nov2005

Encouragement (thank you, Valentina), November 29 2005

Earlier I wrote here of rejections, known as the Dark Ages. Perhaps the turnaround story is also in order.

In 2002 I had decided to stop painting for awhile, as it was hard to see what it was bringing me. It was feeling like an expensive addiction, of money and time poured in and for what purpose, I was losing that view. I was thinking practically (something painters can’t really emotionally afford to do).

Plus I could save some cash towards this little exhibition space I had in mind. So I talked with my studio super and I wrote out a notice. I also figured that if I wanted to really "close shop," I should go to wherever I still had slides and just pick up my rejections. Sort of a symbolic gesture more than anything, but I wanted to do it. Fuck everything. I cried a bit at the thought of it in that studio and wondered if indeed this was the right day to go out there with such a mission. Was I too vulnerable? But the sun was blasting away, a perfect day for a walk in NW Portland.

I imagined how it would go down...you smile casually, everything is fine, means nothing, as they hand you your life back. No comments, no thanks, no eye contact, no kiss my ass. Such was my first stop.

Then I continued on to the next place, where a woman named Valentina had opened a huge, flawless space in the Everett Station Lofts building. The space is called Ogle and it also has an eye business, as her husband is an optometrist.

We chat; then I finally come round to the supposedly casual ‘I'm just picking up my slides’ routine and she says: "Oh, I'm still figuring out what goes with what..." This leads me to believe that maybe she is planning group shows, that maybe I still have a chance at something and I start to ramble in that typically ambiguous way...Her eyes sort of glaze over. It’s clear that she doesn't have a visual image of my work.

So I pulled out those rejected slides from the previous gallery and she looks a long time. "I have an opening in July," she says, "Do you want to show then?" As I had been rejected so much and has also lost two shows which were scheduled and then buckled, it’s hard for me to even hear that, to take it in. The walls are 40 feet long. The floor is red. Anyone who drives by Ogle knows what a gorgeous space it is.

What was most interesting to me was how in my attempt to ‘quit painting,’ I was given a resolute yes to it - and on the day it could really matter.

I’ve read more than once that online journalists tend to write out their lives, their diaries, to be more interesting than the life really is. We dress it up. But I don't think I've ever really done this. Real life holds its own against fiction, is just as poignant. When I was younger, I had not the ability to describe some of the things I experienced. But even now, when life is imagined to slow in middle age, I find it to be very unpredictable.

During these Dark Ages, the mechanism which creates new visions for painting in my mind was in refrain. That gift was closing down, tired, discouraged and shapes, signs and ideas were not as generously delivered. But that night, after I had met with Valentina, I had this image of a stage, curtained, and the curtain was slowly turned back, revealing the square of cerulean blue edged with Prussian. I saw the sky, empty, waiting and what would be the initial image for my future paintings.

Getting beyond the Dark Ages, November 23 2005

Scott Wayne Indiana has initiated a collaborative project in his blog based on rejection. Inspired by being rejected, he encourages us to try to get rejected as well. I don't need that kind of dues paying right now, but I had to laugh at the resource: something which claims it is Learning to Love You More as it files away the rejections.

I did a whole radio show once just based on my own rejections. One long monologue and this was not even a lifetime narration, but just what went down in the space of about two or three years here in PDX. Call them the Dark Ages. Lately I remembered them as someone told me how they were getting their portfolios back, one after another, and of course it felt terrible. I know the feeling. It her particular case it is perplexing too because the work is unique and it even sells. You start to wonder just what they’re looking for.

But of course it is not about the work - it might be who you know and how you are perceived. That message was loud and clear during my Dark Ages. I was rejected by two Everett Station Loft galleries, no doubt being too old. Same with the gallery at Powell’s; definitely not hip enough. This was also during the time that the museum rejected me as a docent – I’ve already told that tale in these pages: definitely not rich enough for that gig.

So the fact that someone has been rejected a lot shouldn't factor into curating towards the future. So often the worthwhile stuff is just not seen or valued by the right eye. And all it might take is just that – the right eye of one person.

If you look at art history, you can see many cases where all it took was one person to make an immense difference. One person, whether it was the Pope or Leo Castelli. It was actually Jeff Jahn who wrote of this somewhere – maybe in the Drizzle – I think he used Matisse and Picasso as an example. All it can take is a conversation between two, not some big consensus, even within the art world. Mountains can be moved at the instigation of two.

This all came to my mind as I interviewed Justin Oswald on the radio this past Monday. More than once he recalled various artists he had collaborated with, maybe in some casual way, who have now gone on to big things. Justin has touched a lot of lives and I’m convinced he supports an army. The measure of it could only be made years from now.

X-SF, November 22 2005

The other night I went to a dinner party dominated by photography. It was fun for me. I love the photograph and there’s a lot I don’t know. I couldn’t believe how much I learned from these people. Everyone there was an artist, an educator and/or a gallerist.

Another factor everyone had in common (save one) was San Francisco. We had all lived there for long spells and most of the table moved to PDX straight from SF, not even knowing what all they were getting into.

Someone observed something I have thought for years now: that Portland is what San Francisco was in the 70s and early 80s, or as close as you can get. And this is no terrible thing.

I used to visit San Francisco a lot when I still lived in Portland in the late 70s, and part of the journey was always to pay homage to Vesuvio’s in North Beach, where a big slogan reigned at the bar: “We are itching to get out of Portland, Oregon!” I wonder if that sign is still there? – for it would be just a nonsensical joke now - or at the very least an illustration of how much things have changed.

The food, the chefs, the cafes. The artists, the performances, the fringe. Could never say much for the painting scene of SF, but everything else, what a place and moment. And of course the most beautiful thing in San Francisco is the town itself.

So as I compare in my mind, I wonder where it’s all going to, where it all leads. Any of us in the arts here is riding a similar, yet-to-be-burned-out wave. But I remember what happened to San Francisco.

The first onslaught was AIDS. I can’t tell you how much of what I did was (financially) supported by the gay community when I was there. All of Bitchrock, the fanzine I created based on art and music, was supported by gay bars and discos and artists. So many of those people disappeared and those who survived spent an immense amount of time in clean-up and care-giving.

The second onslaught was that fucking dotcom glut. And now you have a town which never really recovered from that madness, as few artists can afford to live there. Some really interesting things happened there, but it never got to realize its full potential. I used to call it Weimar, California – it had that kind of cabaret feel and as it turned out, it was just as transient.

Still here, November 21 2005

Black Cat Bone has an interesting post today regarding the status of the Best Living Artists. Bailey observes that while some may say that what (cash) an artist makes means nothing when it comes to how they are academically viewed, there is actually a huge correlation between dollars and status.

Those who have been paid over a million for their work are the ones most likely to show up in an art history book. The list was all I thought it might be. Richter. Check. Johns. Check. There were only two women on the list.

I guess I should not be disturbed by this list and just move on and concentrate on all our gains. Or on the fact that I still have a place to paint (my basement). But we’re still here. The list only reminds me of how little things have changed, despite whatever talk. In the end it is money that talks. The lists are hard to argue with.

Howard Hodgkin: After Corot, 1979 - 82

Howard Hodgkin, November 16 2005

Lately I’ve been grazing on a large book on Howard Hodgkin. His latter work is something you can really ooh and ah over. He opens my eyes to what an endless resource paint is, that it can continue to be new. I always feel really encouraged when I see that in a living painter.

It also looks like he has endless fun. He seems to have made a way to live with all the incidentals that come our way, what could be considered ‘mistakes’. A good thing too, as we all make them. Of course it has occurred to me that in my present mode of painting, I have few ways out when it comes to that. As a method, mine can be occasionally remarkable, but it is not one I can easily grow old with. My eyes and hands can have a hard time.

Age can glorify ‘mistakes,’ can reconcile with imperfection. You just might want to push the paint around, around and around all day long. And you’ve done it so long and finally so well that you can really be loose, but totally spot-on in your aims. Great artists can get really loose in their latter years. I’ve been paying attention to Hodgkin specifically for the reason that he is such a master of the art of the loose. Yet I’m sure every mark is completely specific. What I also like about him is how he made small big, or rather at least perfect, all it needed to be. He obliterates size matters.

A genre is a safe harbor, November 16 2005

When Punk first happened I was spending a lot of time in the UK. One thing I marveled about was that the adoption of the style over there was sometimes no more than just that for some of the kids. One week they had been a Teddy Boy, another week a skinhead and now, a Punk. It was just something to be.

The British youth landscape was full of various identities, like Mods and Rockers. That they were so interchangeable seemed really weird to me, because at the time Punk was incredibly new. I saw a big difference between enjoying it and say, a Mod genre (cool suits and haircuts and Lambrettas).

What I loved about Punk was that not only could it silence a room and shock those who thought they knew what was what, but it was still so up for grabs. It was still in the making, your own making. For a moment in time I wasn’t wearing a uniform.

Last weekend I saw a young man walking in the rain. He was leathered and studded and mohawked, all ready for his night on the town. My friend observed that he must feel like he’s on the edge, that he seems dangerous. But to me it seems so done; odd that it exists at all. The only thing more done is the hippies.

I then wondered how it was that our own landscape has allowed, or at least encouraged, these done deals in identity to take root. How is it that Punks and Hippies live side by side and indeed, often mutate and merge, right here in the state of Oregon? Is it because they both go beyond ‘style’ - because they foster philosophies for living (something, for instance, that Mods and Rockers do not)? What could inspire you to go so all-out for something not of your own making - at a time when the assertion of self is so important?

It really can’t be because you feel scary. Maybe it’s the opposite in fact: a warm and cozy safe harbor. You know exactly what you’re getting, with few surprises.

The latest Pride and Prejudice, November 14 2005

Recently I read of an interview with Joe Wright, the director of the new Pride and Prejudice film. He said that not only had he never seen the various films pre-production, but had also never read any of the novels. When he did, he was surprised and ‘amazed’ at the depth of insight. He had expected fluff for females and found something else.

If you’re a fan, such talk makes you pissed. I got all indignant until I remembered that I was the same. I was the cynic who bought the paperback Pride and Prejudice for a quarter on 23^rd street in 1980, when it was full of thrift-stores and bars. I laughed as I bought it and thought it might be material for a collage if anything. It changed my life.

But I, along with many people in my particular position, was more than ready for New Romanticism. She became my formal, sentimental education towards that view. Modern music and style played its part of course, but she really illustrated a background, a historical context.

A challenging factor in any Austen story is her way with description. There isn’t much and yet the stories are exact in their way. She gives you England, beautiful England, and yet she doesn’t. In this current film, beautiful England is all that you would want and more. I’d love to see what this cinematographer would do with Thomas Hardy. Far from the Madding Crowd, made with Alan Bates in the 60s, has never been bettered. Could it?

There are two eternal problems which seem to haunt any Austen film adaptation – changing/adding dialogue and never being able to let alone the ending. Austen wrote some of the best dialogue in literature. Let it be. The weakest parts in the film are when the writers venture forth on their own.

As to the ending, please leave marriage, kisses, relaxation and hanging-out-at-home gear out if it. For some reason, every filmmaker seems obliged to illustrate weddings and poignant happiness, which is only described in a sentence or two in an Austen work. They must think we want to see all of that - that we want to see a happy marriage. But we don’t.

What they fail to understand, much less reconcile, is that Austen is not about the Mrs. She’s all about the Miss. It’s intriguing too, because in her day, a Miss was barely respectable. The only way to live well was through marriage. But Jane, a spinster, writes wisely of what she knows.

Daniel Kaven

Daniel Kaven, November 13 2005

Tomorrow I will have Daniel Kaven on the radio. He’s the one who brought us Divorce and the Affair. Just about everything I’ve seen of his I have enjoyed.

Somehow he takes the emotionally obvious – some of it could be overexposed and trite – and he still makes interesting images out of it. He’s not afraid to wring out something from what might seem like the done deal. I think he’s actually got a classic touch in all of his work. The underlying structure is always there and his aesthetic sensibility is pretty consistent.

How I got my John Lennon autograph, 10 November 2005

It was a heartbreak type of day. I had just broken up with the timpanist for the San Francisco symphony. He didn’t want me. I'm working at Aquarius Records, then on 24^th Street, where I am the import/independent buyer.

I take a break and walk up to Streetlight Records to blast my blues and kill some time, knowing full well there is a particular fellow with a crush on me: lean, tall, black hair and mod style, a prototype for High Fidelity. I tell him a short version of my heartbreak and he says to me very directly: "Oh but if you were mine I would never treat you that way."

Every time he came around he had a bottle of champagne and a bouquet. Really a giver and emotive Cancer. However when I said no, I can't see you today, he would camp out on my front porch. It couldn’t last.

But I know that the gift of the Mind Games picture sleeve 7" single with John's autograph is authentic. The dude was a rock n roll junkie and collector. He had all kinds of great stuff. And he was really generous.

Years later my pal Rozz Rezabek-Wright told me how this man dumped his girlfriend of that time when he got me and that Rozz had been with that girl during that time, constantly hearing about the whole drama. Of course I knew none of this.

You recall Rozz: he was in the Kurt and Courtney film, he named her Love and was with her too during this time (early 80's SF/ PDX). Rozz is a star in his own right -- he was in Negative Trend and Theatre of Sheep ---one of which opened for the Pistols in SF, their last show. A total character, then and now.

Anyway, the unnamed man went back to his girl, Rozz went back to Courtney and I was back to being a freewheeling female. But I got a great gift out of it.

Genius, 8 November 2005

Somewhere I read a story that Miles Davis often told --- he was at some grand party at the White House or Lincoln Center, this kind of thing, when the lady sitting next to him asks him: "And what did you do to get invited to this party?" He says "Well I changed music 5 or 6 times. And what did you do, outside of being born white?"

The implied racism was not what interested me. It was the flagrant, articulate anger. I just had to know more about that.

Plus I have been listening to Miles, here and there, much of my adult life and can often identity his sound with little prompting. He just has his own voice and the more I learned about the history of Jazz, the bigger that voice became. No one plays like him. Plus what a dark man, in more ways than one. What a solemn, singular look. So I’m checking out his autobiography.

You have to watch your tongue if you read this too much at any given time! I found myself saying Motherfucker the other day, out of the blue, at my job. The book is full of a filthy tongue. Everyone is terrible, bad and a motherfucker. Both the geniuses and the assholes. After a while you can get confused.

Then I began to surmise that this must have been a tongue he adopted, perhaps to prove street cred. Like someone like Miles Davis would have to do that! But you find out that he came from a very well to do family, doctors and such, Harvard and Northwestern. While my family was covering the Dust bowl to California in search of work during the Depression, he was taking trumpet lessons. No shit. With a maid and a cook. And no one used that kind of language.

In fact Miles never knew any world but music. He received only one message in his life of what he could do. He never cleaned a toilet, served a beer or ironed a shirt for a living. From home he went to NYC for Juilliard. When not at Juilliard he was on 52nd Street and when not on The Street, he was in Harlem, playing with Dizzy and Bird and so on. Meanwhile his dad sends him money. Miles fathers 2 children, didn't marry the woman and no pressure either, but still he receives his cash.

I'm not saying this is so terrible, though it is as foreign to me as being black would be. I've done a bit of study as to what it takes to make a genius, or at least a great artist. Sometimes they are made as much as born, if not more so.

Another example, very different yet similar, is the tale of Jackie Du Pre as recounted in the book A Genius in the Family and the film Hilary and Jackie. Everyone had to do every and any thing to get that girl where she was, sometimes at great cost to themselves. If it doesn't take a village to raise a genius, it at least takes a family.

That's in most cases, but not always. Louis Armstrong came from an orphanage, he had no breaks. And it is funny how Miles just resents Satchmo and his smile so, hates to see the black man smiling so for the white one. That was how he saw it. But the life that Armstrong had, Miles would never know. Maybe he smiled so Miles could scowl later.

Sky Lines by Amy Archer

Amy Archer, November 6 2005

Tomorrow I will have Amy Archer on the radio with me. I like the way she places and repeats her images.

I read a review which stated that all she really needed to do was take one great picture and let it be. I don’t agree. One good picture is fine, but sometimes many can be better.

While there are an infinite variety of subjects to explore, I can still see how once of one image is not enough. Sometimes you need it many times, this thing which interests you. Of course the obvious instigator of repeat imagery (as in many other things) is Warhol. In Archer’s case, it is not absolute repetition, nor is it about pop culture so much as just driving home a certain aesthetic. At least I think so -- I’ll find out tomorrow.

The right measure, November 4 2005

Awhile back I gave some advice regarding getting a show: be interested if you want someone to be interested in you. Please don’t make a beeline to a gallerist’s desk, ignoring the exhibition while you ask for one of your own. Having said that though, give me the space to form my own conclusion, taking my own time, knowing what I can handle and what I can’t.

I have never told an artist what to paint. I wouldn’t dream of it, yet it’s true that certain choices I don’t like. If I decide to show it, I accept the situation. But the reverse happens way too often and it ain’t always pretty:

I’ve had artists rearrange my desk, place signage when I specifically said no, told me what color the website should be and where it should link to, what the postcard should look like. I even had one artist track down my landlord to find out what I paid in rent.

Needless to say, I’ll never show them again. I don’t care if they start painting like Caravaggio.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the personality of the artist is important even in that way – not just as something which may charm a collector, but also in how it operates on the one who sits, hangs with and promotes the work. Those people are still good artists. I never felt differently about that. But other things changed beyond repair.

Recently I had someone pitch a show in a long email, to which I replied speedily and politely that I would commit to nothing now. But there they were again, the next day, at the gallery. My heart sort of sank as they approached me. They forced the issue to something being an absolute no, instead of what could have been a maybe, a potential relationship. They were so demanding and I haven’t even shown them yet! Now I know I never will.

Museum, November 3 2005

About a year ago, I was quoted in a local paper as saying that I felt ‘empty’ in the local museum and that I had only been there once or twice.

I could never say that, as I’ve been a member and have visited a lot. As an art history student, I’ve even written papers from pieces in that museum.

But I also would never say that as I am too much a fiend for the art object and for its history. It’s no Met, but I’ll take what I can get -- which means I have enjoyed their Brancusi, their Kirchner and their Beckmann. That is probably what bothered me the most about the mis-quote: it made such an inaccurate picture of one who is happier in a museum than most places, including many contemporary art galleries.

Still, I was not in huge hurry to get to the new wing, recently opened. And what was odd was that once inside, I did feel a little … well… not quite empty but not ecstatic. Almost like a prophecy. I am always happy to see a Gilbert and George or Dan Flavin, but otherwise I was not beside myself.

Sky Poem by Tom Cramer

Maybe more, November 2 2005

One thing I will hold dear from the Tom Cramer interview was when he talked about time. He said he was of the ‘Slow Movement.’ He liked slow food and a slower way of life, but not just that. He was fine with his art being slow. Some pieces, which he carves and paints meticulously, grew by mere inches a week and he was fine with that.

Right now I am working on a painting I began two months ago (36 inches square) and it still needs another month at least. I can wonder at the slow progress and the way it seems to be squeezed out, wrung out. But maybe this is just what it is supposed to be.

Later in the hour Tom Cramer and I talked about sustained response in art, art which keeps giving long after the first view. We both felt there was more of a chance of coming into that with our own work if we also put in the time in the making.

You spend your time looking, thinking and taking it all in: the vision, the intention, the hopes, the manipulation, the skill and technique, the expectation and then – what comes out, slowly evolving, the result. Hopefully we can make and measure, however slowly it might be, an image that can last a lifetime. And maybe more.

More recent entries: October 2005