Experiment in Totality, June 30 2006
In my last entry I wrote of totality and this very word stayed with me as it is also a part of my past. It means a lot of different things, all of them positive.
I guess the first association was with the book by Sybil Moholy-Nagy, Experiment in Totality, a memoir of a remarkable man which I still have today. If anyone did plenty of that, it would be her husband Lazlo. He was a blueprint of a restless curiosity combined with the willingness to take all the risks (materially and aesthetically) that were asking to be taken during those fast-forward times.
What didn’t he do? I remember meeting Ken Butler over at his house one time in the late 70s in NW Portland, when he raved over Moholy via his own book collection. “Well,” he conceded, “he was not that great of a painter.” But that’s OK: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy was too busy doing everything else – film, diazo prints, photograms, photographs, photomontage, light sculpture, installation, teaching and writing.
He’s also on my mind because this year I get to show (in September) with the great Mary Henry at a Portland Modern exhibition, who studied with Moholy. You know, that’s like having studied with Albers in this country. That’s Art Royalty. Just to have my work in the same room as hers is going to be a great honor and moment.
I’ve also been thinking about totality in terms of my own life. For years it seemed like being interested in everything and wanting to do everything (poetry, bands, novels, paint, collage, write, dance, act, etc.) was sort of held against me. It’s hard to be great at anything when you’re so scattered out and people tend to invalidate most of it. But you know what? In some strange way it is all starting to unite, in the eyes and sense I can now use as I look, interpret, enjoy and expose the art that crosses my path. Totality, confusing as a springboard, is merely a fulfillment of a life meant to be broad and hopefully, contributory.
It’s art because an artist made it, June 29 2006
In listening once again to the interview with Royal Nebeker, I found the ending satisfying and enlightening. I asked him about teaching and how it’s changed, or rather how have the students changed. He says they are a lot more savvy and career oriented than they used to be and the immediate question of “How do you get a gallery?” is one to grate on many teachers nerves.
“I wouldn’t want to teach around such a question,” he says, “The real question is more like ‘how do you get a painting?’ ”
I then brought up the chops-on-the-side issue, as I have observed that all the really good artists coming through Artstar Radio have more on their minds and in their lives than just the act of making art. There are skills not necessarily seen in the work, yet are integral to it.
Royal replied: “How do you become a better artist? You work on your self. You work on the artist, not the art work. There’s no doubt that the value and power of the work resides within the person who made it and not so much in an artifact of a process.”
Basically he summed it up in level of importance as the artist which comes first, then the process of the making and then, finally, the outcome or record of that process which is the work.
“It’s art because an artist made it,” he finalized.
While I have dissed a glorification of process here, in the grand scheme of things, I do believe that the totality of a person is what makes the image, the message and then, the career: all of the skills and all of the interests - and let’s hope you have more than just what a studio would require of you.
His claim that the artist was front and center was music to my ears because after all, that is what Artstar is all about. And I’ve found that some people are distressed when, like I just wrote a couple of entries ago, it’s not all about the work. It’s about many things. I could never do a radio show (or writing or curating, come to think of it) just based on value of work alone and not on the individual behind it.
Nice night, June 27 2006
Yesterday was so hot that even at 10:30 pm, it still hovered near 90. I went outside and laid down on the deck. Looking up into the stars, I thought, yeah, I can do this.
So I grabbed a couple of comforters for some softness and crashed out. It was not until hours later that I got underneath one of them and stripped. How marvelous was the air and the night sky. A few hours later the birds arrived for the first meal. I said hello and they were startled. They know me, but not as the first guest for sure. Then they went about their business. The sky was a brilliant cerulean with bits of white here and there.
Marbles at Twilight, 2006
American Dream, June 26 2006
Holy Toledo, Royal Nebeker’s interview has 85 downloads. That’s the most I’ve ever seen of Artstar Radio (though to be fair, it wasn’t always monitored or archived). It will only be up on the archives (May 22) for another week, so you better grab it while you can and find out what all the fuss is about.
I really enjoyed that interview, a discussion of how art can reinterpret and reinvent The American Dream - which, God knows, needs a major makeover. My favorite part was when we talked about the game of marbles and how he painted a female into the game, almost instinctually, without overdue calculation. There was a time no girl was allowed into the marble circle (they were too good, he confessed!). But there she was right in the painting.
The relationship, June 26 2006
Every now and then I come across a forum in which artists are slagging gallerists and dealers. If I enter the discussion and establish myself as not only an artist but as someone who runs a gallery, a chill fills the air. Some artists really resent gallerists, you can tell, and it’s almost like they regard them as an enemy.
They have yet to realize how much of their career and opportunities are of their own making. They cling to the myth that gallerists are the creeps who give you space, print your cards, sit with your work and somehow control their career – or rather, their opportunities.
In fact the whole relationship is one of mutual respect and negotiation and each person has a job to do. If you feel your gallerist resents you for your genius in art making, you’ve got the wrong gallery. Conversely, if you resent the gallerist for what they can do and wish to manipulate or negate them, why should they put up with it?
Another big myth is that ‘it’s all about the work.’ Wrong – it’s about a million factors. Time, place, history, the news, the person and of course the work. And also interest, real interest, on both ends. If you're asking for interest and time, give it back. And most of these observations do not come from the gallerist part of me, but from the artist. I looked at other artists who seemed empowered, creative and moving along in their situations. And for the most part, it was the artist who was doing the moving.
A gallery cannot make or break anything. Artists do that - even including all the lucky breaks (which do seem to exist). They do not happen if the work isn’t there and they will not last if the temperament isn’t there.
June 23 2006
This is the last of the Iris my mate grew and photographed.
Right now the garden is very interesting because momma birds are bringing in their babies. I watched a Downy Woodpecker eat from the suet and then feed her son. He eventually got the hang of going for it himself.
But the star is the baby of Victoria, who is early and on his own, with no playmates. I hear him as soon as I awake as he is hungry and not sure what to do about it. It is wonderful to be able to focus on a bird and know them, identify them.
You should be dancing, June 22 2006
Yesterday I wrote that I play a lot of rock n roll really loud when I paint. Well, it’s not absolutely true because lately I have also been listening to disco.
A friend gave me a big collection. Slowly it just sort of seeped in and took over. The more I listened to it the more it struck me how sexy that music was. Weird, too, because at the height of its popularity I regarded it like a Nazi Death March.
Still, those were the days: you saw, you danced and if you wanted, you could maybe have. Little negotiation and no one avoiding you thinking your biological clock is ticking. There’s the pill and there’s no AIDS. The more I listened to the music the more that whole reality came back to me. Now it’s gone with the wind.
Most of us were really not successful with that much freedom. I began to resent the tenor of the sexual times and was celibate for long stretches. While I embraced Punk for many reasons, sexiness was not really one of them.
But Disco had the sex and all that glamour. I have this one song by Divine called "I am Beautiful".... it goes something like "I’m so beautiful, but everyone's entitled to their point of view, we're all beautiful, can't you see?" The attitude was so embracive.
Horizon IV
(in progress)
OK, here’s to happiness, June 21 2006
More than once I discussed process in this diary and that my own was not always very joyous. I am result-driven and do what I have to do to get there - that was always my line.
But recently I have to admit that I am having a ball painting and have probably never had as much fun as I am right now. So, getting back to happiness – it’s there alright – right in the meager place I call my studio.
The only time I had this much fun was when I first arrived in NYC and painted at the Art Students League. Even when I was not at the League, but at my job or in my bed, I painted inside my head. Many nights I couldn’t sleep, I was so starry-eyed over the progress of painting and the prospect of an art career (two very different things).
Since childhood I painted, but my first show in adulthood was called “Photomontage etc” (1980, SF) and indeed, everything else besides montage was an 'etc.' I was in love with the Russians, especially Malevich and El Lizzitsky, and saw no way to join them in the field of paint. So when I tackled paint six years later at the League, I rendered place and architecture as way to stay close to the angle, to the line and the square without going off the deep end.
It was actually the joy of rendering which could keep me awake at night. I kept drawing in my head.
But then I slowly eased into a sort of a vacillating and sometimes even suffering relationship with paintings. The eventual transition to my own reality (must I call it abstraction?) was long and laborious. The resurrection of the square was like a missing link, but still it was not easy. I chose then to make big paintings which took months to produce and weeks to make any kind of all-over change in. Imagine whipping up the same two colors for three weeks straight.
But lately I began to realize how essential the act of painting was and how I looked forward to it everyday. It is central to my life and provides a place for me. I can now make changes quickly, which means the entire learning process is faster. Everyday is now a new day with the potential to change direction - or just grow it: out, out, out.
The idea of your own place is something that is both physical and psychological. It is the only time/place in which I consistently still listen to rock n roll really loud. And I always dance, as a relief from the eye and body strain. So the act of art making, while having evolved, is still enacted in some ways like the 22 year old. I think it’s great if you can keep a hold of that person, as a resource for energy and fun, and because she knows some things you don't want to forget.
Interesting life, June 20 2006
I’m asked from time to time if I am happy. In small or grand measures or moments of life, yes I am. Things are good. I know what I have to be grateful for.
But otherwise it is not my job to be ‘happy;’ it’s not my aim in any way. I’m out to change the status quo and can’t think of a time I didn’t want to do that. I’m out to provoke and mix it all up and this does not come from easy, breezy walks on the beach where all is eternally well.
Are you men of action asked if you are happy? Or is this just the domain of women, to be pleased - and be pleasing? Action which changes the landscape and benefits many can be easily exchanged for happiness in so many minds. But being trained to be pleasant is such a goddamn bore.
Even just as an artist and not as a curator, how can any of us make something out of nothing, going to a place where we can take no one along, birthing speechlessly the new inch by inch - and call this ‘happiness?’ Actually I guess I could, but this is not what others read into it – hence, the questions.
Around 29, when I moved to New York, I knew I wanted an interesting life. But I never equated it with an easy life.
My favorite club, June 19 2006
When you are looking for specific documents of the past, it means you might have to take a stroll down memory lane. I found things I immediately threw into the trash, but I also found treasured, priceless pieces of paper like this program from 1977 at the Marquee.
The Marquee: if favoritism can be measured by time spent, then the Marquee was by far my favorite club. And there is no close second, for 5 out of 7 nights might be spent there while I lived in London. If you look at the line-up from June alone, you’ll see why. Look what you got to see exactly 29 years ago and for pennies:
The Police for a buck-fifty. The Boomtown Rats, Squeeze, same price. Not that I cared so much for them – I was spending way too much time with Ultravox!
The best thing about it was that very few people knew what exactly was going on and so I was front and center, plus it was easy to meet people. I’ve still got the ear damage to prove it. The front page below of the program shows you what a pedigree this club had. Everyone at some point played there.
Warm white, June 16 2006
Boy did I have fun at PORT’s birthday party last night. They called it a Eurotrash Bash but there was nothing trashy about it. But Euro, yes – for the space known as Apotheke is Northern European in feel, clean and white and yet warm. I love it there. Happy Birthday PORT!
Modernism (the gallery), June 15 2006
Maybe early in this online diary I mentioned Modernism and that it was a dream of mine to show there. I mean an over 25 year old dream.
I like their mix of the historical with the contemporary. Maybe nobody does it better. I’ve seen remarkable shows there of Warhol, a show of R. Crumb, a beautiful show of small collages by Kurt Schwitters (!) and even a show of Malevich. They have their hearts in the right place.
Why am I saying ‘they?’ - For indeed it is the remarkable vision of Martin Muller who makes it all happen.
I’m thinking about them because right now they are hosting what looks like a fantastic show of Jacque Villegle, an artist to retrieve the found collage on the streets (via the poster) and make it even better. Him and Mimmo Rotella are my favs of the Affichistes.
Orange and blue encore, June 14 2006
In the past few months, I have read bits here and there of various color theorists of the 19th century. The one to make the most enlightening observations for me was this fellow named Chevreul, who heavily influenced Delacroix (and many artists thereafter).
Delacroix produced drops of glimmering water which, upon close inspection, were merely dabs/ globs of an orange next to a blue. From far away, these dashes of contrasting colors produced the luminosity of water.
Chevreul held the premise that our own eyes (and minds eyes) mix the color. The artist, if he or she is clever enough, does not even have to do it. We as viewers do it in our own reception. It is a true mutual effort in which color grows and changes. This is where Delacroix's claim that he " ...could turn the color of mud into the flesh of a beautiful woman by choosing the right colors to surround it.." comes from.
I’ve seen my paintings move and vibrate, sometimes like a soft and subtle flicker. But I’ve never seen them actually change color so much till now. If you move around and off to the side, these paintings have a pink-to-purple fluorescent enclosure or hum.
I agree, June 12 2006
“There is no blue without yellow and without orange, and if you put in blue, you must put in yellow, and orange, mustn’t you?”
- From a letter to Emile Bernard from Vincent Van Gogh, mid-June, 1888
that museum, June 11 2006
About the only repetitive incurable daydreaming I do is about travel. There are so many places I want to visit or revisit. Usually it’s all about Europe but occasionally I get into a real panic because I have never been to the Warhol Museum.
Been to Pittsburgh twice and loved it, but it was before Andy had his own museum. I visited the Cathedral of Learning and the great collection at Carnegie. There is a lot of great early American painting that didn’t make it into collections around here. The downtown area has great old buildings and the mix of the working class with the robber baron class is interesting.
But the Warhol Museum - not having been there is something that gnaws at me from time to time - even though I saw his retrospective, have some books (some since the 70s) and even have some clothes. I want more. My poor mate has had Warhol 101, 102, etc as I rattle on. He’s not complaining but I really should just spring for a real fix someday.
The collections that Stephen Sprouse produced around Warhol were terrific and whoa, would I love a suit made out of his camouflage. The Marilyn bomber jackets by Versace weren’t bad either.
There’s probably by now a million budding Warhol specialists, taking apart, piece by piece, his time capsules. Bills, letters, and odd bits of junk that make up our lives. Someone said: “He knew he would be famous and that everything would be worth something.” But I think the real heart of those is the vitality he saw in literally any and every thing. Behind the shades was the most restless and fruitful imagination.
Because Cynicism Died Yesterday*, June 11 2006
In light of certain things said and read recently, I’d like to address cynicism. It is a word thrown around quite easily, in describing both the young and the old. But when I hear it applied to me, I know they have no real understanding of what the word means.
Perhaps they confuse cynicism with experience? Experience - meaning a) having lived awhile and b) having done so adventurously. One is allowed a distinguishing and even jaundiced eye occasionally when one has accomplished that.
And also, let’s learn the difference between cynicism and anger. I think this is an important distinction to make.
There’s nothing wrong with (directed, creative) anger. We live in a fucked up patriarchy, including the art world (Check out auction records. Look at economics.). We as artists and human beings often feel un-empowered and bombarded by useless commercial bullshit. I get to be angry and do something about it, which is far from a cynical act.
And yes, the past plays its part. We’ve all got one. Why deny it? I just thank my lucky stars that I found a way to funnel it, instead of all the cigs and alcohol I consumed in the 90s.
(* - the title is from a nice show Liz Haley put together for Disjecta awhile back.)
The Modern(ist) Woman, June 8 2006
Somewhere in this diary I wrote of meeting up with a pal, a Prof at a local university, who, after a couple of drinks, asked me if I was a (gulp) Modernist and if so, how could I be one in a Post Modern World? No need to repeat the entire tale here, but I told her that that was her academia and so she could figure it out. Academia can imply a certain comfort and enclosure and she wasn’t fond of the implication. Many try to straddle being Outside and Inside at the same time.
Anyway, as my last class in the 19th century came to close yesterday and the Prof was wrapping up Modernism, I realized that it was always close to my heart, but that post-Modernism to this day was often unappealing. Why was this? Why was it so important, at least at some juncture, to join that camp and why did I refuse?
Since that conversation, various things became clearer in my mind, as I cross-referenced via life experience. Some of that was due to having exhibitions where you are quizzed and to some degree or another, must defend your aims.
If indeed the wish to forward an elevating experience, coupled with the desire to be one who sees life through the front window as opposed to the back –and most of all, to be one who can be self-determined - if these are hallmarks of Modernism – I would then like to ask just how many women were given options towards those roles? I mean in a Big Way, in one which rattles the radar?
It seems to me that it was way too convenient to dismiss the heroic visionary just at the time when a woman might get to be one! And make no mistake, it has not so much to do with access to education as to do with the Pill and Roe vs. Wade. I saw the transformation in the 60s and the 70s right before my eyes.
I don’t care who theorized it, male or female. Although I did think it was a strange way to forward a more ‘progressive’ view of PM when a female Prof asked us to write a paper through the lens of various French philosophers, all of them men. The whole premise was a more ‘inclusive’ ‘deconstruction’ of ‘the view.’
Whose view?
The other day I met up with a writer and as I talked about my work, I realized how important the optimistic and optical experience was rooted in something many had moved beyond. But when this Ism was hot and making its strides, how many women added to the fanfare? I already know what it’s like to be dismissed in the 21st century; have no yen for a return to the 20th. But I believe it is regressive to rob women of the role of visionary, seer and kick-ass artist, in the broadest terms, in the biggest way, because men have had their ears pulled back. And that is just what it is! This is not about my little world. This is about The World and I’m not apologizing about it not fitting into PM agendas or anyone’s agenda but my own.
The right to die, June 6 2006
Somewhere in this diary I wrote about giving away art in the very specific way New Yorkers understand: just put it out on the street. Over the years I set many works right out on 56th and they disappeared soon enough. After ten years of doing this, I finally met one fellow who had developed his own ‘collection’ of my paintings, a neighbor who never said a word to me until he saw me hauling a work down the street one day.
But of course this is very different to actually throwing art away, something we all need to do every now and then. And when we do it, it should be respected and left alone. Lucinda Parker said in her interview that she was moving out of a studio she had long held and the process of going through and throwing away was interesting but daunting. She was also very careful to be as sly as possible as to where this discarded work would go to die.
Orchid, 2005
Today I found a ditched painting, one I had put in the trash, in my mate’s garage. I really saw red. This is not something for anyone to retrieve or attempt to revive. While I learned a lot from it (the palette I developed on this failure went to Orchid, the piece above now sold), it had structural problems from the start. They never went away but magnified with every examination (from me anyway). Eventually there was no reason to hang on to something I just couldn’t fix. I was immediately relieved when it disappeared. Imagine my surprise to see it stashed amongst tools, saws and fertilizer!
The canvas was thick under the razor as I slashed away, pissed. And my canvases are not thick with impasto; this one was just thick with wrong turns. Actually there was a certain thrill in killing it altogether.
Write well, June 6 2006
Yesterday we got back our term papers from my 19th c art history class. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been writing (for weeks) on Rodin and I’m sure I’ll never look at him the same way again….
How some people can whip up a paper in 3 days, I don’t know. For me, it would rob me of the pleasure of writing. I like to spill out a lot of guts and then spend my time subtracting and rearranging.
The Prof in particular (more than once) asks: “Try to write well.” This was kind of the key word for me, because I knew I was in no position to reinvent Rodin (though I do think that a very thorough investigation of his influence on Modern choreography, something I was exploring, might be fruitful and extend his legacy in a new direction). So since I couldn’t reinvent much, the goal really was the one thing he wanted: to write well.
As I passed out of the classroom and then the building, I heard the united buzz of: “All I’ve ever gotten out of him was a B+.” I began to feel happy for my grades.
If not now, when?, June 5 2006
Recently I came across several conversations (and writings) in which the case was made for just ‘letting things happen.’ One fellow told me that he didn’t search or fight for things; they came to him and that was the best route to take. "Things just happen." Even in a search for a female. In my experience, he might have to wait a very long time….
I just nodded politely because I couldn’t even begin to make a contribution to that attitude in life. Even with my mate, I called him first. I’ve had to go after just about everything – jobs, school, travel, exhibitions, radio shows – very little of it fell from the sky.
My best job in NYC I was after for months. My best gallery in my life (Augen) I was after for years. I’m making paintings now that are the accumulation of a lifetime’s inner world and ambition, streaming from images and ideas I’ve carried around since the 70s, if not the 60s. You might say that I am in the opposite camp of the 'happy accidents' group.
For some indeed it is luck and karma (and knowing the right people). But in my life, there’s not much that I did not anticipate, propose and manifest. That’s the strife card I guess. Jim Riswold talked about it a bit in his interview.
This is not to say that I wouldn’t mind a nice windfall! I’ll take it with open arms! But in the meantime, I'm not waiting.
Servitude, June 2 2006
Carolyn Zick posted a recollection of her days in an MFA program, using the fact that new MFAs were showing as a springboard. I understood from the start that this was a personal story and not at all a ‘review’ of something she hadn’t seen. Such a post turned out to be a risk, as certain commentators reacted critically to this kind of personal story not about someone else. They wanted an art critic or a listing/ highlight of the current event, and Carolyn’s recollections were not seen somehow as appropriate.
I walk the same tightrope in this diary. From the start, I was not interested in pure servitude, in a group of writings only about The Other. I don’t want to be just a reporter here at all; hence, the term diary. Mind, it’s not like I don’t want to connect and expose artists. All day long.
And I should think that it is graphically clear that CZ spends 90% of her time, if not more, connecting people to images, dates, information and links to the point of carpal tunnel.
But first and foremost, she is an artist and it is really the artist in her that led to everything else. That personal take, that individual style and struggle, the person who writes alone, creates alone – is who made that site happen. Actually the more interesting posts are the posts which border on essay as opposed to reportage. And yes, in order to access your thoughts like that and to decide that such thoughts matter – that takes having an ego, a singular identity.
I wonder why it is that some people are much more comfortable with a site which only reports, links and serves? For (unpaid) service indeed it is. I wonder if it all would be seen differently if a man posted such personal takes. It’s so damn easy to feel comfortable with a woman who serves behind the scenes and with a man who is the scene.
The Italian
(in progress)
The Italian, June 1 2006
Not long ago I received a catalogue from Bergdorf's. All of their catalogues are basically filled with beautiful things just to look at and no more, at least for me. One of the things in this latest was this Etro bag of a dark red and chartreuse paisley.
Etro: known for fine Italian silks in rich patterns, they are masters of subtle color stories.
I looked up Etro at the Bergdorf site and never could find this particular handbag, but came across page after page of silk shirts and the like. Everything looked so, well, Italian. Then I found a tie which looked like one of my paintings - blues and golds formed within a grid, save a more muted range. I printed the tie and took it to my studio.
While I knew that the color story was tame for me and wouldn't fit well into the upcoming show, I thought that my first coat of paint could be like the tie - just for the hell of it, a special exercise in its own right. In the back of my mind, I remembered that this is what Turner called “Beginning Color.” That first coat was important to him and had its own formal name. Sometimes he held on to “Beginning Color” for a long time before he took another step.
The gold was very sandy and I would need brown. I had not used brown in years and actually thought I never would (though never say never).
Still, I had this bag stashed away, where I had stored all of those kinds of colors I thought (at one time) that I would need as a painter but rarely used: burnt sienna, burnt umber, yellow ochre, Venetian red. And slowly I whipped up an orange with brown and a gold with Naples yellow.
What was truly odd about the painting - that first coat - was how 'Italian' it looked. Like the clothes, like the architecture, like the warm countryside, like the pottery, the warm golds and aquas. This version here is still more pumped up from where I started, but still you get an idea. It made me realize that I could go soft too, and that I might someday.
And also, while I always looked at nature for my sources, looking at fabrics for sources was a fun track... especially as people have said that the works looked like fabrics anyway. I realized then that a shift was made:
As I child, I lived with Granddad’s blankets, but the 20th century made the biggest dent in my formative years as a painter (Malevich, etc.). Even as my work looked more and more woven or pattern-based, I still looked at natural experience (like a boat ride) as the source for my work. This was the first time I was actually consciously painting from fabric design. So things are coming full circle in a way.
June 1 2006
I’ve mentioned before that one of my favorite reads on the Internet is Anonymous Female Artist AKA Art Bitch. Her interview here has a lot of truths in it. It is something I never dwelled on, but I too felt low-balled as a contributor, even in the blog-world. Having the name Eva (as opposed to Evan?) didn’t help. What’s really weird about the whole situation is that some of it comes from those who probably think they’re really of the (Post) Modern World and even a Feminist. And the B thing is true too: if you have a smattering of self confidence and opinions (and ambition!), you’re a bitch.
June 1 2006
This visitor came to our garden yesterday. My mate took the photograph. We had a day last year when four of them were with us, having kind of an orgy. Somehow they all found each other.
More recent entries: May 2006
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