oct2006

an artist, October 31 2006

Why the art world did not pick up on this story of an artist murdered is something I wonder about. The Mercury Blog, posted by Matt Davis, is the only one to really pick up on the artist that Jim Jim was (along with the first lead story in the O on Jim Jim with a real identity). Is the new guard here so still swept up in how the ‘biennial of 1999 changed everything’ and every biennial thereafter that they cannot see or consider the artist who came before their time or arrival?

What did we see in one drawing after another at the Affair and elsewhere amongst the new guard? ‘Bad drawing’ is almost celebrated and the more juvenile, the better.

I have nothing against this art, but I feel it is my duty to tell you who did it first here in PDX and who, in many ways, did it best: Jim Jim, with his spot-on yet childish scrawls, 'so deeply contrasted with his relatively sophisticated intellect' (Randy Moe’s words at the memorial) scattered throughout the Organ Organism (and I don’t need to tell you how cool fanzines are these days). What has changed here - outside of the fact that he did this in 1978? Is that uninteresting?

Memorial, October 28 2006

Last night the public memorial for Jim Jim was held at the First Congregational United Church of Christ downtown. KT Kincaid organized it. It was one of the most memorable nights of my life. I already know this. I never slept a wink after it, save to have one quick dream.

What was remarkable was the depth and articulance of everyone who came together, in their grief or in their love or in their agenda. Every time that I thought I would go, I had to stay. Every time I thought that perhaps: “This speaker will not have something to say to me” – the speaker did.

The recounts contrasted with family who knew a young man who loved to hike, to a group of friends who knew a young man who loved the Wipers. There was a notable shift when KT Kincaid went to the podium and I have to say, she was an incredible savant in her presentation of what punk was at that time, as a way of giving Jim Jim the right context.

I admired the tenacity of everyone, and those who say they will not give up, of those who say they will continue to love and of those who say they will ‘dog the police’. Those words were a moment, right there, coming from Jason Renaud. And as I came up to him, sort of nameless and full of wordless tears, others came up to me, strangers. It was like a circle of bearing witness.

In my dream red wine was spilled on a floor. I was at first worried about it, would it stain and how would I clean it up. Then I saw that I had two young children to worry over and I saw that they were fine. And that was what mattered. The spilled red wine was something I would figure out.

The Originals, October 26 2006

I was unable to shoot photographs for this last reception, but Morgan Painter had his digital camera. He gave me a lot of great pics, but I especially treasure this line up of some of the originals from back in the day. This group includes Rozz Rezabek Wright (Negative Trend and Theatre of Sheep), Mish (Sado Nation), Naomi, Randy Moe (Randy and the Randies, Drum Bunny), Sam Henry (the Wipers and many more) and Larry Lee (the Cleavers). (Forgive me if I have not made all the attributions I should here.)

Vigil, October 25 2006

This coming Friday evening there will be a vigil for Jim Jim. You can find out more details about the vigil and this entire case here.

The opening for Randy Moe’s It’s a Sad Sad Sad Sad World had a bit of this flavor. People I literally had not seen since 1980 came, all friends of Jim Jim. Some came from far away too. The family was there, as well as CopWatch.

From the tenor of phone calls coming at me in the days leading up to the reception, I wasn’t sure what to prepare for. But it all turned out just fine.

Local Stats on Art and Gender Bias (as of October 19 in Portland, Oregon), October 23 2006

Why the panel, October 22 2006

This story will be told in small increments along the way until the broadcast airs. But anyone who has read this diary for any length of time will find no surprises here.

When it became a fascination of mine, it’s hard to pinpoint. It certainly wasn’t on my brain when I lived in New York City and it should have been. But I was struggling so much just keeping on with life and a job that these kinds of aggravations couldn’t make a dent.

Something to make an impact when I first moved back was a discussion I had with an artist who just had a show up. Her dealer paired her with a much younger man and he raised the prices of this fellows' work, hovering near hers, meanwhile not raising hers. She had the extra degree, she had about decade on him exhibition-wise and she was teaching at a local university. She was pissed and had no satisfactory reply from the dealer.

At the time, I did not have any dealer at all, was barely a blip on the radar and I listened without being able to give any practical advice or even commiseration. But she is the one who planted that seed in my head, one base purely on economics.

And at every turn, as I grew as an artist, curator or journalist, the economic factor came back. I wasn’t getting any younger. And I began to see that it could be a measure, at least in the here and now, of what is being paid attention to and whether you get to show again with a certain gallery.

But when you speak of economics, it is not a cut and dried situation: a million factors figure in to what is hot and not. It’s about education, it’s about the right place and the right time, exposure and it’s about press. You could say it’s about ‘the quality of the work’ but this tag has been done to death as a defense for why risks are not taken and why certain things fit a groove and others don’t. Historically, the ‘the quality of work’ card (as discussed when the work was made and shown) has been a complete failure. And we are all still in the midst of being able to make some kind of history.

Rebuild

October 20 2006

Slowly I try to find myself back in collage but it has been really difficult. I know that the only way to get to doing is to do, but there is not the kind of free time/ free mind attitude that there needs to be. Psychologically, I sure could use that attitude - it was an art I always made for it’s own sake, without a lot of thought toward ‘audience’ and this kind of thing. Having something like that, something just for you, anyone can use that.

Only a little expectation, a lot of exploration and so often for no eyes but my own. All these years I made it with no ‘career’ in mind. Nothing wrong with wanting or having a career – anyone working hard and well deserves it – but there is also something pleasurable about personal indulgence devoid of worldly goals, chatter and expectations.

Even when you show it, the ‘chatter’ is not the same as it is with painting. Maybe that’s because it is my oldest art and connected with punk history, so it has some kind of authentic (there’s that word again) reality.

People have asked me if there is any connection between the two practices of painting and collage. It was only after talking about them at Willamette University that I realized that they were, at least inside, completely connected. The themes are the same and the same figures from art history are looking over it, while the ongoing ‘Pop autobiography’ (Richard Speer) keeps developing.

In the above piece, the towers are made of the Nuremburg rallies.

The verdict, October 18 2006

The verdict of the grand jury came back and they said that the killing of Jim Jim was ‘accidental’. I still can’t get this processed through my heart. How many broken bones did he suffer? – was it 16? Piercing into his lungs and other organs, all the results of beatings from the police? I could not really read the autopsy report. He bled out in their wagon.

When I first heard of all of this, I thought dear God, I hope he was high, high as hell on something, so that he would not have felt all of that. But Jim Jim, despite what the police said right from the start (- calling him “a drugged out street-person” - I talked to the major eye-witness for the jury, who saw the whole ‘chase’ – if you want to call it that, from start to finish), poor Jim Jim was stone cold sober when he went through all of that. Not even any pharmaceuticals for all of those they wish to silence.

Authenticity, October 17 2006

For three days I have been working on installing the next show at Chambers.

Recently someone asked me why I showed Randy Moe – what was the fascination. He knew that Randy was an old friend of mine but that could not explain everything. Even so, back in those days (late 70s), I had no idea that he had the drawing skills he is now so known for.

It was only when he was imprisoned (the later 90s) and sent me a portrait of a prisoner (in a letter) that I began to realize 2 things: he was in a very unique position (many are imprisoned but we do not hear from them) and also, he had the skill to get across NOT a photograph of someone, but something much more acute, deeper. I just saw a very unique situation.

From that show, I saw that he had this huge appeal. All of these people came out of the woodwork and wanted to support whatever he did. It was much bigger than me. And if you talk to him for five minutes, you'll see why.

He is very modest and authentic and that is probably the real key... how much authenticity do you find in the world, the art world especially? If you look at the portraits for any length of time, you will see that they are not trying to be anything but what they are. They are not trendy, they are not about pop culture - and they are not even that 'universal'...

- They are very personal, his own world, but somehow he manages to get away with making his own small world something people want to look into. People are starved for authenticity. And maybe for something that looks like their own reality as opposed to reality TV.

Randy never saw his work as Romantic, something it was called in the press. He is right now especially seeing a very sad world. He is also the last person to think he is doing something 'new' or anything like that and has said so to me many times. It was only when I showed him the work of Elizabeth Peyton that he saw that he did have some kind of contemporary and that the current art world had made a place for portraiture.

Imagine, October 16 2006

Critics do not have to serve the viewer, or the artist or the product known as art. Maybe they have to serve their papers, but what a lot of them have been doing lately is serving themselves. I was clueless how much certain writers could have their own agenda until I began the process of processing artists: interviewing and curating. I’ve only been doing it since 2002 but was an artist for decades before. As an artist alone, you can sort of duck your head into the sand (or hide out in your studio) and the problems or perplexities of others are not your own.

But once you widen your scope of how you live (and work) with other artists, you start seeing patterns – of exposure, of confidence, of what’s hot and not and why. The why takes you longest and is the hardest to get at, mostly because people don’t care. If you don’t have it (confidence), tough luck, and there must be something wrong with your art, right?

As a pet project, it’s hard enough taking on the critic, much less ‘the male artist’ or ‘the woman artist’. I’ve shown both and interviewed both. But I would not be surprised to see the numbers leaning to the male’s favor, if you made a count.

I want to be a part of the solution, not part of the problem. But indeed, how is it that more men than women enter my sphere?

‘Cause they’re there. There, brimming with so much confidence that they feel quite free to propose shows of work not even made yet. Or maybe they will present 2 photographs and ask me to ‘imagine’ the rest.

Whereas I have actually met women artists, gone to their studios to see stacks and stacks of work never shown. Entire bodies of work not exhibited, that inevitably nobody cared to show, including eventually the artist. And when I ask her to come on the radio, she won’t do it. She is so accustomed to being dismissed that she does it to herself.

The fact that she edits herself out of the equation is important to me, because I look at Artstar as some kind of eventual record of a time and place. It could be an important archive. I’m in my 5^th year and have most of the interviews. But when artists delete themselves out of the archive, well, they are in a way deleting themselves out of history itself.

Why is she deleting herself? Training. History. She hasn’t seen herself in history and so it’s very hard to even breathe the word ‘imagine’.

(a phrase Lennon no doubt borrowed from Yoko Ono) (see above)

evidence, October 15 2006

Last night I spent a bit of time at 333 Studios, which holds an annual open house every October (it is still going on today). This is probably the last October Show, as the lease has been raised out of reach and now a lot of good artists will be looking for new studio space.

It was actually at 333 that I had my first one person show when I came back to Oregon (1998, called Night Paintings). This was thanks to Lauren Mantecon and David Inkpen, who had studios there. Later on I found out that certain artists in the building were not happy at all that I showed there (not being ‘conceptual’ enough) - and even angrier when I sold a bunch of work. Ah, the trials and tribulations of keeping painted women in their place.

Stephen Hayes, who has a show up right now at Elizabeth Leach, and who will also be my guest on Artstar the 23rd, had an interesting set-up in his studio. All the walls held were the remnants of painting, the evidence of building a body of work. It was easy for me to make the connection as I knew he had a show up, so here was sort of the evidence. But I guess a lot of people peeped in, scratched their heads, thought ‘there’s no art in there’ and kept on moving.

The walls held all the same kinds of marks that a painting might, but it was more a glorification (if that is the right word and I’m not sure that it is) of the process and of the studio itself than of any actual art object. This situation seemed really apropos considering that soon he would be gone from this long-time studio, where so much had happened for him.

Then, for those who do indeed need real ‘evidence of art’, he had in a corner a sofa with a painting above it. So if you really needed that kind of scripted solace in order to think in terms of art, he offered that too. It just wasn’t that obvious from when you first walked in.

James Harris

The Affair Broadcast, October 13 2006

On October 16^th Artstar Radio will broadcast short interviews of gallerists and artists who participated on the Affair at the Jupiter Hotel in 2006. Here is a list of galleries/ artists involved:

Allston Skirt from Boston / Jeff Bailey from NYC / Garde Rail from Seattle / Diverse Works in Houston / Glasstire in Houston / Golden Blizzards from Atlanta / Gregory Lind from San Francisco / James Harris in Seattle / Marcus Kenney of Marcia Wood Gallery in Atlanta / Barry Neuman of Modern Culture, NYC / Platform from Seattle / Rudolf Projects Artscan from Houston / Sixtyseven from NYC / Trillium Press of Brisbane, CA.

The New Antiquarian, October 12 2006

Sika Stanton has been perfecting the old method of tintype photography. She took one of us last year but was still working out the kinks. The above is a recent piece.

The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, October 10 2006

Recently SWI wrote about the nature of ‘Nemesis’. Basically, the realization that you will have one - or in fact many – can be the dawn of creative maturity.

Are we here to make all the people happy? Are we here to maintain the status quo? Personally, the role of ‘pleasing’ and servitude was one I was force-fed much of my life and while it is nice to make people happy, it will not be my only role – and it is one we are very comfortable with as regards the female gender.

Fact is – the more you help someone, expose someone, have any kind of professional care for someone, type press release over press release for someone, someone else (or maybe the same person?) is pissed about it. Maybe the problem lies in deciding how the program runs, but it’s my program.

Let us get back to nemesis, or rather, having an enemy. If your role is merely to be an artist, I think it might be a bit easier for you. Some of us feel the need to take more on, for a myriad of reasons all no doubt rooted in our mal-contentment.

a Whistler “Nocturne”

But I’ve got my role models in the malcontents. The first who comes to mind is one of the greatest artists of the 19^th century, so great he doesn’t even look like he belongs in that century (see above, made in 1875): Whistler. He took on the critic John Ruskin when he wrote that his work was ‘flinging a pot of paint in the public's face’.

Well, Ruskin had been previously no slouch. He had, after all, written the Stones of Venice , took apart polychrome and then, became the guardian of the entire Turner oeuvre after championing the PRB (in fact, Millais made a fine portrait of Ruskin). With Turner, he made a wrong turn as he discovered that Turner had made an entire body of work based in pornography - and burned every bit of it. Thanks, Ruskin.

But Whistler took him to court and much of the recounts can be found in the endearing book The Gentle Art of Making Enemies. Whistler, in this trial, is the first to answer this question: “How can you charge so much for what took so little time?”

His answer: “Because it took my whole life to get to that place.”

Can any of you relate to this statement?

So yeah, he took ‘em on. And he won. Nothing materially ($-wise), from what I understand, but Whistler is a great, great artist and one of the reasons was because he allowed himself, well, just a few nemesis’. Maybe that is what pushed him over the edge to ‘fling a pot of paint’.

Andy on the brain, October 9 2006

The recent broadcast of a documentary on Andy Warhol may have already started turning the tides against him (again). You’d think that by now that everyone would be up against a wall saying: “Alright! Enough already! You changed the world! We got it! – But we are holding you personally responsible for this glut of ‘reality TV’! Spare us!”

-Yet I have actually run across some young people who all hate Andy now, having seen the movie. As the movie states, regarding the ongoing addiction of Edie Sedgwick: “Warhol never did a thing.” And they’re all self righteous and pissed about it, upset over an heiress they would have never known about had it not been for Andy making her a star.

My question is what could he have done? Ever been around a junkie? Ever lost someone to drugs or alcohol? I have. Being a friend, answering the phone day or night, none of it was ever enough.

It’s odd how this fury came out of the mouths of babes who will say ‘pop culture’ is what their world is all about, who watch reality TV, who figure it’s a done deal that portraiture is a photo process then slathered with a separate, flat color onslaught. When I told them that the world looked very differently in 1963, they acted like history had nothing to do with it.

Since they hated him after all of their new-found information and told me how meaningless and powerless he was, I then asked them: OK, Warhol is not the main artist of the second half of the 20^th c. .....who is? Can you name me five or ten artists who would fill that bill?

You can imagine the response. There was none. It went to a change of subject. But Andy is never too far from my mind, not these days. You see, I’ve asked a great big favor of him.

Man with Metal Flowers by Alice Wheeler

Radio today, October 9 2006

Today on Artstar I am re-broadcasting the interview with Alice Wheeler as it did not get archived last time.

a nice girl, October 8 2006

This last First Thursday (the artist/photographer) Joshua Kim came in and told me how a friend of his was pouring over the latest issue of Portland Modern, in which most of the images provoked no particular reaction one way or another. Ho hum. And then he comes across my paintings and went into a frothing-at-the-mouth tirade. Kim would not reveal the content of the tirade but said: “I thought I would tell you about it Eva, because that surely means you are doing something right. Your artwork really upset him.”

I was wondering just what could be so offensive about my paintings? - but it is true that if you can produce anything alarming in this day and age, without having to pierce anything, shoot yourself, strip naked, etc., you are on to something - especially as regards painting.

Then Joshua told me how he said to his friend, rather quietly: “Actually I know her and she’s a really nice girl.”

WTF?! At the time, I said nothing, but I felt like saying: “Oh no, I’m not! I’m not 'a nice girl'! – and by the way, what does that have to do with my paintings???”

Portrait, October 6 2006

The Portland Mercury took a picture of Randy Moe’s portrait of Jim Jim and slogged it, to be included in the upcoming show at Chambers, which opens the 19^th. We are hoping to have some xeroxed copies to look at of The Organism, the magazine he produced back in 1978/79, at the exhibition.

Where We Touch

Meet Me There, October 5 2006

Over the weekend, in spite of the Affair, I caught an interesting exhibition over at the Northview Gallery at the PCC Sylvania campus. The show is called Meet Me There and the artist is Maria T.D. Inocencio.

I wrote about her work recently in this diary (August 11th), as she had an exhibition all about a tree at the Autzen Gallery awhile back. In the show, seedlings from a tree were offered and we now have a Big Leaf Maple growing in our backyard.

Maria is known for work about connecting individuals into community, and doing it in inventive ways. In the above photo, what you see are many bracelets all stitched together. Each bracelet is the exact measurement of a certain individual from a certain community (like an artist in the art community or a student in a school). Each individual was able to choose the colors of their bracelet. Then all the communities are connected together and in the specific way they are in her life.

This was an immense amount of work and Maria hosted parties, getting many of the people involved to make bracelets. I was over at her house one day, weaving away, a new thing for me. Some weavers were better than others, as you can imagine, so the work reveals not only the various personalities (via color choices and wrist size) but also, our skills as weavers.

I am in there: my colors are all blues and white, like Starry Night.

Cascade by Barbara Takenaga

Youth boom, October 4 2006

While at the Affair I ran across an old friend who said she did not understand why there was so much undeveloped art there. “What will we see next year?” she asked, “Art by 12 year olds?”

It was only when I listened back to my tape of interviews of gallerists, to be broadcasted on the 16^th, that I realized how right she probably was. When you are in the middle of interviewing, it all can go by in a blur. I’m just on to the next question and do not make big assessments while in the middle of it. But as I listened back, I heard “We show the work of young and emerging artists” quite often, with an almost apologetic tone when they added “Well, we have a few mid-career artists too.”

Gee, I wonder what happens to you when you are just out-and-out old? Is there a place for such artists at art fairs? Or just in the future? I ask because none of us is getting younger.

Anyway, I dragged my friend to one gallery room and said: “Hey Pal, I can show you a gorgeous work by an artist who has definitely worked it out.” - and so I took her to the Gregory Lind Gallery, where he had Barbara Takenaga on the wall, work fully and skillfully conceived. Later on my friend said: “I knew who you were talking about before you even pointed out the work, it is that obvious.”

Untitled 80602

Painting and drawing, October 3 2006

Carolyn Cole was my guest yesterday on Artstar and you can listen here. We had a nice talk about just the act of painting and what it requires - but also drawing VS color and how hard it is to be a ‘colorist’ in NY. We both arrived in that town that way, and left not that way. The blackness of New York - especially during our particular times there, bears down on you hard. You can’t help but be influenced by it, for everywhere you turn, there is no color.

So the upshot is we both became better draftsmen out of the experience. I drew more in New York than anyplace else. No doubt studio space factored in, as well as time. I was working fulltime and so drawings just seemed more surmountable, under that kind of schedule.

Affair Portraits, October 2 2006

I have posted a new page of portraits from the Affair at Jupiter Hotel. In this case, I tried to capture people who I had also interviewed, so that the page will act like some kind of reference when the program is broadcast (Oct 16^th).

Still, I ran out of film and so the photos are a mere slice of who was interviewed. I think got over 15 gallerists on tape and each one talks about at least one artist in their room. I got a nice little interview with Marcus Kenney from Atlanta (see above), so the artist’s view is there too. I will compile a list of everyone who participated as we get closer to the broadcast.

More recent entries: September 2006