Summer

Summer. I make most of my paintings in the summer. I always have since I was a little kid. I can still smell the roses in my uncle Jack’s backyard. I like to paint outside. My studio doesn’t have a roof on it. I can see better, get further away from the paintings, see them in radically different light at different times of day. The weather affects the paintings too, stains, rain, mildew, bleached by the sun, accidents, blown by the wind, nature, at first a distraction interfering then helping. It is an activated system. Freedom of materials set in water and daylight, every summer.

-Julian Schnabel

from JULIAN SCHNABEL SUMMER

PAINTINGS AND SCULPTURES 1982 - 2007

staying the course

Sometimes, momentum is all there is. I can't always see the goals I've set, the points to which I tell myself I am navigating. I get up, I come to work, and I don't have a valid reason or promise of reward other than the fact that action inevitably brings forth action. If you keep putting your feet forward, you are walking; and if you keep walking, you'll get somewhere.

I'm faced with an unforeseen option in my non-art life; a possibility I casually pursued out of a complete lack of knowing what to do. As I follow-through on it over the next few weeks, there will be a great deal of soul-searching and discussion with family. But the inner refrain that keeps repeating itself is that I am nearly 45 and have never made life decisions solely about money, so it is somewhat suspect to attempt to do so now.

Back in the studio, the assignment was fairly simple and I accepted it; paint 50 canvases of uniform size and in factory-like succession. It is zen-like exercise in repetition for the sake of observing my own mind and process, while equally allowing that process to be free from judgment. So far, so good.

If I abandon now, even temporarily, I wonder what will be lost. I am watching this patchwork of paintings appear before me, and each week it grows larger and more intricate. I'm managing an unprecedented amount of frugality and fiscal responsibility in my external life in order to keep tubes of paint and bottles of medium on the table. This uninterrupted surge is not even half complete, but I feel in my heart that it is having much of the impact I had hoped for. Working in this way has opened up the unexpected as well, and sharpened my instincts to be able to seize on those moments to better effect.

I am also coming to terms with just how much my beach week and all that I saw and experienced is working its way into the work. I worked on the large piece today and it has become (for the moment) a seascape; undeniably and uncharacteristically literal. The arrival at this picture has been anything but intentional; other than the intention to continue to work on it. The subconscious has asserted itself independently and rather forcefully. Message to self: I long for the water.

Before the summer is over, I plan to go surfing; something I have not done in over a decade. I may have succeeded in convincing my daughters to go to surf camp next summer, the 3 of us could do together. For however long we are this close to the coast, I want to develop and encourage their love of water. I also want to dispel fear whenever possible, and to build confidence.

For my own part, I am staying the course for now. Having tomorrow off means I can get back in here tonight and work late.

more thoughts of Gauguin

summer skein

Sitting here tonight with a nice Montecristo. Tonight things seem brighter to me, as if I have some fresh eyes. I painted a picture that reminds me of van Gogh and Gauguin in Arles. It has the most peculiar yellow and a very heavy landscape quality to it. I hung two other paintings next to it, flanking each side, and it is fairly marvelous. Blogger was cranky and wouldn't upload photos.

the price

Every artist I know deals with it; how do you set prices? If I had a tried and true formula, I would post it, write a book and go on tour. I don't. I have no idea because I simply don't have enough market feedback. I think this is one thing that is maddening to people who buy art (or want to), and it is further compounded by the erratic and often nonsensical pricing one finds in various "galleries". In fact, the term "gallery" covers everything from a ramshackle thrift market to the high-end white cubes of major cities. The term is fairly meaningless in terms of indicating the quality one might expect.

I was formerly a member of a local cooperative. They do a decent job of getting art in front of people, and exposing the population to different ideas and varying quality of work. Yet they stick a $50 acrylic landscape painting next to a $500 oil landscape painting and wonder why people scratch their heads. There is no vision, no aesthetic narrative which explains why one bucolic scene is ten times the price of another. They do the same thing to abstract work.

It's always a struggle to price work because you're putting value on something that is a one of a kind, handmade object, but is also relative to the hundreds of thousands of works out there which resemble it. At issue is not just the fact that you made it, but also how well it is made, how conscious you are of your references/influences and whether or not the work is an interesting or even relative part of the Conversation.

Who hasn't been to the local coffee house and seen student paintings for mid 4-figures? Who is this being sold to? What are the artist's prices based on? One can't blame the student artist for trying, after all the art world is insane with price structures and "value".

Most artists want a fair compensation for their time and work. Most of us will bargain, barter or trade if the deal is sweet. There is also the nature of the sale; does it afford potential exposure which could honestly result in more sales and recognition? At the same time, serious artists don't give their work away, loan it for free or pay to play. I get a call every once in a while from some restaurant or another that wants to "give [me] exposure" by hanging my work. They don't offer to buy it, nor have plans to buy it. When was the last time you went to nice restaurant, noticed the art on the walls, took the time to ask the server or manager about it (whether it is for sale, how you could contact the artist, so on), and then followed up? I would guess never.

As I have not exhibited much in the past year and holed up in my studio, I am facing no small amount of anxiety and self-consciousness about pricing right now. On the one hand, I feel the work has evolved and is much richer and better informed. On the other hand, I'm vulnerable and insecure after my hiatus.

Money is always going to be an issue; even if you're Jeff Koons, you will find that the work you want to make is going to cost more than you think. And let's face it, getting your price doesn't always mean you make good work, or even that it ends up being good for your reputation.

Tony Smith famously waited for the art world to pay his prices. It worked. If you don't cheapen yourself and your work, eventually you have a much better chance of getting what you feel is fair.

ramble on

No pics today. I've been working all morning, everything is wet and glossy and the surfaces are returning to my signature (and notoriously impossible to photograph) slickness. The layers of varnish just bounce every angle of light. I either get color or I get detail, but never both.

I found an old exhibition post card from 2000, when I was still working exclusively on copper. It is remarkable how I've achieved such similar surfaces through an entirely different medium, -largely unconsciously.

Anyway, I continue to grapple with the large painting, I may post some pics of the various stages so far, about half a dozen or so. I can't get it to hold together.

Summer feels as though it has arrived, the 90's are upon us and the humidity is climbing. I'll have to break out the fan soon, but right now about 112 sq feet of floor space is occupied by paintings. They have to dry facing upward, or tabled. I don't have drying racks, which I know I should build at some point.

As my writing today suggests, there's just nothing exciting happening today. Today was about showing up and doing the slow work. So be it. These days are no less vital to the overall process. They are just not as sexy to document.

I am still in exploration mode with these paintings. I've yet to get what they are about. Fortunately, I like the unknown. Sitting here now, writing, the idea occurs to me to make the large piece red through the application of very thin layers of paint. It will take a few weeks, but the underlying textures I've laid down will be amazing. hmmm.

a rare final image

as yet untitled, oil on canvas, 24" x 24", Rico 2011

This blog is about process, high and low. I don't generally post final images; I've learned the moment I do, I see it differently and then go change it. This one, however, finally got to a place where I felt I could stop.

I can tell you that the surface is unreal. I expect a full month of drying time before I can complete varnishing. It's delightfully nasty. As always, I got some color distortion with my blues and greens. I noticed this with the Forest and the Sea paintings most acutely, they were a bear to color adjust.

I suppose I recognize my own vernacular here, but I also see how I've built on past things and gone forward. This body of work is interesting as I watch it build. Right now I'm too close, so I'll end my commentary.

The doubt which proceeds achievement

So often I don't know. I recently looked through my previously produced books of work and then I look around me now at all these works drying on the floor like crazy tiles. I put one on the wall, I look at it...try to see it, walk away, come back, sit down, look again...and again. What is this work about? What is it, exactly, that I am doing here? Words like "like" or "good" seem irrelevant to the conversation, much less the Conversation.

I'm close. I can feel it, and I know the resistance which rushes toward me in its myriad familiar forms is an open wound on the self-limiting dragon which holds me prisoner. The things which hold me back are mortal, they can be overcome, and I see this now. Yet, I don't know what is missing in front of me. I don't know how much further to push out from what I see.

Then the ringing thunder, "I suck!" echoes in my head.

Still, I show up. I am here, I am listening and watching and moving and my hands and wrists and elbows are covered and splattered and dripping with paint and I know, I am absolutely convinced, this is for some purpose beyond for its own sake. I'm alive and making work at this moment in time because it is the moment in time I was made to make work about. The pervasive anxiety, the collective need for the visceral experience, and the light shown into the spaces between the lines of delineation and comfortable understanding.

It lacks, but what?

More paint. Bigger surface coverage, which may mean making my own application tools. I saw it making my daughters' sandwiches the other day...the way the dull blade spread the thick, gooey substance, and I thought, -just at that moment, that I saw the pictorial space.

I saw the fractals in the stairwell of the lighthouse and conch shells and waves of surf surrounding me as I left the shore. I swam into the horizon, searching for the tangible nothingness which would show me what lies beneath the world in which we so blindly trust. It was there, and I'm trying to find it in the paintings right now in this warehouse along the train tracks. It requires leaving things behind, because I have be light for the journey. I have to come back and recall it by memory.

The other voice drowns out the previous, this one simply and quietly saying, "do the work." Do the work, the rest will come.

we now return you to the Rico Act

I got in early tonight and have been working non-stop until this moment. Red has come back; there are about 12 paintings that are really about red in various moods and presences. I continue to wrestle with the first of the large canvases and this is a match of Jacob-like proportions in that regard. Everything is slower right now, but this slowness no longer discourages me. I am where I need to be, as if somehow I actually set up this moment a few years ago.

Time away worked its magic on my soul, and the combination of a few things have born a focus I have heretofore not known in the studio. Part of this is that I have begun to truly apprehend my new tools (mostly masonry knives and squeegees), and thus my use of them is becoming more absorbed into my physicality and therefore more unconscious. In drawing classes I learned to reconnect the hand and the eye. In connecting with my tools I extend the hand.

Good things are before me; breaks that I have longed for but apparently have not been ready for until now. I may have found my back door into Atlanta, a market that has eluded me for some time. All art scenes are small. That is often the hardest thing to remember. I've made art about relationships, not money; and I've become wealthy in my acquaintances and rich in my knowledge as a result. One hopes these things endure, because we have learned that lucre does not.

My wife's family is from Memphis and we have a lot of people along the Mississippi. My heart goes out to everyone for whom the water has risen. Indeed, water has returned as a thematic element in the work right now, -perhaps in some part because of the floods.

I'm hesitant to post photos right now, I feel vulnerable and protective of the work at this moment. There is so much work in here. -more than 100 paintings of various sizes and styles. There is always the temptation to destroy; to harvest the wheat and discard the rest, as it were. I live in the "now" in here. Sometimes it is difficult to consider what has come before and to see it as if I have never seen it before. With the body of work I have produced I can see recurring ideas and suggestions of ideas to come in early pieces. One wonders how accurate that is in the end.

I think I finished the last of the reds tonight. They can dry and I can break into my third crate of canvases. I'll post pics soon.

Hunting Island

No man is an island...

..but I do love being on one! It is time for beach week, and I will return after a pause. Hope everyone has a great weekend and we'll pick this up next week. As part of my commitment to and enjoyment of my family, there will be no Blackberry, computer or contact with the outside world. Just we and the sea. I get so much inspiration from this little place and I've been waiting patiently for a year to get back to it.

purple rain

Got back to work last night, and immediately felt the difference in mood. I confess that when I conceived of getting 50 canvases I thought I would plow through them, but what has happened instead is that I'm really digging in. I recently read Steven Pressfield's "Do the Work," which I highly recommend to any artist. In it he puts forth the position that the more resistance one feels when engaging in a creative endeavor, the more significant that endeavor must be. I have been feeling tremendous resistance in the studio and with my studio practice as of late.

I watch friends succeed, I watch really crappy artists succeed wildly, and I keep wondering where my place in all of this is. Deep are the insecurities and heavy are the doubts, but I keep showing up to do the work; I keep throwing everything I've got into it.

The last few canvases are taking on this really juicy, icing-like quality that I find interesting. They have a tactile allure that is probably very difficult to resist, and should they be shown publicly, I wonder how difficult it might be for people to fore go the primal urge to touch. I like that. I like work that draws people in on more than one level. Hopefully, I can make work that does that.

The nights are wonderfully cool right now. I need to work as much as possible. I keep building these surfaces up and then adding layer upon layer of varnish. I want to see how far I can take it until it all falls apart. Hopefully I can take it to that brink without going over.

studio tonight

painter, interrupted

As much as I would like to weigh in on the death of bin Laden, patriotism and the like, I shall attempt to stay on topic. I will simply suggest that readers Google quotes on patriotism and reflect on what they find. I love this country, but I have issue with flag-waving nationalism. I'm an artist; perhaps on a fundamental level I'm simply not a "joiner" and thus I have trouble understanding such mentalities. I do not rejoice in the death of any man, but I hope this event gives some closure to the families and friends of those who died nearly ten years ago, and I hope it contributes to overall healing of the city I so love.

We've had back-t0-back in-law visits, my wife's father is leaving tonight. I love his visits, but I end up staying up entirely too late, drinking entirely too much and it shoots all our schedules to hell. He's a real gentleman and we volley about politics and exchange suggestions for books and discuss jazz. As one would assume, our politics are very different but we're able to explore the topics with civility. I have to wonder why, if we can do it, our elected leaders seemingly cannot.

My injury has also been a factor in my decreased studio time as I can't stand for long periods of time yet. But it is time to get back to work. I have many unresolved canvases at the moment that require attention. The good thing is that everything should be nice and dry and I can varnish.

I love painting. When I am away from it, it is as if there is a hole in my life. I hope I can do it all my life; that my eyes and hands hold out into my old age (if indeed I am to grow old). The studio is never wasted time, and I cannot say that for much of daily life except time spent with my daughters. A friend sent me a video of some news commentator calling out Rush Limbaugh for waxing theological, and that was 5 minutes of my life that are never coming back.

I generally avoid the "news". This is harder than it seems, so I'm distantly aware of most major events without really trying to be. The only story I've followed with any intensity has been the economic collapse and the relatively unmodified behavior of the financial sector since. I've said many times that I don't have an interest in making art that overtly comments on politics or culture or identity; instead I consider the act of making art to be inherently political.

I have anxieties that the current work is too derivative. I wrestle with doubts, as always; doubts of my worth as a painter, doubts about the significance of the work. Doubt can be good. Consuming, paralyzing doubt is not good. The way I deal with doubts and insecurities is to go to work. Getting in the studio and painting through it and facing failure in the face is the best way to deal with it all.

I desperately need an uninterrupted few days of working right now. I feel there is something happening if I can simply be present for it.