Another ending and beginning

 

    I said goodbye to the apartment that’s been my home then studio for the past fourteen years today. With Sofia’s help this morning, I moved the last of my belongings and the cats over to the house. I got the cats situated in the third floor guest room and then set off back to the apartment to clear out the rest of the things that were trash and being donated to whomever wanted what I put out on the curb, mainly a mirror and really nice table. I wish I could have found a home for the table, but I’ve had too much to deal with these past few months. I’m sure someone has already claimed it. 

    It’s going to take a while to process that I’m finally not living nor working there any more. I haven’t had a chance to really stop and think about what the ending of this chapter in my life means. Fourteen years is a long time and a lot did happen in this space. Like most of life, there were ups and downs, but overall, I enjoyed my time there. I think my deepest memories come from the lives of the cats who lived there with me and Eva. They’ve been the most consistent presence through everything that happened there. I pretty much mark my time there by the cats, more than anything else. 

    I went up to the property management office BMG (Bay Management Group) to turn the apartment keys in today and no one was in the office. This was around 4:30pm, they close at 5 and no one was there! I was livid! I called the office number that was answered by someone taking and routing calls for the office, explained the situation and he offered to call one of the people who work there that was on a site somewhere, which he did and the best the person could suggest was to mail the keys to the office. I’m not doing that because I want to hand the keys over to someone who works there. I was assured that I wouldn’t be penalized (which I shouldn’t since this is their problem). I’m just going to take them up in the morning. I’ll call first to make sure someone is in the office and to expect me.
So far, Banjo, Cooper and Sage are hanging out in the third floor guest room, getting acclimated to being in a new space. I feel so bad for them since they were so used to the old space, but I’m sure they’ll feel better as time goes on. I do feel bad that they have to stay in the one room for now, until we can move them downstairs into Sofia’s middle room and then slowly introduce them to the other cats. It’s going to be a challenge with seven cats living here, but we’ll find a way to make it work. 
My Instagram account was hacked last week. So fucking annoying! I’m not going to go into the whole scenario here because I’m really tired of thinking and talking about it. I lost access to my main art account and have attempted to get it back, but I haven’t heard anything from Facebook/Meta as to what’s going to happen next, yet. I started a new art account, but I’m really not into posting anything right now. I think the hack took the wind out of my sails regarding social media. I don’t feel the same cautious enthusiasm I’ve had in the past about it being a good tool for my art business. I lost access not only to the account itself, but all of the people I followed and who followed me. Over the years, I amassed a following of over 5,300! It took a long time to get to that point and now, that’s all but gone. If I return to posting on the regular again, I feel like it might not take as long to regain a significant following. Maybe, who knows?
As I said above, my enthusiasm for using IG and other social media sites has diminished a lot more than it has over the past few years from this one incident. This could be a good thing, as it’s making me re-evaluate how I engage with people digitally. One thought has been to revive my art blog and post there much more often than I have. I started doing that a little earlier this year, but IG pulled me right back in. I also don’t know how much people will relate to the longer form writing that I do there. It very well could be  a better way to get my thoughts out there without the constant scrolling that happens on social media. I don’t know what will work, honestly. I have a little bit of a reputation and following IG and really could/should leverage that. I seem to also be gaining a lot of followers on LinkedIn now for some reason. I don’t post there nearly as often as on IG, but my LI following has exploded recently. I don’t know what to make of this. I should make a new post there soon to keep eyes on the page. 

TM

New Studio Update

 

    Yesterday was my first full day in the new studio. I spent the day opening boxes, figuring out storage and generally moving things around to start making the space work for me. By the end of the day, I even managed to get my lights up in the entryway., a hold over tradition from the old apartment studio. I love sting lights because they lighten my mood a lot and add a little personality to this space, in particular, being as utilitarian as it is. I had more strands, but they must’ve gotten damaged during the move somehow because all three didn’t work. Not a problem, I’ll find more soon. 

I’m still amazed that I found room for all of this stuff in the old space! I mean, most of the bulk here are the boxes and most of what’s in them will be used, but still. I’m proud of my organizational skills to have made this work before. I’m a little sad that I can’t have the cats at this location. I’ll be able to be with them at the house, but it’s not the same. Granted, they sometimes got in the way while I was working, but their presence became a part of the workspace and I miss that. The reality is, though, even if I were able to have them here, it’s still a little too far for me to check in on them when I’m not there on the weekends. The old space is only a 15 minute walk from the house, an easy trek, but the new studio is up in Kensington, which would take much longer for me to get to. Anyway, everything will be fine and work out. 

Today, my goal is to open up more wall space so that I can start painting again soon, get my work tables set up and painting supplies out and stored. 

TM

Here We Go!

 

So, this has been a very busy week, so much so that I’ve barely had a chance to catch my breath. There’s a lot going on, even though I moved most of my art things into the new studio last Friday. The move itself went well, although we had to make two trips instead of one. Thankfully, I had prepared as well as I did because it could have been a shit show and headache for all involved had I not. One of the movers even complimented me on how prepared I was compared to other art moves they’ve had to do. From start to finish, it was a very efficient and pleasant experience, one I didn’t expect considering all of the things that had to be moved and packed into the truck. I knew one of the guys, Jay, from my days at Essene, where he was a customer. Jay’s an excellent packer. Phil and Von (sp?) were also really good at the job. 

As can be seen in the photo above, the studio is pretty packed already. Thankfully, I have a decent amount of built-in storage right above the area from where the photo was taken. I hated having to move so much artwork, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been if I hadn’t already purged a number of paintings. Still have a large amount. Hopefully, I’ll be able to have studio visits and move some of this work. 

So, since last Friday, (actually since Monday), I have been hard at work cleaning up the apartment and continuing to organize the left over boxes that are coming to the house, along with a few going to the studio and going for donation. I need someone to help out with a van or something this coming week. I’m also hoping that some money comes soon so I can pay someone to help out. I need to be completely out by May 31st, but I’m trying to be done by next Friday and turn in the keys. So looking forward to that moment. 

This weekend, we’ll be up in New Paltz, NY to attend Julia’s niece, Kanji’s, grad school graduation. Really proud of her. Can’t believe how fast time has gone by. Of course, just about everything seems that way when you get to be in your late ‘50s. I just saw pictures of Shelly Spector’s daughter (whose name escapes me right now) yesterday on Instagram and she’s just graduated college. I used two spin her around in Essene whenever Shelley brought her in. I’m really annoyed that I can’t recall her name now. Anyway, that’s how it goes, on and on, everyone changes, ages, grows up and life keeps going. If we’re lucky, we have some good memories to carry with us. 

Yesterday, I met up with Barry Halkin, a photographer that Bridgette Mayer Gallery uses to photograph exhibitions and projects at the gallery. We spent some time photographing my mural, Bound Together, at 10th and Callowhill Sts. He’s quite expensive, but after studying what he does to get the shots, I don’t have to question the cost any more. It’s the same when it comes my work. People might look at something I’ve made and perhaps wonder why it costs so much, but if they had any clue as to how much work actually goes into making paintings and maintaining a small business as a painter, they’d understand.

TM

New horizons

 

    A huge change is coming. I've been spending the past few weeks organizing, packing and purging in anticipation of moving to a new studio space next week. Honestly, I can't wait. I've spent the past few years working out of the apartment and the time has finally come to expand beyond this space. While necessity made me make the most of my circumstances, there was only so long that I could flourish here. I began the studio search and didn't think that I'd be able to find anything that was within my budget and large enough. I lucked out on both fronts and found a new studio in one of the best arts buildings in the city-the Crane Building in Kensington. 

    I looked at several spaces prior to visiting the Crane to see a space there that someone was moving out of. The space costs the same as my current studio and is larger than other spaces I looked at, so the choice was pretty clear. Not only that, but I'll be right next to Rebecca Rutstein's studio and Arden is right on the second floor. There are a number of other artists that I know who are in the building, as well, including two former art professors of mine. I had a loft storage area and painting rack built in the studio already. I'll go in Tuesday to have my orientation, get keys and the lay of the land. I know the building, but not as a tenant, so there's a few new things to learn. 

    I'm moving on Friday and having a moving company deal with everything. I've been trying to downsize some of my belongings and purge artwork that didn't need to be around any more. It's been about 10 yeas since I did the most recent purge and with the passage of time, I've been able to see some of the work in a different light. It was much easier to let go of older works this time than before. It's been a very cathartic and needed experience. I still have a ton of work to move and that's a bit annoying, but at least I have space to put it all without having to rent an outside storage unit. 

TM

    

    

    

The question of titles

 

Pages from my 2013 studio journal

The question of titles for my work comes up every now and then and I thought that I’d address it here as best I can. Anyone who has heard me talk about this in the past knows that titles are tricky for me. They are usually the last thing that I’m thinking about in the process of making art. It’s very rare that I’ll go into the painting process with a title already in mind. I do like to give my works titles of some sort, sometimes just for identification purposes. In a pinch, the very least I’ll do is something like, “Untitled (green 1)” or assign a number that is usually some configuration of the date the piece was completed. I usually do this with works on paper. 

Titling a work can be tricky, but the first thing I like to do is think about the piece and how it feels to me once it’s done. Does anything jump out at me formally? Is there some visual connection to a place or scenario that I know or have experienced? I might be working on a series and make some variation on the main series title. There’s never usually any one thing that influences a title. When making work, I’m always listening to music, podcasts or there’s just silence. Various things that I might be thinking about, emotional state of mind, how I’m feeling physically can also have a hand in it. “What were you thinking about when you made this?” Is never that simple. There's always a stew of many influences. Usually, my head is in the space of the painting that I'm working on. I'm trying to see how things are coming together or if they are not. 

To help in the titling process, I like to keep a running list of various ideas. Many times, as a starting point, I like to jot down a song lyric from something I’m listening to or maybe there’s a good sentence from something I’ve read that sounds good. I never copy things verbatim, I like to shuffle words and phrases around to come up with something that seems to work with a particular piece. I keep pages in my sketchbooks just for lists of potential titles. Some of my titles have a narrative feeling to them and often, I’ll make those up. It’s a combination of having overheard a snippet of a real conversation, making up a scenario of my own and coming up with something out of that. 

TM

Looking back: "Inverted Dislocation" brochure, 2004

(Above: Brochure for "Inverted Dislocation", with essay by Gerard Brown, 2004)

Recently, I've been going through old art-related papers, exhibition notices, writings, etc...and starting the task of organizing it all. It's been interesting to look back over some of this history, think about that time and how far I've come since. Above are photos of the exhibition brochure for my first solo show at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery, back in 2004. The show was titled, "Inverted Dislocation" and featured works that were much more 'minimal' in appearance than anything that came after. 

I was interested in minimalism at the time, but not the idea that the human hand should not be present. That felt like a dead-end line of thinking for me. I was very much into the materiality of paint on surfaces and not hiding that a person made these works. The extreme side of minimalism, as practiced by Donald Judd and others, shunned any trace of the human hand in the making of art work. With my paintings, I wanted to bring the viewer in with strong form and color and hopefully keep their attention when they got up close and saw all of the shifts in color, surface quality and other materials that I may have used, like graphite. 

A few years prior to this work, in the mid to late 90's, I was making work that was much more grounded in a kind of mixed media painting that straddled the line between painting and sculpture. Those works were comprised of acrylic on wood panels, aluminum, plexiglas, hardware like screws and more. As I worked my way through that body of work, I felt the pull towards a more stripped down kind of painting that was influenced by the Irish-

American painter, Sean Scully and aspects of architecture in cityscapes. My thinking at the time focused on creating spaces that referenced man-made environments, but weren't about a specific place or time. 

Considering Scully's huge influence on my work then, I really struggled with making these paintings, but felt compelled to do so. I wanted to make what I considered straight-forward, bold paintings that subverted viewers' expectations. The first thing people would see were the colors and patterns and maybe think about going past them, but hopefully, the work would be enticing enough for them to come closer to the painting for a better look and discover that there was more going on besides the first impression of pattern and perceived flatness. There's all manner of brushwork, variations in color and other marks that energized those paintings.

My reticence in showing these paintings was that I considered them to be too much like Sean Scully's work. Now, I knew that they didn't really look like his work, but I had been so nose-deep in studying his work that I felt that anyone would make that connection. Maybe they did, but the more I painted, the more that I realized that these were definitely *my* paintings and not knock-offs of Scully's pieces. Realizing that I didn't want those automatic comparisons, I did as much as I could to make my compositions as unique as I could within the parameters of form and color that I set for myself. Once I got past my fear of comparison, I dove into the work fully and feel that I managed to make a group of paintings that stand on their own.

TM

Rest & renewal (is good for art)

(detail of new painting 2.01.22)

Last Friday, I left the studio thinking that I was just about finished with a new painting; that I was just a few small moves away from stopping work on it. Of course, when I got back to the studio yesterday (Monday), I saw that this painting's journey was just beginning. This happens a lot and I'm always telling people that it's a great practice to let a work sit for a day or two, maybe a week, when you feel that it's done or if you're having problems with it and stepping away makes sense. I mostly work in the studio during the week, leaving Saturday and Sunday open to spend time with Julia. Things tend to work out well with this schedule. 

So, last Friday I stopped working on the painting. I felt that it was nearing completion and all I needed was a couple of big or little moves to bring it to its final state. There was some  leakage of paint from under the painter's tape on a section of the painting, resulting in some feathering of paint beyond the border that I didn't want to leave visible. I thought about what to do for a bit, but decided that it was best to just leave it alone for a while since I couldn't find some resolution then. The couple of days away from the work and studio did me good. Monday, I came to the studio with new mental energy and insight into what I thought needed to happen. Without thinking about it too much, I started to add some collage elements to the painting surface with the intention of adding brushwork and drawing on top of them. It was a really risky move, but well worth it in the end.

By the time I was done for the day, I was really happy about having taken the leap of faith with adding the collage elements. They completely changed the spatial dynamics within the image, making for a much more interesting composition than previously. Part of what I was after were different sets of marks than were there previously. The mix of opaque and transparent papers made a huge difference. Adding more marks on top of that pushed this painting to a place it would have never gotten to had I not let it (and myself) rest for a couple of days. 

TM

S p a c e

Morning studio corner

I didn't accomplish much of anything in the studio today. Nothing at all, actually, aside from watching some art-related videos and, later, more entertainment based YouTube videos. There were a few things besides art that I could have tackled, but I was completely unmotivated. I had ideas of working on some drawings and leaving the unfinished painting alone for the day, give myself some time away from it so I can perhaps return to it soon and get to a place of stopping work on it. I ascribe to the notion that paintings are never "finished"-that you simply stop working on them. (I'm paraphrasing the quote attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci). 

Since before Christmas until now, I've been on a very loose studio schedule. That is, I've taken more days off than on. I started back in ernest last week, worked Tuesday and yesterday and did nothing today. Once I stopped work on the one 36 x 36 inch painting yesterday, I spent some time just looking at the other one (40 x 40 inches), trying to figure out how to deal with the feathering that had happened along the taped edges of a shape in the composition. The area I'm thinking about needs some attention, but I haven't quite figured out how to deal with it. So it sits, for now. I didn't even look at it today, which is probably a good thing. 

Part of what's causing my non-motivation these days is the ongoing feeling of not having the  studio space I feel I need right now. I don't have enough floor space and have too much work that needs to be stored. If I were to take on a storage space for most of the work, that would help a little, but I still feel that it wouldn't be enough. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. I filled out an online form to get onto the Bok Building's waitlist for spaces, but honestly, I think that those spaces, when one is even available, will be beyond my budget. I have to do something to move towards a solution, so we'll see what happens. I'm also in another phase of downsizing the amount of personal items that I no longer need to keep with me there, like clothes that I no longer wear and linens I have no use for. Most of the things I have that I can get rid of are small things that aren't going to make a big overall difference, but I need to look at everything and determine if I need to be holding onto it.

I think the work space issue is getting to me and causing a lot of the uneasiness I'm feeling about working there. I'm feeling a limitation on the scale of the work that I'm able to make comfortably these days. On the flipside, there is always the problem of art storage and, quite frankly, I make a LOT of work. I need to make less work, or sell more. Beyond that, I need to look a lot more critically at the studio space and do my best to maximize it.

TM

A quiet day

Studio 1.19.22 :: Morning studio light

I had a rather "quiet" day in the studio. Normally, I'd have been listening to podcasts and music throughout the day, but not today for some reason. In the morning, I had a video interview with Craig Sterling, the director of the Art Bank Program of the U.S. Department of State . Craig purchased a piece last year ("Star 69", a work on paper from 2012) and by the beginning of February, it'll be part of a new exhibition of works in the collection. I'm really honored and proud to have one of my works included in the State Department's collection. As soon as things ease up with Covid and they allow visitors into the building again, we'll go down to see the show. In the meantime, Craig said that he'd send me some photos of the show once it's installed. The interview I had with him is going to be featured in a kiosk for visitors so they can learn more about who I am and the work that I make. As usual, as soon as the interview was over, I thought of things that I wanted to say and ways of saying some things differently than I did. 

Once the interview was over, I set about getting to work on a couple of new paintings that I've been working on for the past week or so. I mentioned in my last post that I'm nearing the ending point for these two and after today, I did finish one of them. The other is going to take a little more time. There's an issue of some feathering along the edges of a large area that was taped off. Some of the paint managed to leak under the tape in a few places, causing the edges to have fuzzy-looking edges. I stared at the painting a lot today, going over various scenarios of how I may be able to solve the issue, but nothing stood out as a likely solution, so I tabled it until tomorrow. I'm taking things a little slow these days, trying to not rush myself into finishing something. It's nice to give myself a little space to take my time with some of my creative work. Last year was about getting a lot of things done at the same time and right now, I don't have that pressure. I'm going to let myself go a little slower and let things develop at a much slower pace. At least that's the idea.

TM

 

Re-engaged

Detail: work on paper, 2022

What a difference a day makes! Yesterday, I was having trouble even being in the studio. I forced myself to go because I needed to at least be in there. I'd taken some time off from working regularly over the holidays to just have some time with family and to try and decompress a bit. Last year, while incredibly fruitful was also really intense in a way that it hadn't been in a long time. By December, I needed to slow down, take everything in and recalibrate. It was time to let go a little, reflect and begin to slowly start to move forward again. 

I always preach that artists need to take time away from directly making art and care for other aspects of their lives. Being able to balance things out a little can help a lot. This year, in spite of it being one of the best I've ever had creatively and professionally, found me questioning my role as an artist and more specifically, my work as of late. The biggest thing to haunt me was "What now?" How do I move forward after having such an intense year of artmaking? The answer is to just start somewhere and see where that takes me. I've done just that in the form of two new paintings, one 36" x 36" panel and a 40" x 40" canvas. 

I'm starting to get somewhere. The pieces aren't quite at a place where I can stop working on them, but maybe in a couple more studio sessions. I'm finding myself kind of dissatisfied with how I'm painting. I need to change some things up, but I'm not sure what those are just yet. I'm really wanting to work on some pieces that don't rely on the glyphs, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what that looks like. The only way I'll be able to figure that out is to make more drawings. I need to carve out some time to just draw and make marks without expectations of making something "good". I've been making some collages that have drawing as a component, but what I'm thinking about are just drawings existing on their own without imposing preconceived ideas about what they should include.

TM

Solutions: don't take the obvious for granted

A view of my Daily Observations photo archive

Earlier this afternoon, I hit a wall with a new painting that I'm working on. Well, not so much a wall as a door to which I had the right shaped key, but that key had been cut wrong, making entry a little difficult. I started thinking about how to solve the issue that I was having by doing what I usually do; refer to other paintings of mine for clues. I'll often look to other artists' work, as well. This habit has been ingrained in me since high school. It's often hard to turn off this part of my thought process when viewing artwork, especially when the work has some resonance with mine. I try to be aware of my thought patterns in these situations because I can miss out on really looking at the work. 

This afternoon's issue was something that came up during the last painting session I had, three days ago, on Friday. Towards the end of that session, I had the unmistakable feeling that I had reached that first point where I didn't know what to do afterwards. The painting needed something to push it forward, but what that was, I hadn't a clue. When I came in today, it was still taunting me, daring me to even think about a solution. After doing a little prep work on three other panels, the possible solution hit: why not take a look through some of the hundreds of photos I've taken that make up my ongoing Daily Observations project? I've done it a couple of times in the past, but using the photos to work out a painting problem is generally nowhere near the top of my list. Anyway, I got on my laptop to look at some shots and within a couple of minutes, I had what I thought was my solution. Not bad at all. 

When I make use of a source outside of my own work for problem solving, it's never with the intent of direct copying something into my painting. I'm just looking for some way into a solution, something that will trigger a response within me that will lead to a way forward. In general, it's both a form and a feeling. I'm not looking at the photos and thinking, "Ah, ha, that's the exact thing I need to use!" More often, it takes elements from several sources to comprise a workable solution. It's good that this time, I was able to come up with something that made sense fairly quickly. Now, I have to deal with the new question(s) that my solution brought up. 

TM

The physicality of life in art

(photo: ©Stanley Whitney)

"You want to bring the physicality of life to your work"

-Stanley Whitney

I was watching a short interview with Stanley Whitney via YouTube this past week and this quote really grabbed me. It hit home because I've been thinking about issues related to this in my work. A lot of what influences my work is the textures of the world around me, like different kinds of wood screwed together, layers of worn posters stapled to utility poles, cracked and lined cement and asphalt...the list goes on. I'm a fan of bringing more physicality to my paintings, but I've wanted to do it in a way that doesn't just mimic the textures that I see in the streets. I'm not looking to replicate those textures, but to develop textures that suit the specific needs of a work. 

I've always embraced various types of textures in my painting, but never anything that was too obvious, at least from a distance. Mostly, it's been visual texture through the manipulation of forms on the surface. These textures don't rise from the painting's surface, but are just changes in how the paint or drawing material is handled. I had a period in the late '90s where I made a bunch of mixed media works where plexiglas, aluminum and wood were used in a variety of ways and had their own textures. I've never embraced really thick applications of paint on my paintings to create texture-it always seemed to be too much about surface, whereas I've been more interested in making spatial environments that rely on changes in scale to create depth. I went for textures that were a little more subtle. Like the mildly sandpapery Micaceous Iron Oxide (MIO) that Golden makes. Once dry, MIO has a surface that may be equivalent to 100 grit sandpaper Not too chunky, but still noticeable to the eye, and it's somewhat reflective. 

Lately, I've wanted to make some of my glyphs stand out from the surface. I've found that a heavy gel medium does the trick very well. Not only does it create a good peak, it gives a nice, almost encaustic-like look to the paint. Now, I want to experiment with adding differing amounts of paint and dried pigments to the gel medium to see how it acts.

"The physicality of life" is such a perfect way to describe what I want to bring to my work. That can take the form(s) of brushstrokes, scraping of paint, drips, covering of areas and so on. It's not only the look, but the general feeling that I hope to communicate. I like that some of my paintings feel like they're still in the process of evolving, even when I've chosen to stop working on them. Allowing some of the making process to be seen keeps the work alive in a way that I can't explain. It's similar to when observing the changes in my environment, on my walks, subtle and not so subtle; there's almost always a feeling of small wonderment at recognizing shifts in the world around me.  Doing this reminds me of how life is in continual change and flux, something that I want to convey to the viewer. My hope is that through the work, they'll recognize and appreciate something of what I see and experience. 

TM

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. 

Black and Abstract

Shapeshifter (Sm. II), 2020, acrylic on panel, 11" x 14"

Last year, during the social upheaval and protests after the extra-judicial killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and countless other Black and Brown people by police, I questioned whether my work could be relevant for the moment. Being a Black artist working with abstraction, I felt like what I do wouldn’t mean much to people, and other Black people, in particular.  Art made by Black artists has almost always been expected to reflect the Black community; its struggles against white supremacy, strength in community and various aspects of Black life. Realism being the preferred avenue of messaging. In this context, abstraction by Black artists, until relatively recently, has been, at times, disdained by Blacks and willfully ignored by the greater art world. This is the lens through which I understood things as a young artist in my late teens and early twenties, even though it took me a bit longer to fully understand and fully embrace my own need and reasons to make non-objective art. 

My last years of high school on through to my sophomore year of college saw a big shift in the type of work that I wanted to pursue as an artist. I had learned and practiced the basics of color, drawing, line, form, composition, etc… through realism. Going into my last couple of years in college, I had begun to discover that realism had limitations for me that I couldn’t ignore. By this time, in the late 1980s, I’d begun paying more attention to contemporary art through regular trips to galleries and museums in Philadelphia and New York. A whole other world opened up for me. At the same time, I was finding out more about how Black artists were highly underrepresented in the wider mainstream art world and when they were accepted, there seemed to be a very narrow view of the type of artwork made by Black artists that was acceptable. Basically, almost anything that centered around Black figuration and themes of struggle and community were “acceptable”, a trope that seemed to be the consensus of the Black community and the white-dominated mainstream art world. This is how I understood it at the time. There were very few Black artists, male or female, that were being recognized with shows in New York and other big art cities around the U.S. The biggest exception that I knew of at the time, was Jean-Michel Basquiat. It wasn’t until much later that I would become aware of Black abstract artists like Sam Gilliam, Howardena Pindell, Norman Lewis and Ed Clark, to name a few.

Around the late 80s to early 90s, I took an interest in the work of American Abstract Expressionists and later abstract artists, which provided the aesthetic kick that I needed to move into the beginnings of discovering and molding my own non-objective voice. Just prior to this, I had begun to lean into a kind of rejection that would fuel my practice for a long time. The rejection I focused on was what I perceived at the pigeon-holing  of Black artists and art by both Black and white establishments. Both Black communities and the mainstream art establishment only seemed to champion a type of social realism that felt overused and limited in its scope, in my view. An only child, I had developed an independent streak pretty early on, so it’s no surprise to me that I took the route that I did in my work. Later, after high school, one of the things that spurred me on as a young artist, was wanting to prove, mainly to myself, that I could make non-objective work that was just as good as any of the white abstract artists that I had knowledge of at the time. 

Flash forward to now and with almost 40 years of art making behind me, I still have moments of wondering if what I’m doing matters in certain ways. The truth is, what I do as a Black artist working with abstraction isn’t going to resonate with everyone and it definitely isn’t going to directly solve any of the social ills that continue to plague the Black community or other communities. What it can do is provide another way of seeing, another way of helping people to see, to question their world and themselves, perhaps. Also, to show a way forward, to be a testament to hope and a future. The one certainty about making art is that it is an act of faith. It’s an act of faith that assumes a future simply because of its existence. The will to make a painting, sculpture, film or other creative endeavor means that there is some amount of faith in the maker that a future is possible. 

The events of 2020, now bleeding into 2021 are way beyond the scale of what my painting can do. However, the smaller scale individual value that I and my work bring to the table is that of questioning, standing in one’s own truth, through confidence and perseverance. I don’t know what people look for or see in my work. My only hope is that it can provoke a feeling of some kind, good or bad. That is communication, that is making a connection. Whatever connections viewers make with the work is out of my hands, on the other hand, having had the faith to make the work and put it out into the world for people to witness and experience is all I need. I have other goals, like having my work represented in major art institutions and collections worldwide. However, those ambitions have been a secondary concern for me. At this point, I have good  gallery representation, my work is included in many private and university collections and I continue to have work shown, something that I didn't imagine would happen as a teenager, so I now know that it's possible and I welcome bigger things. However, continuing to paint and make the non-objective work that I want, being in dialogue with other artists across time, regardless of who may or may not see it, like it or not, or whatever else is going on in the world is the ultimate success for me. 

Housekeeping

I was supposed to be painting all day, but I finally reached the end of my rope with how the studio had been arranged for the past couple of years. There was also the annoyance of the cats using some paintings as a way to get up to the table on the far side. To finally thwart them and maintain my sanity, I took the room apart mentally and started figuring out the best new situation to go for. 

The main thing was to move the table from the middle of the room to closer to the far wall, as seen above. I took the paintings that had been against the wall and moved them into the closet area, giving me a little more floor space. A win/win. It's funny that doing this is coinciding with the coming of the new year tomorrow. Cleaning is a ritual for many at this time of the year, ushering in the new with a clean slate, of sorts. Doing this rearranging today made a big difference in my mood regarding the space. Even though I don't have more square footage, it feels renewed. 

I did get to paint this evening, after fixing something to eat for dinner. I have a 40" x 40" painting that's been on the wall for almost a week without me working on it. I slowed down a bit because of the holiday, but now I'm gearing back up for January. I spent Monday documenting some small works from this year that I'm sharing between Bridgette and Paris Texas LA. Yesterday, I sent a batch of images to both places to get things moving for the new year. I have a few larger pieces that I need to have photographed by someone else. I can handle smaller works, but my studio setup and equipment isn't favorable to taking photos of works above 16" x 20". 

Another change I made today has to do with the title of this blog. I was thinking about the former title, "Practice", while walking home and listening to an art-centered podcast, The Conversation Art Podcast. The particular pod I was listening to featured a conversation with a director at Lehman-Maupin Gallery in New York. The conversation included thoughts about the language of art, specifically, the language of art as filtered through academia. I thought about the use of the word 'practice', as it relates to studio work and realized that I had been uncertain about renaming my blog 'PRACTICE' for a while now. 

The main misgiving that I had about it revolved around the idea of practice when it comes to studio work. It doesn't feel right to equate what I do in the studio with "practice"; I'm doing the work, not practicing. I may be getting hung up on semantics, but in my head, there is a difference. Practice infers that an activity is being done in preparation for a bigger, more involved activity, not practicing. Doing the work is what happens in the studio. I mean, it's possible that this is just splitting hairs; that "Practice" and "Doing The Work" are the same thing. Perhaps, but I feel much more drawn to describing my time in (and out of) the studio as "Doing The Work". 

TM