Nine drawings

    

Nine Drawings (out of 20), 2021

Each: graphite or conté and oil pastel on paper, 12.5" x 9.5"

One day recently, I went on a drawing spree. I completed twenty drawings during an afternoon while also watching video profiles of various artists. I don't recall all of them, and I'm sure that there were a couple of repeats, but I often enjoy watching videos when not listening to music or podcasts while working in the studio. This particular afternoon, I wasn't in the mood to paint and remembered that I had this pad of nice, smooth white paper made by Fabriano and that I had a bunch of oil pastels that  hadn't been used in years, so that was it, a drawing day it was. I made some drawings back in 2004 or so where I used graphite with colorless and white oil pastels that turned out really well. I wanted to see what could happen using those same materials with my glyph images. 

The types of mark making that can happen when dragging the colorless or white oil pastels across soft graphite or conté was interesting to see. The blurriness and break down of the original drawing does something for me and I can't quite put it into words. I think it may have to do with altering the drawing in such a way that it begins to take on a different shape and appears to be morphing as I'm manipulating the oil pastels. The drawing seems to be in a state of flux, receding and advancing out from the paper all at once. If I cover the drawing with thicker layers or darker colors, the drawing gets buried under a confluence of marks. I'm always debating how much of the original drawing to leave visible. I'll start covering it up from the middle or one side and work my way across it from there. Determining where to stop the over drawing is always the interesting part. I like pushing the marks to the very edges of the glyph grid and figuring out how much of the glyphs to leave and where to cover them up entirely. 

I'm not sure where these will lead next. I've already made some on larger paper (22" x 30") and the results were pretty cool. However, the surface of the larger paper has a mild cold-press feel to it and even though it's a shallow texture, I'm not entirely satisfied with the results. I'm going to look for sheets of smooth paper that's at least 140lbs. A hot press watercolor paper will work, I'm sure. In the meantime, I think there's a lot to experiment with on the smaller sized paper. The 12.5" x 9.5" size feels really good, so I'll probably continue with more of these drawings at this scale. Maybe make enough to fill up a good sized wall. 

TM

 

Art Doesn't Make the Artist

“I can't always relate to your work, but I can always relate to you, and that is what mattered.”

This quote is from someone who is a former coworker of mine that I still stay in touch with. We both worked for a long time at a food retail job in Philadelphia as managers. The business switched hands a couple of times after the original owner retired. I didn't last past the second changeover, but Kerry P. did, although he eventually left there, as well. Kerry is someone who will say what is on his mind and is pretty open with people. It's one of the things I like about him. 

The above quote is from an email exchange we had not long ago. What he said here has really stuck with me because of its honesty. What I make as an artist isn't going to appeal to everyone and there's nothing new about that, it's a simple truth of life, in general. I don't really worry about who will like/dislike my work. I'm more concerned with making it and having it out in the world to be experienced. I guess what it brings up for me is the importance of interpersonal relationships and how we navigate them as artists. What I'm trying to get at is that, deep down, we want a response to our work. If that happens, good or bad, then I think most of us will be satisfied. How we handle those reactions is also key. I wasn't surprised by Kerry's pronouncement of not being able to relate to what I do, since he has said in the past that he has a limited understanding of contemporary art. 

This part, "...but I can always relate to you, and that is what mattered.", is key. It brought home the thought that what we do isn't all that we are. Art has always been a MAJOR part of my life, but just one part, not all of it. I live, breath and eat art, but it isn't the only thing that makes up who I am as a person. I've always felt this way. Often, I think that people can tend to subsume their entire personalities and motivations into what they see as the one thing that makes them who they are. While I believe there is no separation between art and life, art isn't all of life. There are so many other factors that go into what makes up who we are. Much of that has to do with perceptions of us from others. Our personalities and beliefs are made up of our own experiences, how other people experience/perceive us, as well as our own perceptions of the world and others. 

I think I could have easily taken offense to Kerry's remark, saying something like, "What do you mean, you can't relate to my art but you can relate to me? Isn't my art part of me?" and so on. However, that wasn't the case. I accepted his comment because that's his truth, plain and simple. He relates to me as a person from a certain part of his life (work, mostly) and he's had difficulty relating to some of my artwork. It doesn't negate my whole being as a person, if anything, it can open up a path for further discussion about my work and his relationship to it. It's easy to conflate our main occupation with the entirety of our self worth, but in the end, there's way more to us than what we think we know through our work. 

TM

Shockoe Artspeak and the enduring myth of the "starving artist"

 

Shockoe Artspeak, episode 71, Rethink: The Artist Formerly Known as Starving

 

The latest episode of the Shockoe Artspeak podcast, Ep. 71, Rethink: The Artist Formerly Known as Starving really spoke to me. In it, hosts Ryan and Garreth break down the unfortunately enduring concept of the "starving artist". First off, I've always hated this cliché. Even as a young college student who didn't have a lot of cash, I still thought it was a unhealthy mindset. I thought of the starving artist trope as a cartoonish myth, at best and at worst, a demeaning caricature of creative life as being comically and chronically poor, bereft of any value and not a way of life to aspire to. If you're an artist reading this, I'm sure you've experienced some version of this messaging, either via pop culture, from family and friends and others.

In the podcast, "starving artist" is also said to be used by art students as a badge of honor, a way of proving your devotion to being a "real" artist by adopting a mindset that poverty equals artistic integrity; that you're "keeping it real". In reality, adopting the poverty mindset of the starving artist trope is just setting yourself up for failure as a creative person. While it's true that fine artists might not, as a group, make as much money as people in other occupations, it's ridiculous for artists to take on the negative mindset of thinking of themselves as starving when they aren't flush with cash. Now, it can be tough making a living solely with creative work, but if you set priorities and really look at what art means for you and what you want to get out of it, then there's no such thing as being a "starving artist".

One of the things that has kept me from falling prey to a poverty mindset as an artist is understanding early on that I would need to have day jobs in order to have the life I wanted as an artist. For most of us, this is a fact of life, with or without gallery representation. Selling work always goes in phases and there can be gaps of months where little to no money is coming in from sales. It's been important for me to understand that there will be, and have been, downshifts in art income and that understanding has helped me adjust things when needed. If you're able to have some kind of steady income from another source, like teaching or working other jobs then you're likely to keep yourself fed, hosed and pay bills. If you can feed yourself, you're not "starving". That's a rather literal interpretation, but I think it matters. If you're able to maintain your basic needs, then that gives you the ability to continue making your art and the ability to find ways to be a THRIVING artist, not a starving one. 

Anyway, if you've ever wondered about this myth and how it affects artists and the popular view of art making, give this episode a listen. It really got me thinking about some things and maybe it will do the same for you. 

Commitment: Fuel for the Marathon

 

Not too long ago n the studio...

I was recently a guest on an as-yet-to-be-launched art themed podcast. Early on in the conversation, the host asked me how early did I make the commitment to become an artist. Commitment. Words have impact and this one hit me like a ton of bricks...in a good way. Let me explain: One of the most common questions creative people of any stripe get asked is "When did you know that you wanted to do this?". My answer has usually been something along the lines of, "Well, I've always considered myself a full-time artist in my mind, even though I've held day jobs since the age of 13...." For some reason, I could never think of another way to answer that question, until now. 

Commitment is the word that I've been searching for all of these years! It seems silly for this to be a thing after so long, but that's how things work sometimes. I mean, saying that I've always thought of myself as a full-time artist wasn't wrong, it's just that commitment gets to the core of my being an artist and how I've sustained myself mentally and emotionally all these years. Through all of the ups and downs, setbacks and triumphs, my commitment to making art is one of the main things that fuels my creative drive. 

I think that my drive to make art has been so intrinsic to my character over time, that I never consciously thought about what word or phrase best fits All I knew as a high school student was that art was the one thing that I felt I could make a life for myself with; it was one of the few interests that I truly loved and wanted to become better at. There was nothing else that held the same grip on me. I liked my english and science classes, but nothing gripped my imagination and fueled my curiosity like art.  It boiled down to the alchemy-like usage of the raw materials of paint and mediums to translate what I saw in the world around me to paper, canvas or other surfaces. That was and still is magic to me.

I understood at an early age some of what I was getting myself into as an artist. I'd read a lot about artists from the past and what they often had to endure to continue making their work. I also made it a point to educate myself as much as possible about what it may take to be an artist in the present day. I understood that, in no uncertain terms, I would be in it for life, full stop. I didn't know what that would really mean until later, as I began navigating my art life after college. The demands of adult life- bills, loan payments, jobs and relationships, in addition to art has proven challenging and the path stressful, at times. However, none of that has dimmed my continued passion and love for what I do. 

Being committed to art means continuing to do the work when no one is looking nor necessarily caring about what it is that you're doing. When I was a younger artist, I had ambitions of having my work "set the world on fire", of gaining wide recognition for what I did early on. I look back now and feel relieved that I didn't gain early fame because a lot of that work was bad. Bad, but very necessary for me to make. I still make bad work, but it's those unsuccessful ones that make the better ones that much sweeter to claim. I've made the choice to put my work out into the world through a variety of means. That's only the smallest part of my activity. What matters most is what happens in the studio, which almost no one ever sees (unless posted on social media). Even then, no one really knows what I do in there and that's where the commitment  and drive comes in. I don't need anyone to know exactly what i'm doing in the long run, as long as I get to do it and share some of the results. Everything else is icing on the cake.