Darker thoughts

Here’s my thought for the day, and a dark one it is.

The next, upcoming generation does not see art the same way we –meaning my generation-does. The stuff I make is permanent and substantial (think solid as opposed to thinking of that word as a value). What the art or amusement of the young looks like is much more transient- computer images, like Utube and all those throwaway funny pictures-images used once and then disposed.  The fact of the matter is, there is SO much visual stimulation out there, why stick with one thing? As William Burroughs wrote in Nova Express, “Images. Millions of images. That's what I eat.”

Why stay monogamous, when there is so much out there to sate your taste? We have those picture “frames” that move through your snapshot collection (ain't it nice to cuddle and coo over the relatives without the use of your hands?) and monster TVs that dominate a wall with an ever-changing, multi-media show. Even the news mags/rags carry a plethora of images far more interesting and emotionally moving than a static thing you hang on your wall. After all, the thing does not move, does not speak and it needs occasional cleaning. Why be married to a dinosaur?

As for my older audience, rapidly marching to communal homes in which to spend their final years-they all seem to be downsizing-moving to much smaller quarters…

And for those those in between, so many now are in danger of losing their jobs, once thought permanent (a word that is rapidly losing its value). If owning a home is risky, then what possessions can you count as keepsakes? A keepsake or anything sentimental means nothing when forced to become nomads for survival.

I don't know that traditional art that has substance will ever disappear, but the art museums will become similar to libraries. Who needs reference books when you can get all the information you need from your smartphone? And novels? Simply visit the internet, pay your money, and download whatever to your e-reader.

For me this is scary stuff-but it is the present and not what is to come. I can't imagine what's around the corner, considering how fast things are moving day-to-day. I s'pose it's great to be a witness to it all, but there's a point when I'd like to know that there are brakes-but there are no brakes.

Exclusion

Dunno if it’s just a sense of tribalism, or perhaps it’s my skewed misperception, but I feel excluded from the local crowd.  Last night at the kick-off for the open studio tour, both Laura and I compared our “notes” after the “doo” and found that we both felt  overdressed for the event. And certainly out of place, even though it seems easy to individually relate to many of the souls there. I can’t imagine that we are too old for the thing, as there are plenty of folks our age in attendance. We seem to need more “grunge” in our attire when in town. It does not help that the main center of all activity in the tiny town is a huge bar/roadhouse. Speaking for myself, bars are places I’ve never felt very comfortable in –I cant help feelings of disdain whenever I see one or two individuals inevitably “holding court” in these joints.

All that being said, Laura phrased the main event there perfectly: the auction seemed a bit like high-school, with the “popular’ folk getting higher bids. Truth be told, I found much of the work to be sub-par and the remainder simply adequate. The auctioneer’s helper pronounced one artists’ work as pretty good, but anything done by this artist, he said,  (a female who hung from a set of chains in a recent acrobatic performance) was terrific. ‘Nuff said?

I plan to skip this event next year unless my sales are better than expected (and I expect next to nothing). I prefer to stick to self-promotion rather than try and gain favor with this crew.

It seems as though Sarah, who I worked with at the Horse Shelter, said it all-if you don’t hang out and drink at this townie bar, you ain’t nobody. We are feeling the effects of small town life. Yet I never felt this in Blairstown-maybe cause I never really ventured forth with my work? Dunno, but we will test this out in the upcoming time to come.

This is the piece I donated to the benefit auction-"Seernore".

An Allowance

I'll assume that no one is reading this.
I just looked at some of my older work -I had to put it on disks, as there is simply no better way to store it-it is hard to believe that I've done all that I've done. sure, I came across a few "dogs" (pardon me, Johnny, Sharkie, Chopper, Delilah , Rhonda), but I can't even remember so much of what I've done!
There are simply too many sculptures. To think that this all started when I left NYC, which is now a few years back. I wonder what I would have accumulated if I hadn't spent all those years there spinning my wheels (actually, I still have some of that work-I did all these lil' topographic models painted with WWII camouflage...).
I'll go back to being modest real soon, but seeing all these forgotten pieces (and I only looked at 3 disks) impressed the hell out of me. And here's the thing:  I want to do so much more-I'm still thinking that I'll always know that I had a good life if I die having loads of projects waiting to be done...al out of this brain-or wherever the stuff comes from.

Just a couple of pieces here, maybe bad photos, but still all from this hand...

Thinking about painting and painting surfaces

In the last missive, I spoke about a recent painted piece. 

I used a partially finished wooden head to paint on and realized (then and now) that this was a device to make it easier to start the painting-that is, the act of picking up a brush, unscrewing the top from the tube of oil paint and applying the color-there was no other more complex forethought or planned design preceding the pigment to surface.
Although first happy with the painting, I now know I was really more happy with the act of painting and using the color and brush. I now think the painting mediocre-or maybe the notion that, in combination with the sculptural "crutch", it is all the more interesting...

S'pose I need a good healthy "starter" in order to paint-although I love the idea of the big stretched canvas, I seem to be allergic to all that white stuff AND the vast stretch of open space it holds. Painting it all with a tint or even black helps, but not all that much.
I'll digress and try to draw an analogy here: when I was a child and MUCH more shy and withdrawn than I am today, I used to occasionally sit on the porch of my family's suburban house in NJ. If I heard someone approaching (a concrete sidewalk told all) from down the block, I'd go around to the back of the house and get out of sight. This shyness also took over when a car passed by-I'd find some excuse to look down or away during the second or two it took the vehicle to pass. So here's the analogue: big, white open spaces = fear for the exposed me. Maybe it's too far to reach, but since I've battled with painting all my life, no rock remains unturned. I realize that doing a painting exercise every day (read, facing that big  white surface daily) would get me over this problem, but I'm far too impatient for this-and, there is a lot of 3D work to get done.

Yesterday,in the studio, I hunted for another "crutch" surface on which to paint. It brought to mind my father, who had the problem of never starting his work-when cleaning out the family house after his death, I found tons of "practice" painting and carving-the most worthless scrap would serve as a staging area for him-yet he left behind -untouched- so much in the way of usable paper and canvas surfaces and carvable pieces of wood. There was a certain sadness in seeing just how tentative/insecure he was, but this is another story.

To a certain degree, I see myself looking for "partially started" surfaces-that is, combining my father's idea of permitting himself to use the "worthless" or the throw away on which to work- and trying to get something that is already marked up- an almost started canvas or bit of wood surface-ideally something that "nature" or circumstances has "worked" on in order to continue that work with my own hand.

I suppose that this is not unlike some of my sculptural work, which incorporates time-worn bits from the world with my own carvings and scribblings.

Something new?

I've been running up a few new sculptures on my Facebook page, but this one is still in the formative stage-or, should I say, it's an older pc that I felt never hit quite right.
Two days ago, I thought of covering the pc in tin, but I resisted and slathered it with modeling paste. Then yesterday, I dragged out oil paint and this was the result. I don't love it, but I don't hate it either. I hope that I can say that there is more coming and really mean it. The surface was really hard to start painting onto-my thoughts at the moment was that I was going to leave the studio unhappy (to have messed up a potentially decent sculpture with a covering of stuff that would have to dry before I could do anything to change it.  How locked in I am with making stuff that works...that is crowd-pleasing---there's no way I can call myself brave or self-challenging-but in this instance I feel like I made a momentary break-away.
Starting with a black base (it was white-modeling paste-hours before I started this pc), I added and swept bits of paint across, trying to keep my mind fairly blank-or, more to the point concentrating ONLY on the paint and the action of my brush. I added white liberally and rubbed out some areas back to black where I felt the paint was becoming a field. Later, I scraped away both paint and base to uncover the white undersurface. I was conscious of "doodling" with the brush- almost as if i were on the phone and scribbling away. Anyhow, the experience was pretty energizing. My thoughts for the future is to make up a "different" surface (i.e., not a canvas or rectangle shape) on which to do some more "doodling"...

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