Here in the greater D.C. area there are several Art Walks each month. Galleries in a certain area will all open for a few hours in the evening and have wine and cheese and people can go look at the artwork. Dupont Circle has one one the first friday of each month, so we went last friday.

The whole thing was pretty disorganized. The map of the galleries we had was wrong, most of the galleries were closed and most of the work was, well, forgettable. I had an exchange with a rather artsy looking fellow on the way out of one gallery. Someone in front of us said to incoming patrons, “Great wine! Great art!", to which I responded, “Great wine, bad art." Suddenly the eyeballs of several folks were on me as if I had blasphemed. One of them replied, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth." Again, unable to control myself I retorted, “I don’t see a gift horse, just a giant bull in the corner nobody wants to look at.”

Now, I am the first to say art in the eye of the beholder. But looking upon these works I was struck by the lack of respect or understanding of each chosen medium. Lots of mud, not much understanding of color. Poor quality, lots of quantity. So american, don’t you think?

There was an film installation of a guy playing air guitar to a Creed song. Why ot just learn to play guitar instead of making films about pretending to make guitar? It struck me that the main ways we react to a lot of contemporary art is either with humor, disgust or emptiness. It is interesting to me that these are the ways that we relate to the world at large. It is the age old truth that art reflects culture. We already know the state of our culture is pretty grim, so it makes sense that the art we saw that night was grim as well.

I came away sad and sort of angry. Even the modern art movements during the industrial revolution had a method to them. Pollock had a method. I am not saying that one has to be classically trained, or have a painiting degree to make good art, but I think the desire improve, to know one’s materials and the methods of applying those materials is critical to making decent art. I am learning that the hard way.

Old wounds

I have some friends are are amazing at encouraging their children in the directions that their desires and talents lay. One is away at his first year of film school and the next will be visiting music business schools in the next several months. How many of you had you expressed to your parents the desire to make movies, be a professional musician or be involved in the music business would have been quickly repremanded for being ridiculous or unrealistic? I would suspect most if not all of you. Though your parents do not realize the damage done by these interactions and certainly did not intend damage, the damage is done and done most often for a lifetime. How many settle into the careers pushed by their parents promising so-called stabilty and advancement instead of a life driven by a hearts desire, gifts and talent? Again, I suspect most do. It is easier to settle, to not make waves, to feel stable and comfortable. I have seen many, many people do it.

I have been struggling this week with feeling a bit sorry for myself. Thinking back on my first (and only) year at Atlanta College of Art has brought much regret. I was never encouraged to pursue art as a child and certainly wasn’t told I was any good at it. The gift was just sort of ignored, so it makes sense that by the time I was out of high school, I was pretty uncertain about what to do. Although in my high school years I lived with my dad and stepmom and that time bred a lot of encouragement of my artisitic bent (they sent me to ACA), I still could not rid myself of the doubt and guilt of being ‘an artist’. I was fearful, unsure and although I got a scholarship and did exceptionally well, the ‘reasonable’ side of my brain (the side that snuffs out creativity) and the lack of encouragement as a child stuck to me. I could not shake it. So after my first year, I quit. It made me sad that no one encouraged me to keep going and stick it out. No one recognized that this was my call in life.

So, here I am eighteen years later still struggling with the same doubt, regretting that I did not finish my degree, strictly for the knowledge and skill I need here and now as I delve into "Jeff". All the old feelings and pain have enveloped me this week, but I do not want to give up. I do have people that believe in me and my ability as an artist, my greatest support being my husband. Overcoming those old tapes, or silences, even, is so difficult.

One of the most fearful things about being a person who has suffered with chronic depression is the possibility of it’s full force return. That several year period was the hardest, most painful time of my life. I almost didn’t make it. I have down days now, sometimes a string of them, and when they come the thought that I won’t come out of it this time is in the corner of my mind. Thankfully, I always do.

One of the big issues I am dealing with now, and not very well, is the issue of control. I don’t like feeling out of control. It is one of the most uncomfortable feelings I experience. If I don’t know exactly what to do or look like I know what to do, I feel really horrible. I live my life in the public this way making sure I appear to be in control of myself. Controlled, collected. The fear of looking stupid (or possibly even BEING stupid) keeps me in the place of control. It is a bad place to be and I have been there my whole life learning early that if I stayed in that place I wouldn’t be hurt or ridiculed, both of which I got dished out a lot of growing up.

This new painting is making me feel really out of control because I have hit the wall already. I have no idea where to go or what to do next. I have reached a place where I have to force myself to grow and the fear of not being capable of growing makes me want to run the other way. My fear of being a failure hinders me from doing many things, like facing the work again and sitting in the discomfort.

In a way, there is a sort of arrogance and pride in this control thing, in not wanting folks to see you be human and to make mistakes. It isn’t just fear, it is wanting to be like God who does all things perfectly and never fails in anything He sets His mind to do. We lie to ourselves when we tell ourselves that we have control. We don’t have any control over anything. It is an illusion.

Atlanta excursion

We returned monday from a short trip to Atlanta to see family and friends. The appeal of traveling is wearing for me. Atlanta doesn’t hold a lot of reasons other than my sister and her kids for me to return, but Craig was born and raised there and obviously has much more invested. Starting with the failure of a family member to book us a hotel room and great difficulty finding one, we stayed one night at a dump where the rooms were freshly painted causing us both massive headaches. We moved the next day thankfully having found better quarters.

By the time sunday rolled around after too much socializing, most of which was enjoyable, mind you, a depressing bit of news from my sister and hard to handle in-laws, I was getting sick. Literally. I wanted to go home. I think even Craig did and he is the most social creature I know.
We did go to a friend’s gallery openning saturday night. It was a group show and although most of the work was pretty uncompelling to me, there was this painting by James McLaughlin Way called "25 Hands". Yeah, another horse painting, but the thing about this one way that it is HUGE. It has to be something like 60′ x 30′. That’s FEET. Beautiful and I always love to see things painted big.

Also as we were in the hotel room one night PBS had a piece on Sunny Taylor. Amazing. Have a look if you want to stop complaining and get a kick in the tail.
Home now. And after much wrestling, "Jeff" is finally birthed……..

Jeff in progress

Some of you have asked about ‘Vincent’ and why the painting isn’t up on the site. I now need a new digital camera running somewhere in the $500-$600 range. Oh boy. So, I haven’t been able to get it on site. The painting hangs on the wall close to my easel to remind me that I did it and I did it well. As I begin working on the Jeff Buckley piece by sketching in the face, getting a likeness, I can look across the room and see ‘Vincent’, a great source of pain and of progress in my artistic life. I keep telling myself I can do it. I know I can.

I have been addressing some goals for the next year and thinking hard about my call in life and how to go about it. These are difficult things for someone who fears failure, who fears not being able to make it in the end. But because of the encouragement of my amazing husband and my amazing friend, I actually put a lot on paper. Somehow things look less frightening written down. I suppose the solidifying that words bring does feel uncomfortable, like starting a journey somewhere you haven’t been before, but not like echoes in your own head that go nowhere.

I had a friend inform me recently that I have an intimidating presence to certain types of people and that I do not "appear" friendly or "open" to approach. Though all sorts of folks approach me and speak to me often, it seems to her that christian women in particular judge me by how I "appear" to be. Apparently I don’t have the "presence" of a christian woman, whatever that is. No fake smiles, big hair, jumpers and eight kids……. What? Isn’t that what they look for?…

I came from almost 25 years of atheism with a distain for christian people. I found them to be the most judgmental and critical of all people insisting that their way was the only way and "shame on you" if you didn’t agree. I found them to be deeply angry, fearful of uniqueness, individuality and disagreement of any sort. It was very difficult to adjust when I did become a follower of Christ. Unfortunately, I discovered that my assessment was mostly correct. The painful judgement and stressed conformity I encountered in the church as a new believer was hard to take. If not for the presence and persistence of the Holy Spirit, I would have left the church completely. And I have at times not attended church for long stretches.

Maybe those early experiences created a guardedness in the presence of christians that I don’t have when in the company of others. I can say that thinking on this really makes me angry and reminds me with force to fight against the ways that I judge others before even speaking to them. I want to shave my head so they can see my skull tattoo…….

Approaching the cliff.........

It is now 2 pm on thursday. I had an episode today just like I do every time I start a new painting. The whole wave of doubt, fear and questioning that comes without fail. I was able to manage it somehow enough to move on. I am ready to get going and still waiting for my reference photos from the printer. I did play around with some line drawing, scratching out and reworking a few places, and I did prepare a canvas, but I feel dissatisfied with it all today. I really want to approach this with respect and gentleness, yet with power. It takes me awhile to prepare before I actually start. Thinking through what I want to convey, the best way to present it, chewing on it, getting the references together (and there aren’t photos of Jeff Buckley in the short span of his seven year career) just takes a lot of energy and time. It has always been this way for me. I am preparing to experience the same pain and tension I did on the Vincent piece, I know it, but every time, for some reason, I still do it.

Craig and I watched this documentary called "Imagining America: Icons of 20th Century American Art". It is about the transformations that took place in 20th-century America, told through the words and work of artists like O’Keeffe, Pollock, de Kooning…..folks from that era.
These documentaries are almost always replete with over philosophized interpretation by a number of art historians, who I can tell you are some of the weirdest people ever to live. To them every artwork has a deep, psycological meaning, or more often a deep Freudian context. When I was at ACA, my art history professor had a penile allusion for EVERY piece of art we looked at.

In these films there is always the old footage of the big ten sitting around smoking and drinking in their ‘boys club’ contemplating how great they all are and how they have ‘it’ and everyone else is crap. None of what they say makes any sense….unless you are CRAZY. Pollock wasn’t a verbal guy, so they didn’t have much audio of him, but some of the other guys……made no sense at all. It just sounds like nonsense. Bunch of pot smokers, or something…..

I remember getting a very rude awakening as a art student when I went to the High Museum in Atlanta, which was next to ACA. We got in for free as students. There was an grouping on pieces by some forgotten artist in contemporary section. These were ten or so pieces of plywood with the knotholes painted various colors. Depressing enough, right? Well, along with the ‘art’ was a huge artist’s statement ‘explaining’ the work and the philosophy of the work. Maybe most artists are so stupid that they have to make up some junk noone can understand to sound brilliant. It was my first eye openner to how low, low, low the world of fine art has sunk.
I like most of the artists in the documentary. It took me some time to appreciate their work, though. It would have been a much better film without the wacky art historians.