Art that is Personal

January 21.

I think all the work i make is personal in some way, but it is indirectly personal, in that there was a moment of inspiration which, like a game of telephone, ultimately transforms into something quite different--in many cases, bearing little to no connection to its inspiration.
      Last week, I was having a conversation with a friend about how it can seem like we are conduits-like the work is making itself through our actions.  I think this is partially what happens, but the numerous decisions that go into a work are our own, and nothing would ever get completed if we questioned the "why" behind each of those decisions.  So it becomes intuitive.  Acting on an idea without overthinking it. 
   Lately, i have been very immersed in technique. Playing with materials.  Experimenting. I felt the time had come to work on a piece that was truly personal, without the disconnect. 
   Several years ago, I had a relationship end. It ended because it needed to, but the love I shared with my ex was profound and unwavering. About two years went by, and I happen to get an old "mystery" roll of film developed, and here was this picture.

The image moved me...so much.  So i hung on to it.  Fast forward several years.  Events cause me to revisit this time in my lift, and it is uncomfortable.  So I decide to process it by making a piece out of this picture. 

Working in the collage technique, I started it this way.  Then, knowing that i want texture in the faces, but there is very little to be had in the pic, I decide to render the sun's rays in cigarette butts for a myriad of reasons I need not get into here. 

I spent a few hours today wandering aroung picking up butts. I felt like a weirdo, but I am inspired by the bold performance art of Pope L. called The Great White Way where he crawls in a superhero costume all along Manhattan's Broadway over a period of nine months.  Just him.  No one there to ease the harshness of his own spectacle.  As I  picked up cigarette butts, I thought about what each person may have been thinking about while they smoked it.  Some had lipstick on them.  Some were smoked all the way, and some looked as if just a few puffs had been taken before casting the butt to the ground.  I found myself constructing narratives and feeling like a little bit of the person's essence  (as well as their DNA) will be incorporated.  To keep the piece personal, I walked a route that is relevant to the subject.  Lots more work to do here, and yes, my apartment stinks. 

The Lounge --Part I

Last night I began work on a new piece.

I began by covering Stonehenge paper with a wash of oil paint and solvent.  I used to begin my pieces this way years ago, and I got away from it because it is incredibly nonarchival...as in, it probably wouldn't even make it through my lifetime, but I have a plan, plus a few paradigm shifts which make archiviality not-important. 

After finishing the preliminary compositon/ color selection with pastels and colored pencils, I plan on wetting the entire piece and dipping in copious amounts of archival glue, and then bonding it to a piece of birch panel.  After this dries, I will go into it with oil paints.
       I have had an image in my mind for many years now. I came upon it in my early NYC years when I was going out to a lot of trendy bars full of high  concept design and fancy beautiful young people.  The music of Supreme Beings of Leisure plays in the background.  Its a bar in the penthouse of a many-storied building somewhere in the thick of the city. It has improbably tall vaulted ceilings  and the floor is baby blue shag carpet.  The bar stools are blue vinyl.  The walls are powder blue. A woman sits at bar who is part woman, part other worldly creature.  There are people around, and the mood is dreamy and relaxed.

Inspirations include:
                                   

Power Party, by the incredible Inka Essenhigh,

Marcos Chin, who does the LavaLife ads.

Anyway, this is what I came up with so far:

The beginning of a chandelier swinging up above.  I lecherous bartendar begins to reveal himself.  I have been reading about chance in art, as illuminated by Marcel DuChamp and the Dadaists.  I enjoy the way the oil and solvent soaks into the paper almost immediately, and the movement of my body is visible in the brushstrokes, which are completely unplanned, spontaneous, aggressive, dancy....  These suggest a beginning to the composition that I "pick out" with my pencil, and develop later.

Also, another beginning which I am feeling pretty happy about....

                                                                             

Neil Spiller

I excitedly returned home early from work today for the long Thanksgiving weekend with a million ideas and plans spiraling around in my brain.  In the course of fooling around with Instagram, photographing work, and tightening up website images and looking through old files, I was excited to unearth a photocopy that I remember making years ago in my college library.  Although I had been thinking all this time that these were sketches by Lee Bontecou, I realized upon further inspection that they are in fact by a Neil Spiller.  I researched him to discover that he is a British researcher specializing in architecture and digital theory.  More exploration revealed a treasure trove of inspirational drawings.  Explosions of ink layered with well rendered amorphic forms and structural grids.  So glad I have left myself a trail of crumbs leading back to the deep-seated a priori thing that made me want to make art in the first place...

About

Yesterday after work, I met with Shannon for a phone chat about my website. Before we got on, I started stressing out about the "About" section, as I she had been gently coaxing me to try to have something prepared.  I have gone back and forth about Bio/no bio, Artist Statement/No artist statement, Cv-I do not have enough shows or professional experience to compose a proper Cv, etc.  What I do have is a number of years of making my way artistically which has not followed any traditional trajectory, but which has lead me to where I am, for better or worse.  So in the 15 minutes I had before our phone chat, it all kind of came out in a flurry, and I found myself pleasantly suprised.  I ended with a quote from the great David Foster Wallace, and another by Milan Kundera which addresses the slippery slope of art interpretation; my sneaky way of avoiding an artist statement.

In other news, one of my coworkers called me a "cunt" yesterday. I am having a very hard time shaking this off.  The day was sunny, and we had a great detail.  I grabbed the drawings and did my best to facilitate the work and be a supportive gang member.  Then at the end of the day, I grabbed an impact gun away from another guy not realizing how much he needed it, and so he called me a "cunt".  I am doing my best to blow it off, but I find that no matter what i am thinking about, this memory is lurking close to the surface.

At the end of the day, I received some tutelage on Instagram.  Apparently, my technique needed some tweaking.  Its a little overwhelming, but I know it will be lots of fun when I get the hang of it.

Jamais Vu

11/12/17

Just coming down from the show our little incipient art collective put on this Saturday.  The evening was a success;  The Skunk sold some work, Dorothy managed to get her wonderful surprising piece up on the wall, Rosanna's sculpture was excellent.  I was so relieved to just see my work up and displayed in proper lighting, somewhere other than the hall outside my apartment!  Collaborating with my old friends was great fun, and it was  interesting seeing how other people approach the little problems that arose.  The winding conversations we had about art and philosophy made my blood pump with renewed vigor.

"Is that for sale?"  I both love and fear this question.  Although I was warned to have some prices in mind, I completely neglected to do so, and therefore the few people who asked were left guessing.  I want to hang on to each piece until I truly feel its resolved, and only to let it go to someone who meets a certain criteria.  Then, they have to stay in touch with me for the rest of our lives, and send yearly photos so i can see how the piece is aging and know it is still alive.  Also, I get visiting rights.

I was fortunate to use the services of Unique Framing in Sunset Park for a few simple black frames.  I learned a few things about presentation while hanging this show.   Do not use plexiglass for displaying art, only for protection. The glare was too much.  Also, the piece, "Flight" I was determined to get framed and then serendipitously decided against it at the 11th hour due to cost.  This piece deserves to have a creatively handmade frame, and not glass, the way I had planned. Glass flattens, and the sexy texture is lost.  I love the idea of frames as art and framing in general is a satisfying piece of closure.  I wish I had a little wood shop where I could make them without fear of getting sawdust in my food and paint.  Yet another thing to dream on.

Fire Hydrants

 

Back to the blogosphere, for better or for worse.  Today, I am working on the second of these two images.  The theme shared by the two is "fire hydrants".  The above drawing was sold to someone along the way.  I continue to be inspired by fire hydrants due to their form, function, ubiquity, variety, color, texture, and symbolic value.  The second image is a painting that I am calling "Palimpsest".  This image originated as a collage of failed peices, that I then refined into a chaotic colorful mishmosh, and then painted a fire hydrant on top, leaving only the texture of the collage remaining.  I did not consider this a successful piece, and this morning, I awoke with the inspiration to sand it down, and trying to replicate the surfaces and textures I observe all over the city.  Last night, on the Lower East Side, I felt warm and fuzzy looking at the brick walls covered with layer after layer of graffiti, each layer eroded down to a partial clean slate for the next.  Posters, once wheat pasted to the avenue corners and dumpsters, now torn away by forces of wind rain and humanity. 

Its in the Morning

I drink coffee and contemplate the day ahead. I am having a wave of excitement knowing that the bulk of the weekend lays ahead, and that i will see some good friends, and be out in the world enjoying the pre-autumnal weather, with its bright sunlight and incipient crisp breezes.

On the way home from work yesterday (after exiting the gates with my usual Friday fervor) I stopped at Amish Market, the best little market ever, just to see if they may have the elusive ham bone of my dreams, which I have been seeking for months now for my split pea soup. The elfin man behind the meat counter, after my asking, faltered, and then reluctantly produced a big honkin bone for me repleat with pink meat, explaining that they use them for their own split pea soup, but he was giving it to me. Success! I went home and made, I have to admit, an admirable pot of soup.

Afterward, I was having an urge to take a walk and photograph the grafitti along South 5th that I see each morning that I ride my bike across the Williamsburg bridge. I was just going to text El to see if she may be available to join me, and was delighted to see that she had reached out just a few minutes before just to see what i was up to. So we set out along the bridge. Our travels took us to a sweet little park on the waterfront. The weather was perfect and the bench we sat on was rickety, making for adventurous sitting. We discussed the intricacies of bike-riding in NYC, and I am afraid its time for me to buy a helmet.