I have been working on 16 pages for this new book with one of my all-time favorite artists, Neil Farber. The 17th page is a collaborative piece that we both worked on. Each of us are doing about 16 pages in watercolor, gouache, and ink. Chance Press, who published Scribbles in a Sandstorm, is making all this possible and I am so very excited to finally have the green light to announce the forthcoming book, simply titled “Neil Farber | Carol Es.”
Just touching base to let you know where I am on the new Chance Press book. I have to do a total of 19 pieces for this thing, and as of now, I have 5 1/2 to go. I’m very nearly done with the page I am working on now. It’s 16 pages in all, plus a collaborative piece, a small 5″ x 5″ and one that is just pen and ink. The pages are each 7 x 10 inches and they are mostly watercolor and ink with a little bit of colored pencil on some. God, I wish I could show some of them off, but I can’t. I’ve also been working on my new website and I can’t show any of that either until it launches in full. I am really hoping that will be by January 1, 2013.
Other than that, I’ve been actually having a little bit of a difficult time with approaching a newer direction with my paintings. I say that, but maybe I’m not having a hard time at all, I just think I am. I have about four mapped out – I just always worry about the idea of running out of concepts. This is something I have always had going on, but I don’t ever run out of ideas, so I don’t know why I worry about that at all. It’s stupid is what it is.
What else is new? I have been going to art shows. I should have mentioned them right after I saw them, but I didn’t. The best one was Leigh Salgado at Coagula Curatorial. I also saw Richard Bruland‘s solo show at Lora Schlesinger, and Ed Moses at Patrick Painter. Richard’s show was beautiful. He always does wonderful work. And there were a few amazing things at the new gallery that opened in Venice at Shulamit Gallery. The space there is simply stunning. A lot of stairs though. It just keeps going up and up and up with little rooms and galleries on each floor. Very creative space. Some of the work was truly inspiring, but I don’t really know which artist did what. I was taken with the photography most of all. I saw a few other shows too, but I guess they are not worth mentioning. No offense to the artists. Oh, I did like Gary Baseman‘s show in Chinatown. It was not his paintings though. It was all his reference materials and collection of old photographs and I really enjoyed that.
I am trying to get my “Little Sister” to come to a contemporary art museum with me. I have to talk her into it because she hasn’t had the best experience with museums in the past. I want to take her to the Blues for Smoke show at MOCA. I hope to see it with her on December 2nd.
I have been keeping a kind of journal/sketchbook in recent months, where I write my candid feelings in a sort of stream-of-consciousness way. Then I am supposed to draw what I wrote. I didn’t draw anything for today yet, but I wrote the 300+ words it usually takes to fill up the page. Why I share these things, I have no idea.
13 November, 20012. 11:AM
I think I am depressed. Not so depressed I can’t move. Just beneath the surface. I feel like I am about to drown. The water is rising, but I am not moving. Decision making freezes me in place. I feel indifferent in rooms filled with laughter, like I am in my own secret bubble. I am not special in this way. It just feels like I am because I am wide-eyed aware of my place amongst others. I do a lot of things that make others happy, but I can never please them. I don’t do what I want because I’m unaware of what that is. Sometimes I know, but usually I don’t. I don’t listen to myself as I should. The glow of the sun is in my eyes and I don’t care about the rules of not staring into it. I allow it because I am disregarding myself. How ridiculous. It is ridiculous because I do what I want every day of my life. I make my own rules. I create my own realities, yet I feel this way. Why? Just seems ridiculous, like I need permission or something. Permission to do what? I guess to do what I want. I need to find out what it is I want. Why is that so difficult. I am making it hard for I don’t know what reason. Perhaps it is just a familiar place where I am most comfortable – insecurity. I’d like to be done with it. Life is too short and I am too old to keep going along like this. Any decision is better than no decision. I need to let the chips fall where they may. Make mistakes. Take a risk. THAT is the risk. THAT is the challenge. It is no bigger than that. Make any decision and allow it to fall into whatever depths or heights it will. So be it. I’m strong enough for anything.
I have been hard at work on a new book for Chance Press. I think it’s going to be the shit, the fo’schnizzle, the bomb, and the cat’s meow. The only problem is that I can’t announce who I am doing the book with quite yet. It’s me and another artist who is actually one of my most favorite artists working today. It’s going to be a dream come true for me, but I have to tighten my lip for now about who it is. I am waiting for Jordan Hurder from Chance Press to give me a green light, as he is not announcing who it is yet either, so I’m waiting for him to broadcast it before I go letting the kitty out of the cat bag.
Not only that, I will be withholding the 16 works on paper that I am doing for the project. So why am I even saying anything at all? Because I am excited! If you’re not seeing new paintings up as soon as you’d like to, just know that I am still here working my butt off; I just can’t let you see what I’m doing exactly. Bummer, right? Not. What the hell do you care anyway? You probably have more important things to do than check out my blog, or sit and wait for new art to appear. Unfortunately, I am obsessed with making things and posting them. Come to think of it, I am just obsessed in general. If I don’t accomplish something arty every day, I feel like some kind of looser. Like today for instance. I sketched in my sketchbook, wrote about three paragraphs in my novel, and I painted the watercolor on the 5th page of the new Chance Press book, but I feel like I didn’t really do much today. I went shopping, and went to the pharmacy, and just put on a load of laundry, but I am still lacking a sense of accomplishment. I also worked on some computer bugs as well: since 1993, I have been keeping my entire mailing list in a Microsoft Works database, and it wasn’t until today that I finally imported the data into Access 2007. Welcome to the new millennium, for Christ sakes! …So that was my day.
What is wrong with me? I’ll tell you: It’s never enough! Never enough art. I don’t think I will ever feel as accomplished as I fantasize about. I am forever neurotic.
So I’ve been working a lot, but haven’t gotten around to writing. Actually, I’m writing by hand a lot in the new sketchbook exercises, as that it part of the process. It is friggin weird to write by hand when I haven’t done it in so long. It’s foreign to me now, when once upon a time it was the only way I wrote. But that was sooo long ago! Even before I got my first computer, I used a Brother word processor that had a 4-line screen and saved everything to floppy disks. Remember those?
Here are a few of the drawings that have come about from these exercises. I thought I’d share some on the blog, and also post the last couple of paintings as well…
Two Girls, 20 x 16 inches. Oil on canvas.
The Devil in Me, 24 x 24 inches. Oil on canvas.
And this one is practically finished:
Held by Sheer Willingness, 20 x 20 inches. Oil on linen.
