Post-a-rama

Apparently it was a busy week as I just noticed I haven't cracked open my blog in 6 days.

One reason why I believe that blogging regularly is a good thing- I forget when I do little things. Like last year, as in 2008, I made a representational painting of the swimming pool located at the house I grew up in. Representational for, me. Gestural, abstracted, but the location physically exists on earth as we know it.

untitled, 2008

16" x 20"

oil on canvas

Recently, another artist was over and noticed the above painting hanging in my bathroom and seemed to love it. It hangs above the commode. As a child of the 70's who grew up around neighborhood swimming pools, I fondly remember the sign, "I don't swim in your toilet, please don't pee in my pool," on the wall of more than one pool house bathroom. Therefore, hanging it above the toilet seemed perfect.

I've never shown it to anyone in real life since it's such an oddity. I'm a sensitive artist and when I posted it last year, LaRose made a comment on his blog that I "tried" to a representational painting. I was like,'TRY,' dude, that's not trying, that IS. Of course, I never said that, I just quietly decided that perhaps I had gotten representational painting out of my system and I went back to my uncomfort zone, because in the end with representational painting, I didn't have to try- the thing is already there, the meaning is not far behind and it wasn't a struggle like my other works and since for whatever reason I deem struggle necessary to my art, I dismissed it.

I looked on the back of the painting- no date, no signature. Hello archives! Since I had posted the work, I was able to roughly identify when I made the painting- June or July of 2008. There you have it, the sole reason for blogging- archives.

I was motivated to work on a similar painting this week....

untitled, 2009
7" x 5"

oil on linen

The timing is relevant. I'm tried of struggling. In a nutshell, my mom's doctor called me yesterday and there's a problem with her taking her heart medication. If she forgets to take it exactly as prescribed, it's worse than if she doesn't take it at all. Based on my mom's laid-back demeanor—NOT, the doctor's viewpoint is that quality of life trumps forcing someone to come in and administer a pill to my mom-something that for whatever reason would be completely unacceptable and intrusive for my mom. The doctor is giving her one more chance to take the prescription as directed and if she forgets to do that, they take her off the meds and we all accept the increased risk of stroke. It might not be obvious, but the pool paintings figure in here somewhere. I spent most of yesterday pretending like I was being a good daughter -calling medicare, calling utilities, trying to make sure that at a moment's notice I could pick up the phone and take care of something. Then I had the joy of realizing some of my divorce paperwork was still incomplete.


Quick rundown on what else is not so new.
Last Saturday, I went to openings in Chinatown and made a point of seeing Nancy Baker at Jancar Projects. That was my gallery going highlight, after which I saw a lot of grad school looking work. I've got this small problem when I see conceptual art that looks like 90's grad school conceptualism. It's not, bad, per se, just that it reminds me of grad school and the 90's in Chicago. NBD, probably not much has happened in 14 years anyway. Conceptual art has the advantage of being perpetually timeless and stale at the same time. IMHO.

Then while on the end of the earth side of town, I swung by the studio of Carol Es (notice how I structured my sentence to avoid the awkward Es's or Es') and chatted with her for a bit before racing back to the house well before midnight to make sure my pajamas were still warm from the dryer.

Overall, I surprised myself at how much I actually enjoyed running around to openings and chatting with people. This Saturday, Kristi Engle has an opening, so it will be 2 for 2, plus, the catch-up of getting around to see what I missed last weekend.

Last Sunday was day one of my drawing class at Otis, Great class. I was exhausted when I got home. Wiped out. I still need to apply for some other grants, DL's looming. Other projects on my list include: one-of-a-kind magazines made from crappy sketches and limited editions of those magazines. There is simply NOT enough time in the day.

Closet admission: At the 13th hour, I decided to crash the Torrance art walk as an experiment. People barely even glanced at my suitcase of art. I could have had a rotting skunk in there and no one would have noticed. Sometimes I have a fantasy that I can toss my highfalutin art education and art world affiliations aside and go rogue. (Back in '95, my friend Carol and I infiltrated the Chicago Underground Press Conference with our zines and point-of-purchase novelty item art, but I guess we weren't terribly out of context, plus the buddy system is always helpful when trying to be subversive.) At the very end, a kid in his 20's went through my stack of watercolors and struck up a conversation with me. He emailed me the next day telling me I had a new fan. Not a total loss since I thrive on compliments.

I freaked myself out the other night by watching The Retirement Revolution on PBS and wrapped up my evening by reading, The Beat and The Buzz: Inside the LA Art World. Rest assured, to date, I'm an example of how not to do things as far as making my way inside anything goes.

And finally because idle hands are work of the devil, I'm working on knitting a skirt in the evenings before bedtime. Last night I combined knitting with watching Grey Gardens, the original doc by the Maysles brothers. It made me feel sightly better knowing we've got some catching up to do before it gets that crazy at my mom's house. Still, having the same name as one's mother does come with some baggage.