January 25th: photos
Today I got up early for a meeting and ate breakfast while the sun rose.
I had hoped that today would be the day that i started making paintings i liked again, that maybe i could find a new groove, get out of my head a little bit. And after some time in the studio, that’s exactly what happened.
Here are the reasons why today was awesome.
exhibit A: since we dyed her hair, Mary Ellen looks like a super sexy Archie.
va voom.
exhibit B: Mary Ellen does not like to be told that she resembles Archie.
exhibit C: the studio flowers have begun to bloom.
exhibit D: Knox took me to Sunspot for lunch. No photos of that, but i ate the goat cheese quesadilla, which I love, and sweet potato chips.
exhibit E: (it just gets better and better!!) I made a paintbrush out of some of my old dreadlocks.
which paints strange double lines that make me feel excited about brushes again.
exhibit F: Daniel came to the studio and made fun of me, documented a bit of my new process, etc. This bit also involved laughing like a crazy person because I was enjoying myself so much.. which is much better than making paintings that stress me out.
i like to call it Gondolier Painting.
what’s with today, today?!
good intentions
It’s one of those days that i’m in love with everything and most everyone.
It’s so beautiful today, and even though the stranger in the park was yelling about how global warming is real & we will all be goners come summer, i’m enjoying it very much. we had a picnic with the kids and knoxy made vegan mac and cheese (which was better than you think) and broccoli and carrots, and we drank orange juice over the orange tablecloth i set up on the concrete table. then while the kids attacked the playground, knox and I talked about little plans, like what we want to do for valentine’s day. (french food, the mountains.) and so, it’s been nice. i’m in the studio now, still feeling very warm from our time outside.
today i am going to make significant headway on 2 paintings and finish a third, so by thursday, there will be a triptych. . no matter what. my feet are bare and the concrete under them is chilly. my glass pallet is really beautiful, i finally got a new razor blade so it’s properly clean.
last night i had the first session with my new model, and it was so different- clumsy – to try and paint flesh, not about emotions, nor really about gesture, just painting from observation. when i was finished, i thought about eric fischl’s work, how he really paints naked people and not nudes. I wonder if i’ll be able to do that when i’m more skilled.
but for now i do my best.
shew
I’ve just finished giving another working tour of the paintings I’ve been making this year.
& I don’t know if they’re going to buy or not, they have to think about it. (which is fair, paintings cost a lot of money)
but i find myself to be : emotional.
Exhausted : from not sleeping much last night (got home from the party at 4:30, up at 8 to cook breakfast for the guests)
Weary : from explaining art history and theory.
Excited : that people want to know more about art and grow in their understanding of what art IS, outside of Norman Rockwell.
A little sad : that sometimes people can’t understand what I make or do, that sometimes it’s perceived as invalid. I’m not speaking about the people who came to look at my paintings, but rather people who have discouraged and shamed me (and lots of painters, through the years) from making abstract work, or questioned its validity.
how do you explain and quantify something like this?
Here in Knoxville, I find myself giving a brief lesson on art history, with a focus on ab-ex, to almost all potential painting buyers. This is curious to me, and I wonder what it would be like to sell (in NY, for example) to collectors, or people who have art backgrounds. In some ways, it could be so nice..
My friend K is represented by a gallery, so she doesn’t really have to explain her paintings to anyone, to except to magazines and writing artist statements for shows. right now, that sounds heavenly. But also, that means that her art is up for much more discussion—people can definitely make their own assumptions and decisions about the work. Which could be really awful.
AND I love teaching people about art from my perspective, which is full of love and excitement and wonder, full of feminism and strength, power and belonging. but, honestly, not that well-informed. I have so much to learn about these things, I hate to be the Authority on Art in anyone’s life.
It makes me wonder what is going to happen on my journey. Am I always going to be cooking breakfast for people who want to buy my paintings, explaining myself over grapefruit juice and a lap dog, biscuits? It seems very precious to me as well, in a way, very gentle. Also, now that i think about it, VERY Southern.
It makes me wonder : Am I selling my paintings, or selling myself? Are people excited about the work or my perspective of the work? Is that what I want? Can you even choose these things? K says that the way to success in the art world is working really hard and being really interesting (or, having a story that people want to engage with)– so I’m working on not hiding myself when I talk about my work, which sometimes means crying, and sometimes means telling frustrating truths (e.g. “This is a painting about how much i love painting.”).
Anyway. Just thinking about all of it.
as the world turns
i woke up at 8:30 this morning feeling so urgently like I needed to submit my chapbook to Sundress Publications. So i did, and now I wonder what’s going to happen– They’ll get back to me by spring about if it’ll be published or not, but that’s a long time. I’m definitely interested in this web-based publishing thing that they’re doing.
What else? Daniel from Nashville is visiting for the weekend and i’m VERY excited to see him. It’s been a long time since we’ve hung out & a lot has changed, in both of our lives. Probably more in his, since he’s come out of the closet and i’ve just basically made a lot more paintings and gotten a different haircut.
today, must focus:
-christmas present-making.
-drawing.
-making money & fixing the car so we can drive to KY next week. (how do i do this?)
-reading art books.
-crafting with printmaking friends.
-cleaning apartment
other things:
-tonight i’m going to a bonfire, and it’ll be great fun.
-i gave knoxy an adorable haircut. i want to kiss him all the time.
-i really want to go on a trip. to new york, specifically. reading over all those poems i wrote about NY this morning have made me a bit nostalgic. and then i read this article on Brooklyn Rail about the de Kooning show, and it made me want to go one more time and see it before it comes down.
-we watched the newest Harry Potter last night, and the best part was yelling things about “Love, Actually” every time there was a close-up of Snape (examples: “Mr. Bean wrapped my christmas present!” ”I gave my wife a Joni Mitchell CD for Christmas!”)
-started running again. I’m pretty pleased that i didn’t lose much ground during the broken toe fiasco.
-i love breaks from school, and i love christmas.
this is funny.
so daniel can have something to read
well, i’ve finished, finally. No wonder i’m exhausted!
this semester:
i finally decided what i want to do with my life, forever.
i cried and realized that buying a house in Knoxville wasn’t a good idea for us.
i came to terms (ish) with the fact that art can be as valuable as humanitarian work.
i made a shit-ton of paintings, and really enjoyed myself.
i developed my own personal process for getting a painting started.
finally developed my drawing practice (and it’s only getting better) —(i’m so excited about this. drawing is the best).
these are almost all of 'em from the semester
learned to love painting with people always around.
started pouring paint (on canvases and accidentally on the floor).
learned how to make pours look like spray paint (which is dorky, but exciting)
used Flake White (read: lead-based white paint) for the first time and realized how much i needed a warm white in my life. also realized why all those painters died from lead poisoning.
made a couple of really good lifer friends.
listened to a lot of good music, a LOT of 90′s music, and a surprising amount of ABBA –having studio-mates’ll do that to you.
read and saw a lot of new artists. (Obviously Kelt, de Kooning, Carrie Moyer, Guston, sigh, Albert Oehlen, & I’m surprisingly in love with Rob Nadeau‘s old stuff, obviously Barnaby Furnas & Sigmar Polke)
Probably maybe still love Amy Sillman the best.
saw some BOMB art shows.
oh, also! I wrote a book of poems about all that.
these are the covers on the drying rack, screen printing FTW
what else?
i drank more beers than ever.
my hair got longer on the left side.
this one time, me and daniel and jeff went to my studio hang out and celebrate Jeff’s birthday, and i thought it was kind of funny that we didn’t go to a restaurant, bar, or house.
we all started having sunday morning brunch in Park Ridge, which has been the best.
lots of other things happened, too, like thinking about grad schools every second and then forcing myself to stop.
also, we went to NYC, which was, …you know.
i also made this one kickass drawing which i think might get me an A for my whole semester of drawing.
and now, i’m excited about the future. i’m really excited about next semester, when I’m doing an independent study in figure painting AND taking Nick’s fibers course AND taking painting with Josephine. (and art history)
i’m ALSO really excited about putting up a christmas tree, gingerbread houses, and purging about half my stuff over the break.
while i should be studying.
i’m thinking about love. and poetry, of course.
“Most love poetry is layered with passive-aggression, performance, entertainment, cruelty, confession, and self-sacrifice, playing with and obsessing over the conceits of poetry as much as the body of the beloved. John Donne was formative in that. In the throes of desire you’re amoral, you don’t care what images you steal or what atrocities you water-ski through, your sole concern is that the beloved pay attention to you, and become as powerless before your wonder as you are before theirs. It’s kind of a histrionic, hyperbolized, hyper-romanticized lust. Moments of humility and sacrifice are rare, but they happen. Mostly it’s a dance. You want someone to need you; you fling your arms out in every direction for anything that could be a tool on that quest. You debase yourself, you elevate yourself, you make dark predictions and bring them to fruition, you flay yourself on the altar of impossible expression, you try to spin them around until they give up and are exhausted and give over to you, then when you have them, hopefully you treat them lovingly.”
-Mark Leidner. More, here.
flurry frenzy
and today is the day that i have my final painting critique. that means hanging up all 30-or-so in one room and admiring them for forty minutes. I’m excited about this. i have one that i’m trying to finish in the next couple of hours, and then they’ll all be done. i stayed up all night working on it, and i’m a fan. i tried some new things. that’s important, right?
twins!
