But wait

It's no secret that I occasionally change the orientation of my paintings as I work on them and sometimes even after I finish them. Some people who should know better, have mistakenly assumed that I do this because it "looks" better compositionally, as though I give a flying f about what the composition looks like. No gentle observer, I do this because I like double understandings and the mystery of discovering that which I have not discovered. Just now, in this inversion, I believe I have also discovered a title. I've also been a long-time admirer of Baselitz.

Inversion enabled Baselitz to bridge the gulf between the figurative tradition, stopped in its tracks by the Nazis and abstraction that came to dominate art by the 1950s. Baselitz describes his method:

The object expresses nothing at all. Painting is not a means to an end. On the contrary, painting is autonomous. And I said to myself: if this is the case, then I must take everything which has been an object of painting – landscape, the portrait, and the nude, for example – and paint it upside-down. That is the best way to liberate representation from content.

The hierarchy which has located the sky at the top and the earth at the bottom is, in any case, only a convention. We have got used to it, but we don’t have to believe in it. The only thing that interests me is the question of how I can carry on painting pictures.

[Michael Auping. Detlev Gretenkort (ed). Georg Baselitz: Paintings, 1962–2001. Milan: Alberico Cetti Serbelloni Editore, 2002: 16–18. 20]

Not saying this inversion will stay, but I've noticed in this last series, I have 3 paintings so far that I have inverted. And it's making my show title all the more apropos.

Show (Title) Time

iPhone studio shot of 2 paintings yet to be titled.

You may remember these from this post.

I had a good day in the studio today. It was one of those days where things go click and I didn't feel like I only had five minutes to live, so I could focus on one or two paintings, which I did. They still need a little more work. Details, details.

It's may be a bit early (6 months) but I'm on my way to nailing the show title. To be fair, I believe I have nailed it, but since my moment of brilliant insight was less than 48 hours ago, I will sit with it. (I'm so excited, I can barely keep it to myself, but I will until it's time for the press release.) For the time being, I will say the title was inspired by a book I own called, Parlor Amusements and Social Etiquette, published around 1865. I will also tell you that I googled my rough draft title, discovered a subdivision of my original concept and read about it on Wikipedia. This led me to a link on YouTube, where I watched a video, twice. For all the sudden aha-ness of the title, it seems like it's always been the title. It doesn't feel forced. It's fun to ponder, and I'm not embarrassed about it. I will also tell you that John Ruskin is alive and well in the work, but I felt it too easy to borrow from him again, even though my set of Modern Painters is a bible to me.

(It just occurred to me that my mind works like a Rube Goldberg Machine.)

I am a terribly, terribly intuitive individual. I applied for the Pollock-Krasner grant last year and knew that it would take a little bit of time to hear back from them, but lately, I had been watching the mailbox a little harder than usual. Finally, I figured what the hell, I'll start on next year's application, and so I did. Today, right after finishing the rough draft of my cover letter, I checked my mailbox and opened my first rejection letter from The Pollock-Krasner Foundation. I say "first," because unbeknownst to me, some people have applied 5, 10, or more times before being awarded a grant. Forge on, I say. Unfortunately, one has to wait a year from rejection to apply again.

Um wow. Like today was stellar.

I had a fantastic studio visit with The Fellows of Contemporary Art today. I thought it was fantastic, but it's hard to judge how 25 people respond to your work. I only had 15 minutes to talk, but I was caffeinated and happy, so I think it went very well. They invited me for lunch- yum, and afterward I was invited to attend the other artist's studios.

My day was a total treat. So not only did I get to present my work, I had a chance to spend the afternoon listening and talking with people who are seriously passionate about art. As an added bonus, I had a chance to meet the other artists and visit a couple of their studios. I was a tad star-struck, and I'm really quite embarrassed by just how much, when I found out the other artists on the tour were Robbie Conal, Ed Moses, Charles Arnoldi, Stas Orlovski and Tony Berlant. I had a chance to meet Robbie, Charles and Tony. The day could not have been more perfect.

It was, though. I sold a work, and the good vibes reached all the way out to Highland Park, cause in a parallel universe, Kristi had someone inquire about a work as well.

After that, I went to check out the most excellent portrait show by Heather Cantrell at Kinkead Contemporary and signed up for a shoot either this Wednesday or next. Talked to some other folks I hadn't seen in awhile, confirmed the group show with Kinkead in July and decided to call it a night.

Today was definitely one of THE most inspiring days. I took pictures on the fly, but will post after I get them uploaded. I have to go to bed now though, so tomorrow.

Why yes, today IS Studio Coffee Break Day.

I happened upon a Professional Porch Sitters Union website yesterday and Eureka! realized that's what Studio Coffee Break Day was. I like this. I'm now thinking of merging the as of yet to be established Professional Porch Sitters Union 4343 with Studio Coffee Break.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=49926568432#/event.php?eid=49926568432&ref=nf

In studio world, I've got 6 paintings in various stages of completion. I'm digging a little deeper into Romanticism thanks to my love of Ruskin and Turner and am delving into my secret past as a Transcendentalist wannabe. For a brief semester in college, I was lost. Well, actually, more than a semester. I knew I wanted to be an artist, but had no idea what media I wanted to concentrate in. The art dept threw me into Communication Design, because, and I quote, "At least you can make money." I harbor no resentments whatsoever, but my heart wasn't in it. I plodded along. Oh sure, I loved all the tools and even liked coming up with solutions to problems, but something was missing, which I later discovered was a quote I subconsciously live by in the studio: “Design is about solving problems. Art is about creating them.” I create problems. This is what I'm really good at. I excel at this.

So during this time of idealized soul searching, I got hooked on Emerson and Thoreau and eventually found my first painting class, which changed my life. Yeah, I know it sound dramatic, but it's true.

Today is a two-post day. Post #1

I am always amazed at the generous responses I receive from my work. Occasionally it's from a guy, but more often than not, it's from younger women artists. I'll assume that everyone and their mother gets kudos for their work, and I'm the only one who's constantly caught off guard, but for me there's something significant in making abstract work that connects to other people, because it's not the outward stuff I talk about that people connect with and it's not the artist statement or the fumbled talks- it's the inner stuff that resonates. That's the crazy part- the stuff that's on the canvas still manages to convey, long after I've left the scene. I received a link this morning to a blog post about my work and it made me feel good about being a painter and doing what I do. Which in turn made me want to keep the goodness cycle going, so I went to the Hammer show to soak up some more paintings.

Today's Eureka!

I obsess. I've been obsessing over how I wished I had said this or that in a public forum, and why I get that weird empty feeling when I sometimes talk about the work, and I just figured it out.

It's NOT about an individual painting! Taking about an individual painting doesn't feel right for me, because the work is not about an individual painting; it's about painting as a verb, rather than painting as a noun, and because that's so integrated in the act of painting, talking about the finished painting forces me in an uncomfortable position of speaking about it as a noun.

Well duh!

That, and the existentialist question of whether I paint to record the world around me or whether the world around me is an excuse to paint.

I had a nice time.

I still get nervous speaking in front of a group of people about my art. I always forget what's currently important and try and remember what was important, which comes out kind of flat, cause in a way it's like remembering what it was like being in love with an old boyfriend, but talking about it after you've moved on. I mean I still seriously LOVE the paintings I made last year, and worked really intensely on them, but it always feels rather scientific to discuss them from a distance. Or I could chalk it up to being socially inept, which is a bit closer to the truth.

Kevin spoke about his work,

then I spoke about my work,

then Eric spoke about his work,

then Lester wrapped it up.

Eric said everything about his work that I wished I had said about mine, but Eric managed to actually express it succinctly. I, on the other hand, recall making some obscure point about how in painting I'm trying to come up with the flavor equivalent of peanut butter and sardines rather than peanut butter and chocolate. Plus I always try and pretend It has nothing to do with formalism and paint. So sometimes under pressure, I'm just a blatant liar.

The weirdest thing- and this happens to me occasionally and it creeps me out, but in an okay way-a woman came up to me almost as soon as I got there and told me she recognized me from my paintings. I was a little confused, because they're not many pictures of me AND my paintings floating around, but she went on explain that she "knew" that my paintings belonged to me and she wasn't able to connect the other artists to their paintings. It gets weirder. After I spoke, she came up to me again and told me my paintings were really self-portraits. And she said it in one of those knowing voices like she knew something I didn't know. Very X-file. It's true of course, but like I'd ever admit that in public.

Big thanks to Kristi & Daniel and Chris.

October 20-November 26: “More Than a Feeling”, contemporary abstract paintings by Lester Monzon, Eric Sall, Kevin Wingate, and others.

Also, turns out that I was the "others"- funny.

Heads Up: Art Talk at Kristi Engle, This Sunday May 18

Kristi Engle Gallery
5002 York Ave.
Highland Park, CA 90042
323.472.6237

I forget now what all this is about...*
solo show of new paintings by Mary Addison Hackett

May 3 - June 7, 2008
artist talk: SUNDAY May 18, 2 pm.


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*John Ruskin, Modern Painters, vol.1, endnotes