Not a Creative Post Title

It's funny. No actually it's not. Sometimes people assume when you're glum it's because you need new ideas or are uninspired in the studio. People rarely assume it's the opposite- that you have a lot of ideas and a lot of work, but that the lack of a venue or captive audience suddenly makes you question what's the point, and you realize it's like running a long-distance race without a finish line— and that buying materials to make paintings without a show lined up is either like putting money in the bank or burning cash in a bonfire. I began making small paintings a couple of years ago as a conceptual investigation on abstraction and scale, but it was also the result of a bit of self-betrayal. After a show that seemed to have a positive response, I was angry at the large work for going back to storage. I am prolific in the studio, so the thought of only producing enough work for a show and calling it quits until I have to make work for another show is incomprehensible to me. Scaling down seemed to be a way to satisfy the need to make work and to make peace with renting a 5' x 10' storage unit.

I convinced myself that small was the new big. I was engaged with the intimate scale, the tiny brushes, cradling the canvases as I painted, trying out super expensive paint brands, linen—all of it really, but something was missing.

I don't know how not to paint. I feel rather grateful that for the most part, I am easily sparked by ideas and able to get distracted indiscriminately by a 1" piece of lichen or a broken twig, household objects and decaying architecture, or technology and science fiction. I used to take being an artist for granted and on occasion have bought into the argument that art is a merely a luxury good, but lately when I listen to the news and all the insipid backwoods political crap going on in the world, I suddenly feel how important it is to make art, like maybe I'm doing something to offset evil and stupidity. I guess that's enough for today.

#1. This one is almost done, still eyeing a few places though. Yes, it' a diptych now. 

#2. This one is in progress. It's at the middlebeginning stage, I'm guessing. Things are forming and beginning to take hold.

#3. Freakishly accidental rainbow fro resulting from the first wash.