My real world report

When I was in grad school, I made a conscious decision NOT to paint. I spent the entire semester documenting my everyday activities of NOT painting. I lived with a camcorder on me for 24/7 back in the day when only true geeks had email addresses and web pages. I documented washing dishes, a struggle to give up caffeine, the clutch on my truck going out, and telephone conversations. Tasks of the banal, constructed, unconstructed and deconstructed. Allan Kaprow's, Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life became kind of a manual for me. After going back to painting, I still view the everyday with potential for being art. It's just a matter of shifting focus, concentration and the willingness to explore that moment for it's full potential that makes it art.

So this week I can report that I have been a vegan for 4 days. I could care less if you're a vegan or a meat-eater, but I'm pretty excited because it's opening up a world of eating and cooking that involves much more thoughtfulness than I've cared to invest in eating before. If Krispy Kreme had been within walking distance, I'd be big as a barn right now

Yesterday I washed the car only because on the way home from the grocery store, the dish washing liquid had spilled into the plastic bag and I didn't want to waste the soap.

What does this have to do with painting? Nothing yet, but it will.

{addendum} Or maybe not.

This week I have too see Marlene Dumas at MOCA.
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Oh and one other thing...I got an email from an editor at a magazine wanting to know if I had any shows in 2009. Honestly, it was a one-line inquiry:

Hi Mary:

Are you having any shows in 2009?

Thanks,
[name]
Editor-in-Chief
[magazine]

On the glass half-empty side of things, I could only reply that I'm short-listed for a couple of shows and muse for a moment how I made a conscious decision not to beat down every door I could find and risk laying low for awhile. On the glass half-full side of things, a magazine editor was interested in my work. On the glass-half-empty, not having a show definitely scheduled for 2009, eliminated me from being interviewed. Back to being way uncool.