Portal Pusher

In the constant ruminating over my paintings, I keep thinking about hitting the pavement. I think about that peculiar sensation, the sudden awareness of the physical. It's funny, I used to think the more appropriate scenario was the moment during a jump (or fall) just before you start to come back down. No longer! Mind versus asphalt.

What the hell am I talking about?? I'm talking about multiple takes on reality. On the one hand, I am desperate for magic, desperate for a portal, or a sudden change. I know that I occasionally experience something beyond the sum of whatever is unfolding, but I lack the ability to describe it. It's me, floating away on my bicycle. It's my mind before hand touches canvas.

On the other hand, I am hyper-aware of the impossibility for a real examination of this magic. The impossibility of fully and really passing through a portal. I know that it slips away as soon as you turn to see it head-on. I know that I'm a damned fool. It's me, kissing the ground. It's paint hitting paint, swirling, scraping, pushing back.

It's not a dignified battle. It's mud-wrestling. Painting isn't dead, it's the perfect medium for the times. Moving paste around a flat surface, sometimes pretending it's not actually flat. People ask, why can't people write music like Mozart now? Because the world he wrote to/for/about...that's not our reality. Tough nuggets. 

Productivity

In regards to the last post-- Periods of rapid expansion can really take a toll on that 'protective' part of the identity. Rapid expansion also including paradigm shifts, large influxes of new information, new surroundings, new risks, basically-- change. I can say I've been through a lot of that lately and I've been doing a lot of really dingy things. I have felt amazing, but just really forgetful (more than usual) and a little scattered. It's not a totally unfamiliar feeling, but I can say that it's been awhile.

The problem is at the intersection of that expanding sphere of your creation-mind and your daily life. The rapid growth of one seems to render you childlike or even infantile as you're trying to digest the new information. Not only that, but the call of the growing creation-mind is so strong that many daily responsibilities seem pretty much irrelevant. Well, they might be irrelevant but it sure it nice to have gas, water and power. Plus you just become exhausted. Time to rest up and build back that adaptive, shock-absorbing part of one's identity.

Clarity?

I feel a much clearer sense of how to proceed in the studio right now. Much clearer than ever, actually. There's no doubt that finding other avenues of expression has facilitated this clarity. Anxiety that one clings to ("I'm incapable of ....") outside the studio MUST inhibit creation within the studio. These self-imposed boundaries we all create serve to keep us comfortable (and in some cases focused, I guess) but also forever restricted.

It seems like an artist's identity has to be simultaneously focused and fluid to manage some kind of productive sanity. The focused part is... fairly untouchable, nearly indescribable. I imagine this like a hidden engine room where crazy amounts of fuel are being consumed. Then around that I imagine so much protective layering: adaptive, gel-like, seemingly casual and very absorbent. Anyone ever seen that old Kung-fu movie, The Drunken Master?? Yeah, like that.

Picasso at the VMFA, notes, thoughts, etc

First of all, I'm not entirely sure Virginia is ready for 1910 based on the conversations I overheard. For example: "Well, TO ME, that just doesn't look like it should be in a museum". To me, that just shows that you're completely unaware of what it is an artist is trying to do. Drawing is thinking through the hand. Picasso's drawings are of interest because you can see that thought process in a stripped down form. Also, *BACKHAND*.

This is not to say I don't have questions, concerns, preoccupations with the show also. Unfortunately, I can't seem to separate my personal studio preoccupations with what I'm seeing at the museum. So let me get that out of the way and come back around to the show....

It's a problem of purity, a problem of everything's permitted so therefore nothing seems to matter in particular. This feeling is not limited to the studio. Within the studio, this is translating into a problem differentiating art from fashion. The general distinction is simple and well-understood: art carries meaning where fashion carries superficial contemporary aesthetics. But the specific is tricky, as always.

I'm craving a method, a recipe. I'm tired of what feels like random achievement. At the same time I am wary of abstraction with a system behind it. I'm also feeling very seduced by contemporary fashion. It just happens to reflect back my own sensibilities. In 5 years I'll be out of fashion, it's just coincidence, the wheel turning. Unfortunately, my own yearning for meaning manifests as an urge to mythologize. It's very hard for me not to jump straight from that urge into primitivism and symbolism. I keep hovering around the native american and Ife exhibits at the museum like some kind of nerdy ghost. Of course, this sort of thing happens to be in fashion right now. Are you feeling my frustration yet?? It does seem important not to be reactionary also.

Part 2 after work...where I will bring this all around to Picasso, I swear.