Heads up: save the date alert

The real announcements are apparently still at the printers. I think I like mine better anyway. Plus, it contains the unabridged version of the show title. And if you're paying very special attention, you'll notice it is approximately 7" x 5" and written on a torn out sheet of notebook paper.

I really should have a font made out of my handwriting.  It's been on my to-do list for like 10 years.
Feel free to share or print out your very own copy. I'll be flying in for the reception and artist talk.

The Mole People Painters.

Last night I had to implement the emergency studio work trick: I was cranky having self-indulged in fun things like catching up on my accounting, and blissing out in a general state of angst all week, and thus had to force myself to work in the studio before bedtime, even if it was just for a few minutes. Of course I was there a couple of hours, of which the first few minutes involved killing camelback crickets and 2 flying beetles. I need better lighting out there. I thought about the Charles Burchfield photograph, and rationalized that maybe I, too, am a mole painter.

Yesterday I was a bit wrought over some home repairs, like a new roof. I was also misinformed by someone that I had standing water in my crawlspace and possibly mold issues, so natch, I was worried I had a plumbing problem as well as a heating and a/c duct problem. I've been on edge feeling like my house was going to fall apart or at least cost an arm and a leg to keep together and that I should just bail. My a/c/heating guy is the best. He came with the house. His number was in my mom's tattered phone directory. The calendar printed in the back of the directory is dated 1964 and 1965. Los Angeles had one area code. The a/c guy comes around twice a year to replace the filters and check the unit. I was braced for bad news which I would have promptly ignored. During the flood I had water in my duct work. If it had rained a few more hours, the water would have overflowed into my house. I'm just now getting around to calling him. My unit checked out fine. Not only that, but he said there was no standing water, no mold, and that I've got one helleva built house, the joists are the size of telephone poles. I am relieved. I can go back to being a mole painter and relax for a day or two, and go back to stomping on crickets. They're not the lovable crickets- these are creepy, and ever since I was informed they eat mold and dead possum, I've been a little freaked out by them.

Labor Day weekend.

Get out your lemon juice and lightbulbs

Today's one of those days where I should keep my mouth shut since I can't say anything nice.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... I feel a huge post-show depression coming on. 


On a brighter note. 

A Pumpkin Spice Latte made me sad today.

That is all.

On artist statements, part 2.

I lied.
I've been a bit hasty in my debunking of the artist statement. It's strictly a vendetta against my inner artist statement writer. I had a statement I liked, a statement I was pleased with. I wrote it in 2006. Four years later, most of the overarching concerns are still true. Some are not. For instance the other day, I started a painting that references absolutely nothing. I felt cheap, like I was jumping on a bandwagon of current art world trends from 2007. Physically and process-wise, I did nothing different than I've been doing all-along, except I was diligent in forcing myself not to think about anything outside of the materials, and the application of the paint on the canvas. If a word such as rock, tree, interior, exterior, memory, sadness, happiness, entered my mind while painting, I immediately self-corrected as though I were avoiding a pedestrian that was stepping off the curb too soon. Same went for concept words such as information, communication, etc. I was simply trying to make a non-referential painting. It's difficult. I am working on two of these. I do not know if I can remain that focused on nothing, and if I don't, would the painting then become about NOT being focused, ergo, defaulting to having meaning like my house defaults to having dust? I may never know.

The other two paintings in the studio are about transformation. As I wrote that word, I realized that all the paintings are about transformation. I have written that before somewhere, but it's so obvious. All painting is about transforming raw pigment/materials into something more meaningful.

I am suspicious of beauty and of elegance. I am suspicious of esoteric statements. I am suspicious of dumbed down statements. I am suspicious of pain and hardship. I am suspicious of my palette knife. I am most definitely suspicious of the dog. Sometimes I turn around and he's right there, having appeared silently out of nowhere. It's a tad creepy. I don't like to be pigeon-holed. I'm fickle. A while back I said I was interested in technology and architecture. I haven't noticed much technology or architecture in my work lately. I'd like to say I'm not going to write about the small abstract paintings or the pools and flowers any more, but that might not be true. They too, are about transformation, but what else would I say after that? I have written quite a bit about them, but, they feel so sad. I am ready to move past the sad. I want to keep painting. My work is not project-based. My work isn't addressing a universal need that needs to be addressed, unless looking at art and thinking about meaning is a need, and I believe it is. What triggered my rebuttal, was clicking on the website of someone who didn't have a statement. I had a moment of wondering if the work "meant" anything or if it was superficial. No clues, no hints. I wondered if they had written a statement, would I have suddenly thought that the work was deeper than it appeared. I wondered if I needed the validation of a statement to look at work nowadays. I wondered if people would ask those questions about my work. I looked at someone else's work that was obviously about something. It was made with feminist materials loaded with meaning. I wondered why I will consider conceptual art forever early 90's grad school. I wondered if I considered painting reactionary or radical.

The Wandered above the Sea of Fog, Caspar David Friedrich

UPDATE: There is now a stump in one of the non-referential paintings out in the studio. Stumps are big around here. It's a nice stump too, so I'm leaving it in the painting. Maybe it won't make it in the final painting, but right now it seems kind of expensive to remove and it's not bothering anyone. Just like real life. 

On artist statements:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-grant/are-artists-statements-re_b_701604.html
That's it for me. No more statements. All the good ones are taken anyhow:
"Painting relates to both art and life. Neither can be made. (I try to act in that gap between the two.)" -Robert Rauschenberg
Or this one:
“Strange though it may sound, not knowing where one is going—being lost, being a loser reveals the greatest possible faith and optimism. To believe, one must have lost God; to paint, one must have lost art."-Gerhardt Richter, The Daily Practice of Painting
Or this one:
"Do, or do not. There is no try" -Yoda, Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

A shot of 'burban ennui or pre-show postpartum. You be the judge.

dog asleep in studio

The Gunfighter

Flavorwire posted this great list: Required Reading: 10 Classic Stories of Suburban Ennui and suddenly I felt the nostalgic chill of autumns long ago. I've been wrestling with my own suburban ennui this weekend. And yes, it's still a weekend because I had to sit home all day waiting for the Sears repairman today. The onset of ennui coincided with—and I know this is going to sound so lame— my need to trek to an office supply store to purchase a sharpie for labeling the backs of the paintings. I'm really procrastinating on the little nuances involved with getting my show off the ground. I have 25 days. Sadly, or not, I am a maker of things. This is my strength. I have in the past organized things, taught things, promoted things and even thoroughly produced things, but once I become a maker of things, I find it hard to switch gears. I could probably make anything. Seriously—a dress, a rocket, a stove, you name it. It might look like crap and be unfunctional, but I would enjoy making it.

 My studio bathed in a Bauhaus moment

Abstract painting (in progress)

But back to ennui. In an effort to dodge the tedium of constructing an inventory for shipping, labels for postcards or my email announcement,  I devoted my weekend to updating my website and reconnecting with twitter. I saw a tweet from @longshotmag calling for submissions on the theme of comeback, and so I thought I'd whip up a bit of black humor describing my summer in 300 words or less, since for all practical purposes, I am ready for a comeback. There was a 24 hour deadline. I made the deadline, uploaded my file, and got a confirmation email, followed by a server error email. Long story short, nada. I can either assume they didn't get my riveting story of death and despair in Nashville, or that they thought it sucked. Either way, I was too tired to do much else other than putz aimlessly around the house the next day. A lunch date was canceled, throwing me even further into an abyss. I repacked the boxes in the hallway and gained a few cubic feet of floor and air space. I installed one track light in the studio. I made a vegan quiche and worked on a knitted a skirt I started three years ago. I call these my divorce skirts. It's the second item I began knitting while married, and continued to knit while getting divorced. Both are skirts. The first one was finished almost 10 years after I started it, so technically I finished it while happily remarried, which  means that there's a slim, but very doubtful chance I could meet someone, get married and finish skirt #2  with husband #3, but I don't think so, especially since I plan on making it a shorter skirt.


I thought Sunday might be more productive, but it wasn't, and today was a total bust because Sears bungled my repair appointment and rescheduled it for the afternoon. Total cabin fever at this point. I was going to drive down to Atlanta to see a friend's show this week, but there's too much to do after being The Great Lethargo all weekend.

After I get back from L.A. I have to pull the trigger and take care of some home repair things. Or maybe I should do it now. It will be autumn here. I'm very excited about that. Fires in the fireplace, tweed, and reading. I'm chomping at the bit to get back to a totally structured schedule in the studio and am close to nailing one down.

Meanwhile, I came across this event called Drawing America: The Neighborhood Big Draw.  If I can pull it together, I may organize something here.

So much for 140 characters.

I keep trying to embrace twitter. Maybe I'll start by reducing my posts to 140 characters or less.

T-29: My upcoming solo show.

My show is less one month away. I'm certain I have a zillion things to do, but at least I've booked a flight and rental car. And of course the paintings are done. Next up, prepping the works for travel, or packing and shipping. I lied the other day when I said I was signing and dating the works. I still have a few to do.

I haven't seen the press release and though I gave the gallery a bunch of words and paragraphs claiming to be a statement, as far as I can remember, I don't really have just one.

I had to laugh when I was told that for marketing reasons, the image for the postcard would be an abstract painting. I find this slightly amusing. I've decided that representational, figurative and abstract imagery are all the same, though I intend to keep referring to myself as an abstract painter. I made a mock diagram of the show today. I was lazy,  so I ended up using the same jpeg over and over.

The Palette finds its way onto the Grolsh site

I should get crackin' on part 2.

In between all the prep work and catch-up I'm not doing, I'm realizing just how important, nay critical, social networking is for me. Although I was a hermit in LA, I could at least feign real life interaction easily enough by jumping on my bike and seeing a bunch of shows, or setting up a studio visit without much ado. Social networking was a way to fill in the gaps socially- a way to build an artist community with people outside my physical boundaries, meaning I didn't actually rely/depend on the Internet to see artwork. Here, in my new, smaller real world, I'm grasping my Wacom pen a bit more, and I'm having to be more proactive about finding and meeting other artists and seeing work that inspires or challenges me. I just got back from doing a studio visit with Kit Reuther at her sculpture studio where she was working on some sculptures for an upcoming show. I was familiar with Kit's paintings, but the sculptures were fairly new. She had some small ones on a shelf and I started getting excited about sculpture. On my way out I met Dane Carder whose studio was also in the building. Dane's a painter. I only got a quick peak at his studio. I totally spaced on taking pictures while at Kit's.

Dane Carder's studio, Nashville

Dane happened to be giving away cans of house paint. I picked up a nice periwinkle blue. His brother took a Spanish class from my mom. Kit's cousin is a first generation ex-boyfriend of mine. Nashville is a small world, but so is the art world in general. The building was quite fabulous. Even the studio spaces are within six degrees of separation. In a former life, the building was a hosiery factory. When I was a kid, I remember being dragged there to stockpile discount undergarments, lingerie and pantyhose. I had studio envy. I miss being around a community of other artists. There's a space available in the building. I'm thinking about it, but I'd miss waking up and painting in my vintage nightgown while having coffee out of my equally vintage Romper Room cup. I'm really trying to embrace this suburban studio thing.

My garage/studio door did not open today, therefore I couldn't get the Moto Guzzi out. And for this, I am forever thankful that my mother believed in the Sears Warranty program. They will be coming out next week to fix it.