Dark Little Poem: Being Blocked

I'm stuck somewhere
somewhere very close to home
I'm stuck here
these tiny flailing motions
that feel hopeful
butonly for a second.
Mocking me,
they further widen
this muddy rut.

I'm stuck here
and there's not much
to shout about
but it's
my only recourse.

I sink slowly
no hand to help me
(I've always been one
to be on my own)
Drowning,
a collection of bright little thoughts
sets to sparkling away cheerfully
(they've never coalesced)
dancing brilliantly
each and every one
stars
in their own right
reflected in my eye,
which slips under the mud
without a sound
granting those little thoughts
freedom
well deserved
or
not

A Moving Picture

I went to NYC yesterday and, although I fried in the heat, I came back with more than a few ideas.
A friend of mine said to avoid the studio for a few days after I spoke of my work all starting to look alike. I will try and follow his advice, but I am an addict, you know. I can never seem to stop working.
After I saw Bob, I went up to the Metropolitan to try and get lost in reflection in the Medieval section. This did not work-maybe I was too "winded" from the long walk (from 34th street), but I think that it was more about the heat:I don't do well in hot weather. By the time I regained some sense of focus, it was time to make the journey downtown for another appointment. But not before I found three Velazquez paintings-Count Duke Olivares on Horseback, an unknown (and not so great) painting of Christ with two others and an absolute favorite of mine, Juan de Pareja-for me, comparable to some of the stronger Memling portraits.
Later, at a group show opening (a friend of mine had a great little painting there), I saw this portrait of a seated female nude-but the image was moving-the idea of a tableau vivant, but not really in that the subject was making conscious movement, however slight. The whole effect was unnerving and made for an interesting visual coincidence, after making my quick tour through the European painting to get to the Velazquez. The gallery owner (the artist was not there) said that the piece was based on a classic painting (unknown to me, but I'll be looking for a few possibilities out of personal curiosity) .

New (dog) Suit

The house rearranged, my schedule upside down (like I really need a fixed schedule!), nothing that I put down is there when I go back to get it-this all seems characteristic of my life right now. What occurred to me this morning is that this is the very the shake up, the change, the knock-yerself-out-of-the-rut that I was asking for a few months ago- actually one of the major reasons that I started this here blog.

I wrote to a good friend this morning and, in so doing, realized that change has arrived, even though I was still waiting impatiently for it to announce itself! Guess I expected fanfare and balloons, but this one crept in silently under the door.

But a change has come to my work and to my working and not necessarily in a pleasant, gratifying way. My attitude is different and I'm more critical toward many of the old devices I used to fall back on. I still feel as though something is missing, but just what it is, I can't put my finger on. What is for sure MIA is a feeling of satisfaction with my work-no warmth, no fuzziness-evidence that points to the fact that old solutions don't pull their weight anymore.

Like the rest of life, this one is a work in progress. As unsettling as that is, I see it as a true antidote for being trite...against Bill making Bill-type artwork. There will not necessarily be a solution here. But how often do we get real solutions in our lives-ain't that the point?

Back to the drawing board.

Scheduling

I can't believe it, but I'm not doing ANY shows until August and even then, I'll be down in
Atlanta-dunno how I managed to do this, but I feel like my studio is overfilled at this point (which, on one hand, is a great feeling: I'm loaded for bear! But the other side of this is that I'm running out of space and, even worse, broke as hell)... I was on the waiting list for NOLA Jazzfest...oh, well.
Every year, I think for about two minutes of having a studio show and sale, like a good friend of mine (who is quite successful not only at his semi-annual studio sales, but also at most craft shows). But then I think that my audience is fairly small...and if you take logistics into account, I'd probably at best have a dozen visitors over a weekend...that wouldn't quite do it for me, even though the idea is still tempting.
The internet has provided me with some business, but it is random and fairly sparse-couldn't feed the family on that one. Guess it all adds up to the point proven time and again: it makes absolutely no practical sense to be an artist.

On Work That is New

Why does the very last thing you have done seem to have a different quality than all work that has gone before it? It shines like the Gem sought after in an Indiana Jones movie. Let me qualify that: it glows like mad, but only after its "kinks" have been worked out and you, the (proud?) creator, regard it as a sucessful work of art-an effort that merits its rightful place among your other "really good" pieces.
Like anything fresh and new, its essence is fragile-wait too long and that essence will waft away. What you will have then is just another work of art, to be stacked amongst the others (and here comes another cinematic reference), like the thousands of wooden crates in the vast warehouse of the dead Citizen Kane.

For me, new work has these characteristics:

a) The inspiration and/or backstory of what led to the work is fresh in my mind.
b) The internal conversation that I've had while making the piece is still close to the surface and available.
c) My understanding of how this piece fits in with the works that have come before it is so much more apparent.
d) The work can also be more readily tied contextually to my life, whatever value this might have.
e) The excitement I feel about the piece is more easily shared with my audience for being such new territory.

There are times when all this applies even more intensely to work that is in progress, but cannot be shared as easily-unless the audience is composed of other artists, familiar with all that results in the constant dialogue between the artist and his/her artwork in progress.

This sculpture is called "Mirror of Skin" and measures about 40" high.

Matador

It was hot in the studio-too hot for October.

The canvas stared at him from across the room.
Big painted-over eye both threatening…and voracious.
Half-finished work hung slap-dash on the walls of his studio-these paintings all seemed to be starving-with a hunger focusing on him and him alone. Like orphans whose parents were unknown, forgotten: all too needy, all missing vital bits and pieces.
“It’s great to throw color on, work your brush and feel that high, but totally another thing to actually finish.” The words rang in his head-metal scraping on skin.
The works-in-progress of Jimmy Neff were out for blood right now.

Compromise? Hell, just so he could gain some progress, he’d sell out-Monty Hall, door number two-style.

Get outta here. A break would help. Manny’s opening...the gallery where he met that girl.

He made it to the opening about five minutes before Walter, the gallery owner, started flashing the lights. He’d seen enough promise and potential for the night, the young darlings of the creative world. The dream palace was closing. Go forward on your dark missions and be gone.

Scanning the room, Jimmy picked out a few faces. Nodding to one or two, avoiding more than that, he joined a trio of friends, busy yapping away.

“Good stuff, if you like this kinda thing. I didn’t think that Manny it in him.” said Nelson.
“Yeah, alright,” Scotty added,” but haven’t we seen this shit so many times before? I mean, this sort of stuff is all over the place. You know, like give me a fucking break-it’s relentless.”

Jimmy, not wanting to join the assault, coolly offered a hello and asked when the Whitney show opened.

Information rendered, the group got back to panning the show. Boring. You’d think that it’d kill them to be constructive-and maybe stop waging war against the obvious.
But didn’t he fall into the same rut? Tired conversation, tired thought-don’t we all fall into lock step so easily? Much easier to use the well worn grooves than to break new, hard ground.

He sauntered away from the trio and snagged some grapes from the picked-over food table. What’s good? White wine, cheese, crackers, grapes. World without end, amen.

After bumping into Willy and making yet another promise to see the work of his brilliant young painter friend (His old studio partner seemed to have an eye for this youngster-Jeezus, was Willy turning gay? Hadn't seen that coming!), Jimmy took off, trailing the cigarette smoke of the hip behind him.

Getting these appearances down-musta been there all of eight minutes-eight minutes too long, if you ask me..

Christ, what did Manny’s new work look like? He hadn’t even glanced at it. No matter. If he ran into him, he’d fake it.

He turned down that dim alley off Varick-you know, the one that had a dance club for a whole three weeks. Dark and narrow-a mugger’s happy meal. Halfway down the street he saw a blur in the cab of a parked truck-one of those big box vans that provide the perfect palette for aspiring grafitti artists-then he saw it again. Driver and ho? No. Jeezus. What the hell’s a bird doing in there?
It was one of those little jobs-a sparrow or wren-the ones you barely notice-you know, they kinda blend into the scenery…stupid thing, how’d it manage to get stuck in there?
Well, that thing’s gonna be stuck till Monday morning. Whoever’s drivin’ it is sure gonna have himself a mess a bird shit to clean up..
Try the door-maybe I can get it out. Probably set off some stupid alarm and spend the night under fluorescents in the local precinct-yeah, good one. Passenger side locked. Driver’s side locked. Whatd’ya expect. No alarm, thank God. Damn bird is flyin’ scared now, knocking the glass tryin to escape me. Shit, I’ll open it later. Got that pry bar after I locked myself out that time. Come back when the party people are in bed.

He let himself into the studio, put on the coffee and eased himself back into his work. A brush, some paint, a half-drawn thought, images more knee-jerk than formulated. Who needs reason?
Many times, he asked how just how it was that he was a painter-or, more to the point, how he was chosen. Like he had anything to say about it. Blessing and curse rolled into one. Like a coupla cats tied up in a bag, chucked into the nearest river-clawing their way through only to encounter water. And more water.
It was hard work. “Only bad painters enjoy painting.” Collins somebody said that. Losing the thread was so easy-having a language of your own meant that there were no maps, no signs. My language, my world-out here, no one can hear you scream. Even if they could, would they care?
Paint something nice, not this useless crap.

Must have dozed off when he sat down on his old bumspring couch. He just needed a little distance to try and figure out the painting. Bad move. Didn’t even know what hit him. Out like a light.
It’s 7:30 and already light outside.. Cripes. Wasted the brush for sure-I’ll never get this dried paint off it. Take a leak. The dog already did.

Hit the Korean fruit stand for some breakfast. Coffee, hard roll. Where’s my wallet?

Shit. The bird.

He made a detour off his usual -it was only three blocks to the Koreans’ anyway, but Jimmy veered off to check the bird. It was warm already-this sure was gonna be another hot day-too hot for October. Wait, the truck is gone… hold on, no, that was the other one-it’s still there.
He came around to the front of the truck. After he checked for cops, he boosted himself up on the running board.

There, bracketed by white splotches on the seat, was the dead wren, feet curled up in surrender.


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I started this a while ago-it has been through many revisions and probably could go through many more, but I decided to make a committment of sorts and "print" it.

At the Risk of Repeating Myself...

I found this in a folder on my computer-I may have already "ran" it in this here blog-or not.
But in rereading it, I decided that it should see the light of day. If you've read it before, well, ok-go read something else. If not, and it gives you pause or thought, please feel free to comment...or not.

After writing and posting "Recent Work”, I meant to try and explain my engagement in the process of painting. I realized that I left some ideas and issues out of this writing when I talked to a friend about it.I’ll cut to the chase, as I need to recount details-anything forgotten and relevant is sure to come up in future posts. Besides I don't want to bore the hell out of you.
Here’s what I want to talk about: I am trying to regain (or is it revert to?) a state of naivete when painting: to work on emptying my mind preparatory to painting.

The benefit? To try and (temporarily) rid as many of the devices, tricks and crutches that I might call on to “help” me out while working on a canvas. Facing the blank canvas is a bit like being in the boxing ring: nothing to do with heroics -what you face in the ring is nothingness.
Relying on abilities that come so naturally (and I might add, that have come under suspicion of having all the characteristics of a “rut”) to me in my sculptural work doesn’t work. In this engagement, there is no known language used. There is no up, down, sideways because I haven't invented it yet. I have chosen to work abstractly (although it's damn near impossible to not imply certain realisms) and each applied stroke builds a world and gives the following one reference. The vacuous area of white (canvas) slowly takes on form and meaning of sorts. By self reference on top of self reference, a situation (or microcosm) builds. (Interestingly, I personally don’t think that the process can be reversed. Once paint is applied, whiting over the canvas just creates hidden history.)
So what grounds this inchoate bunch of strokes to New Jersey/to reality and how great a concern should this be? In creating these increasingly complex forms, when does orientation to the picture plane become an issue? Could it be as simple as where the painter stands relative to his horizon as the work is done or is this issue moot?At what point in time, in putting down stroke upon stroke, does the paint take on meaning? Of course, we need to know (or not) what is meant by meaning. Meaning can be personally assigned, like orientation, to some degree. Painting that represents that which we know carries meaning through our experience of that which is represented. Okay, I'm going to stop this because I seem to have more questions than answers. I’ll try and make my point. It's hard to paint. I work myself into a state where I can put down color and use a brush. But then it gets harder: the urge to make the painting relevant creeps into the act. Why? Possibly so that I can relate back to this work after having left the "zone" in which it was created. Maybe to give it significance to others-so it can stand in the "real" world by itself without explanation. There is an urge in me that something tangible (meaning marketable?) needs to be shown-perhaps this is my ego bristling-this seems to be hard-wired in me. As a product of practical blue-collar upbringing, I was taught that yer head should be in the clouds only to pick the best apple on the tree.It would be easier to paint representationally. A lot less doubt and certainly fewer questions.
I give a lot of credit to those who have gone before me, working abstractly and putting themselves squarely in the ring. Standing in front of that canvas can invite madness. Or a lot of anxiety. I’ll continue on with painting (You must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on). I fully admit to not knowing what I’m doing. Although unsettling, this not knowing is actually a good thing. It inspires new ideas and makes me sweat. If you need to see me more self-assured, more developed, than you can look at my sculpture. But with painting, I intend to do some serious bad work. And grow, I hope. If nothing else, I’ll be asking some interesting questions.

This one is called "Bird Watcher" and is made from a Broadcaster (seed spreader) and the legs from some old leather traces. Not so sure that the red encaustic works on the head, but the blue bird really pops right out (at least this is true for the actual pc, if not the photo!)...

I'd like to repeat that I'm interested in trading some artwork for a laptop-I need a portable "typewriter" that's capable of transferring the written data.

The Meaning of "2"

I don't want to make this into some secret diary or personal, self-serving fulfillment of an obligation...but thank you for the blessing, whoever might be out there deserving of thanks.

On to the real business (I'm sure you'll find this not at all esoteric)...

Observation
Whenever I look at the numeral "2" (I've had occasion to do so as I'm prepping a new mailbox with our house numbers on it), I think of my grammar school teacher, Mrs. Falconer (She taught me in the-you guessed it-second grade.)-why this is, I do not know. I do think of it as mighty strange.
The only association that I can possibly draw is that I the second grade, I was learning the order of numbers. This I remember: we had dark manila slotted cards, into which we could arrange little manila bits that had the numbers 1-100 printed on them. The numbers came in an envelope and it was up to each student to place them from left to right in several rows in the correct order. I remember the texture of those numbers and the fact that they were so less complex than the letters of the alphabet with all their infinite combinations.
This and a game of "post office" are all I remember about that class (well, not true-the quality of the light in the room is for me, instantly conjurable). However is Mrs. Falconer for me forever connected to "2"?

A side note: thinking about the computer and just how far we have come amazes me. There is something to be said for using manual dexterity to teach and/or to committ to memory certain ideas, but doesn't the whole thing seem so old and remote?

Bird is the Word

This sculpture measures 15" X 20" X 5" and is entitled "Kinds of Birds."

In a Dogsuit

(Flabby) Facts

Writing
with a
cheap ballpoint
(the one from the Oasis)
that skips.
Adding a certain mystery
to my trite scraping.

Making the pilgrimage
through Candyland:
words and letters-
from the blank page
to poetic magic

words
like chair legs
pulled across
tile flooring

Oh well
it keeps me busy
something to do
so I don't rust,
spilling coffee
like it costs nothing.

I'm filling up pages
I'm filling up walls
like there's no tomorrow.

"Vast amounts of energy
are being released
by something
that cannot be seen"

This is the something-
it demands patience
when it comes to the subject of reason

You're so nice
you're so very gentle
you drive a beautiful
and very clean car.

Wind this up
it goes and goes.

Crash damn
into a mirror.

I find out
what the studio audience
already knows.

Recent Adventures

Good Places to Drown

Roughed Tumbled
waves
water water water
river rocks punching knees

I'm holding on to this here paddle
like it was the child
I never had
my sole purpose to get it to shore
a purpose fixed
serving as my compass
one fixed point
the other leg swinging
describing a wild arc

In writing of this
In the making of that
there is delight
and a pixilation
in the edits
in the redos
But for nature
but for the river
there are no revisions
no cross-outs no erasures
lost shoes drowned cameras
no revisions
in the grand scheme

More about Home

So. Home is where you make it. I guess for some that that would mean that home is portable. I always liked the idea of a trailer and/or a yacht...when I recently saw the series (of course the name now escapes me) of the Chemistry professor turned methamphetamine-maker working out of a motorhome the idea of a portable studio struck me as really wild.
My studio/shop is definitely earth-bound. There is so much stuff (read, materials) in it that if I did more work with collage I'd be one of those freaks with the walls of stacked newspaper that made only the thinnest of walkways. You'd enter and wend your way around until you weren't quite sure you'd ever come out: a maze of used news. Back on topic, a portable studio makes almost no sense for me presently; but if I were to change my style...recently saw a design show that brought the shopping cart for the homeless to a state of the art affair. Every inch was designed for maximum efficiency and portability. What the designers left out was the unknowable-that humans rarely follow exact patterns. Only necessity compels us to have our homes dictate our lifestyles. The spartan life of the soldier comes to mind, but, in most cases, this is only a temporary lifestyle. I guess this is true for the homeless-at least I think that most homeless people would like their vagrant lifestyle to be temporary. But there are exceptions.
It makes you wonder what life would be like with so few strings...in light of the fact that I have SO many material attachments, of course the other side would look pretty attractive to me...certainly smells like release. Freedom from my own chains.

This one is from a month ago...it's titled "The Nasty Girl" and is 30" X 22" X 4"-it sells for $325.

Maudlin

It's been a while since I wrote.

I'm still a bit disconnected with all that's been going on here at home.

Spent the weekend away so that the last few rooms could get sanded, stained and coated with finish. It's an odd, not-so-nice thing to give up your house, even for a long weekend-maybe I'm especially sensitive about this in light of the idea that we may have to relocate because of Cara's job.

Moving. My parents have never moved-they have been in the same house since 1948. there's a plaque in their house-my father made it to commemorate the date that they moved in. If they can help it, they will die in that house-their house. Who lived there before they did? It doesn't matter.

I had a daydream today about finding construction photographs of the house being built-the house was built in 1910-I know that because the date is incised into the cement foundation. The faces of the workers in the photographs saddened me. They worked with newly cut beams, shiny nails, the latest style of wallpaper, the fixtures gleaming brightly. Pocket doors, lath and plaster, knob and tube. All new in this photograph, but now either decrepit or dead.

Does this house of my childhood really exist or is it my memory that gives it substance?

These walls are dull with years hours minutes that slowly accumulated dust, the faces of those now dead, the worry, sleep and happiness of we who lived there...they mutely witnessed me reading my first book, breaking my toys, weeping. Now mostly memory.

My parents continue their lives here, in this place that is probably more charged for me than it is for them-they continue on, but I rely on the past. Every time I speak to my mom on the phone, I see the old kitchen, the stairs in my mind and even hear the sound of the light switch, pulled once again to keep away the darkness. My mom used to come home from her night-shift and enjoy a bit of Johnny Carson and a cup of coffee, borrowing just a little more time before ending her day.

I still can hear her turn on that light.

I have less bittersweet memories of this house-I guess because I'm still living here very much in the present. Maybe upon leaving, I'll discover the pain of separation, when the present crosses over to become the past. I have a bit of that now, in looking back on my old dogs and remembering them a bit younger-wasn't it only yesterday?