted to talk to someone else, there’s a television on, and it was either set to the news or on a game show, or somehow, some way, after I left home, anytime I came over, Married With Children was always on. But when I was there, it was The Jeffersons, Happy Days, One Day at a Time, The Love Boat, or some other kind of torturous bullshit.

When I moved out, I lived at Tracey’s and we didn’t watch much TV, and when I hopped around from place to place, I missed a few more years of TV there too, and then when I got my own place, my parents gave me their old TV, which was really nice of them. I just didn’t know what I would do with it. I didn’t plug it in for a couple of months, but my boyfriend at the time, Scott, brought home some “rabbit ears” for it and plugged it in. We were able to get a few channels, some more furry than others, but they were watchable. I told him that I’d like it if he would just do me the favor of not having it on if he wasn’t watching anything specific.

I watched TV with him one time. I was bored. I don’t even remember the program. Oh, actually, it was the Honeymooners. He was a big fan, but I just wasn’t my thing. You may throw tomatoes at me now if you please.

Your tomato window has now closed. Back to the story.

At the next two places I lived, I had a TV, but I didn’t plug it in until I got a VCR machine. Hmm. Maybe I had the VCR Machine when I lived with Scott. I seem to remember my mom stealing us one and Scott talking me into accepting it, which sounds reasonable, so maybe I rented movies back then. The only problem was, it was a Beta Max. That would only last me so long.

For the following 10 years after that, I just never had a TV that plugged into an antenna. Never had channels. Never watched TV. Unless I was renting a movie (I finally got a VHS machine), I was pretty cut off from popular culture. I caught glimpses on MTV when I had roommates with the band, heard things that people told me, but most of all, it was quiet, and I painted. I’d listen to my records when I lived with the band, mostly to drown out the sounds going on outside my room, but by the time I found my own place again on a quiet street, I was back listening to the birds.

But for someone who rather despises TV, there are a LOT of shows I absolutely love that have come and gone, and have recently started.

Orange is the New Black, Getting On, Masters of Sex, Ray Donovan, Enlightened, Girls, Shameless, Nurse Jackie, The Big C, Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, Dexter, Sons of Anarchy, Big Love, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The United States of Tara, Weeds, Flight of the Conchords, the Sopranos, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, Sex and the City, and Northern Exposure. I also kind of like Pawn Stars and the Jeff Lewis shows (the house-flipper/designer guy), and a few other house remodel shows and an occasional House Hunters.

I wouldn’t have known about any of these had it not been for mjp who introduced cable to me. He was totally dialed in when I met him, and  he had every episode of Northern Exposure recorded already, and many other shows that I just couldn’t get into, but that one became a religion for me.

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When it comes to TV and even movies, I’m extremely fickle. I either like it or I really don’t, and if it can’t keep me fully engaged, my mind goes elsewhere and I am not really watching. I tend to disassociate, and that’s never good.

Well, that’s a LONG leeway announcing that I’m finally on the Shulamit website!

Hope ya’ll had a great Thanksgiving.

So What’s Going On?

Ayin 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:

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Some embellished etchings:

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

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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?

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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?

Ayin 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:

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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.