Mash-up

Open House was yesterday. I've misplaced my camera battery charger in the packing process. Other than that, I'm entertaining the idea of a spartan lifestyle. Note my miniature rock balancing formations in the corner. In the bookcase, the 13 disk audio book of the TLOTR.

It's awkward to tell people why I'm leaving LA and moving to Nashville. I search for euphemisms. I say my mom is having difficulty or she's not doing well as she has been. There has been no official diagnosis. Sometimes I think it's just better to play the eccentric card and leave it at that.

[Addendum: I had posted a headline from a weekly Nashville paper that I thought was a bit overkill and sensational, but I deleted it lest it was misleading. Think twice, post once.]

I fly there today. I wish I could find my battery charger.

Hello from a hotel room.

A) The painters wrapped all but the bathroom and utility room in plastic today.

B) The paint fumes were a bit much from Saturday. Fang didn't eat 2 meals in a row and then this morning he was totally Mr. Sicky with a fever, so after a trip to the vet, some antibiotics, and a home cooked meal of rice and ground beef for the furry one, I booked an overnight stay for one adult and one dog at one of the hotels down the road to avoid the fumes.

D) I give you the decor of my environs...

Short sentences, possibly comprehensible.

I am waiting for the Salvation Army to pick up a truckload of stuff.
Bison Beige is a lovely exterior house color.
Sukiyaki Western Django is a beautiful film in some regards.
I will miss my neighbors, particularly Susan, across the street. Every so often when we bake something, we make a little plate of goodies to share with one another.
I will miss Culver City.
I've come up with one word of my next show title.
The house is in total disarray once again after clearing out the kitchen for painting. I checked out and went into the studio.
Painting is soothing to me.
I went to yoga yesterday.
I'm in a slump, but am trying not to care about this. I'm also trying to just remember to keep working and not worry about the results. I'm also trying to remember that my mantra is "Do or do not, there is no try."
They are painting the kitchen now. It's really weird to use my microwave while I'm sitting at my desk. For some reason it makes me feel like I'm in the movie, Brazil.

Michael Brakke
Always Be Tough
Lithograph on Waxed Paper
23 1/2"x35"
1980

My undergraduate mentor passed away last week and I just heard the news. Without him crossing my path, I would not be where I am today. I mean this in the most basic chain of events kind of way. At his suggestion I took a summer painting course he and Hollis Sigler taught at OxBow in Saugatuck, MI. I can't put my finger on specifics he told me about art or painting, other than once at OxBow he sent me on a mission to physically find the space I was painting about. I found it. It was a sunken crater on a hill known as "The Crow's Nest." I napped there that afternoon. OxBow is affiliated with SAIC in Chicago. I met my friends Mary Claire, Howard, Jim, and Mary Ruth there. At the time they were SAIC students. A couple years later I went back for the entire summer to do a residency. A year later I moved to Chicago and became close friends with the artists I had met at OxBow. Jim and I roomed together in Chicago for a very brief period of time. I inherited Jim's cat, Onyx as a result. I also lived in a loft in the same building as Michael and his girlfriend. Sometimes I would consider moving to Saugatuck. Jim did. I lost touch with him, but he set up a gallery and a studio there and I visited him once. At Michael's suggestion, I finally applied to grad school at UIC. I lost touch with Michael after he broke up with his girlfriend who lived below me. After grad school Onyx passed away and I inherited Brock's cat, Fife. Eventually I moved to LA. I just talked to Mary Claire a couple of days ago. Rhea sent me an email telling me of Brakke's passing.

I'm sick of putting things in boxes.
I ate an iced bunny cookie today and called it brunch.

Box Populi

The alarm goes off, signaling the start of another day at the MAH Fang compound.

Lucky for me, Samy's Camera is right around the corner. Samy's is an excellent source of boxes. I did buy some new boxes, because, well, I was in a hurry and the folks at Samy's were not on my schedule. I'm good now, totally flush with cardboard cubes, rectangles, and hard to find, perfect for packing art-work, sized boxes. 

Fang and I are no longer separate beings. We have merged into a superbeing. He has tethered himself to me, shadowing my every move. Have you ever brushed your teeth with a dog sitting directly beside you? It's a little odd, even for me. 

So why am I blogging as opposed to say, sneaking a stroke in the studio, or packing, you might be asking. Because I am at school giving a test. But you teach drawing, you might be saying. How do you test a drawing? It's called a Student Learning Outcomes Assessment Report. It's also called Why I Don't Believe in Testing, But I Will Comply to Make Everyone Feel Better.

Overall Proportional Frame: 

Measured & Noted. Executed correctly. Frame Included. Very Good. 2 pts. 

Measured & Noted. Executed incorrectly. Frame Included. Good. 1 pt.

Not measured or noted. Frame Missing. Poor.  0 Point.

Etc. 

It's not really about how well they can draw. It's a test so that my colleagues can see how well I can teach a student to draw a circle. When I was told this, I replied that I don't teach my students to draw circles, I teach them how to observe and draw relative proportions and relationships. I stopped short of asking how you teach someone to draw a circle. I think I stopped short, but come to think of it, maybe I did ask that. I was a little grumpy that day. 

Most of my students are drawing these things  (cubes, spheres, cones, cylinders) fairly correctly. Over the years I've seen a weird, odd, if you will, tendency for wide people to err on the side of drawing wide squatty objects, and ectomorphic body types tend to draw things rather elongated, but other than that, everyone is usually within a degree or two of accurate or "correct."

The house painters came today. I chose a new exterior paint. Bison Beige. I picked it from a paint chip. Now I'm freaking out because when I googled it just now it looks more gray than I remember from the paint chip. I know I'm selling the home and therefore should not care, but I do. I loved this house. I want it to have a good life with its new owners. I want it to be happy with its new coat. 

Not much new going on in the studio the last few days. There are at least 2 shows I want to see before they come down- Mark Grotjahn at Blum and Poe, and Kim Dorland at Mark Moore. Whenever I hear Mark Grotjahn's name, I always thinks of a conversation I had with a gallery owner several years ago who told me that someone had told him that Grotjahns' new works in the studio were really bad failures and he didn't get what everyone saw in him. I remember this for 2 reasons: (1) that someone would criticize new works in a studio, calling them failures. (2) because I had that Eureka moment when I realized that even A-list gallery owners make a bad call.

Bedtime. House painter here at 7:30am. I really hope Bison Beige is a winner. 

So, if you think I had issues with packing and shipping, you should catch me with packing and moving.

1. I went to a meeting with some biker friends.
2. Made two trips to the storage unit.
3. Organized the storage unit.
4. Laundry.
5. Did part one of a repair on a vintage purse my aunt made, and that my mom paid good money for someone to sew together but they did a half-ass job and I felt bad because it was the best they could do and so after a few years, I finally got around to redoing it myself today. And no it wasn't on the todo list, but I was packing away purses, so it was now or never. It's a great purse. I'll post it when I finish the repair. Unbelievably I have no black thread.
6. Studio. Stacking 'em up and knocking 'em down. De-canvased 3 stretchers today and said goodbye to 3 less than stellar works.
7. In the process of killing an 11" x 14" painting I keep thinking is done, but is annoying me.
8. Thinking about stretching a 54" x 43" canvas and making a new larger painting for the show at the Brand library in May. 
9. I was really inspired by a friend's painting on raw canvas, gorgeous buildup of layers and layers and layers, so I started an 8" x 10" painting on raw canvas with lots of thin layers. It's covered with a solid sheet of thick acrylic now. Not feeling the thinness and lightness of being, I guess.
10. X'd out a few areas on another painting and brought it inside. I can't wait to paint in a studio with natural light. 
11. Finally called my mom a 7pm to see if she remembered my birthday. She said she had been trying to call me all day and that the operator told her my number had been disconnected. I think she forgot to dial the area code. I wasn't very good at hiding my sadness. She asked me what was wrong and I just told her I was tired.
12. Took an iPhone pic of #11. 

And now it's Monday....

I delivered a truckload of boxes to storage. I counted 8-10 boxes of books so far. I still have about 2 bookcases to go. I had more but I'm donating about 3 boxes of books to Goodwill. It just occurred to me that I am very comfortable around books. When I was a kid, my mom was working on her Phd. and also taught at Peabody College and Peabody Demonstration School in Nashville. Conveniently I also attended Peabody from nursery school through 3rd grade. Sometimes mom would stash me in the library on campus if she still had a class to teach after I got out of class. 

Then I scanned the house for detritus. first and second sweep, you know.

Then the studio to work on killing the same painting that did not die yesterday. Maybe I need to step away for a bit. 

Then back to house to finish up this post. 

Oh, and I have chosen to scan a bunch of loose papers with random but pertinent information, instead of painstakingly copying down the info by hand. So that's next. 

Surprise! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARY ADDISON!!!!

I used to love birthdays. I still do. My only real gripe this year is that I have to pack and move stuff to storage, and so will not be able to fritter away the day. I'm sure I will go in the studio, but I HAVE to cart stuff off to storage. HAVE TO. Other than that I have no real plans. Yesterday I took the motorcycle out to Eagle Rock to pick up a painting from a show that came down. On the ride, I was kind of gloating to myself about being able to ride my bike to pick up a piece of artwork. Beautiful day in LA. Warm, sunny. Maybe I will sneak in a ride up the coast today. Along with everyone else in Southern California. Maybe not. Maybe I will paint outside. According to a chart I found on the internet, I am 8 in dog years. Fang is around 74 in human years.

Last night I dashed over to see Brit Tolliver's work at Kinkead and ran into a bunch of Tennessee ex-pats. Such a great group of folks.

I'm going to start a large painting. Just one.

To make a long story short-

I finally found my car keys in a box of Valerian-Mint tea.

Moving and packing is not my friend.

Update: the wall painting day two. Fin.

image: 20" x 16"

oh yeah.

Writing on the wall. Once you read the post, you'll groan at how cliché my post title was.

I don't know why I am compelled to upload work in progress, but I am. I worked on the above painting for a little bit today. Maybe I will work on it again tomorrow, but it was more like an experiment to see how I would handle the physical act of painting directly on the wall, along with with how I would make a painting without any preconceived notions to start with whatsoever. I guess this falls in to a Rules painting. (I will explain what I mean by that later, as well as my rules.)

I knew I would eventually do some wall paintings and when I came across Josh Smith's project at Deitch, something stuck in my head. I've decided to couple the idea of site specific painting with my desire to do "live" painting. The lack of the object, the efficiency of the mark, the expediency of the task at hand, the no-safety net approach to painting- all of these things make painting on the wall perfect for me right now. I'm still working on the small paintings on linen with the o k a y, but not great show title which needs revamping, but live wall painting feels like a meaty deviation. If all goes well, I plan on showing these (those) at the Brand Library and Art Center in May. Any other takers out there?

In other freaky scary news, we signed on the dotted line with a real estate broker today. 180 days or less until I fall out of the homeowning class. [Sigh.] Letting go, letting go.

Whew.

Hard work selling stuff for a $1. I don't know what brings out the pissy in me, but when you've reduced a practically brand new $70 Michael Stars dress to a $1 and gently used linens to $1 and someone still wants 50¢ off, it's like, NO, that's $2. Two Dollars. Then they walk away because they didn't get it for $1.50.

Matt and I killed the last hour playing Parcheesi. I won. Twice. I enjoy Abstract strategy games.

Today I'm back on the computer wrapping up an application, accounting, and prep work for upcoming group show. After the yard sale ended, I tackled the studio angling for a more efficient use of space. See Abstract strategy games above. It's really all the same, you know. It kills me, but I'm putting that great find of the wooden cubbies on craigslist. A nine foot piece of furniture is just too large unless I were to have a huge loft. It eats up an entire wall. I may wait until the very last minute just in case, but I removed it from the studio already.

Decided on a real estate broker. Let that fun begin.

Decided that my amazing show title was just o k a y, not great. I sort of suspected this. Theoretically it was a great title, but I had that feeling it was too easy, too pat. I spent quite a bit of time reading a 1947 unabridged dictionary yesterday.

LA Freeway System Sucks Life Out of Local Artist.

The 10 is a heinous freeway. I had a meeting in Glendale this morning. It took a little over an hour to get there. Amazingly, I calculated my timing within 5 minutes of accuracy. This minor miscalculation is amazing because Google Maps said it would take me 30 minutes. Or 90 minutes in traffic. Either way it's a total crapshoot. Afterward, I had to run another art-related errand and I'm now back in Culver City waiting to interview real estate agent #2. I teach tonight. By 9:30 this evening, I will have logged 78 miles and approximately 3.5 hours in the car today. Grueling.