Looking for Work

Maybe it's the Winter or maybe just the fact that we live in the country, but the isolation of working alone all the time has gotten to me.

The best solution for this that I came up with has been to look for part time work. I used to have a really good situation up until a couple of years ago-I worked two days a week in an art studio just filled with people. We all got along pretty well until it was decided that I was a redundancy (as the British like to say) and I was let go-"We'll call you when we need you again"...yep, I'm glad I didn't hold my breath.

Anyhow, since then I've worked for a small company for a while which was ok, but didn't include socialization that I was looking for.

Choices up here are somewhat limited (I live in NW New Jersey-exactly 75 miles from Manhattan-it's actually somewhat rural up here). There are the occasional jobs that do sound good, but most of them pay about a dollar above the minimum wage, require you to lift 60 pounds or more, have reliable transportation (read, we use your car for a company vehicle), and want you to work weekends. Don't think so. I saw a full time position the other day that required all of the above and paid $7.35 per hour-can you actually live on that? Maybe I'm a spoiled jerk, but that wage was good about thirty years ago. Today? You've gotta be kidding.

They weren't kidding.

Anyhow, I'm looking for a part time job-if you have any leads, let me know.

Making art is truly solitary-I can't say as I've ever worked well in a group or as a collaborator. This solitude is both necessary and mind altering. After working a full day in the studio, it can be daunting to go and have interchange with folks-I feel as though I've got to check myself when leaving the studio so as not to forget that I'm no longer alone. You can get a bad reputation quickly in a small town-when going to get some groceries, you can't talk to yourself (ok, this may be to try and work out the intricacies of a piece of artwork) or stop to sketch stuff out on a pc of scrap-say, the back of a box of Corn Flakes -this does not fly well with the general public. You could wear a t-shirt proclaiming yerself to be a creative type, but that'll just get you closer to being lumped in with the rest of the people who are considered "off."

Have faith: the village idiot is still alive and well. He is called "artist."

Words...and Bacon, too.

More biography...

When I was in grammar school, I had an easier time learning to spell than most of my peers. I still see words in my mind before writing them out, but I don't know that there is a connection between being a good speller and the visualization...

As I mentioned before, I have an affinity for words-their origins, meanings, histories. I'm often tempted to use more obscure/arcane ones in my work. Although I resist this when I'm feeling strong, sometimes they sneak in. Those of you who are more familiar with my work will know that written words, word fragments and sometimes single letters play an integral part in my sculpture (and my collage work as well). These don't always have meaning beyond a visual presence, which sometimes is stronger than other visuals.

Much as visual image is imbued with transportive qualities, so is the word. Fragments of words have a similar effect-this makes me wonder just what synapses fire when I put-let's say for argument's sake-a loose "R" into a pc: maybe"Robert", "Grrrr", "royalty"?-not any sort of provable fact, but....well, I wonder. In our everyday usage, we string words together to form communication-the better you know someone, the shorter those strings are (witness text messaging or even body language). Doesn't it make sense that bits/fragments would elicit responses?

Here's a non sequitur for you.

I've always liked Francis Bacon's work and recently have done a bit of reading up on him. But that's not what I want to talk about.

The open space that Bacon creates (or should I say leaves open) in his paintings is remarkable.

Maybe I'm more sensitive to it as I've always had a hard time leaving open spaces in my work.

This open space is powerful-I find it even more ominous than many of his figures. It lurks-but not as a presence. It gives the figures in his compositions an existence in a non-space. The space in these paintings is non-contextual....so as to not only threaten his characters with violence, but a total anonymity (you know, if a tree drops in the forest...) -a violent meaningless existence in a meaningless place. What then does violence mean-if a tree falls in the forest....

Rambling on, above is a collage on old painted wood (dimensions variable, approximately 10.75" X 10.25" X 1.75") using paper, pencil and tin. It has the title (which simply came to me as I was making it-got no explanation other than that) of "How and Why I Call You Judy" and sells for $115, plus shipping. Another bad photo...

Titles-useless blather?

When I was in art school, it seemed to me as if 7 out of 10 artworks were titled "Untitled" (or the sorta mysterious "Ohne titel" if you were cool enough to be German). Now my first impression of " Untitled" works is that of pretension. I know-this is not fair, but I seem to be hard-wired for this-and prejudice is hard to shake.

Maybe I tend to go too far on the other side in compensation. Everything that leaves the studio gets a title (well, "Untitled" is used if the work is nascent and I haven't come up with a name yet-usually NOT for lack of trying).

In the past few years, titles have started to appear before the work has been created. The analogy of writing dreams down comes to mind-the more you record, the more you seem to remember. With titles, the more work I do with them (and therefore become more conscious of them), the more they "appear" to me. This morning, I woke to a title-a phrase just kinda floating in space-you know, like a cartoon with a speech balloon. It's happened before and I thought nothing of it. But relating it to you, it is sorta strange, yes?

I've always loved words-their origins, meanings, spellings (and mispellings-don't grade me on this blog-although a good speller, I'm a lousy typist and this thing does not have a spell check)since I was a wee thing. Obscure ones, big ones and the ones that make no sense-all wonderful to me. Good writers are few, but people that turn words into strange mixtures that somehow borrow sense are even rarer (there's an analogy with sculpture coming here) .

In some of my works, I think I'm after coupling the titles with visual elements in the work-not to make a literal statement- a joke with a punch line or a story to impart a moral belief-but to create a thought that borrows sense but doesn't fully possess it. One that kinda deals in what I find to be a truer reality. Dunno about you, but I find life to be more about half-said/half-thought things than sentences complete with periods. This post is about titles, so more on this thought later.

An aside here-occasionally, I sell artwork to unsuspecting buyers. I wonder what the proportion would be of a) buyers who forget the title of the work immediately b) buyers who rename the work c) those who actually remember and use the title.

Here's the upshot: my work will continue to be titled before it leaves my hands. But the jury is definitely out on the issue as to how much titles matter. I welcome comments on this issue and especially what it means to the commenter.

I'm posting two photos today. One is a collage within a box called "Wedding (R-K)", measures 15" X 7" X 4" (paper, wood, tin, miscellaneous found objects), and sells for $235 (photo on right). The other I completed yesterday and it is called "Putting Lincoln to Bed" (See, the title is right on the front of the pc!). This one measures 12" X 16" X 1" (wood, acrylic and encaustic, paper, pencil) and is $100 (photo on left).

I soon will be getting a copy stand and, hopefully, this will improve my photography. If you need more info on any of the pcs, please contact me with questions.

later in the day

So I sent out word of this here new blog to a few folks I know and got back some positive feedback The best (Well, it was my favorite) being that writing this blog shouldn't be a job, but an enjoyable and hopefully productive thing to do....we'll see.
I thought that the best way to approach making different work would be to change my physical surroundings, so, much like my welding equipment, I'm going to work out of the house and not from the studio. At the studio, I always have several pieces in progress. That means distraction from the work which I talked about earlier in the day:collage and painting.
Today I spent all but the morning hours working on several collages and just mindlessly painting a board which needed to be redone. The work went extremely slowly-it almost seemed as though I knew every element that I had at my disposal before some sort of composition began to gel...after almost giving up, it seemed as though i had a period of an hour or so when the work just flowed. I might go back and rework some of the pcs I created, but my intuition tells me that there is something solid there.
Speaking of intuition, there's something to be said for age and experience here --or maybe it's that I had a lack of confidence when younger, but i don't think that that was it. I give it up to intuition when I just know something is right-that the track I'm on is the right one. By the same token, Ino longer bash my head all day long when it doesn't feel right to struggle to do artwork. The whole thing has to flow. Now I know on which days to clean the studio-can't say that I did when I was younger-I would fight all day until I'd finally give up in depression. It's as simple as this-somedays you are just not meant to do artwork. More later.

Why blog?

I decided to start a blog for several reasons. The first was that I seem to have a yen (on and off, but nonetheless, a yen) to write stuff. Clearly, I'm no writer, but , like everyone else, I have a few things to say. Hopefully, these things will not sound idiotic or sophomoric (nor drag on and on). If this does in fact happen, maybe the other content on the site will interest you. I want to parallel my writings with artwork that I hope to be creating as I venture forward. This artwork will be in a different vein-that is, a direction in which I'm not used to heading. If nothing else, you'll get to see me founder in different materials . I suppose it would help to explain this further: I'm a sculptor but hope to be working here in collage, maybe drawing and maybe some painting. To see my other work, you must visit my website (http://www.wmskrips.com/). Will the writing and the art-making coincide? Maybe yes, maybe no: there's a good strong commitment from me!

I hope to share some ideas and maybe a theory or two...a little pontification, maybe an opinion and certainly some recommendations. The frequency of these will probably be an erratic one-at best, you'll be amused. At worst, it will read like a tween diary... "today I fed the cat and then rode my bike to Timmy's. I had a good day. Yesterday, Timmy rode his bike to my house and..."

You get the picture.

Speaking of which, here's what I start with. It's a collage on an old door panel called "John II", mainly for the cut-out reclining figure at the bottom. I used colored pencil to make the king waving a sword and the tree trunk. C said that the horse looked a bit pretentious, so I washed him out a bit with pigment. For this collage and some of the others I've been working on, I feel that I owe some credit to a guy named Clint Griffin- I met him at Folk Fest in Atlanta and like his work a lot. I don't know him personally, but if I did, I hope that I could say the same about him. He's an artist who I need to stay away from, only because his work could influence me a little TOO much.

Anyhow, this panel measures 18.5" X 9.5" X 1"-as I said, colored pencil, pencil, collage on white door panel. Don't know how this is done, but I'm pricing this artwork at $200. Anything that you purchase will need to have shipping costs added on to it. Please contact me if you are interested.

More boring biography here-I mentioned painting and drawing before. I need to force myself into making these things-I am a painter-wanna-be and have been all my life. There's something here about what you can't have is what you desire the most. Friends tell me that I should stick with my sculpture (which they like) and shut up. Maybe they are right, but I keep thinking about sticking my hand in the flame. Spose it's because I really like looking at painting-the expressionist stuff has always been a favorite-you know, paint that looks edible and all that.

I think in 3D. The sculptural work that I do comes easily to me (well, not THAT easily-let's just say that it's a language with which I'm facile). But working with 2D issues is not at all the same thing-collage may be an exception only because it is a literally additive/subtractive process. Painting differs in the fact that the elements in hand transform in the additive process. Variables

multiply very quickly and the possibility of retracting yer actions (without a lot of spontaneity-killing work) are almost nil. The painting process is a tough one for me-spose it's because I feel that a lot (if not all) control is gone-since I rarely start any artwork with a finished image/object in mind, the options quickly overwhelm me and I lose my way...but who can turn down a challenge?