Not Fade Away

Francis Bacon speaks of never losing the mystery behind or in your work-that is, keeping the work not only somewhat foreign and vague to your audience, but also keeping yourself at a distance: knowing, not knowing.

Presently, a great deal of the three dimensional work I'm doing right now seems pretty well stuck. Fastened to some kind of past, it all seems a bit too automatic, too easy. What I hope for are new revelations, some new angles-ones that could throw the radio right into that bathwater.

Meanwhile, the lil' paintings I'm doing on paper seem to bloom and fester. Both lively and challenging, they're nothing more than pushed paint. I keep trying not to look where I'm stepping. This paint still looks appetizing to me every morning- knowing/not knowing.

"Salesman Seeks New Dog"

It's been a while since I've "penned" anything for this here blog. Guess that's quite an understatement. Thanks to you-all who have stayed with me, checking every once in a while for new material. Sorry to have dissapointed for so long.


Without guaranteeing any degree of regularity for the future, here goes.


I have a new address and that is not insignificant nor was it easy to obtain -moving for me was never a natural act-my parents are still in the same house they bought in 1948- can't say that apple has fallen far from the tree. But leaving the home I shared with my now ex-wife to living with my parents (after not living there for about 35+ years) was not very easy, either.



I plan to move again. This is under protest, but necessary. This place is filled with dampness and is growing a healthy strain of mold, which is giving yours truly a stomachache and a headache on a regular basis. After being blood-tested, x-rayed and GI-tested, I can only conclude that it's a mold problem. The green blue ring around each of my shoes, which reside in the carpeted closet, also serves to support my case. Not good.


Living here for the past few months has been relatively painless (outside of the mold issue) and I've almost starting to feel at home. I'm a bit more settled in than I care to admit (considering I'm gonna have to do it all over again). Here I have a little "project room" (I'm typing away in it right now) and I've been doing some paintings on paper there. I've kept my sculptural work at the studio-not that I'm so concerned about keeping things separated, but more to ensure that this place stays relatively neat and tidy.


I have a decent bathtub and a good-sized kitchen and living room. But nothing ever dries here. The spiders love the moisture-I just wish I liked the spiders. My favorite neighbor is a catbird who calls the front yard home. She always makes me feel welcome here, even if the bird is a bit territorial, scolding if I get too close.


Anyhow, I just returned from FolkFest, the once-a-year show I attend down in Georgia. This year I enjoyed the people there far more than the art. Maybe because I arrived there a bit late (my fault) and got distracted in the rush to put up my booth-I saw some good work, but found the show overall a bit less inspiring/exciting than in years gone by. Maybe I'm getting more jaded to the regional folk art, but I also might be a little less tolerant of all the (folk) art that is supposed to come from the heart, but looks and feels to me as if it comes from the area of the wallet instead. Don't get me wrong-I'm there to make money, too, but there's a certain genuineness lacking in a lot of what I saw displayed there. There just seems to be more artists who have jumped on the bandwagon and are churning out product just to cash in on the folk art phenomenon. Next stop, Wal-Mart. Maybe I'm just a damn cynic...

Conversely, there is still a wonderful, almost primitive ring to a great amount of other work there. Fingerprints abound, real and metaphoric -much of the artwork there defies the process of mass manufacture-it is filled with mistakes, lines that aren't straight, false starts, obvious erasures-everything here says made by man. I have found this also at the Kentuck show, which occurs a little later in the year (October) in Alabama. It is another wonderful gathering of stuff, filled with a strange mix of art and artists, unlike the many shows that most of us know. So unique-I wish that there could be more of these strange and wonderful shows around the country. No, I do not plan to try and start one here in New Jersey, although the cultural aptitude (and attitude) around here surely could benefit.

Presently, I am looking for a new Salesman's dog. I'm not sure if this is the right time to do this, that is, to adopt a hound, as I'm renting space. But my friend Laura and I agree, dogs are life-changers and necessary for one's sanity. I need to have a dog to rest my arm on-a dog would slow me down a little bit and make me take life in smaller bites. I've been baby-sitting a standard poodle lately (me with a poodle? Yup, you heard it here!) and Liza is terrific and lots of fun. For me, it's gotta be a big dog. I DID turn down Rolf and Wolfgang, the two German Shepard buddies who weighed in at 135 and 155 pounds, respectively. The rule is that I must be able to pick the dog up so that , when the time comes, I can care for them in their old age. I know, not the warmest thought, but there are areas in which you need to be more practical.

The job which held my interest is now a bit hard to take-I think that it is no fault of the job or the work involved, but the fact that I feel a need right now to be more "present" with my art.
The Fall and Winter promise to be slower times and I hope to be able to recoup more creative time and still retain the job. Looking forward to the change in season, but not towards paying for oil, which is always on my mind as the thermometer goes down.

Daydreaming of paintings-I feel so close to doing some successful painted work-so close that I can almost taste it-but not quite close enough to lay the dreamed-up works on paper or canvas. There's no stopping the daydreams-it's just I fear that I'll turn to other subject matter if I can't satisfy the dreaming...some hours or days in the painting studio would help. I find no gratification just holding the brush and that's about all I can do after working-well, at least that's where I'm at in my habits. I DO beleive if I have to I can retrain myself and burn just a little more of the ends off all those candles.

That's "Knowing/Not Knowing" just in case you can't read the type on the sculpture.

There's no one home

I'm not living at home presently. More about this later.

I have been negligent in not announcing the fact that I've two new websites:

http://wmskrips.blinkweb.com/

for sculpture and

http://wmskripspaintings.blinkweb.com/

for 2D work...

If you have questions on anything, please contact me at handmade@netcarrier.com and be patient as I'm answering emails only once a week or so....

This one is a new favorite-the title escapes me and I'm not in the studio to look it up....sorry! It measures about 20" tall.

painting

Perhaps it’s just from using painting materials more frequently, but I feel as though my intuitive skills grow with each of the “scrape “ paintings that I've been making- I like them more and more-maybe because I’m FEELING the color and discarding the idea of form …I wonder if I could ever make that happen with sculpture and what form things would take-the difference here is that you have to drive around sculpture, whereas you can glide on the color of these "canvases"-which may be relevant here-I am working on paper-not only is the "sanctity" of the stretched canvas out the window, it's just a helluva lot easier to bear down on the paper- far easier to get more physical and I do SO like to scrape and chisel at my surface. Guess the other idea that I'm choosing to avoid right now is how easy it is to make these little paintings, which , for me, go beyond satisifying: like I'm having too damn much fun AND I really like the product. For right now I'll file this as a superfluous thought and keep painting.

Help. Does anyone out there know where I can get a good quality b&w zerox for use in wet collage/painting that will not bleed?

ps-this is an older work...

In response to a letter from P...

Since this is my first time writing for the new year, Happy 2010!
Can't say I've made any major resolutions, but I sure wouldn't mind dropping a few pounds (like everyone else in the new world).

A friend wrote to tell me that although she really loved my work, seeing it along with some other artists (she mentioned two others by name) had caused her to give up making art. This bothers me a lot. Ideally, I'd always be the artist that inspires others to get out there and make things. Someone who set loose a flurry of energy culminating in people doing.
Guess this can't always be so. As much as I feel it a blessing to inspire people (and, apparently, one that I have little control over), the opposite effect is also possible.
I'd urge anyone feeling this way-someone who stops making art because it seems as though others (pardon the metaphor) seem to have all the aces -to question the whys of
their actions. I'm not saying that each and every one of us is meant to make art, far from it-but that those who enjoy creating should be very careful of measuring themselves against others. After all, if it's imitation that you feel you are pursuing, look at all of us who make things-we each have heroes we look up to...and many of us copy. Although we choose to put these heroes on a stratospherically high pedestal, we can't forget that they are only influences, rather than contestants we are running a race with.
Look at the folk artists as a good example to follow-these folks made art in a vacuum, with no one to look up to, with no one to offer a measuring stick. The art prevailed -without the use of comparison and probably, to a great degree, without much comment or approval from standers-by. I love that Bill Traylor just started working one day, quite late in his life. The reason he had-just to make things.
The lesson : Don't sell your creative drive short-let your hands tell you what is meant to be done and not the work of others.