From Bad to Worse To Great

Sometimes things just seem to fall into place after months and months of struggling. I don't know why this is, and I hesitate to question it lest things go south again fast. I have been working on the same damn piece for, literally, months. I think I know what direction it's going in, only to find that what I had in mind can't be done, looks like crap, or simply doesn't fit with the overall story I had in mind when rendering this piece. Then there is the endless time spent learning a new technique. I have been working on hand tinting some vintage photographs and let me tell you, the world of photography must have sat up and rejoiced when color photography was invented, because this is one technique that is not nearly as easy as it looks. Simple? Yes. Easy? Not so much. And time-consuming as hell. So that took time to master and make look effortless since I had never done it before with oils. I have struggled with everything on this piece from the entire background painting down to the tiniest little details.

I had finally started to feel good about it and was making some actual visible progress (look out momentum!) when all that rain that sunk the majority of the midwest last week rolled through here for an afternoon and caused a minor flood that dripped water- I kid you not- only in the ceiling directly above where this piece was laying covered with clear, weighted paper to protect it when I'm not working on it. No where else. So by the time I caught it, there was a puddle of water on the paper, which had leached through to the canvas and on the floor beneath the piece. All told, the pool of water was about the size of my fist. And it was all in one ugly spot on my canvas. There was a small amount of damage to the background in the top middle of the canvas, perhaps the size of a half dollar. Those who have seen it have said that it isn't at all visible to them, but I can clearly see where the paint has been altered. I was so upset, I cried. Angry, frustrated tears. After all this time, when things finally seemed to be falling into place this had to happen. And it sucked.

But most unusually for me, I didn't wallow in my agitation. After my hissy fit I put the piece away and decided that I'd repair the damage when I wasn't so upset and I actually let it go. And the very next day, I went back to work and right off the bat, what I had planned for that day didn't work out, again. Things were going so horribly and I thought to myself, "Maybe this is a sign that I should be in another line of work. I can't seem finish a piece without a major struggle, the elements are now conspiring against me, so maybe I should quit." But instead, I tried something new. Something I didn't want to do, something I thought I wouldn't like. And you know what? It was perfect. I groused about how things were going the entire time I was working and yet it was exactly what had been missing from this piece for months. And when I had finished, even I could see that this was absolutely right. It's lovely and I couldn't be happier. And it worked out so well, in fact, that I haven't once looked at the damage I swore only three days ago had ruined this piece for good. I haven't noticed it, and thus might not even attempt to fix it. And now the piece is close to being finished. And then I can move on to the next piece and with it, all the beautiful torture that creating art entails.

Shaggy Muses

I just finished reading "Shaggy Muses" by Maureen Adams which was a delightful book about the dogs that inspired Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edith Wharton and Emily Bronte.* But what was truly intriguing was Adams' theory that as artists our dogs serve as witnesses to our creative work. She quotes Jungian analyst Marie Von Franz in regards to the hundreds of creation myths that contain "an active creator and a relatively more passive other, who does little but is still absolutely essential." She goes on to give the example of the Native American myth of Father Raven creating the world while a tiny sparrow whose only job is to ensure that Father Raven isn't completely carried away by the dangers of creativity, watches and acts merely as a witness to the creation.**

This is very true for myself. As an artist I can find myself consumed with the process of creating and all its inherent pitfalls and problems, primary among them the spiraling into an almost hyper frenzy as my creativity peaks. Having my dog with me is a very grounding element. He is calm, quiet, respectful, yet also takes me out of my artistic cycle when I break to play a rousing game of fetch with him, or even just lay on the floor with him connecting with one another in a quiet cuddle and conversation. My dog therefore not only is in my studio silently and stoically watching me as I work, but in simply being a dog and my best friend, is the one who can calm me when my creative fires burn too brightly and can break that cycle with a simple childlike game when my inner core becomes too intense.

I couldn't imagine working without a dog at my side. I couldn't imagine living without a dog at my side. With my dog bearing witness to my work and to my life, it makes my life worth living, my art worth creating, and keeps the essence that is me in near-perfect balance.



* Shaggy Muses: The Dogs Who Inspired Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edith Wharton and Emily Bronte, Maureen Adams, Ballantine Books, NY, 2007.

** Creation Myths, Marie-Louise Von Franz, Shambala Publications, Boston, 1988.

When Things Go Terribly Wrong

I try to be fairly consistent when it comes to transferring my art files from my computer to CDs, but sometimes when I'm especially busy I can let the files pile up and up until there are literally hundreds of works that need to be saved and kept safe. I have files of artwork in progress, text, photos I have taken that I either have used or plan to use in my work, completed pieces that have had their final photos taken, even vague ideas that might never reach germination but are kept nonetheless just in case. And it doesn't take very long for things to get pretty ugly in here and before I know it, I'm looking at several hours or more worth of work to make sure all these files, folders and cyber bits & bobs end up exactly where they belong in my filing system. You'd think that being anal as hell would help, and while it does with the finished file system, the getting there can be hell because I simply have so much stuff that I deem essential to my art and won't discard for anything that the transferring of these things can become a very long and torturous process.

And when the works are finally transferred to the appropriate CD and filed under the proper heading, I always, always, always take that disk and take a good long look at everything that I have just put on it to be sure that every photo, every word, every sketch is not compromised but is working and available to be used again. And then, and only then are those files deleted from my computer (which always sends a shiver down my spine- if it weren't for the fact that my computer wouldn't have enough juice to even turn itself on without the occasional deletion of a massive number of files, trust me, I would never, ever delete a thing, just to be on the safe side).

So how on earth did an entire file of trees I have photographed, altered, painted and doted on go missing in its entirety? I have no idea. I remember copying the folder those works were in onto the CD. And I clearly, without a shred of doubt remember putting that disk back into the drive and opening each and every file to be sure those pieces were there and workable. I even remember thinking as I perused the now-transferred pictures, that one particular photograph was perfect for a piece I have been struggling with for weeks. I labeled the CD, I filed the CD, I deleted the original files from my computer secure in the knowledge that my work was now safe in a filing cabinet where it could slumber till needed. Then a few weeks later I decided to pull that disk and open that photograph of that specific tree only to find that not a single file from that disk is anywhere on this planet anymore. And trust me, I looked. And looked. And looked. And then freaked out big time. Where the hell did that CD go? I even in a fit of desperation went through (and I kid you not) every CD I have that has anything even remotely related to trees on it. And then just to be sure, I randomly went through a few dozen more disks with subject matter that has nothing to do with the natural world at all on the off chance that I just might have accidentally transferred that work there by accident that afternoon. And then I went through them all again the next day just in case in my hysteria at having lost dozens of photos that I can never get back again, I might have somehow missed them on a disk, any disk, somewhere. But alas, they're gone for good. I still can't figure out how this could have happened given my regimented and highly psychotic way of making sure that this sort of thing never happens.

So today I went out and shot some photos of some of the trees I had photographed before. The particular photo I was looking for was shot on a very crisp, early winter day and while today was equally lovely with a bright sapphire blue sky, the light was not even remotely the same as those first pictures. Still, if there is a silver lining in this very dirty, shitty cloud, it would be that besides getting some beautiful and very workable shots this afternoon (including some that may even be superior to those taken many months ago), I will be sure to not only double check those CDs before deleting any work, but to triple and quadruple check myself until I am ready to drop. It's a terrible feeling when you realize that you have inadvertently thrown away months and months of work with the single tap of a key and that's one feeling of helplessness I'd rather not experience again.

Where Did All My Talent Go?

Well the rush had to end at some point, didn't it? After weeks of streamrollering through one collage after another and my mind being an endless wellspring of ideas, my imagination has dried up and with it my motivation. It was a good run while it lasted. Suddenly I not only have not a lick of ideas, save for those mediocre ones that I keep trying to make worthwhile to no avail, but I really have very little interest in even working on anything at all. It isn't that my current ideas are particularly bad, it's just that they all seem forced and artificial. I do have a piece that I was working on and which was coming along nicely prior to this creative crash and now I've become somehow physically uncoordinated and clumsy with it, so it has been safely tucked away from any damage I could do to it in my current state and will remain so until I'm back to my old self once more. I know these spells come with the territory of being an artist or a writer or anyone whose job is to create, but they still really suck when they happen. The best thing is to just let it be until the juices start to bubble again, but it's a real bummer while you're waiting to once more feel like yourself, especially when you're currently feeling all fuzzy and lazy and (nearly) completely disinterested in art. I say "nearly" because there are still embers of my creative self in here and they occasionally flair up and I think "this is a great idea" and I start to work on it, only to flounder and stumble over the details, abandon the piece and then ultimately give in to the inertia once again. And the self-doubt that can eat away at you during prolonged periods of block are the worst part of it. That nasty little depressive voice that worms its way insidiously into your psyche and tells you things like: "You have no talent anyways so who are you kidding?", and "All your work is nothing but crap so it doesn't matter if all you do is watch TV all day" and "what if this never ends and you never work again?" and the queen mum of them all "If you were a real artist you wouldn't have to struggle so much." And as awful as it is, I know there isn't a thing I can do to speed this along and bring it to an end, beyond not panicking and giving in to this block and all its ugliness. It's almost an organic thing with a life of its own that needs to run its rotten course until that part of my brain that makes art that's sometimes worth looking at and that frequently buzzes with images of what I'm going to create next wakes up and functions again fluidly and without hindrance.

The Springtime Masquerade Party

I've been invited to a costume party to celebrate the coming of Spring. Invitees have been asked to come as something that relates to the month of March, either a famous person born during that month, a holiday celebrated during the month, or even an event that might have occurred in history during March. The invitation contained a quote from an Emily Dickinson poem:

"A little Madness in the Spring
is wholesome even for the King."

And with that first sentence I decided what to be for the party. While there are a great many really cool people or things that I could go as, I've decided to go as someone with a much more tenuous connection with the springtime (even though he was born in March): Vincent Van Gogh. I've decided that I am going to be Vincent during that last spring of his life, in Auvers, before he shot himself in the fields just a few short months later in July of 1890.

I admit that I am playing rather fast and loose with my own version of Van Gogh as I have transposed many of the events of his life to make my personal "party Vincent" more recognizable and palatable to be around than the real Vincent was. He was not always a nice person to be with, be it his mercurial moods and often angry personality or his questionable personal hygiene. I have chosen as my costume a rumpled blue suit with a dark vest, a felt hat and a pipe, which is what Vincent so proudly wore when he first moved to Paris to study art in 1886. As a general rule he wore workman's blues and was not especially into bathing or brushing his teeth, thus my choice of his attire upon his move to Paris, when he at least attempted to become somewhat careful of his hygiene (however temporary it might have been) and personal appearance. He was prone to wiping his brushes on his sleeve, so I may do some brush cleaning myself on my suit just to make it that much more authentic. I also am going to have only one ear (obviously not literally, although I'm a stickler for detail, even I have to balk at that). Even though Vincent cut his ear off on Christmas Eve 1888 in Arles, without the bloody white bandage around my head, I'll just be an unkempt man with a red beard mingling amongst the guests and no one would have a clue who I'm supposed to be. David has a man who designs special effects working for him and he has hired him to make me two right ears of latex painted to look realistically like the ear of a madman who has just cut it off during an episode of mania. How cool is that? I decided on two ears so that after I give one to my host and hostess who will both be stand-ins that night for the prostitute named Rachel (the lucky recipient of Vincent's gift) I will still have one ear left as a memento of the evening to tuck away with my costume.

I can't wait to go to the party and I am terribly excited about being Vincent for an evening (hopefully without the hysteria, violence and profound depression). If there was an artist that I would have loved to have met, it would have been him. What an amazing genius, what an amazing talent. His tortured soul may have made for an unbelievably difficult life, but that same madness is what fueled a catalogue of truly exquisite artwork.

Art Can Be Fun When You Let It!

Sometimes the way my brain works is astounding to me, especially when something that might be obvious to everyone else, doesn't occur to me until years after it should have. Like the reasons for making art. Yes, I know that art is in my blood, in my soul, and whether or not it's a small unruly sketch on a scrap of found paper while I'm out and about or a studied and intricately executed piece on canvas makes no difference: I am called to do it. But when it is that serious piece of work, what or who am I completing it for? Ultimately, the end result should be that the work is hung in a gallery and then is sold and handed over to an art lover and out of my hands forever. But is this an essential conclusion? Should all my work be geared towards this end result, especially if the end result doesn't end up with a show and a sale? What about just making art for art's sake?

I had this epiphany recently and was amazed by the idea, believe it or not. While I have always enjoyed the work (obviously), there has also always been an element of compulsion to it, be it in the subject matter or medium and whether or not anyone other than me would like it and sometimes that leads to disappointment in the end, which is silly if you think about it. And then it occurred to me: why does there have to be a specific result of all this work? Does it all have to mapped out in advance? Why don't I just make the art I want to and if there's interest in it fine, and if no one in the world ever sees these pieces then no one ever sees them? Holy cow, this was like a lightning bolt slamming into me. And the new end result: art is fun again, rather than being the frequent grindstone it can become when all sorts of weights and strings are attached to it (even when I was the one attaching them). I do what I want, when I want. Serious, stupid, silly, odd. No worries about whether this material is archival or not and how well it will hold up because it isn't going anywhere unless I want it to and right now I don't care. And then I store it safely away and move on to the next piece. I feel light and unfettered now when I work.

After all, art isn't about how successful you can be at it, it's about making beautiful little mirrors of your soul, your heart, your intrinsic being. And sometimes those little pieces of you are just for you to see and sometimes they aren't. But there need be no overt orchestrations to make sure they are what the world will want to see, or should see. I am me and my art reflects me and that is all that matters. And I figure that since I've already sold more art in my lifetime than Vincent Van Gogh did during his, that I'm ahead of the game and life is good.

Scaredy Cat! Scaredy Cat!

Last month I went to a show at a local gallery that an artist I barely know invited me to. I had been sick the week of the opening and completely forgot about it in spite of the fact that I had it written all over the place on my calendar. When I realized the day after the opening that I had missed it, I felt terrible and called the gallery a couple of days later to see when they were open so I could at least pop in to see the work. Turns out they weren't going to be open that week, but the owner offered to open especially for me if I would like. While this is a very nice gesture on the man's part, it puts the person accepting such an offer in an awkward position. If you are the sole client that a gallery has opened for, and you don't have any sort of established relationship with that gallery, and you don't buy anything after the owner has extended this courtesy to you, then things can often be very tense, so naturally I declined. I told him that I didn't want to be such an imposition and that I would stop by the following week, but thank you anyways.

Apparently I wasn't the only person who had contacted the gallery, as I received a call later that same day from the owner who said that he'd be opening for a few hours after all as he had gotten more than a dozen calls from potential customers. So I went. When I got there, he had a few people milling about and I struck up a conversation with him about the artist who had invited me to the opening and how I had missed it and the pieces that I liked the most in the show. We talked for more than an hour and naturally when it came out that I'm an artist, he asked me to send him some photos of my work.

Now this is something that I have done many, many times in my life and it's never been that big a deal. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing easy about presenting your work to a curator or a gallery owner, far from it. No one wants to hear that their work isn't interesting, isn't what the gallery is looking for, or worst of all, that it just plain isn't any good, but this is a part of being an artist. And as your art is really a reflection of you, your feelings, and carries a little piece of your soul in each work, to be told, "thanks, but no thanks and this is why..." can be a very difficult thing to endure. But I have never left a gallery after a casual chat with someone who may or may not be interested in my work and break down and cry when I got home. Perhaps it was the stress of the holidays getting to me (as this was just after Christmas) or perhaps it was me taking stock of what I have and that I feel confident enough with to show this man, I don't know, but I know that I dipped into a very dark place that evening and although I came out of it and went right back to work on the piece I was working on, it was still quite shocking to have been so sad about being asked to submit some work to him.

Here I am nearly a month later and I still haven't sent anything. I have shot some new photos of some existing encaustic pieces that he wanted to see and have begun the task of cataloging them for him to view them with their full information, but I'm not hustling to get them to him. One moment I am strong and telling Griffin that I don't care if the man likes them or not, I am who I am and I create what I create and if he doesn't like them, then that's okay I'll survive and regardless of whether he likes my work or not then I'll know for sure one way or the other if this man would be interested in showing me. But then, I get all flustered and think that I can't handle the rejection or the criticism that's sure to be handed out, however kindly, and that I simply can't do this because it's safer to not make a move at all. I don't quite know what's going on with me, but I hope it's a phase that I will pass through soon and find my courage once again to be the artist I know I can be.

Sucky Art Class

So art classes went pretty well before I got sick. I really liked my instructor for my technical drawing classes. Then I took a course taught by a teacher who was a very nice person but had to be the worst teacher that was ever given a class to teach. Egads. She started class late every day. She left the studio for most of the time allotted: a full three hours every day. She'd set up a still life and then-POOF!-she'd disappear, wandering the halls of the museum school for most of the class. She'd pop back in and stand behind each one of us telling us what we were doing wrong and then vanish again. Then she'd return to the room, gather up her supplies and leave for the day because she needed to catch an early train to avoid having to wait an hour for the next one. She'd leave thirty minutes early, every class, and expect us students to put away the still life she had set up, the lights, the tables, etc. As this was just around the time I was becoming quite ill with a seriously abcessed tooth (who knew it would be months before I regained my health?), I really had no patience with the fact that this woman who turned out to be only an okay artist was also fast proving she sucked as a teacher as well, so I withdrew from the class. Granted it was nice to be told that I drew with the delicacy of Ingres. Who wouldn't be flattered by that? But to be honest, I'd have preferred to have been told each and every day that I sucked and should hang up my pencils and take up working as a gas station attendant and have her stay in the studio for the duration of class to having her tell me how lovely my work was and then ponce off to god only knows where until it was time for her to beat feet for the T. I had every intention of picking up another class fairly quickly, but alas that was not to be. Now that I'm on the mend and have my energy back up to fairly normal levels, I'm ready to take another course but as it's currently between semesters, I'm going to have to wait until at least Spring before I can enroll in a new studio class. I'm torn between a more advanced drawing course, an oil painting studio, or a portrait class. Eventually I could take them all, but as time constraints will only allow me to take one of them at a time, I need to give some thought as to which I want to do first. All have their merits and all are equally appealing, so what am I going to do? I guess availability will go a long ways towards deciding which one I take come next semester and which two will have to wait in the wings a while longer.

Two Sadly Missed Shows

I've missed so many shows I wanted to see over the last few months. Being sick has a way of slowing you down and seriously messing with your ability to get up and at 'em. I really was looking forward to seeing the Edward Hopper Retrospective at the MFA. The man was a genius with light and mood, and there's something very intriguing about Depression Era paintings of such solemn subjects rendered in amazing color. The play of light and shadow and the sense of sadness are stunning. This was a show that encompassed a huge selection of his work, including his Cape Cod paintings and even sketches. I'm still sad I missed it and it ended in August. You'd think I'd have gotten over it by now, but I haven't. Such a big baby.

Likewise, I also am regretting not getting to the Peabody Essex Museum to catch the Joseph Cornell show that also ended in August. I simply adore a good shadow box and his are fabulous. Tiny Victorian women, little buildings, and birds, birds, birds. His assemblage work is thrilling and stirs the darker side of me. And the details within each box are not to be believed. The show also had disassembled his workshop and recreated it completely down to the last detail within this exhibit. I would have killed to see it, to see where he worked and how he worked (considering this was a man who spent a great deal of his career creating his amazing works at his kitchen table).

Seldom is there more than one show at a time that's huge on my radar screen and that I would be devastated to not have seen, and here were two that ran concurrently between May and August and both of which I missed. Damn, damn, damn.

Back to School

After much hemming and hawing, I finally caved and registered for the prerequisite foundation drawing class at the Museum School, and have already had my first class. It wasn't bad at all, though I think my next class might be a bit of a comedown when we learn some basic mechanics, such as how to hold a pencil properly and how to draw different lines. Hmm. Not sure that will teach me anything I don't already know, but the first class was interesting, including some rapidly drawn still lifes. I've found that I no longer work well at a quick pace (oh! the pressure to complete a sketch within a specific time frame!) and that as feared, my basic skills are somewhat lacking in quite a few areas.

The instructor was nice: laid-back, knowledgeable, and at times funny. I've also reached the conclusion that it's okay to be working below my potential for a while if that's how this course plays out because I'm building classroom confidence (it's been a long time since I've been in school), reinforcing the basics I first learned so many, many years ago, stretching sketching muscles that have long grown stiff, and I'm meeting some pretty nice (and art-minded) people to boot. Oh yeah, and I'm fulfilling one of those pesky prerequisites I need to take more advanced courses.

No matter what, it's all good.