July 3

Last Day

Today is the last day and night at the residency. This evening, I will give a talk on my work, followed by a restaurant celebration, then off to Indiana in the morning. I was sad for it to be over, except that Saturday-past marked (unbeknownst to me) the last day I would have a hot shower. I have made three attempts at the cold shower since then, but today I just couldn't make myself do it, public speaking engagement or not. I have been meaning to get my hair cut, so today, I will be paying someone to wash my hair.

Public speaking engagement rule #3 will be broken tonight: never do any drastic personal hygiene/appearance adjustments within 48 hours of an event (or job interview). These include facials, waxing, hair-dying, sunbathing/fake tanner, and new haircuts. It probably includes other things I would never do, like plastic surgery, giving birth, and becoming a nudist. I got my eyebrows waxed 36 hours before a job interview once, just long enough to have a really good, self-consciousness-inducing rash in time for my spotlight.

I have been planning this haircut for months, and because I don't trust salons in Indiana to not give me a mullet, I was saving it for New York. (Not to say that is what salons in Indiana WOULD do, but I do have trust issues.) I am really excited about my haircut, but if it turns out to be a disaster, I will be dealing with my emotional fallout from it in front of a room of gaping faces.

That said, I hear you asking what rules #1 and 2 are. There are many rules to public speaking, but for your personal growth, I will give you the first two. #1 is show up early, but do not announce your presence until under five minutes before the engagement (if you have to set up equipment and sound check, fine, but then leave and don't come back until the five minute mark). #2 is to be nervous, then do ten to twenty jumping jacks right before, so your blood is pumping, your checks are healthy, your nerves are slightly diluted, but not so you are out-of-breath. Sounds funny, but trust me. #3, no crazy spa treatments, like I said.

Yes, I did mention the hot water problem to the building folks. No, the problem wasn't fixed.

*Update* Apparently, the gas was shut off, and in old buildings, sometimes you don't turn something off because it might not turn on again! Parts had to be tracked down, and the morning after-- a hot shower!

July 2

Time Flies

Hopefully it is well-spent. I haven't anything really to add here, but this image was beautiful. I was saving it, but why hide it? I hope it makes your day too.

July 1

June 30

The aging flower

June 29

Eastman photos

I added the new images to flickr, with my colorful commentary. I also saw a House Centipede when I came in just now. It grossed me out, but they are harmless. That's what I keep telling myself.

Why am I still up? Perhaps I am just excited because someone is coming to visit me tomorrow!

Work in progress and thoughts on process

I put an image of my sewing, in-progress, on my news page. It has evolved since I designed it, which means it is closer to done than the original plan. Originally, I wanted it to emulate the moral-poem samplers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but in this ironic, contrary way. The poem I wrote, which I may post later, was a re-imagining of the events surrounding Belle Gunness, but as I completed all my little French knots, and sat back to admire my work, I couldn't help feeling sad for her victims. This is how art evolves: you start with one thing that gets you thinking/making, then you step back and realize, 'that original thing isn't worthy of this thing I want to make,' and you delete it. I started out thinking of this woman who used men for money, then coldly destroyed all the evidence in a dramatic escape (allegedly), but I am not interested in commemorating her violence. I am more interested in the things that hide in the ground, that we walk on but never see, the history that all places have whether they reveal it or not, whether they are good or not. So, the completed piece will be different, and I am hoping to have it finished soon.

Art Tourist

I set off to be an Art Tourist today. First, I went to the Memorial Art Gallery (from the website, I had no interest in going at all, but after my tour of the artists' graves at Mount Hope Cemetery, learning it was erected by a grieving mother after the lose of her 20-something painter-son, it became a little more interesting to me), where they were having an "Art and Treasures" sale. I don't know what 'treasures' means-- it looked like all the random stuff from my grandma's china hutch that no one wanted. I bought a rabbit print by Esther G. Rolick for two dollars. It isn't signed or dated, but I also bough a sketch of rabbits that she signed and it's dated 1964. The odd thing about Esther, is when I google her, I can find obituaries of her family (she might still be alive, I can't tell), references to her in art magazines from the 60s, pictures of her teaching or swimming or touring Europe, but no images of her art. It seems strange to me-- like she was a good enough artist to be noteworthy for her influence, but not to have any of her images online (either in museums or for sale).

This dismayed me. It may sound silly, but I worry about my work disappearing. Some of it will and should, but all of it? Right before I have shows, I suddenly think, "This would be a terrible time to die. No one will know what it is supposed to look like. No one can finish the series." It's incentive. I am happy to say in my rally against disappearing, I completed and signed a special set of six images to donate to the archive collection at Visual Studies Workshop. I don't know what will happen to them there, but for a little while, my work exists outside myself, in a collection to be cataloged and archived. I love being archived.

Ah, I completely lost my train of thought. Art Tourist. Right.

I also visited the George Eastman House today. This post has gone too long to share images, as I did enjoy taking pictures in the house. The exhibits were alright. The technology exhibit was awesome for a cameraphile like myself. The photography exhibits seemed surprisingly under-whelming, with the exception of the video in the Curse of the Black Gold exhibit, and some of the photographs relating to Africa from the permanent collection. The images of Eastman himself were sort of surprising. He appeared to be a grumpy, lumpy, unimpressive character--if it weren't for all the money he was throwing around and the presidents and tycoons he was bumping elbows with. I was disappointed to see he seemed more interested in his house and business prospects than in photography. I always imagined the invention of the Kodak camera to be a labor of love, bringing photography to the people. Obviously, it was also an excellent business opportunity and he became filthy rich for it, but I still wanted it to be because he loved photography.

This concludes my experiences as an art tourist. I will be adding flickr images of the Eastman House soon, but I am tired of being in the creepy basement alone, even if it is where the scanners and WiFi are.

I love you.

Nameless Rapture

I believe artists should love their own work. Not just love it, but be in love with it. It's already something that consumes so much of our physic and emotional energy, I think you should have that kind of affection for it. I do. That's probably why rejection, editing, and destroying of art work is so difficult. Yes, sometimes I have work that falls our of my good graces, and I not only don't love it any more, I hate it. In the darkness of night, when no one is around to catch me, I murder it and dispose of the evidence.

But that doesn't happen too often.

It makes me sad for folks with regular jobs, when I don't see that light of love in their eyes at the end of the week. Life is hard enough without not having something to look forward to every day. Every day-- ha, I wish I made something new every day.

Anyway, blah blah, love love sappy... What I am trying to say is this month, I am so happy to see that I am actually bringing more out of the images than ever before. More details, more tonal ranges, more color consistency. Now, when others look at it, they can start to see those qualities that make it so endeared to me.

Before I left Indiana, I made about ten 15" x 15" prints of my work, and when I got to New York, I hung them all over my apartment. Various people saw what I had done and commented the rooms look so much fresher with new art, etc. I was proud of the prints. Now, when I see them, I see muddy, awkward colors, flat shadows, soft details. When I look at them now, I shudder that anyone else ever saw them. Something will have to be done about them...

June 28

A-mus-ing

It seems hard to believe that my time here is almost over. I have been here for twenty-six days, as a 'full-time' artist. Here is what I think I have learned.

The place does not affect my art-making. I will either make it or not, regardless of where I am. When packing/planning to come, I had these lofty goals of having this rigorous schedule when I got here-- up at 7, making drawings in the morning (to warm me up), shooting/scanning/editing/printing all day with a break for sushi lunches, then an evening of reading art theory books and planning more projects. What I was (not) surprised to find, was I didn't want to make drawings at 7, I did not want to shoot all day (I worked on different projects depending on my mood), and I did not want to stop in the evenings and then read some heavy theory. I only had sushi lunch once-- most days I forgot to eat lunch. I did a morning ritual-- not drawings, but emails and blogs. That morning ritual took more time than the Internet should, but then again, a drawing would have probably taken longer. Then I would work on whatever project until I was too exhausted to go on--usually eight or nine more hours. Then I would either want to watch t.v. (mindless), or I would start something else (mindless but productive) and would do that for another five hours. Suddenly in the whee hours of the morning, I would be shocked and realize my morning ritual the following day was even farther from my 7AM goal. On the other hand, did I get any less done than I could have hoped or imagined? No, I did a lot. Maybe I could have done more if I was a different person. But I am me, and I credit myself for having such a broad range of skills and interests as to hold my own attention, if not a sleep schedule.

It is a shame I dragged along so many books.

Last night, I went shopping for some supplies. When I got home, I set the large bag down to go make dinner (yeah, at 10 PM). Torah kept messing with the bag. Eventually I emptied the bag, but left it for him to play with. I was working on the computer when there was a sudden white hurricane through the room, the size of a German Shepard, sounding surprisingly plastic. Within milliseconds, the hurricane came back through the room, in colors similar to Torah. I went to investigate. I found him, bigger and fluffier than I had ever seen, and no amount of comforting would lay down the hackles of his back. I carried him to find the bag, to show him it was okay. In the bathroom, I found Dharma sitting on the toilet tank, the handle of the bag around her body. She looked shocked, but not as much as he did. I took the bag off her, noticing a large hole in the bottom. I can only guess what happened-- and my guess is also far-fetched. Did Torah climb into the bag, then Dharma went to look, got stuck in the handle and ran, dragging him through the apartment? I don't know. But it was hilarious.

June 27

Tonight tonight

June 26

Why t.v. is bad, even on the Inter-webs

I took a break yesterday, and decided to watch the season finale of House on the web, while sewing of course. The above scene, surely stolen from my own art, from Part 1. Part 2 prevented my sewing-- I couldn't see the needle and thread for the tears.

June 25

June 24

It's been four years, but I still miss her so much, my heart hurts.