March 09, 2009

It's 5:54 PM and I still want to work, but I think I will be a human tonight.

I was up late, for me, last night. 12:30 am. I usually wake up at 6 AM, 7 days a week,  but turned the alarm off last night so I could sleep late. Woo. I sleep until 7: 15 AM today. Fang was quite patient. 

I haven't publicized it in case there's a snafu on the organizers' part, but the weekend of April 16-19, there's a large exhibit in LA I've been invited to particiapte in. Hence, I am cranking on small works. Crank is a relative term. One 5" x 7" is taking me an average of 3 or more days to complete. Who knew? I can work on 3-4 at a time, but that seems to extend the time.  I should try and document this just for kicks. But my point was- that last night I was noodling my artist statement for a catalog that will be produced in conjunction with the exhibit. I've been fairly content with my statement. My whole point in crafting it, was that it would be general enough so that I wouldn't have to rewrite it every 5 paintings,  but specific enough not to sound boilerplate. It's a teeny bit highfalutin, but not contrived. It's a fairly accurate representation of how I speak and write. But therein lies the tale: I'm sick of artist statements. I'm sick of analysis. I'm bored with explaining. But for the life of me, I feel even more contrived trying to dumb down my statement for the sake of sounding overly accessible. So last night I tried to write a few mundane sentences that would make everything sound matter of fact, but by the time I did that, it was dirty dishwater statement. And literally, my eyes were blurring and I thought I was going nuts, so I said f*ck it and copped the gallery's press release and called it a night. Kristi is a good writer and I don't say that lightly. I trust her writing. Her press release of my show was a succinct summary of my statement, but with more bling than I would have used in the first person. 

Anywhoo. I had a good day in the studio. I worked on 3 or 4 small fries; my spectacular but expensive plumber came and repaired my sink; I worked out at the Y and a looooong awaited check arrived in the mail. Today, life is good. 

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It's over.

Nov 7, 2020. Tears of joy and relief. It's been unreal and I'm ready to get back to a sense of normalcy. The desert has been tough.