This is all to say that I need unfettered think time, some time to play around. I have a solo show coming up this fall as part of the residency program, but now I hear it's loosely scheduled for October. It's hearsay at this point, but once I confirm it, I need to start thinking about a title and what to show. I've been making work of course, but residencies- for me- are about exploration. A place to experiment and let the work take on a life of its own with no agendas. This is quite different than production mode for a show which is sometimes extremely focused: the goal is to have X paintings by X date; they fall under the show title/concept of X. etc, etc. My production MO for the last 4 months since having the TC studio has been more in the line with that of a Circus Ringmaster only instead of orchestrating freak shows and trapeze acts, it's self-portraits, abstracts, plants, more pools, and some still lifes. Natch I did a wiki on ringmaster and discovered the term, "Monsieur Loyal" which is another term for the ringmaster taken from, "Anselme-Pierre Loyal (1753-1826), one of the first renowned circus personalities." After discovering Monsieur Loyal, which I prefer to pronounce as Loyale, as though I'm Vincent in Pulp Fiction explaining to Jules that in Amsterdam the Quarter Pounder is a Royale with Cheese, I started throwing Monsieur Loyale around as a possible show title. Only no one would get it. The end. God, I hate when I'm so clever that only I can understand the intricate complexity of such a fantastic title. A crying shame.
Anyway, I need to make more work. It's a rather lengthy linear space and my original idea of inviting others to participate might not be the best fit now due to the possible red tape of organizing such a show with relatively little time, especially since I'm not in charge of the space and all the exhibition details. But I'm thinking of it.
***
I was going to take it easy today at the micro-home residency and read, but I ended up working on another small self-portrait. I'm conflicted by my desire to be accurate, yet intrigued by how difficult it is to work from a mirror and keep the same pose with the same perspective for a few hours. I caught myself distorting a self-portrait on purpose this past week, or rather exaggerating some features in order to capture a particular mood, and wondering if it was too soon to break away from my self-imposed structure. (Self-imposed structure for a self-portrait. How fitting.) Plus you know, the paint, always the seductive paint. Other times, I struggle to nail some particular feature, like the eyes for instance. I obsess over the eyes and my dark circles. I loathe the fact I can't see close-up unless I wear my glasses, so there's this ongoing battle with looking, seeing and painting—with and without my glasses. Criminy, I don't know anymore. A friend offered up some Lacanian Mirror Stage BS as a way of explaining the difficulty. I was pretty sure it's because I never studied figure drawing. But hey, I'll throw the Mirror Phase around if it helps. After grad school, you'd be surprised at how difficult it is to slip psychoanalytic theory buzzwords into your daily conversation.
Oh, and I almost forgot. "Couillarde." Picked that term up from a book on Cezanne's self-portraits. Derived from couille, and roughly translates as balls or guts.
***
I was going to take it easy today at the micro-home residency and read, but I ended up working on another small self-portrait. I'm conflicted by my desire to be accurate, yet intrigued by how difficult it is to work from a mirror and keep the same pose with the same perspective for a few hours. I caught myself distorting a self-portrait on purpose this past week, or rather exaggerating some features in order to capture a particular mood, and wondering if it was too soon to break away from my self-imposed structure. (Self-imposed structure for a self-portrait. How fitting.) Plus you know, the paint, always the seductive paint. Other times, I struggle to nail some particular feature, like the eyes for instance. I obsess over the eyes and my dark circles. I loathe the fact I can't see close-up unless I wear my glasses, so there's this ongoing battle with looking, seeing and painting—with and without my glasses. Criminy, I don't know anymore. A friend offered up some Lacanian Mirror Stage BS as a way of explaining the difficulty. I was pretty sure it's because I never studied figure drawing. But hey, I'll throw the Mirror Phase around if it helps. After grad school, you'd be surprised at how difficult it is to slip psychoanalytic theory buzzwords into your daily conversation.
Oh, and I almost forgot. "Couillarde." Picked that term up from a book on Cezanne's self-portraits. Derived from couille, and roughly translates as balls or guts.
1 comment:
I'm going to hang out in your shadow for a while, you're energy is so good now. You won't even know I'm there.
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