Thoughts

The Purge Project

Ayin Es3 Comments

Today I was sweeping my hairy floors. I have 2 dogs now. Only one of them sheds. And boy does he shed. Aside from that, there are roofers working on the roof and they are banging dirt and dust from the ceiling onto the floor and it’s just been dusty and dirty around here and for some reason that makes me nervous. Dust bunnies, hairballs, disarray, debris, chaos, disorganization, clutter, loud noises, and accumulation of too much stuff just drives me a little mad and today I just got to a sort of breaking point – all from sweeping and looking at it all. I realized, from moving all my things out of the way, I have too much stuff. It’s not junk or anything though, it’s all stuff I like and am attached to, but I don’t know how it’s got to this point already. I’ve only lived in this house a couple years and I’m already feeling weighed down. I got to thinking I should start going through everything and see if I could rid myself of most of it.

Then there are all these paintings I make. How do I keep from creating these things? I can’t. But one thing that has changed in the last year and a half is the time it takes me to make them. I am not making art at the same rate I used to, so in some small way, I am not cluttering up the earth as much as I used to, if I am looking at it in that regard (which I am!), and this makes me feel a little bit better about slowing down.

Cut to the chase, I had this stupid idea to start giving things away, one item at a time on my blog. It might be a book, a toy, art, a t-shirt, whatever. I’m pretty attached to everything, so each item will have some kind of story or description. Maybe someone reading will want it. I can get people to post comments this way. First comment gets the item – something like that? They just have to pay for the shipping. Maybe I’m biting off more than I can chew, but it could be an interesting experiment. Alas, it could take years to rid myself of my worldly possessions this way, but maybe when it comes time to move again, I’ll be able to pile everything I own into a small clown car and do it in one trip.

Orange County Show

Ayin Es2 Comments

Carol Es

Visions, Dreams, Patterns and Memories

Slutzky Art Gallery

Merage Jewish Community Center of Orange County

1 Federation Way, Suite 200

Irvine, Ca. 92603 (949) 435-3400

March 1st – April 7th

Opening:

Sunday, March 7th 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Growing up in the sweatshops of the L.A. apparel industry is the thread that flows through the stories in Carol Es’ work. She incorporate the tools of the cutting room trade with candid narratives, cartoons, shapes, abstractions, and dreams. Her work addresses female Jewish identity and family anecdotes by using garment materials and shapes to create Hebrew texts, characters and compositions that seem to truly resonate with viewers. For more information about the artist visit: https://www.esart.com

The JCC Slutzky Art Gallery‘s mission is to promote quality Jewish art and Jewish artists. Artists are selected because of their commitment to advancing Jewish life through the visual arts.

My New Moleskin

Ayin Es1 Comment

Since 2006 I’ve been carrying around a 5.5 x 3.5 inch moleskin notebook and my trusty space pen. What? You don’t know what a Space Pen is? I love my Space Pen because I can write upside down! I need to do that because most of my crazy ideas come to me when I am half-asleep while lying in bed. When this happens, it’s best not to move too much in order to keep these strange thoughts from falling out of my brain through my ears, so I stay on my back in bed and reach for my little notebook and spacepen and sketch out my little stupid thoughts above me in mid-air — like some kind of drug-induced, make-shift astronaut.

Recently, I started a new moleskin notebook for 2010 called “Welcome to 2010” and the first page reads:

This year you better
Build a paper drums set
& make a book or 2
Draw for 2 weeks straight
Lose weight
Go on a trip …
Learn to work a
Sewing machine
MAKE A FAMILY OF DOLLS
Sew Cloth OnTo Fabriano
Embroider a hospital gown
Make an art brochure
Finish Ethereal Research

Yesterday I meant to take a nap, but FedEx came and brought me my new Singer sewing machine and i spent hours figuring out how to thread it because I don’t know the first thing about it. If I was a REAL woman, I think I’d know how to do this stuff automatically, like cooking and putting on lipstick. I had fun figuring out my new toy, and it is all vintage looking too, see:

I also just ordered my first LINEN canvases! I have never worked with linen before. Isn’t that exciting? I bet you are just jumping up and down and pooping your pants right about now. I’ll let you know how it all goes. I have no idea how different it will be, but I’m very curious to see what is going to happen.

Los Angeles Art Show and More

Ayin Es3 Comments

Last weekend I went to the Los Angeles Art Show and it was …. It was…. well, …not as fantastic as I’d hoped, but it was still okay and I saw a few memorable things. I am now fascinated with a painter named Armando Romero who I saw at Tasende Gallery. I was seriously impressed with his work and have been reading about him online ever since. I have not stopped dropping my jaw at his life’s work. He’s going right up there with Amy Sillman for me.

Speaking of which, I saw a very good abstract painter named Sarah Stolar at The Bohemian Gallery from Kansas who I liked very much too. Her work was bold and brave, large and it drew me in instantly. I loved her painterly strokes and colors. It inspires me not to be so flat. The people at the booth were also very nice (a little bit rare, but not for the Mid West).

MJP seemed to really take towards a painter named Aron Wiesenfeld at Arcadia Gallery in New York. I liked him very much too. He had his own style for sure, and there was something beautifully eerie about his pictures that made them strangely special.  Excellent painting.

My gallery, George Billis, had a great booth this time around. It was well put together with some of their best work, and they changed it out each day. I saw it on the first day and the last. I wish my work was front and center when I came back on the last day, but apparently I had my time in between.

My favorite booth hands down was Rebecca Hossack’s space from London. I’m in love with artists Peter Clark, Ross Bonfanti, and Balint Zsako.

Now that I type all this stuff down, I realize that it was a better fair than I gave credit to in the first place. Perhaps I spoke too soon.

In other news… “Tzit Tzit” opened at the Saint Vincent Gallery yesterday.

“TZIT TZIT: Fiber Art and Jewish Identity” is the full title for this small group exhibit that is showing at Saint Vincent College in Pennsylvania. It is curated by Ben Schachter, and here is an article about the show.  And another in the Jewish Chronicle here.  There’s even a little YouTube piece here.  The exhibition runs until February 21st.

I’ve been thinking about applying to the MacDowell Colony in April for a residency in the fall. I had this killer dream recently where I went away for a few weeks and all I did was draw and I am fixin’ to make that shit come true.

That’s all for now. Ta!

Clever Art, Timeless?

Ayin Es4 Comments

Hi everybody. I feel like I haven’t written in this blog about anything truly art-related in a long time. I don’t know why that is exactly. A mixture of depression/hibernation and fear, or perhaps indifference, laziness, forgetfulness and lack of passion. My passion has been redirected, rather. I used to bring my ideas out on my blog a lot. That’s what it was for. I’d keep track of my ideas and the art world in general. I had a lot of readers too. Now, not so much. I also had the feed piping through my Facebook page and it took me forever to figure out how to stop that. I found it just censored everything I really wanted to say, or I’d cringe after every blog entry, realizing it was feeding its way through Facebook. I don’t know why; it just made me throw up a little. Perhaps because I am too personal here and the mix of people of Facebook are just not exactly the right mix. I think if someone wants to read this blog, they should just come here and read it. They can read every word, or they can skim it. They can comment, disagree, laugh it off, shrug, roll their eyes, relate, kill time, or whatever they want and I don’t need to know who they are for the most part.

Anyway, today I was just checking in on the West Collection/Prize entrants, because I am one of them. They are going to post the 10 winners at the end of next week and I wanted to see what I was up against. There is a rating system where anyone can click on up to 5 stars for each artist. Most decent work has received 3 stars, and so I was digging deep to see who got the 4 and 5 ratings, trying to understand WHY. Not that the artists with these higher rating did not deserve higher ratings, but it got me thinking about a subject that I don’t usually seen brought up very often, but think about all the time: Aesthetics vs. Cleverness.

If I had the readers I used to have, I would love to open this up for a giant dialog, but alas, I have become a big nobody in the artblog world. My own fault really. I neglected it all for so long/shut down for a long spell a year or so ago, and lost most of  my visitors. I probably have 10 readers now, if that. Still, doesn’t mean I can’t kvetch.

I don’t just make art, I buy and collect art. I’d like to think I have a pretty great collection, well on my way to being a quite serious one. For me anyway, while I can appreciate the kitsch and the cleverness of contemporary art, I sure don’t want to collect it for the long term. So, I don’t understand why it gets so much more attention out there than something that is much more desirable to live with. I have nothing against it, and in fact I think it’s smart to incorporate it just a touch, but not enough to exceed beauty. Why has beauty in art become a tainted, cheesy word? Is art art anymore – that thing that moves your soul (as goofy as that sounds), or is art all about trumping art history and being the next sensationalist? What sort of artistic  item would you rather treasure in your life for the next generation?

Maybe it’s about knowing what is and isn’t timeless, like a good song that won’t ever go out of style. One that doesn’t sound like all the other “new” songs. There is something about traditionalism, but it needs a very good helping of originality, and maybe above all that, it must have honesty. Those are the things I am drawn to when I buy something to have in my home that I plan to keep for the rest of my life, whatever the medium.

So I guess this has just been on my mind a lot. The artists that get a lot more attention are ones that are doing something a little weird, a little crazy, quite clever and sensational, shocking, odd, so-simple-it’s-funny, ironic, kitsch, recycled vintage, anti-art, or just plan bad for the sake of it being bad on purpose. Not ALL of them, but a lot. It doesn’t make me angry or anything actually (if I sound mad about it, I’m not really). I think it’s curious and I only wonder if I am the weird one for still appreciating a beautiful painting.