Installment #3 of the Studio Visit series: Meg Madison and her recent cyanotypes.

Thanks again to the Nashville Scene for giving some love to my micro-docs.
Great conversation with artist Meg Madison in Los Angeles. Click the link to view.

Behind the scenes in the editing process.
This one took much longer. I tend to think I can do it all on the fly and nail everything on the first pass. I'm learning not to rush myself as I shoot these, and I'm totally cool with asking for more elements when I need them. Meg generously provided me with additional stills so I could make the doc a little longer than the usual 3 minutes. She was prepping for two shows, so my timing was fortuitous, but I still needed some cutaways to make it less claustrophobic. After the fine cut was done, I opened it up for feedback. There were a few subtle changes after the rough cut— swapping out some conversation for clarity, tightening or loosening a scene for pace, and I lost a self-refererential bit in the middle, but I lived. And finally, the music thing. If I could have one person on my wishlist right now, it would be a sound person to record audio and a sound designer/mixer in post. Okay, two people, but a mixer would def streamline the process.

Gearing up for the 4th one, but had to divert some attention to office and studio work. It's my not so subtle cry for an assistant.

One timeline to rule them all.

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And it's still under 6 min. 

I was excited, but I'll have to wait a day or two. 

Shorthand: Insight Outta Site talk with Austin Thomas at Nashville Public Library

From My iPhone Notes, With Autocorrect Turned Off Which Means I Stopped And Corrected Everything As I Typed.

  The gist of the talk was premised as "whether an art practice necessitates a studio, and whether a work or concept may have an audience outside the gallery context."

• Post studio practice. Liberating. Relational aesthetics. Perches. Indoor perches. Perspective led to open up art spaces. Sketchbook daily practice. Happy accidents.  
• **When you're an artist the same hand builds everything.****
• Placemaking new word. Code for gentrification. Plug for Sharon's [Louden's] book. 
• New space in Newark. Being a steward is important. Bushwick. Showing artists who live there. 
• Dispelling myth of lone genius. Saying yes. Plug for Art and Fear book * (I still own my copy that was recommended on the down low in grad school, so I second this.)
• Artist taking risks. World as Material. 
• Artsy. Pinterest. for keeping up to date [editor note: no. no no. ok, maybe Artsy, whatever.]
• Failing upwards. Questioning success. Casting a silhouette. 
• Concentrating on the shadow will have an impact. Rather than building a statue. 
• Jerry Saltz how to be successful. 
• Running a gallery. Family money, loans, owning real estate. Essentially listening to money. Personal Loan in exchange for having a show. [editor's note: lost me around here.] 
• As a gallerist you really wrap yourself around the artist. You create their shadow.

✍           ✍          ✍

I briefly met Austin when I was in NY a few years ago visiting with Sharon Butler. I thought of her perches this summer when I was in LA cleaning out my storage unit because she had orchestrated a project of gifting a few perches on  a cross-country drive. The story stuck with me and I, for a brief moment had been inspired to do the same. Drastically different though- she gifted 4 perches. I had about a 100 works and a plane ticket. But still, I was inspired by that act and we chatted for a few minutes after the talk. And if you're just tuning in, I destroyed my work instead of cheerfully donating it, so we also talked a little about destruction and lightness and how that related to a post studio practice.

Hearing another artist talk about not having a studio was great. I've had my studio at home for 5 years now. As much as I'd like the luxury of a going somewhere totally separate to tune out and make art, I'm siding with the the "World as Material" view currently. I also keep going back to the phrase, "casting a silhouette."

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.  
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Came home, hit send on my thesis-length residency app and fucked off by looking for MORE things to apply for since I'm on a roll. Still need to finish Meg's cut. Premiere is open, willing, and ready. 

Coming up for air

When the kind people at Trader Joe's ask me if I have big plans for the weekend, it's a gentle reminder that I have no sense of time. In other words, I always feel like I just started my work week. Possibly something about the blurring of Monday night into Thursday morning and my internal clock telling me I must brave the sunlight and forage for food.

I applied for 2 residencies this week, or was it last? The first one was a wash. The deadline slipped up on me while I was out of town and I had all of 3 hours to apply. I was serious about applying for it, but after being on the road 2 days in a row, crafting a cohesive proposal was not to be. I turned something in because I had been thinking about it, but writing and thinking are not the same when it come down to it. About 6 hours after I turned in 4 or 5 hard-earned sentences, falling a few thousand words shy of the allotted maximum, did my idea start to gel. Several hours later in the middle of a second proposal I started hitting my stride, or so I thought.

I had the foresight to ask a trusted friend/artist/writer to proof my proposal. It was an eye-opener.  Some great general advice, a few spins on current wording and boom. I revised the first draft and onward. I think most people would have sounded fine because it did sound fine for a boilerplate proposal, but I'm better than that. I know it and my friend knew it. Most helpful piece of editing I've ever had.

Of course that wasn't all. No, there were 2 mores essays, and a trick question that involved seeing how well you could turn a 10-page resume into a 1-page summary. They already had me list that stuff in a bio, and again in accomplishments, so for the 3rd request I'm certain it was a test to see how creative you could be with formatting. Should I keep all the solo shows and list 2 honors? List all the honors followed by 4 solo shows? One item from each category? Can I just draw a bunny and call it a day? What happened to the good ole days when I had to double-space my ressie and I could play with EMPTY SPACE?

Oh, yeah, and that's not counting front row seats for the Parade of Angst While Selecting and Resizing Images.

The good news is I hit the send button earlier today.

Cause and Effect.

Have I mentioned this summer marked five years since I moved here? I just pulled the wetsuits out of  a storage box to celebrate. 

stipid eople

Maintenance. Post #1. Roof and Gutters.

I hired someone from Craigslist to patch the roof of my shed that was damaged from the tree falling on it. 

The area needing work was about 18 inches square and the fascia needed to be replaced. The guy from Craigslist came by at 11:30 am to look it over. I gave him some scrap plywood and he gave me a flat bid for the repair. He took a break at noon and came back to work at 1:30 pm. At 4:30 pm I walked out to see how it was going. He was in his van checking his cell phone. At that time only two planks of wood had been painted- on one side.

Around 6 pm I saw another car in the driveway. It was a Buick. It belonged to his girlfriend. She was smoking cigarettes in my backyard watching him work. She brought her dog. 

It's 8:04 pm and dark. His  girlfriend left sometime in the last hour. The flat bid included cleaning my gutters. The gutters have plants growing in them. It's been a year since I had them cleaned, maybe more. I've been remiss. Inertia. There's a sample bottle of fancy under eye cream on my kitchen table. My cousin gave it to me four years ago. It doesn't seem that long ago, until I remember that it's been a long time. It's less than an ounce. I forget to use it. 

He hasn't started on the gutters. It's dark. I closed all my blinds and turned on the eave lights.

At 8:25 pm I went outside to tell him maybe he could come back and finish up in the morning. He still had not started work on the gutters. He had a large halogen light illuminating my shed. The shed needs repainting. It's obvious in the daylight but with a halogen light shining on it, it's more obvious. My neighbor was pulling his car in his driveway. Actually it was stopped, almost pulled in, but not quite. I know this, because the taillights were on. He apologized for not getting the work done on time and said he took him longer than he thought. He mentioned something about the cell phone and forgetting a drill. I said no problem, he could come back first thing in the morning.

It's 8:35pm. I looked out the window and saw him back on the ladder touching up some paint.

8:51pm. His halogen work lights are still on.
9pm. His halogen work lights are still on.
9:15pm. He finally drives away


A week later I found a jar of suppositories he had left behind in the shed. Freak. 

magic.

It was hellish and wonderful to be back in LA. The hellish part is unspeakable, but the wonderful part was seeing a few friends and basking in the warmth of the SoCal sun and concrete.  I feel fortunate to know both visual artists and film editor friends out there so I could talk shop about about current projects.

I swore I wasn't going to speak about the storage situation. And I can't. It's beyond words. The end result was that out of approximately 60 works, 9 large paintings came back, along with four heavy portfolios of idiosyncratic works on paper that were an installation I did over in Rotterdam while on a two-month residency; another book/portfolio of about 250  cut paper watercolors I did when I first started painting again in LA; some miscellaneous very large format digital prints a gallerist printed for a show he curated; and a few small paintings from each series I had to destroy. Some fascinating things to report. Two paintings from 2008 were still wet to the touch. Gotta love linseed oil. I have made some of my best work on cheapo store bought canvases, but they are not suitable for de-stretching and rolling. Paper is amazing for its durability and longevity. It's also heavy. All in all, I shipped 171 pounds of art. I destroyed about 900 pounds. Again, unspeakable. The good news is that I did it within 15 minutes of my maximum allotted timeline. Monday 12-6:30, Tuesday 9am-6:30, Wednesday 10-5:30. Thursday, I was done by noon.

I could wipe anyone off the island if I were on Survivor. Anyone. I was totally in the Do Not F*ck with Me zone. It took an intense amount of concentration and physical stamina. I met my friend Cole in Playa for dinner Tuesday night. Chris Rusak, a friend from the blogosphere and Twitter universe stopped by with some coffee on Wednesday. Dinner with friends R & J Wednesday night talking shop about editing and post in Venice. Thursday, I hung out with Meg, and went to MoCA. I stayed in a super nice sunny breezy modernist pad out of the likes of Dwell magazine on the west side. My host was an expat from Italy, and served up wonderful espresso.

I love LA with all my heart. If you've never lived there, you won't have a clue what I'm talking about. It's more than just art. It's the chick with the just rolled out of bed, bed sheet wrinkles on her back ordering coffee at Peet's while giving legal counsel to a client at 8:30am,  the $6.99 strip mall fish taco that puts wannabe hipster taco joints to shame, and all the crazy over development. It's inexplicable if you're a tourist. It's warm concrete and chic bungalows, and yes, there's a price to pay for all that. It was excruciating to leave, but I am stronger for having done this trip. Much of the work that came back is not for sale and is part of my private collection.

Upon return, I made a decision to stay in Nashville, do some home improvement, and keep moving along with the work. Having a place for the art is important to me. There's a burden that's been lifted and that's good.

I shot a footage for another short artist doc while I was out there, but I'll save that convo for another post.

Fall down seven times, get up eight.

I finally had to let go of something I worked my ass off to improve, but I simply could not work miracles. I'm beaten. Three effing weeks. On the bright side: ***Learning Experience***
yay...rah. But seriously, I'm having second thoughts about being a one-woman band, which is excruciating because I'm also insanely determined.

Don't worry, I'm pretty sure Timeline Comics © is not going to be my thing, but just in case.

Truth be told, I was just excited I nailed an audio patch on the first try. It's the little things.

It's a wrap.

Take a break and head over to Vimeo to catch the inaugural installment of my micro-doc artist series, featuring a candid studio visit with artist, Mery Lynn McCorkle.