Lovelake, August 31 2004

For most of this summer I have been reviewing what 2001 was like for me. This was when I made the decision to open Lovelake. Right now I just want to know what I wanted out of the gallery and did I get it.

Much of that year I had that song from West Side Story in my head: There’s a place for us. I felt I had no place in the PDX art world. Nothing really felt like home and that is what I wanted. As it was what I got, you can see how it will be hard to give up.

I wasn’t meeting enough interesting people and thought that if I settled down in one place and opened the door, maybe they would find me. This is exactly what happened.

An artist recently told me that certain old-school Portland artists were the way they were, stuck in their vision of Portland art, because ‘there is not enough diversity’ in this town. I don’t agree at all --- but I wouldn’t have known this if I hadn’t stuck my neck way out.

It’s very easy to stay in your groove and your crowd and see this place through that window. We all have our beat. This is especially true of the academia here who validate each other by all going through the same hoops and honoring others who do the same.

But there is a vast group of artists arriving daily who never went to PNCA and do not know who is who at PICA and you will not find them there. They have very developed experiences and visions fully formed upon arrival. I am so grateful for them! They piled themselves into Lovelake, sometimes stayed for hours, and kept me company with their stories.

About Painting, August 28 2004

Last night I met a young artist who quizzed me about my painting in an onslaught. You might think this would be a piece of cake for me since I interview artists every week about their work, but I guess it just depends on how it is done.

If I am challenged in a manner similar to those who must defend their thesis in art school then yes, my back gets up. Hey whatever I may say about my work --- what it means, what it looks like --- I trust that you have an imagination! Please use it!

It can be especially challenging to talk about painting as we all have different things invested in it. If I look over all my own history, there were some initial big chunks in which I had very little regard or respect for it. That’s hard to believe, considering how I now spend months on one piece, but my personal relationship to paint vacillates.

Yes, I could always swirl it around and had a sense for composition. But my first big dive into my own movement and art statement was not through paint but photomontage, graphics and poster design and the fanzine. My favorites were the Russians like El Lizzitsky and the Germans such as Heartfield.

Even today my favorite painters are Yves Klein and Kasimir Malevich and you really couldn’t call these painters in the pure sense. They are idea people who happen to use paint.

I sure didn’t ‘believe’ in painting as an option for myself and my crew in the late 70s. To me it was a source of unoriginal art and no way to make a point. Sure, we did it but it was not the best part of ourselves at the time, none of it, and I knew that.

I can only remember this doubt and challenge because I wrote about it in my diaries. All these years later spent painting, it was a shock to me when I went back and read just how I felt.

But must one ‘make a point’ in their art? After Punk it was hard to not lust for that. Punk had this big effect and that is like a drug! So little can touch that feeling of newness. It made people gasp. I could walk into a room and make it silent. You start to want that for your art.

At the time there were maybe 2 or 3 galleries in Portland and none of them had any interest in an artist like me. I tended to look at paintings in general as just so much product for the gallery system and not really anything to do with my life. Yes I could make paintings but for who? This system seemed to have no effect on anything really. It did not transform anyone, it didn’t change anything and in some ways, I still feel that way a little bit.

The 80s happened and many artists went back to painting and I was one of them. 20 years later there are still things I need to square away as regards the art of painting though --- and in this respect, my show next April is very important to me. I’m still chasing that thrill you see. I could really go into it here but it is almost too personal.

Backdrop, August 26 2004

In the 1960s my mother had a gallery with 3 other women in Jacksonville, Oregon. This became the backdrop for a blissful childhood for a short time.

People think of Jacksonville as a tourist trap with unimaginative shops and tacky ‘art,’ though housed in nice old buildings. But it wasn’t always this way. For decades it was sleepy and undisturbed and then in the 60s, the artists discovered it. I was there for that brief moment.

My first ‘job’ was to sit at the gallery with my mom during the summers. All 4 of these women had children who liked to paint too, so we turned a spiral staircase to the roof into a gallery for the kids. The tiny space was lit only with a black light and we painted with florescent colors.

We worked on old shingles and most of the pieces were a dollar or 2. I painted cats and flowers and birds for the most part --- in siren orange, brilliant cobalt blue and blinding yellow.

One summer I sold over 70 bucks worth of art, an amazing amount, at least for me. It was 1968. I spent it all on clothes and it was the first time I went back to school in clothes that were not from the Salvation Army. I will leave the resulting fashion adventures for another entry.

Probably my greatest art teacher is my own mother, who saw a picture in anything. My mom can draw anything too --- wolves on wood, cowboys in oil, Jesus on velvet --- she has done it all.

She didn't just make snowmen in wintertime. She made snow sculptures like Greek statuary...the Venus de Milo is what I remember. And with snow being similar to marble once it's packed down, these things were beautiful. I took it all as a matter of course, these temporary pieces dotting the front yard.

What she did not prepare me for was the drill of the art world. I was raised in an environment where everyone made art. Anyone could do it. It was only sometime in my 30s that it occurred to me that some people would not believe I could make art as I did not have the right pedigree and go to their schools.

I know that mom did not have that much ambition for herself (or for me, as far as that goes, something I’m still dealing with). One woman at the gallery copied my mother’s work for years, brazenly. Mom never said a thing. After my dad died, mom could only drop off work from time to time but could not sit there. Once she showed up to find her work had the signature of this other artist on it! Sometimes I think that when I am fighting for myself, maybe I am fighting for her too.       

Reasons to be Cheerful, August 25, 2004 

There are so many reasons we can come up with to not make art. Most don’t fly.

One pal said her studio was too hot. Please girl, you are lucky to have one.

James Archer recounted to me how artists would tell him that they could not make work as they had no studio. He would then give Paul Klee as an example of an artist who made his work in the kitchen.

When I first moved to Portland in 1978 I had absolutely nothing at all, not even a table. I bought a Ouija board at a thrift store and used this surface for all of the collages for Beyond the Black Thing, working in my bedroom.

I am thinking of all of this because the Scream has once again been stolen. Experts estimate that it is beyond any dollar amount in value, it is such an icon, but at auction it would probably fetch at least 100 million today and set new records.

The Scream is on cardboard.

I have been reading how there are 4 versions but none are oil on canvas. They are all of the rudest of means. It was during the time I showed the Death of Lewis and Clark by Kenny Higdon that these things were on my mind. The entire show (and a gorgeous one at that) was on cardboard and I had my archival concerns. My friend Tim Dalbow calmed them by offering that, well, Munch painted on cardboard too. Yes indeed. Sometimes the greatest art of all is made with practically nothing.

The Art of Shameless Self Promotion, August 23, 2004

The art world is a strange place to be ambitious in. For some reason we are supposed to operate on a higher moral ground.

If you’re a rocker you must tour and you could even be quoted: “We hate touring now but we gotta promote the album.” No one will hold that against you. Writers can be their solemn types and still do book tours. But if you’re an artist it is somehow seen as repulsive that you should promote yourself.

I know it was a constant battle for me for years. It’s twice as tough for women --- we’re all uncomfortable with females who, dear God, act like men. Who like themselves (and not just the tits and ass part of themselves) and what they do and take action.

One writer in this town said they were tired of artists always promoting themselves. Another writer told me that they saw various art fests in this town as just too much self-promotion.

Maybe they are just overwhelmed with their work and we all get that way from time to time. Oh oh, here comes another one! Another desperate artist in search of ink.

But the other scenario to face each and every artist is much more tiresome – dying terribly talented and just plain awesome yet obscure. So obscure there’s a mother lode of goods to mine upon that death, a million careers to be made. And funny how all those people who were uncomfortable with you in life can’t wait to get at you in death!

I’m not alone in the knowledge that I’m worth ever so much more dead than alive. My estate will immediately make more than the living artist ever could. Just let that artist die and the fun begin.

Of course sometimes it happens earlier --- you never could get a damn gallery show but now that you are ancient, we have the brilliant idea of giving you a retrospective!

Whole careers can be made out of the catalogues, the books and monographs, the articles and vast criticism that we’ve had a lifetime (yours) to ponder. And since you’re too old to truly enjoy, could you please donate your book collection/archive/art collections/memoirs/diaries/movie rights/etc?

One friend of mine said she was wary of artists who she feels promote and connect wherever they go. “Can’t they just hang?” she asked, “Why is everything about work?”

But this particular friend is not an artist, so there’s the first divide. She has an actual business, maybe even makes money. And she’s not as old either.

I know many artists who have worked for decades without a trust fund in sight. “I haven’t lived in a house for years,” one of them told me and I know how that feels.

If you get down to brass tacks, you’re just an independent contractor. So when do you arrive at that point in your life when you can stop thinking about when and where your next job and meal is? I think there are hot artists in NYC who can take a break from that, but I can’t think of one artist in Portland who is in that position.

You have to wonder just where the expectations are coming from, as regards the shameless act of self-promotion. Why are comfort and security and decent transport and health insurance and paid holidays (now I’m really going too far!) and maybe even having a family always for somebody else? You start getting not only hungry but angry, but the last thing you should be is ambitious.

How I found Out About Punk, August 22 2004

In 1977 I decided to cut out of school for awhile and go to Paris. I arranged to be an au pair for a family in Neuilly, a chic but sedate outskirt area created in Art Nouveau.

On the way I changed planes in Heathrow and it was there I saw my first Punks: 2 kids with blue and pink hair and a load of makeup and black clothes. I was immediately jealous.

I had no words or specific style for what I wanted, and not much of a crew (or audience) to cheer me on. Already my hair was as red as I could make it, I was a Bowie freak, I never ever listened to Fleetwood Mac if I could help it. And I was kind of lonely in all of that in Eugene, Oregon.

Then while in Paris I went to a Lou Reed concert and saw more of these people. They all stood in a corner and there were very few of them. Very mysterious, unnamed.

Turns out I hated that bourgeois family in Neuilly. I would probably have a lot to say to them now (they owned vineyards on Bordeaux) but at the time we were polar opposites. I was 20, in desperate search for a bohemian niche of my own.

I went to London and started working as a chambermaid close to Baker Street. My very first night out I scanned Time Out and saw an ad for a club which had a David Bowie and Roxy Music Night. Say no more.

There were basically 3 very clearly defined camps in this crowd: the Bowie freaks and all their various incarnations – they almost seemed like a sorry, desperate lot. Then there was the Roxy Music crowd and to be frank, they were the hottest. All those boys with the sharkskin suits and skinny ties! For the record, the whole New Wave trend of skinny ties, that comes from Roxy Music.

And then there was this 3^rd group… all in heavy, ghoulish makeup and what for me were unprecedented fashions. I’ll never forget this one couple who wore all white ripped rags with graffiti all over (both the clothes and the exposed skin), hair bleached just as white, black lips and eyes. This couple, they were a piece of art.

Then of course --- all the bondage suits, all the tartan, all the black and zippers and all the beautiful colors and glorified alienation! What I loved most was that it was not all referencing the past, which was how we did things back home. We wore thrift store clothes and sure, that was cool, but these styles were completely new.

As I tend to think things over it wasn’t like I was a Punk overnight. No, maybe it took 3 or 4 nights! But I was never the same. My diary is filled with the pros and cons and an experience you could never reproduce. I was very lucky to have run into something and not experience things secondhand. Plenty of kids at that time read about it in Newsweek – or Cream for that matter.

This is really a topic for another entry but one thing I learned is that for me, there was no peer group. That bohemian niche I searched for, it never really materialized. Best friends turn out to be enemies, especially when it comes to art and culture and raw power. I’m still sorting out what happened.                                     

Ideas, August 20 2004

Often I heard how rare ideas are. "If you've got an idea," my old beau said to me, "You're ahead of the game. An idea is everything."

Now that I've been around, I would say that I don’t agree. Ideas are great in and of themselves. Surely not everyone has them. They are an essential part but I don't know that they are the biggest part.

The fruition is in the doing, no way around that. It's the work. And some people get the doing down very well---the milking of maybe one or two great ideas can last a lifetime; it is all they need.

But plenty of "geniuses" just don't have time for all that milking, all that work. They can rattle on and on about their ideas and the days go by and nothing gets done. But they've got their ideas, yes? That old beau of mine was like that. More ideas than he knew what to do with. He had ideas for so many paintings and visual art projects. I never did see him do one.

Sometimes your head can buzz and swoon to its hearts content with ideas. That can be a curse. I've learned to be wary of them and recognize that indeed they are only as good as what I can actually take on.                          

Free Money, August 19 2004

In 1979 a local art magazine named Prologue asked me to do the cover. They never printed it, even though they paid me for it. That was probably a grand total of 25 bucks.

I don’t blame them for not printing it… it's a pretty rough cut. But I also believe they just did not want to provoke --- well, anything or anyone. The text was from some army recruitment ad.

It was Tim Harvey who got me the gig and these days he seems to have disappeared. He was really important to me though. He worked at the Northwest Artists Workshop, my home away from home back then. It was the only game in town for a young artist. Tim Harvey encouraged me to do any and every thing. He was a mail artist and Dadaist. He even successfully harassed me into applying for a grant. It was a grant to fund a fanzine, though we didn’t call them that at the time. Just an artists magazine basically. I had already done a few on my own or with friends.

As it was the only time I’ve ever asked for free money, I recall the whole ordeal well. The interview took place at the MAC club. I was the youngest by far and maybe even the only female. People didn’t ‘get’ fanzines back then. As I recall Tad Savinar got the grant --- no surprise there!

People have suggested I apply for this and that grant to save Lovelake. But I have always relished my autonomy and I firmly believe in a benevolent dictatorship.

Seems like I did track down Tim Harvey a few years ago and he was totally out of the art world and repulsed by it. Wish I could see him and hear his ranting again.

Tough Symbol, August 18 2004

When in my dark times of not being able to show work, my friend said to me: “Well gee it’s not like you paint swastikas or something.”

That was true enough at that time. But what was weird about the comment is that I did indeed eventually paint the swastika many times.

It came about innocently enough. I was interested (as I am now) in energy and how to put it across in paint. As I created directions with angles I eventually joined all of the angles together to emphasize unity and combustion.

So it came about in the same way it might have in China or India or right here with the Natives.

But of course you just can’t paint swastikas these days! Maybe some other century. I talked to Henk Pander about my ideas and he said: “I don’t know Eva… I saw the Nazis goose-stepping down the street as a child… it would be great if you could reconstruct that symbol but I wouldn’t take it on if I were you.”

It was like a renovation or reconstruction but probably too soon. The beautiful symbol must be reinvented by time alone perhaps.

While I was thinking about it an article appeared in the New York Times: the difficulties, the historical use and lure of the swastika. The Girl Scouts of America even had a magazine called the Swastika, which they had to rename in the 30s. There appeared in this article a photograph of Jackie Kennedy as a child in a lovely neo-native dress with a big swastika on the front.

I know I could trace my journey with it back to my childhood and all the stories of the war, the holocaust films they forced-fed us in Jr high school. The image is terrible but also awesome. Then we ripped it off in the Punk heyday. We took our parents grief and reminded them of the current hypocrisies through the swastika.

(Looking back, there is nothing I could have done to piss off my mother more. Not that she knew – she was busy and cool with her pot smoking and acid dropping and a Takin' It Easy lifestyle. Not much could shock her right?)

But you couldn’t do that now. It’s not shocking to be a young punk now and wearing a swastika will mean that you are a Nazi. But for a brief minute back then it was understood that you did not swallow that everything was hunky dory, that you were disturbed and out to disturb.

That particular use was nowhere in my mind when I made these paintings, but everything you do is a background for the future in some way.

Wrapped, August 17 2004

My pal Miriam Rose says “We must go to see Christo wrap Central park.” Isn’t it the trees he is wrapping? Anyway I doubt if I can make it, as I have my commitments laid out, but the wrapping thing I love.

When the Hawthorne Bridge was wrapped a few years ago I took a group of pictures and then drew it. I isolated them --- maybe the Bechers were vaguely on my mind. They became apart of my Bridges show I had at the AIA in 1999.

They were white on white and they looked like ghosts, a theme I played with for years. Later I found that the forms lent themselves to color too and I made paintings off these pastel chalk pieces.

Someone else who documents the wrapped structures of this town is Loren Nelson. He had a show of his photographs at SK Josefsberg I really enjoyed.

Long Story, August 15 2004

I returned to Portland in 1997 and one year later, had a show of paintings. The postcard had a picture of me with a painting (of the St. Johns Bridge). Terribly naïve of me -- I actually thought people could take in that painting and the individual who made it and be fine with it.

Well it was hellfire after that. I received so much criticism --- indirectly of course --- about that card. Mostly very catty comments about how I looked. Which of course was good, too good.

For me, it referenced modern art history. Check it out --- it’s filled with photographs of artists with their art…. Rodin to Picasso to Barnett Newman and Jackson Pollock and Warhol. Even Georgia – images of her are every bit as famous as her paintings (of course having Stieglitz take them helped).

What I didn’t really consider fully though what that these were DEAD artists. Whereas that postcard I created was of a woman, a vibrant woman still very much alive.

Not to say living women with their art has no precedence but generally they are like Agnes Martin ---- old, desexualized. Anything fuckable cannot be taken that seriously.

You can see how I can actually relish, look forward to and embrace my coming old age, my unfuckable veneer!

Anyway I heard about one party where an artist made fun of me, mimicked me and my postcard. She did not know me at all, I was new in town. Luckily Tom Cramer was there and defended me. I heard all about this little scenario from several different people.

A year or 2 later I went to the Dada Ball put on by PICA. Most people wear outrageous outfits to this event --- indeed some wear nothing at all – but I decided to take “the ball” sort of seriously, like a princess who lost her way … I wore this incredible Chanel ballgown I have. In fact it is the only time I have worn this gown since I have lived here in Portland.

Turns out this artist was sitting at our table. She comes up to me, says "We have friends in common" and la de da. Oh yeah we’re friends alright! In my head I’m thinking: So this is the one.

As the years go on, every single time she sees me she says: “Hi Eva. You look great.” And that’s all, every time. In her mind, I am about how I look. I never say a word about how she looks, her army boots, whatever.  And I don’t care really! But the assumption is that she is the serious artist and I am -- well, about how I look. There is never a reference to anything but.

Maybe she even means to compliment me, doesn’t know what to say to me, thinks this will please me. Well that is really sexist, sorry, no excuse. I took one minute to paint my nails that morning and had serious, penetrating DEEP thoughts the whole time I did it, damn it.

Then in 2003 she comes up to me at an event and introduces herself. “I’m so-n-so, I do this and that,” -- I am shaking my head and saying “Yes I know you,” in a friendly but quizzical way. She proceeds to tell me how she interviewed for a job I got. She congratulates me, asks me how it’s going, do I like curating, how long have I had Lovelake, etc.

It was the first time ever that she did not talk to me about how I looked! It took getting a job she wanted for her to see me, really start to see me and even then, she absolutely forgot that she had been saying hello to me for 6 years.

I heard through the grapevine that she was ‘outraged’ that I got the job and said more than once “I don’t get it.” No, she probably never did get me.

And this is all coming from a woman, a ‘conceptual’ thinker.          

a Career, August 14 2004 

An artist friend of mine last night referred to the bitterness of a mid-career female artist. What could be worse? I joked I’m just beginning my career!

It’s too common a stereotype, the elder non-statesman who wants more than a word in edgewise.

When I first started Lovelake this kind of person was vaguely in my mind. Though not prepared for the ‘bitter’ part, it has been a constant force in my life to varying degrees. I refer to myself as well as the artists often around me.

Bright young things do not have the advantage of disappointment or of having seen their history rewritten to please someone else.

I however loved looking at art made by a mature mind. It has its hazards and landmine types of risk when that artist is still on the outside of the commercial gallery system.

Sometimes you wonder just who the hell you are talking to. You can’t see their past as you look into their face but God you know it is there.                                   

I Love Paper, August 13 2004      

One might be under the impression that I've stashed away a lot of things, that I am a packrat. Not so, not regular stuff anyway.

When I felt changes coming on, a way to get there was to drop the past. As I changed jobs I threw out (or recycled) many wardrobes. I would go to the library and not the bookstore (unfortunately), to gather information. When I worked at the record store, I started to make tapes and did not collect. That may blow your mind, but I have a rule---I do not give my paycheck back to my boss.

Plus I moved around on a shoestring so much. I moved to San Francisco in a station wagon and from there to NYC with only 8 boxes UPS'd to a pal. I carried a big portfolio on the airplane, full of works on paper. That was it. No tables, no bed, no paintings… starting all over again, at 29.

This is not to say I don't own any music or books or clothes but considering how important they might seem to me, I don't have a lot.

But bits of pieces of paper from 20 years ago, I got! Posters and postcards and magazines and collages and diaries, I got.

I no longer have the piece above and so my only copy of it is on this magazine cover. I sold it for 35 bucks right before I moved from PDX to San Francisco, in a grand close-out “Get Out of Dodge” art sale.

Tornados, August 12 2004

Some of my earliest pieces in art school were these tornados. I was fascinated with the idea of a triangular shape meeting a circle.

Kandinsky wrote that the triangle meeting the circle was like Michelangelo's hand of God touching Adam in the Sistine Chapel. That sort of dymamic power. I agree with him completely, though I can't say my tornados were a great example.

Nonetheless I sold them all to one collector back in '87, and that is what paid for my 3 weeks on the Greek islands.

Diamond Dog, August 11 2004

A friend told me that Hunky Dory was on the playlist these days. This inspired me to get out my own tape of it but when I pulled it out, I saw that it was wound up on the reverse side, where I had Diamond Dogs recorded. And this record, after consideration, seemed like the right choice for right now.

I was lucky enough to see Bowie at his height, during the trilogy of Station to Station---Low---Heros, on the Station to Station tour. Right here in Portland Oregon in 1976 I saw the Thin White Duke. He says he cannot remember anything about that tour but that's OK, I remember it for him. No single person has ever come close in power for me, save maybe Iggy Pop in 1978. 

Still, to my crowd at that time, we were afraid we had missed the real boat, which was the Diamond Dogs tour. The set for that tour, a smoldering futuristic city in ruins, was legendary. I thought of it a lot right after 9/11.

When I tried back in the 70s to imagine a modern city up in smoke and destruction, I had no visual clues really. A burning Dresden or London was not quite right, encased in it's own historical sepia-tone, and cannot have the same modern impact as this wreckage sung of in Diamond Dogs.

There used to be a record store here called Singles Going Steady, owned by Thor Lindsay and Tim Kerr who later formed TK Records. I was their first employee. One of our best customers was Danny McBride, who  we privately called Diamond Dog. He was the consummate Bowie fan, buying every single ever produced, especially those Japanese picture discs and other rarities, the more obscure the better.

It was his look, however, not just his musical taste, which gave him this name. He had a cross between gay leather and glam rock going on, maybe like Hedwig of today, but no long blonde hair (of course not!). He had rhinestones for studs in his leather. Anyway, he was a really smart guy and I was honored when he invited me to his place and showed me his record collection.

Of course there is a sad note to this memory, for Diamond Dog did not survive the onslaught of AIDS.

Seems like there was an exhibition awhile back at Exit Art in NYC of over 3000 record sleeves, curated by Carlo McCormick. I was holed up here in Portland but I bet that was a fun show.

Had It, August 9 2004

On Saturday night I went to an art party in which a young woman told me she ‘had had it’ and would stop curating and collaborating with the boys. She was going to form her own gallery for angry females.

Actually that was not the name but you get the idea.

--- Well maybe you don’t so let me spell it out for you.

She works hard, someone else gets the credit. But she wasn’t trained to be pushy so it’s tough getting on. She just doesn’t know how to be as obnoxious and as on her agenda as she needs to be if she wants to compete.

Maybe she did not even think of it as competing. That’s not for a girl. Especially what they call a girly-girl these days (their term not mine!)… with the cute skirt and the fishnet tights, don’t tell me this one has an equal brain and drive as her male counterpart.

Equal? No, she does twice as much! --- to get half the kudos.

This someone could even site the cool dealer she works for beloved by all, in with the outsiders, who still treats her and other perky females like that’s all they are. Like being perky is enough and say no more thank you.

I know what she means. Oh do I but even as regards this dealer.

For years the only way he could introduce me was the one who worked for Chanel. Give him half a chance and he will still go for there.

Not that it’s a crime but fashion (and even style unfortunately) is no friend to the Portland artist – a topic for another time.

But let’s see….. I haven’t worked for Chanel in a decade and did so for 4 years. I’ve been making and showing art much longer and I don’t think I need to tell you what all I do but no! Let’s get back to your work in fashion! We’ll talk to someone else about the more serious subject of art.

Yeah it pisses me off. I don’t even know how to wrap this up; the mind reels with a lifetime of experience.

Maximalism, August 9 2004

Fun, August 8 2004

It's pretty frustrating for anyone to walk around and look at half-assed art --- a quote from an email waxing on the previous entry here.

I remember that. Just the anguish at looking at so many shows in a single night out which can outright embarrass if not bore you.

In April 1997 I moved to Portland, just in time for the May First Thursday. I got together with an old pal. Both of us had lived here in the early 80s, moved away and were now back. She had been here longer though and was more prepared for what we would see.

A specific show or artist I don’t remember. I just remember hating everything. It all seemed small, cheap, precious. This could have been the times and the trends, I don’t know.

But what unnerves me a bit today is to know I’ve had my own shows of small and cheap art since I’ve lived in Portland. They just don’t want to pay more than 200 bucks for anything it seems. And 50 bucks would be even better. It’s really, really difficult to spend 3 months on something grand destined for a 200 dollar price tag. So what do they get? Cheap art.

Mind, it had been a long time since I had seen similar types of shows in NYC. For a multitude of reasons I stopped attending many shows of what could be called my contemporaries in my last few years in New York. I still went out to see the Big Boys though. Most of the time I saw the Dead Big Boys at the Met, my favorite museum bar none. And so I was very spoiled.

But I envied my pal, who had loads of observations about everything we saw. Maybe this was not even about liking the art, but being able to participate and be engaged and occasionally amused. She was capable of this and I just wasn’t.

Maybe we all go through times when we hate everything. For me it’s good to have a friend or 2 like that! They keep me on my toes with their contrary ways.

But it’s not for me. Long-term alienation from art just doesn’t sit well --- it’s a divorce from one of the few anchors I have. It took me years to sort through that night and the person I had become but I knew I wanted to get away from her. And find the one rose in the pile of shit, wherever it was.

Inside, I still know what makes a masterpiece. And I’m painfully aware that I don’t see them a lot in my daily life, not like I once did. But I guess I just decided to make myself so busy with the details of art and artists that that wouldn’t matter. A glass half full is just a hell of a lot more fun and yeah, I’m out for that.

Choice, August 6 2004

This coming Sunday I talk to Mark Brandau on the radio. He’s the one behind Portland Modern, a new magazine devoted to the unrepresented artist in town.

Some say it’s easy to show here. Yes, if you want to hang your own work, rent the space and sit there, this has got to be the best city for that. But gathering collectors around you, that’s another story!

Some say it’s too easy to show here. I recall several years ago an interview with Randy Gragg in which he said exactly that. Too much lousy art to be found in Portland, and this was long before your Modern Zoos and other free- for-alls. There seemed to be the implication that certain artists were unrepresented for a reason. And that maybe they should just stay that way.

I know there’s this sensibility of overexposure of anything right now. Too much can be too much. While I am generally a less-is-more type, I say bring it on. Let havoc reign.

I’m just working on the premise that all activity --- on some basic level --- is good. That first basic level does not ask for quality. We just want a choice, damn it --- something we sure were not getting much of 5 years ago.

Join me for a tour of a Chelsea building full of MFAs from Yale. You tell me you don’t see some lousy art anyway. In fact the greatest city in the world is full of mediocrity. That never ceased to amaze me. Yet there is something very essential to all of that, so why can’t Portland have its own?

Quality, of course we want it. But it doesn’t appear out of nowhere and when it does, it is not some known variable pre-approved and already on the payroll. It might be the thing you just can’t stand the first time out.            

The Moon, August 4 2004

Often I drew from my postcard collection, especially if the scene already had a certain romance to it.

Such was the case with Seaside, a town on the Oregon coast known as a party destination for summer break a la Where the Boys Are. I received several cards of that town over the years.

I must have drawn Tillamook Head at least 5 times during the 90s and eventually made a very tight piece which Tim Kerr now owns. But I still have the original loose draft and these scans are just parts of it.

One thing reassuring about the moon, it is the same everywhere. We are all looking at the same moon. And it's amazing how much that thing can affect us all.

After all, it makes the tides come and go. This is a reason I think there may be something to astrology. "As above, so below,"---so said Da Vinci or Galileo or some great Italian. We are made of a lot of water; surely the moon must affect us too.

The 1930s, August 3 2004

First of all, there’s the tallest, my Granddad: the capable and in control man of the 1930s, able to fix anything and build a go-cart for his son, my uncle Wiley.

There they are in Colorado Springs, just about to make the journey out west. "No it was not like Grapes of Wrath," my uncle urges and he laughs.

But I am not so sure. It has a little of that feel, though Granddad actually had a gas/service station back then and sold it --- so he had money to take to the road. Everything was piled into a truck and off they went to the West coast, stopping along Oregon where he could not find work.

Eventually they landed in California where Granddad worked for the Kelly Brothers of the Kelly Blue Book. I still have (and always wear) the watch the Kelly brothers gave him upon retirement in the 50s.

Check out how skinny my mom, small blonde, was. In fact both Mom and uncle Wiley were carted off by the gov't and sent to a nutrition camp sometime during the depression. They were fed loads of oranges as they had a vitamin C deficiency.

The young woman in a dark dress is my aunt Joyce, now in assisted living and fading especially in the mind. But to be honest she never used it enough.

My uncle Wiley I have always loved. He was a commercial artist and has a great sense of humor, which perhaps you can read in this photo. He walked me down the aisle at my wedding.

I was never all that close to Granny and she did not seem like that happy of a woman, or at least one for kids. Only recently I learned that she drew the line at 3 children, whereas Granddad wanted more. I also found out that she wanted to travel and go out and Granddad did not.

August 1 2004

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