In a few days there may be a flurry of new posts.

Or Not.
I keep writing snippets, short paragraphs about one thing and then I have to get back to work, so I move on, thinking I'll get back to whatever it was I was writing about.

Currently we have the following topics on hold:

• The Burchfield Exhibit
• Inside My Studio
• How the grantwriting app is coming along
• My inner conflict with painting representational.
• My inner conflict with painting small.
• Sudden dissatisfaction with my studio after looking at everyone else's studio. I am so never satisfied. What a princess I am.
  
• What's it all about, anyway?

I may post these unrelated posts as was, but meanwhile what I'm doing right now is unpacking a box of art supplies that Matt boxed up for me when he and his siblings went home to empty out his parent's house. Matt and I are still on speaking terms and I guess we're doing a decent job at being friends, considering.

My mother-in-law was an artist, not a professional artist, but a woman who raised six kids and taught kindergarten in a small town in Wisconsin and made art her entire life. After retiring, I think she worked mostly with pastels because she and my father-in-law traveled around the country quite a bit in a motor home. Pastels and beading were easy to carry around while traveling and doing the motor home camping thing.

I worked with pastels in my 20's when I had insomnia once, but I thought they might be nice to experiment with for some sketches. Unfortunately they didn't survive the Media Mail transit very well. By the looks of it, they drag the boxes behind the mail truck when it is marked Media Mail. There was also a bunch of brushes, some paper, some vintage how-to books and the big surprise was an extensive rock collection, most of which is labeled. Matt thinks she might have used this in show and tell.

The Civilized Furniture

I couldn't help but notice none of the artists in Fig's book mentioned nary a word about blogging their guts out as part of their daily routine. (Big spike in hits coming up; everyone wants to know about "my routine".) I bet Anne Truitt would have mentioned it had time and space and technology aligned.

I think we all should take a moment to describe a typical day.

I loved the work table question. It made me think about how important some pieces of furniture are and my history with them. I'm a scavenger, so none of my furniture is custom-made, so to speak. I constructed a bench to hold my large paintings, but since I am not a carpenter/woodworker by any stretch of the imagination, I got too attached to it. It's the only example of my patience, precision and ability to make something normal, aesthetic and functional, so after a few years on studio duty, I gave it a nice mahogany stain to match a homeless desk I found and refinished, and brought it in the house to live amongst the civilized furniture.

I also need to mention how oddly weird and refreshing the photo of Charles Burchfield working in his studio is (see previous post) compared to all the white cube, lofted, sky-lit spaces we tend to associate with real artists. It's nice to remember that while ideal workspaces are great, they're not mandatory.

Reading room:

Charles Burchfield painting in his studio, Gardenville, New York, 1966. (William Doran/Hammer Museum).

Charles Burchfield opened at the Hammer this weekend and there's a lunch talk on Wednesday. I will be there. I am excited.

Christopher Knight wrote about the show in today's LA Times. Here's an excerpt from the review, which will segue nicely into my following paragraph.

An artist's show
"The rich and provocative show, which travels to Buffalo and New York next year, was expertly organized by artist Robert Gober, who worked with Hammer curator Cynthia Burlingham.

It feels very much like an artist's show, one that springs from an empathy for working studio process. Each room includes vitrines with fascinating adjunct material -- magazines, tools, sketches, correspondence, catalogs, etc. None is more poignant than the final display, featuring two precarious stacks of more than 60 manila folders carefully cataloging a selection of Burchfield's voluminous annotated journals.

We can't look inside them, sheltered beneath their plexiglass cover. But the display is an eloquent testament to the fact that, with an artist of Burchfield's deep and prodigious gifts, we will never get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, we have his paintings."

Thanks to Tracy's rec, I pounced on Inside the Painter's Studio, by artist, Joe Fig. I, too, have always loved looking at studios and reading about studio habits. For instance, it delighted me to know that Ross Bleckner's decision to have a separate work space forces him to interact with the city. At the very least he stops and grabs a coffee on the way from the apartment to the studio. I'm working on the hermit thing because really, I'm not as anti-social as I might sound. Not at all. I just love working in the studio.

With regard to my own studio, there's so much to write about in terms of process and where I'm at. I guess it's exciting but it feels like those episodes on Lost where they were flashing back and forth in time way too much and everyone was getting nosebleeds.

You know what this means-

Stuck.

1. Describe the work you intend to pursue during the grant period.

For starters, I'll just tell you why that sentence stops me in my tracks. The grant period takes place in the future, approximately 7-10 months from now. With all due respect to artists who have a crystal clear vision of what their work will be about in advance, I do not. My work is responsive to the present and right now I'm working myself into a lather trying to even think about how to craft a paragraph that is descriptive of work I have not yet created in lieu of the fact that I am just now evaluating work I painted THIS year and on top of that, I have thrown myself the biggest wrench in the system ever by a) drastically changing scale and b) gadzooks- using imagery from real life. Even if I weren't at a crossroads in the studio, this question always feel like a ripe opp for some heavy BS and I'm so anti-bs right now.

2. What are the goals of the project?

This is actually a little easier. Although I can not yet articulate the work I intend to pursue, the visuals are registering in at about 95%, meaning I can roughly visualize the final project installed and ready for viewing. I know then, that it will have to do with some personal things, some technical things and successfully blending the two. Goals are things to aim for.

3. How will pursuing this work advance your artistic practice?

That's an easy one.

4. What are your motivations and methods?

Not terribly difficult, but still hearkens back to question #1 and #2.

5. Would you prefer we scrapped all this paperwork and set up an appointment for a mind- meld?

Most def.

I am persevering. I have nerves of steel. Bring it on.

Two new paintings, casually shot with my iPhone, under godonlyknows how many temperatures of light and lacking sharp focus. Both untitled as of this post. I still want to refine/f*ck with the top one, so consider this an in-progress peek.

One of the most difficult things for me to do is keep positive without thinking I'm perpetually out of fashion. I am braced for rejection* and in fact, received one today. I've also heard that one of the grants I am in the process of applying for is notoriously difficult and complex. WTF? Wish I had better news.

*Addendum- I realized after writing that I was "braced for rejection" that it might appear as though I am expecting rejection. What I meant was that since I'm in the process of applying for quite a few things that are rather competitive, there are statistical odds that I will receive some rejections. Wow. I don't even care to write that word anymore. Okay, no more talk of rejection. Still, no growth without trying.

I'm working out again. Two days in a row. Knocking out some reading while on the recumbent. In particular, I'm still reading The Beat and The Buzz: Inside the L.A. Art World. Time just flies and at end of 45 minutes, I feel so unconnected I can't even tell you, but that’s okay because I'm still fascinated by all the cogs in the machine. I personally know one of the artists interviewed and my catawampused path has bumped into a few other names mentioned in the book. (I know the previous sentence is grammatically impossible, but I needed an excuse to use catawampus, and a verb form at that, today.) A couple of other names are people I met briefly in the Chicago art scene some years ago, and one is the person who wrote the introduction. I met Ezhra in real life for about 5 seconds this past summer as we were waiting to have our portraits taken for Heather Cantrell’s project. She complimented me on my hat and in the course of conversing about props, she decided she should pose with her neck pillow that was in the shape of a cat. I didn't see her final portrait, but just knowing someone posed with a neck pillow in the shape of a cat was good enough. She keeps a blog called AWOL and I stumbled upon her writing before I actually met her. It's over in the links section. I like her writing.

The book is relatively fascinating if you're interested in the Artforum art world or according to the film noirish editorial review, "The book deals with the art world that Artforum is likely to review, the moneyed art world of hope and hype where Basel Miami, the Armory Show, or Frieze may or may not be the holy grail, depending on whom you ask."

It's really a patchwork of mini-narratives about how people connect. Several people had parents who collected art. Some people had famous parents or relatives. Some people chalk it up to being in the right place at the right time. There's quite a bit of self-education involved and lots of determination and cross-pollinating.

One of the artist interviewed is James Hayward, a painter whose work I first saw a Mandarin Gallery a few years ago.

I liked what he had to say about painting.

"I wish someone would address the difference between painting and art. Art is this all-encompassing megalith, without an edge. Painting is a tradition with an edge that is quite specific and hasn't changed in five centuries. Painting is much less susceptible to the authority of theory than art. Art needs theory; it needs a theoretical paradigm Painting doesn't. We know where we're located. We know our history. We're playing a different game."

I picked up the habit of combining reading with cardio while in Chicago at the New City YMCA located just around the corner from the Cabrini-Green housing projects. There were a few of us that showed up around the same time every day to work out. Dana was working on her PhD and used to burn through all sorts of texts on pedagogy while cycling. She'd be on the cycle for like two solid hours reading super dry theory. I got hooked and I haven't looked back. I highly recommend it. It keeps me on the cycle without getting bored and oddly enough, my concentration is stellar while cycling.

Well, since I discovered it's not rocket science to embed videos...

http://www.tanyadavis.ca/
http://www.youtube.com/user/andyradorfman

I first saw this posted on Carol's blog and had to repost it here. I've been really rethinking quite a few things lately. In a galaxy far away, I might not have appreciated the simplicity of this video, but today, I find it beautiful.

Nose to grindstone.

Back in Chicago, Hello Nasty was my running mate. One of my favorite lines was it's like lotto you gotta be in it to win it. (Putting Shame in Your Game.)

I slacked off for a bit in the application department. I needed a break from paperwork, plus- and not to jinx myself, but I was spurred on by Tracy's comment last week and got a residency app in the mail, just under deadline, (I think). I'm back in the app and opp saddle because it's like lotto, you gotta be in it to win it.

Sometimes I pretend my blog is more private than it really is, but I haven't had a drink in 5 years and I'm really happy about that today.

The Law of Entrainment

(starts in the black.)

The Law of Entrainment, © M.A.Hackett 1999

Entrainment (n) (of a rhythm or something that varies rhythmically) cause (another) gradually to fall into synchronism with it.

I put together this video from found footage and found audio. The audio is about 7 layers consisting of a focus group about toothbrushes, surveillance footage from a fast food drive-in, and I really can't remember what else. I think I ripped a segment from The Tape Beatles who had already ripped from somewhere else. (Sorry guys, but I couldn't locate you in the late 90's.)
It was one of my last videos before I shunned technology and went all touchy-feely with paint and canvas again. Right after graduating, I landed a primo dope job as a 2nd shift, tape op and conversion engineer at a conversion facility in Chicago, appropriately named, International Video Services. I suspect that the whole operation was a front, but I digress. (The mere fact that I knew how to convert NTSC to Pal and Secam, elevated me waaay above the rest of the yahoos who were simply working at dub houses. I worked the evening shift with my co-worker Diedre. Mostly we converted The Oprah Winfrey Show to Pal, but a lot of industrial video came through the room. I frigging love industrial videos. Something about the machines working. Work work work. After that I worked 4 more years at a post house (Avenue Edit) in Chicago. I cut the video while working there, thanks to the generosity of Rick Ledyard, the owner, and sound guru Raul Rosckes. I guess technically I should credit the STBX because his video, Things to Remember About Daumier, is why I chose a structuralist style for cutting. Ah, love.

It screened at one art exhibit in Chicago and about a year layer later, I moved to LA and you know the rest of the story. Caveat- the video is extremely frame-accurate and due to some compression stuff, some information may have gotten lost in the process. Not much, but it's a little crunchy.

People, we have old video....

This was done just in time for Series 100 + Spare Parts exhibition back in 2001. Thanks to STBXMK for animation. It is not indicative of any of my other videos- just something fun to have playing on the computer screen during the opening. I'm finally getting around to digitizing the videos.

Corner Piece, 2002-03
watercolor cutouts on paper, pinned in a corner.

I have something like 200 or more of these individual shapes that I cut out and arranged in some kind of narrative fashion back in 2001. See my first blog entry for details.

Had I stumbled upon that link just a wee bit earlier, I would have gladly participated. [Wait! What link?! This link.]

They starred in a couple of solo shows and all of them are scanned. They're just waiting for their big print break. This is when an assistant would come in oh-so- handy. Such the conundrum. Perhaps deferred pay or points on the back end.


I have a clean studio after a 2-3 day overhaul last week. There are still some things to organize, but the palette got scrapped, the desk cleaned and misc. papers and drawings put back in place.

Then out of the blue I woke up with itchy eyes. small body aches and a dull headache. See the back of an Ibuprofen bottle for more. It snuck up on me. I'm better now, but still a bit tired.

I've been giving private lessons to another artist a couple of times a month. If there is such a thing as painting completely opposite of someone, she paints completely opposite of me. The headache could have been attributed to her accidentally bringing noxious mineral spirits into my studio space as opposed to odorless mineral spirits. I didn't think it would bother me, especially since we had the doors open, but I forgot how sensitive I am to toxic crap. I've been using Gamsol OMS for quite sometime.

Her work is highly representational aka realistic, nearly photo realistic. She asked if I would be interested in helping her loosen up with her work. She can render anything, something which I have no interest in doing and I would be hard-pressed to tell you it's a secret desire of mine. It's just not. The camera was a fine invention. Thank you, Daguerre.

Obviously the above statement is somewhat of a lie seeing as I am referencing photographs and painting abandoned swimming pools during what I now refer to as my mid-life painting crisis. If I start painting chandeliers, take away my paint brushes. I have a 3rd (or 4th, if you count last year's) pool painting in the making.

Kind of bummed I missed the 24 hour abstract comic day

Corner Piece, 2002-03
watercolor cutouts on paper, pinned in a corner.

I have something like 200 or more of these individual shapes that I cut out and arranged in some kind of narrative fashion back in 2001. See my first blog entry for details.

Had I stumbled upon that link just a wee bit earlier, I would have gladly participated.
They starred in a couple of solo shows and all of them are scanned. They're just waiting for their big print break. This is when an assistant would come in oh-so- handy. Such the conundrum. Perhaps deferred pay or points on the back end.


I have a clean studio after a 2-3 day overhaul last week. There are still some things to organize, but the palette got scrapped, the desk cleaned and misc. papers and drawings put back in place.

Then out of the blue I woke up with itchy eyes. small body aches and a dull headache. See the back of an Ibuprofen bottle for more. It snuck up on me. I'm better now, but still a bit tired.

I've been giving private lessons to another artist a couple of times a month. If there is such a thing as painting completely opposite of someone, she paints completely opposite of me. The headache could have been attributed to her accidentally bringing noxious mineral spirits into my studio space as opposed to odorless mineral spirits. I didn't think it would bother me, especially sine we had the doors open, but I forgot how sensitive I am to toxic crap. I've been using Gamsol OMS for quite sometime.

Her work is highly representational aka realistic, nearly photo realistic. She asked if I would be interested in helping her loosen up with her work. She can render anything, something which I have no interest in doing and I would be hard-pressed to tell you it's a secret desire of mine. It's just not. The camera was a fine invention. Thank you, Daguerre.

Obviously the above statement is somewhat of a lie seeing as I am referencing photographs and painting abandoned swimming pools during what I now refer to as my mid-life painting crisis. If I start painting chandeliers, take away my paint brushes. I have a 3rd (or 4th, if you count last year's) pool painting in the making. They are slow going- mentally. It's more like studying for a huge exam, knowing there are only X amount of questions that will be asked, but not knowing exactly what they will be until you get there. Then the exam starts and the answers flow out. That's represnetational painting for me. I'm sure I'll think of a similar analogy to bastract painting, but I have to go now.