Welcome to the new fall color scheme.

I have no titles, but I have a wallet card to give me direction.

Untitled, 2009
oil on linen
7" x 5"

Untitled, 2009
oil on linen
7" x 5"

The bottom one is the same from last week, but scanned instead of shot with an iPhone.

I finally uploaded 10 of the abstracts to my website. I quit judging my works a few years ago, meaning that I decided that no one painting of mine was any better than another painting of mine, which is to say, I somewhat arbitrarily picked 10 out of about 20 to put on the website. I could be dead wrong of course, but that's my story.

I'm finally at a place again where I can make a concentrated effort to look for gallery representation outside of LA and have been devoting some time to that.

I'm also at a point where I'm desperately needing a residency and some time to think clearly about my where I'm going next. Meanwhile, I made a handy wallet card.

Perhaps I should look at my coffee addiction.

I didn't mean to sound so jaded with the contemporary art scene in yesterday's posts. It's more about my own struggle with beauty and painting. There's something reassuring and faithful about painting- comforting, but still sexy after all these years. Paintings are mysterious. Some paintings more than others. Maybe that's what I look for in art- mystery and substance.

I'm still reading through The Beat and the Buzz and I can't decide whether I should be embarrassed by admitting this or not. Like whether it's too close to admitting one reads the National Inquirer. (I don't.) I came across a passage talking about a small consortium of collectors as art hedge fund investors. I think I may have been introduced to someone like this in a studio visit earlier this year. I deleted most if not all of that particular post. Restraint of Wacom pen and tongue.

More importantly, I found 2 boxes of Chemex coffee filters at The Coffee Conservatory in Culver City, the last bastion of independent coffee houses. You people do not know how I have suffered. I was giddy at the prospect of having my coffee this morning and am already excited about brewing coffee tomorrow.

Carla posted some pics of when she lived in a trailer in the 90's. Suddenly, I found the idea of a trailer a very attractive option. I don't know how Matt and I going to divide the house. Sometimes I think it might be nice to offer a 1-person artist residency for a modest fee or convert the office back into an attractive guest bedroom and rent it to out-of-town art peeps. I wouldn't charge anyone for Thursday. That's when the yardmen invade the neighborhood and the garbage trucks come by. Thursday is rather nerve-wracking.

Here's one of the places I lived in the early 90's. This was the loft I lived in right before I was accepted to grad school. I think it was $400 for about 1000 square feet. There wasn't a kitchen but there was this long industrial kitchen sink, the kind you see in restaurants. There was virtually no divison between my art and my life. The bedroom and bathroom were lofted above. After that, it was a a blur. There was a bay of windows up top. It was more like a sunken loft space. I'd freak out if I lived like this today.

*This brings me to my 3rd lack of employment inspired post for today-

Art + Design.

I have a bad feeling...

Most, but not all, of the design showrooms had locked up by the time the gallery spaces had their opening. We're all familiar when artists riff on advertising, design etc, but when design riffs on art, the politics are a little weird. In one closed space at PDC, which means that it was NOT a gallery but a design showroom, there was a bicycle that looked as though it had been dipped in tar, thus rendering it non-functional, thus rendering it damn close to being viewed as "art." However, knowing this was in a design showroom, not a gallery, it simply looked like it was trying to be cutting edge and artsy, as opposed to actually being cutting edge and artsy. This opens up all sorts of questions regarding what qualifies as art vs design, precisely because it requires that we accept on authority that it's art because it's done by an artist rather than say a prop maker who's making work for a designer to sell as art. Incomplete thought here, because dammit, I need more coffee and I want some beauty with that.

Art.

I made the rounds at the Pacific Design Center yesterday afternoon. It's a great concept. Galleries set up shop RENT-FREE. How difficult is that? It's slightly temporary and I don't know all the details, but one dealer I spoke with had signed a 6-month lease. Most of the art was on the upper floors and the spaces are whatever is available and therefore scattered among the design showrooms. On the first floor there was a gala and people in fancy clothes were drinking blue drinks. I'm going to assume that at some point, the people drinking blue drinks made their way up to the gallery spaces and said to themselves, "Wunderbar!" and oohed and aahed over cutting-edge 90's conceptualism. In fact, I heard one such comment, it went something like, "Isn't that amazing?" It was spoken with the same tone of voice enthusiasm reserved for people who overuse the word, 'Brilliant.' No, dear, it was nice. It was not 'amazing.' Damn, I'm surly today. (See my post about coffee.)

At the risk of sounding like a neo-con, I miss beauty. I can’t believe I even said that. I, a total champion of slacker aesthetics, scatter art, idea over execution, bad painting etc.- I, miss beauty and care, otherwise known as attention to detail. I still think a good bad painting is great, so no worries, but I realized that everything looks the same. When did this happen? When did edgy become homogenized?

As a whole, the scene itself was somewhat interesting, At one point, I'm talking with another artist who's showing at one of the spaces and a distinguished gentleman comes up to him, politely interrupts our conversation and says "There's someone I think you should meet."

The best I got all evening was "I'll bring a six-pack over and we can hang in your studio," which although I no longer drink, still ranks, but my point is that there seem to be some real people milling around the PCD. You know...people with money. Who like art. People with money who like art. There, see? A complete sentence, not a fragment of my imagination. In one of the spaces, some young hottie with a leather-bound binder was teetering around looking very Designy-Salesy-like.* Umbrella girls- that's what galleries need, Umbrella Girls.

So here's a couple of things I want at my next show:
1. I want someone to whisk me away with a "I think there's someone you should meet." (I'm sure someone has said this to me, but not nearly enough.)
2. Umbrella Girls or Boys working the room.

*This brings me to my 3rd lack of employment inspired post for today-

I am a princess.

I ran out of Chemex coffee filters over a week ago. I trusted the nice people at Peet’s in the Marina to have them in stock the next day, like they said they would. They lied. Then I trusted them to have them in stock the next week, like they said they would. They lied again. Here we have the enormously silly irony of living in a huge metropolis, coupled with access to a huge Internet. I’m certain that somewhere in Los Angeles County, someone is selling Chemex coffee filters. I’m also certain that it’s not Googleable. Nor do I want to pay $9-$12 in shipping and at this point I want my coffee now.

This brings me to my princess and a pea syndrome, as if the above paragraph didn't already. I have an espresso machine. I make a double espresso everyday around 2pm to get me through the rest of the day. We’re Pavlov over here, so Fang also gets a biscuit at 2pm when the espresso machine begins to pour. The word, ‘espresso’ is onomatopoeic, meaning that by the time I have made the espresso, I have mysteriously quaffed the espresso, bypassing the sacred hour that time stands still first thing in the morning, which mean I’ve also bypassed lingering over coffee. I am not a lingerer. I am not an idler. Some part of my body is in motion nearly all day— except for that first 30-45 minutes when I space-out over coffee, stare out the window, look at the dog and think how lucky I am, meditate and otherwise let my mind roam without feeling the need to do something productive. I’ve done French press, but when the decanter broke, I went auto drip. When that decanter broke, I went back to Chemex and I’ve been hooked ever since. But at what price? Today might be the day that I give up, give in and purchase a larger French press, since the 1-cup press I own in case of emergency is plain silly. I used it this morning. Twice. It was okay. It’s funny, I know smells can bring back memories in a flash, but today with my French press coffee, the flavor totally took me back to circa 1987 and my first loft on 19th street in Pilsen. Like, exactly. Crazy. So for the last two weeks, I really haven't been up to snuff because I've been suffering from the lack of my morning coffee ritual.

Um, yeah. I <3 Dave Hickey.

I first saw the link via Eva's feed on FB and spent the last 45 minutes or something watching the lecture on You Tube. SVA asked to have it removed, so not sure how long it will be up for viewing.

I knew there was a Nashville connection with Hickey because my friend, Jennifer's godmother is Marshall Chapman and Dave Hickey is mentioned in Chapman's book, Goodbye, Little Rock and Roller, but it was rather poignant and amusing to hear him make the comparisons or lack there of in a lecture. The lectures are about contentment, ennui, "creativity" and status quo in the art world and in educational institutions.

I started a second* pool painting over the last couple or 3 days. Different angle. I don't know what I'm doing, but I like looking at it from a distance. It's like I totally did not paint either of them and I have no idea why they're in my studio. I moved the first one out of the studio before I could wreck havoc with it and turn it into something else. I'm still working on the second one. I'm thinking about them in their own own context, as well as how they relate hanging next to the other paintings. It's a new and slightly uncomfortable place for me to be-very external but internal at the same time, not to mention, I've now joined the ranks of people who paint pools, which I might add was not anywhere on my list of '100 things to do before I die.'

*3rd if you count the one I did last year

Dave Hickey The Good Ennui at SVA Part I

Dave Hickey The Good Ennui at SVA Part II

Dave Hickey The Good Ennui at SVA Part III

Dave Hickey The Good Ennui at SVA Part IV