FLINGING
PAINT IN THE STUDIO IN MAY
MY LIFE AS AN ARTIST
May 3, 2005 - With all of the last
remnants of malaise and burnout from last year finally washed
away,
I'm finally starting to feel confident again and see real
progress in the studio.In addition to the six
portraits I've been kicking around the past month, I've started
some earnest progress in three larger pieces along with
unexpected progress on a large 4' by 6' painting that is
developing as I type this little update.
With all the progress happening in studio, I'm feeling
confident, challenged and happy once again, as the shows that I
planned so far in advance are finally starting to creep into the
picture and that breathless expectation of the
next big thing
happening in August is now just around the corner.
|
click on the picture to see
just how far this painting has come from its humble beginnings
shown above. |
| And with the momentum finally
changed in studio, I have that air of confidence back in my
lungs, and at this point in my career, I'm almost running
entirely off sheer bravado alone. |
"Will the fight for our
sanity
Be the fight of our lives?
Now that we’ve lost all the reasons
That we thought that we had"
-The Gash
Flaming Lips |
With
my hands full of projects (paintings, prints,
t-shirts)
and shows, teaching classes and the odd stretcher job, I'm still
barely above the breaking point, and I still skip
more than my share of meals.
I'm not sure things will ever change, and I've always thought
that my greatest desire and worst fear was always the same thing
- to end up like one of my greatest influences - the most
accomplished painter I have ever met. He's in his
early sixties, paints everyday, and has sacrificed many aspects
of his life for his art. He's the most heartwarming person
you will ever meet - intelligent, compassionate, inquisitive.
Still, he has a deeply cynical and bitter side, lives in a one
room apartment chock full of books and paintings, and lives
without any nets - no social security, no health care, nothing
but his meager income selling paintings at an alarmingly nominal
fee.
He had a stroke a couple weeks ago, and in a day, his life
changed. Not that he had to look far, but he found salvation in painting - he was back
painting the day after the stroke, his left side still numb and
ineffective. The compulsion to create beautiful things
kept him going, flying in the face of major health issues and
tremendous hospital bills.
As more and more of my friends get married, have kids, and more
kids, I often wonder if I've irrevocably placed myself on that
road, and if I really have a say in the matter.
I've always played off my paintings as being lighthearted and
playful, but I am now finding out that I was wrong. They
are deadly serious. When I first moved to Austin, I
remember meeting up with a couple friends I hadn't seen in a
couple years. I jokingly and succinctly told them my
paintings made allusions to mythology, the Bible and Old Master's paintings into relevant
stories for today. My friend told me that was good, but
not to laugh when I said that. Its taken me three years to
learn that.
Yes, they make allusions to high and
low art, poke and prod the upper classes and the ignorant, but
today's world is way too fragile and corrupted to waste time
watching American Idol or even the nightly news. When you think
things can't get any worse, duck, because history has taught us
things only get worse. With corruption and greed marring
politics and corporations, creativity and soul being replaced in
everyday life by sloth and ignorance, I take great pride in
shunning most of the world around me to concentrate on something
that is ultimately the most important venture of our lives:
creating something beautiful.
|
the beginnings of a painting set in a dressing
room in a cabaret or strip club
I'm borrowing from
Titian's painting of Diana, but I'm attempting to construct
the costs of beauty
A cheap huckster interrupts this beautiful scene |
My new paintings all follow an
underlying theme in my art - the places where art, beauty
and commerce meet and mingle. I'm interested in the
compulsion pretty women have to wear makeup, to be hoodwinked
into the latest diet fads, to buy olestra laden potato
chips. I hate strip clubs, but am horribly fascinated
with the concept and imagery that abounds inside those seedy
walls. I am mystified and intrigued by the amounts of
money people will go through to remain young and buy 'product'
for their hair.
| My paintings and my interests lie
in the dark, unspoken corners where art and commerce meet.
My entire life truly depends on this very intersection.
I've looked around at all the various painters and 'artists'
I've met in my life and watched what they do. I am
horrified by people who confidently and naively expect to make a
living selling art. I've been around true artists, gallery
artists, commercial artists, artists who sell their wares at art
fairs across the country. To some extent, we're all in the
same boat, trying to make a living selling art. It;s a
ridiculous concept, yet we've all decided to try to chase it in
our own way. |
"I see all this potential,
and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation
pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars.
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we
hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle
children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no
Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual
war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been
raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be
millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't.
And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very
pissed off."
-Tyler Durden, Fight Club |
Life is way so much more than expensive cars, big
houses, and knowing all the details of the ongoing Michael Jackson
trial. Friends is just a TV show, it is inconsequential.
I don't see the need for
fancy supermarkets that sell expensive produce in lavish
settings. Queer eyes started looking out for straight
guys. Complaining about politics or religion as futile an
effort as Sisyphus, all the sides and the game itself are so
corrupted and morally bankrupt you shouldn't have a horse in the
race . Cool Hand Luke fought hard to find meaning in life, he
ultimately failed.
Robert Crumb satirized the American lifestyle so precisely
he had to leave and he ran off to the south of France.
At the same time,
piss-poor public art projects (on the third page in
the link) get funded for $60,000 , and art galleries ask
for donations from artists and
charge them
admission to the show. Once you fight through the
bullshit - you reach what's really true, and its those things that
are worth the fight. Life's too short and ultimately good to
let go of those things, and don't forget that true art and beauty
really is a matter of life and death. |
