Social media slippage

    I've been having a tug-of-war regarding social media and how to deal with it lately. As per usual when we travel for vacation, I limit my social media activity and stay off of the phone as much as possible. I love just being in the moment and enjoying whatever I'm doing and wherever I am without thinking about posting something. I got over that habit a while ago. Every now and then I have to remind myself  of this when I'm in my everyday life, for example, when I go to gallery or museum exhibitions. "There are no photos that I can take that will be nearly as good as the ones that the gallery or institution will have", is what I say to myself. I'll still take a few photos, but only after having looked at and experienced the work without the mediation of the phone camera. 

    On the latest trip to Mexico, one of my goals was to read much more and I did. I actually finished one book (Kindred, by Octavia E. Butler) and read through 3/4 of the other one (Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson) before returning home. I took plenty of photos, but didn't post any of them, and still haven't. I would check in on my social channels periodically,usually in the morning for a few minutes, mostly IG and Threads, Zuckerberg's new alternative to what used to be Twitter (now "X"). I didn't look at Facebook and LinkedIn at all. 

    In general, I've been feeling burnt out on social media as an artist because the algorithms are stacked against the user, unless you pay to promote your posts. As I've said elsewhere, most social media is run by capitalists whose only goal is the accumulation of wealth and monetization of everyone who uses the platforms. In order to maintain cash flow and keep users roped in, the algorithms continuously change and we are told that we have to basically be online 24/7 engaging with the platform. Like casinos, social media is structured so that the house always wins. 

    I don't know if there's a way around that and quite frankly, I'm done with trying to figure any of it out. I mainly use social media in an attempt to broaden the range of people who are aware of my work. I have come to find, and I think many of us who pay attention to how platforms work, that most of the people I connect to online are other artists and to a lesser extent, curators and some galleries. I've come to find that online activity for artists (posting work images, making reels of your practice and shows, etc...) only goes so far mainly because of the fleeting nature of people scrolling and how your posts are pushed out (or not) by the algorithms. When I post on my IG story feed, I can guess almost all of the people who have seen it before I look at the activity list under that post and it's pretty consistently the same and barely 2-3% of the accounts that follow me and that I engage with. There is no longer any kind of "organic" reach-we're siloed in. It takes a lot to produce posts and other content for social media and the return is next to nothing. We're giving Meta free labor AND content. 

    We're roped in by the POTENTIAL of gaining followers, getting shows and more through social media, but the reality is that real life interactions run the show-social media is only a tool and a good tool, if you are at least somewhat intentional about your engagement with it. I like to share all sorts of things, but mainly keep it to art-related things with the occasional dash of cats and other regular life moments here and there. After experiencing my IG being hacked last year and the building burnout I'm feeling from it, I'm on another wave of reevaluating my use of socials. For all of August, I've been trying to keep my engagement to a minimum in an effort to retool my usage and specifically how much I use it as a distraction. Over the past month, I've only posted on my story feed and mainly reposted memes and other things from different accounts. Since I read so much on my vacation, I've been making sure that I spend more time reading than scrolling on my phone. I still look at my feeds during the day, but much less than I was before going away. 

    I've been sharing a bit on Threads, but in a different way than on IG. Since Threads is supposed to be more like the app formerly known as Twitter, I take a more relaxed and open approach to posting there. Engagement so far seems a little more organic. When people I follow reply to something, that post will get pushed to me and I have a chance to follow a new account, if it seems interesting to me. I like this approach and right now, there's no ads (I'm sure they're coming) and minimal functionality, but it feels less cumbersome and over the top than other platforms. There's more to come about my evolving relationship with social media, but more later. 

TM

    

   

 

Out of a hole

Works in progress 8.18.23

    

    I got around to making some base layers on some new 9" x 12" panels that I purchased recently. These are going to be more pieces that will be included in my "Soft Poems" series that I've been developing. Most feature some iteration of the glyphs, along with other marks, amid translucent layers of matte gel. I'm hoping to make a lot of these and have at least twenty available to show at my next solo exhibition. 

    I wasn't going to come to the studio today. This morning, I was feeling the weight of this week in a real way. It was mostly thinking about mistakes I've made around the business side of my art practice and some things around my work itself, especially some of the newer things that I'm exploring. It's always like this when I'm working in an unfamiliar creative space that I'm also attempting to develop into something more than experiments. The mistakes I referred to was me trying to figure out what to do about the internal dialogue I was allowing to go around in my head. The good thing is that I'm at a point in my life where I'm not comparing what's happening now with how I dealt with similar things years ago. I'm not wallowing in a negativity loop like I used to do in my 20s. I've made great strides with being kinder with myself and better about moving towards solutions. 

    Regardless, as a human being, you'll feel things. It's better to give that stuff a little space and move on, rather than remaining stuck there and not making room for taking steps to remedy whatever bad choices were made in the past. It's hard, sometimes and I have to be intentional about moving myself out of a down space to a less down space in my mind. The "less-down" thing for me to do was to come to the studio, even if it was much later than I would have liked and I wasn't going to have the usual time to be here. I made it work and moved these new pieces forward. The next time i come in, I'll be able to do so much more, now. Making the choice to come here regardless of how I was feeling was the win.

TM

  

 

Slow

Studio view :: 8.16.23

    Slowness has been on my mind a little lately. Specifically, slowness in the studio, in my painting. Over the past 6-8 months, I've been slowly bringing a new body of work into existence that's moving me into another realm of thought and being in my art making. The nature of the new work has caused a shift within that's manifesting in the work and while quite different from how I've approached my painting, it's a welcome difference.         

    The difference is of slowness in the making of these new paintings. My general modus operandi in making new work is to remain open and push my boundaries as far as I can within a painting, drawing or other work. That means bringing together painting, collage, drawing and whatever else I can think of into the work and working fairly quickly to make these ideas gel visually. There's a sense of urgency, a need to get it out and resolved sooner than later. Over the course of making the pieces, I gradually slow down and take more time with creative choices. 

    With some of my newer work, taking my time is ingrained in the process from the start. I'm moving with a directed kind of intention that's different from how I've worked for years. There's still the push/pull of formal elements and still plenty of surprises along the way, but I feel like I'm taking the scenic route instead of the expressway. I'm finding that in taking more time for the act of painting I'm feeling less anxious about the work and process. I love my fast-paced, loose way of making work, but sometimes it gets to be too much with having my energy on 10 + so much. So, for the time being, I'm breathing deeper, painting slower and enjoying this new process. 

    Most of all, I'm realizing that it's ok to take my time now. In years past, when I worked at a day job, I was forced to make the most of any time that wasn't spent working. It meant that sometimes, I only had maybe an hour and-a-half to paint so I often worked as fast as I could. I got good at it and had quite a few successful paintings and other things come out of those years. Since 2020, I've had the fortune of not working somewhere and I'm just now beginning to see an alternative to the sometimes frantic way I was in the studio before. All things come in their time. 

TM

    

Enter the void(s)

     Going into the void(s). I'm about to break out the old goth clothes, paint the walls black and throw on some Bauhaus for good measure, haha! Ok, so the most I'll probably do is listen to some Bauhaus since it's been a moment. These are actually just the starting point for new paintings. The reason I'm giving this any special attention is that I almost NEVER start a painting with a dark background; I've insisted on beginning almost every work with a white or light background. It's mostly out of habit, really. I generally like lighter backgrounds because of how they can affect the subsequent layers. I start off thinking about light and transparency in the colors, however, considering that there is an overall opaqueness by the time I'm done, it almost never makes that much of a difference. 

    Dark backgrounds like these are going to definitely change how I think about and use color in these paintings. I'm excited to see how I navigate my color choices, range of hue, transparency/opaqueness and compositional choices along the way. I'll let you know how it turns out once I've gone through the process a bit. Should be fun. 

    

    On another note, I was saddened to hear of the passing of painter Brice Marden last week. Marden's work was a big influence for me early on as a student. His early work contributed to my understanding of how subtle color can be used in a minimalist way to make a big impact on the senses. Marden's sensitivity to color and how he used it at scale really drew me in. The lyricism of his subsequent works continued to draw me in over the years. He was a true contemporary master and leaves an amazing body of work. 

TM

Too much? Not enough?

Detail: recent painting in progress

    There's this intrusive thought that pops up in my head every now and then and it's pretty ridiculous: "Am I making too much art?" I think that it's a ridiculous notion because what does it matter? It's almost like thinking, "Am I breathing too much?" It only comes up when I look at the artwork in my storage racks in the studio. When I moved into the space I had a painting rack made and installed. Completely filled it up as soon as I moved in. I'd done a cull before the move, as well, to get rid of work that didn't need to be around any more. Sometimes, I walk into the studio, see that full rack and knowing that I'm going to keep making more art that may or may not sell, wonder if I'm doing too much. It doesn't matter if it sells or not, that's not my focus. Of course, I like it when work sells because I get to continue paying my bills and debts and putting money back into the studio work by buying the materials I need, amongst other things. However, the thought of having made too much work pops up again. 

    Two things cause that thought to go away almost instantaneously: I have a lot of work that I need to make and too many ideas to explore. The urge to make work is irresistable. I have to do it in some way. I can take time away from directly making things, but the work continues in my head. Another thing popped up for me today when I saw an IG post by Gary Vee. The post is a video with a younger GV in a car when he is asked by a passing fan, "What are three words of motivation when I'm feeling down?" Gary Vee answers, "You're gonna die". The woman looks at him incredulously, but he just repeats himself and says "That's inspiration, do something about it". [see the post here].

    It doesn't take much for me to be motivated as an artist. I'm almost always motivated, thankfully. Hearing those three words in the context of being an artist hits a little differently. The reaction I had was along the lines of, "As long as I can get out of bed, I'm going to continue making art". That's it. I'm not going to let my sometimes overthinking brain con me into considering that I'm making too much art. One day, life will stop, so while I can, I'd better make the most of every day. If the ideas are still hitting and I can find ways to bring them into being, then I'm going to continue painting until I absolutely can't any longer. 

TM

 

Music in the air

Works in progress, studio, 8.11.23

    Had a most productive day in the studio yesterday, partially finishing up with prepping several new canvases and working on three new small works on panels and canvas. Before I started, I was easing into the session, trying to figure out what I wanted to listen to and whether I wanted to listen to anything at all. I was noodling around on YouTube, seeing what I may have missed while I was away recently. After refreshing my home page a couple of times, I saw a video for the latest song from Fever Ray (Karin Dreijer), a musician that I became aware of back in 2009 or so. I remember at that time seeing a video of her's for a song called When I Grow Up, and really responded to the music, vocals and the aesthetics of the video. I didn't keep up with Fever Ray much past that, but was curious to see where they were now creatively. The new song, "North", is every bit as haunting and beautiful as I remember of her earlier work. 

    Well, I went down a rabbit hole and watched a few other videos from FR before discovering The Knife, a band that she had with brother, Olof. I don't know how to describe the music of The Knife, but I can say that it's highly addictive and energetic, based on this concert video that helped amp up my own energy in the studio yesterday: The Knife-Live at Terminal 5 (2014). Check it out, I hope it gives you the boost that it gave me!

    Another band that got me through the day was Young Fathers, a band out of Scotland that I found out about sometime last year. YF is another band that's unique in their approach to musicianship, blending aspects of hip hop, rock, afrobeat and more. To a certain extent, they remind me of TV On The Radio. Check out the concert video here: Young Fathers live at Best Kept Secret 2023. Lastly, again going down another rabbit hole, I found Son Lux, a new-to-me band that caught my attention after listening to the former couple of concerts. Son Lux, not sure how to position their sound, but watch them here and see for yourself: Son Lux live at AB-Acienne Belgique. 

    Watching and listening to these concert videos definitely raised the energy in the studio around the rather mundane task of painting the edges of five newly stretched canvases, waiting for them to dry and working on other pieces in between. Working on the other pieces wasn't mundane, but you get the point. It would be great to hear what you think about any of these videos or better yet, what gets you through some of the routine things that have to be done in the studio (organizing, preparing surfaces, etc...). Let me know in the comments below!

TM 

 

New wanderings (isn't this a given, now?)

Two new works on paper, 38" x 50" each

    I finished these two new works on paper a couple of days ago. They're an effort at seeing how some of my newish ideas might work out on a larger scale as paintings. I'm feeling confident about how some of this is turning out. If these were already paintings, I would have made them denser with imagery and pushed some of the formal relationships further. There would be more layers, for sure. As they stand, I'm feeling good about the way things seem to be developing. I particularly like how the one with the overlapping blue fields turned out. I won't be able to reproduce it as a painting, but I'm hoping to retain some aspect of the warm colors filtering through the cooler colors on top, if I choose to make a painting out of this idea. I feel like I'm getting closer to a name for these hard-edged, yet flexible forms I'm using. I'm also doing some related research that I hope will help my tie together some conceptual ideas running around in my head. I'm heading towards a need to revamp my general artist statement and am trying to get enough information to formulate a more solid basis for this new direction. 

    Today started off with an early (for me) morning with jury duty. Of course I had too little sleep last night and have been a walking cloud of drowsiness all day. Anyway, I got to City Hall, went through the jury panel selection part, made it to a court room and was dismissed, thankfully. My jury summons had me reporting to City Hall instead of the Criminal Justice Building which almost always means that you're going to sit on a civil case, if chosen. I got lucky and had a high juror number, so the judge and lawyers in the case found their jurors well before my number would have been called. 

    So, I have my jury duty work "excuse" sheet. Since I work for myself, to whom do yell at for missing work time, even though I have a valid excuse? ;)

    Afterwards, I stopped by Artist & Craftsman Supply to pick up some canvas, gesso and a pack of six 9" x 12 panels. I'm in the middle of working on several small paintings begun earlier this week, but I'm thinking that this afternoon and evening will be a good time to stretch at least a couple of new larger canvases. 

TM