This year I have been undergoing what I can only describe as a crisis of faith, in terms of art. I am undergoing a period of change and one of the many questions I am asking myself is whether or not to move the studio back home. My girls are getting older, so bedtime is later in the summer as daylight clings longer. With the Fall, my wife returns to work and several nights a week rehearsing, which always reduces my studio time somewhat. I'll say it outright, I'm hard on myself. I expect a high level of output when it comes to painting, and I get discouraged when I cannot meet my expectations.I spent a lot of time during this recent vacation reflecting on what is the best course of action for my art, my family and my soul. Again and again, I feel the pull toward building a studio at the house. I find myself wanting to be near, and drawing strength from my family. Perhaps it is partially because of the ongoing recession, but I feel at times that -much as I love it, the current studio is excessive. I always wanted my own warehouse studio, and now that I've had it for a few years I've realized that it is more important to own my studio than to rent it. I don't want to move again. I don't want to be subject to the whims of anyone else's finances.
We spent Thursday night in Atlanta, and walking down Peachtree with the girls I rededicated myself to getting representation there. Logistically, it is the clear choice. Professionally, it offers a market, a chance to expand into other regions with the strength of a gallery behind me (a great many of them have sister galleries in other cities), and an enticing place for secondary roots in the form of live/work or a satellite studio.
Despite ongoing accolades from friends and acquaintances, my efforts to find representation have been unsuccessful. One of the challenges of working in isolation is that I don't get the benefit of artist friends popping in the studio to give feedback about new work, nor am I able to be out "in the scene" for the gallery walks and openings each month to make the vital connections which lead to conversations with or referrals to dealers, curators and galleries. The only solutions are frequent travel, which brings with it both financial as well as logistical obstacles, or the dreaded "cold call" mailing package.
That's my scenario in a nutshell. We're rooted here, so relocation is not an option.
Through it all I continue to paint. I keep showing up for work, and perhaps that is something.
photo by Craig McDean via twistedlambInspiration comes from a lot of different places, often unexpected. Fashion photography is a frequent source. What I see in this image may have nothing to do with the clothes, the model, the design or the intention of the photographer. I get texture and color and morph them intuitively into alternate forms and rework the composition. They get filed in my mind and resurface as something from my own world.
So something like this becomes a shorthand. I use technology sometimes to manipulate pictorial elements, but often I go through this process mentally without executing a study. I always learn something with each painting. Even with digital manipulation, something often occurs to me, which I previously had not realized.
So something like this becomes a shorthand. I use technology sometimes to manipulate pictorial elements, but often I go through this process mentally without executing a study. I always learn something with each painting. Even with digital manipulation, something often occurs to me, which I previously had not realized. 
Hunting Beach, SC-Moby Dick
I stretched a canvas the other night, once again enjoying the handling of rabbit skin glue; the purity, the classicism. Just lost in technique and giving over to the body's memory. I flick the near-dry surface and it hums like a drum tone, I love bringing them to life from all these raw materials: wood, cotton, labor. I'm experimenting with pigment in the ground this time out, -something I have not played with before.
I work in exile, far away from friends and acquaintances in the cities. Far away from the scenes I follow online through an array of blogs, social media, phone calls and emails. The alchemist/mystic alone in a warehouse in bumfuck nowhere, activating these surfaces and exploring the depths...always alone.
A small sale, and with it a glimmer of hope and some continuance financially. The studio hangs in uncertainty as to next year. I may act, I may be acted upon, such is life. Nothing matters but the work now, there are no distractions: positive or negative. Go deeper, further. Go to the end of the world and look over and breathe in, then bring it back.
Reading Jung's writings and looking at his paintings in the Red Book, and realizing the wonder that people feel toward artists. It's easy to forget, it's just life. Jung tried to go into it and remain aware and convey the experience. It gets all hung up on the Mind, the Intellect and the other obstacles of creativity. This work is not for his colleagues, it is for us, -the artists, to explore and play with and respond to. That it should surface now, at this moment in culture and art is important.
I work in exile, far away from friends and acquaintances in the cities. Far away from the scenes I follow online through an array of blogs, social media, phone calls and emails. The alchemist/mystic alone in a warehouse in bumfuck nowhere, activating these surfaces and exploring the depths...always alone.
A small sale, and with it a glimmer of hope and some continuance financially. The studio hangs in uncertainty as to next year. I may act, I may be acted upon, such is life. Nothing matters but the work now, there are no distractions: positive or negative. Go deeper, further. Go to the end of the world and look over and breathe in, then bring it back.
Reading Jung's writings and looking at his paintings in the Red Book, and realizing the wonder that people feel toward artists. It's easy to forget, it's just life. Jung tried to go into it and remain aware and convey the experience. It gets all hung up on the Mind, the Intellect and the other obstacles of creativity. This work is not for his colleagues, it is for us, -the artists, to explore and play with and respond to. That it should surface now, at this moment in culture and art is important.
My father would have turned 70 today. The last time I saw him healthy was right after his 50th birthday, when I flew to Germany to spend a few weeks with he and my mother. The next time I saw him was in the Mayo Clinic, shortly after being released from Walter Reed. I was 30 years old when my father died, and as I've said on many occasions before, I had no idea how young that truly was.
Like many who go through long periods of fatal illness with a loved one, there was a mixture of loss and release at his death. That release was not only ours, but primarily his. A fiercely independent man, an intellectual, and a voracious reader, his blindness and paralysis became an inescapable cage of self.
He never met his granddaughters, yet I often catch glimpses of him in them. Little flashes; a look, a smile, some random expression or even wording of a sentence. What a wonder it is that so much can be encoded biologically.
My father taught me to think, and to think for myself. Often, those lessons were unpleasant, painful or frustrating. A Latino man who raised himself from abject poverty to then become an officer and a doctor, he had little tolerance for me performing at anything less than my best. But he peppered the intense tutelage with remarkable tenderness, and his love for and devotion to family and friends is something I have always tried to emulate.
It's hard sometimes being with friends 10 or even 20 years my senior who have both parents alive and well. I'm happy for them, but resentful at times that I must face manhood and fatherhood on my own. I wish I had the opportunity for long, late-night conversations with him over a good bottle of rum. We disagreed on so much while he was alive, but as I travel through middle age I think he would get no small delight in watching my perspectives shift.
The joke I tell at parties is that I was raised by a soldier to be a politician, so naturally I became an artist. Now that more than a decade has passed since his death, I do feel he would have been proud of my life, and the conviction with which I pursue my destiny.
I also recognize how growing up in the military gave me both a fascination of, and a respect for ritual and ceremony. If you have never been to a military funeral, there is a moment when the captain of the guard hands the widow (or surviving family member) the triangular-folded flag that was draped over the coffin only moments before. They then stand at attention and raise a slow salute. It was truly the single moment at which I thought I might lose it.
I miss you Dad.
Like many who go through long periods of fatal illness with a loved one, there was a mixture of loss and release at his death. That release was not only ours, but primarily his. A fiercely independent man, an intellectual, and a voracious reader, his blindness and paralysis became an inescapable cage of self.
He never met his granddaughters, yet I often catch glimpses of him in them. Little flashes; a look, a smile, some random expression or even wording of a sentence. What a wonder it is that so much can be encoded biologically.
My father taught me to think, and to think for myself. Often, those lessons were unpleasant, painful or frustrating. A Latino man who raised himself from abject poverty to then become an officer and a doctor, he had little tolerance for me performing at anything less than my best. But he peppered the intense tutelage with remarkable tenderness, and his love for and devotion to family and friends is something I have always tried to emulate.
It's hard sometimes being with friends 10 or even 20 years my senior who have both parents alive and well. I'm happy for them, but resentful at times that I must face manhood and fatherhood on my own. I wish I had the opportunity for long, late-night conversations with him over a good bottle of rum. We disagreed on so much while he was alive, but as I travel through middle age I think he would get no small delight in watching my perspectives shift.
The joke I tell at parties is that I was raised by a soldier to be a politician, so naturally I became an artist. Now that more than a decade has passed since his death, I do feel he would have been proud of my life, and the conviction with which I pursue my destiny.
I also recognize how growing up in the military gave me both a fascination of, and a respect for ritual and ceremony. If you have never been to a military funeral, there is a moment when the captain of the guard hands the widow (or surviving family member) the triangular-folded flag that was draped over the coffin only moments before. They then stand at attention and raise a slow salute. It was truly the single moment at which I thought I might lose it.
I miss you Dad.
My studio time is spent mostly looking. Over the years, I've discovered that there is no amount of time too short for going to the studio, -that lack of time is never an excuse not to go. I've had tremendous revelations in "drop-in" moments, when I only had a few moments to see what was going on. I've always painted quickly, so the physical smearing and brushing and staining of paint onto surface doesn't take me that long. Sometimes it has taken me far longer to build and prepare a canvas than to complete the painting itself.
Starkweather (pictured above) is breaking a lot of rules. I pulled out an abandoned canvas from last year and I've been steadily working on it for a couple of months now. Mostly I'm trying not to judge, because there are the voices within that scream "too simple!", "too tame!" or all the other criticisms that I alone level against myself in the solitude of the studio.
I'm building 3 medium-sized canvases and purchasing 3 more pre-built ones which are slightly smaller. There's something going on that I have to explore, but part of me misses the vivacity and frenetic energy of the F&S paintings. Like my personality, perhaps my work will always oscillate between these two expressions...or perhaps I am simply too close to my own work to see the underlying unity.
(for those of you who are at this point wondering...yeah, I never could stay silent long. I'm back)
the bar at The Napoleon House, French Quarter, New OrelansBack in it, the summer studio hours kick in this week and with a few coins in my pocket, I'm going to order some pre-made canvases and a new pair of pliers.
Subscribed to Chelsea art maps and hope to get up in the city during the hot nights of summer. My intel from the LA show Friday night is limited, but it seemed like a success in the fact that it raised a lot of money for the artist and hopefully sent him good vibes. Weird to have work up on the walls and never get to see it. No word as to whether the piece sold.
Feeling very tri-coastal right now. Holding my breath to see what happens with the oil spill and how it all plays out for Louisiana in general and the Big Easy in particular.
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