Something Slow

A friend of mine came over today and we spent the afternoon doing creative stuffs, talking, and drinking beverages with caffeine. She is a painter, and is inspiring/prodding me to try my hand more regularly at painting. Sadly, I find the idea of painting utterly terrifying, even though it's a medium I wish I was more proficient in. I think at the moment I am simply daunted by the task of getting my basic drawing chops back that jumping into painting just seems a bit too forward to me. Oh well, she got me to paint waves two weeks ago and those didn't turn out looking quite as nightmareish as I had expected.

But this week I woke up knowing I wanted to use graphite. Great big solid hunks of shiny grey mineral were dancing before my eyes and I just couldn't wait to get my hands, clothes, and everything else I touched covered in the stuff. And so that is exactly what happened.

I spent the morning perusing some fun illustrations on deviantart, a site where I have sporadically lurked for at least ten years, and found myself really wanting to draw people. People, people, people, hands, faces, legs, torsos. All of it. Well, I ended up just drawing a head today (props to Michelangelo and the Medicis). But I think I am satisfied for the time being. I worked on it slowly over the course of the afternoon and really felt like I wasn't rushing it, for once. I love to rush things, and so slowing down, talking while I'm drawing, and sipping tea is a pretty good change from my normal frantic pace.

Giuliano de' Medici

I have also learned that it can really help my mental process to listen to something I can actually think about (such as a book on tape or classical music) instead of blasting skrillex or something else I can easily panic too when the project isn't turning out exactly as I had hoped. This is a good lesson for me. More books on tape, less skrillex.

And speaking of books on tape. It turns out the public library has an awful lot of digital downloads available. I think next week I will listen to Pilgrim's Progress since it is good background for my Inkling's reading group. It will also be full of lots of terribly un-subtle allegories and words I forgot/never knew existed. Eeeeeeexcellent.

Praxis

So I have been working on trying to develop a theory for my new/old creative practice. I am such a purpose oriented person that when I can't find good reasons (and by good I mean personally convincing) to do a particular thing, I tend to denigrate the notion of purpose in general and spiral into a state of overwhelming nihilism. SO, to prevent that from happening, I usually need to come up with some "statement" that I can pull out to convince myself and others that what I am doing has validity. Perhaps "l'art pour l'art" is the only statement I need, but in my experience this so unconvincing to me that I almost certainly become a ferret wielding nihilist.

In the past, my biggest issue has been obsessing over the statement. I have been so attached to the need for the statement, that I cease any praxis and only contemplate theory. Which is not very useful for an artistic practice. So in periods where I haven't made anything, I have come to ask myself, do I just not like making art anymore? And the answer is overwhelmingly, "I don't think so.....". I just love to obsess over questions to which I may never know the answer.

My new goal is to escape this horrible and soul destroying cycle of madness by developing a new theory WHILE engaged in praxis. Genius? That's what I thought. For me, it is time that the active life superseded the contemplative life. I have, like, a good 7-9 years of contemplation under my belt at the very least. So yeah, I think it's time to move on. If I couldn't come up with a good reason for doing the very thing I want to do most over those 7-9 years, I may never. So, time for praxis.

In other news, I will supplement my own batty thoughts with readings from more intellectually organized people, like Arthur C. Danto. This should help with the process of actually developing a theory I can handle stating out loud.

And, last but not least, two things I worked on this week. Which might and some way be a metaphor for my churning insides and brain schisms. They are both pictures of waves. The first is acrylic. The second, which I morphed into a more terrestrial-scape, is graphite.

Hello Portland

Hi.


It has been so damn long since I wrote anything public on the internet. Which means the very act of even considering writing this entry has made me feel all scared and paranoid again. Which probably means I am going to say something inappropriate and embarrassing. Which can never truly be deleted. And which I will horribly regret for the rest of my life. Oh well!

So anyways, I guess I better do some quick catching up. Myself and M (as I like to refer to my husband) have recently relocated back to the Pacific Northwest after our brief (2.5 year) stint in Michigan. We were there for a variety of reasons; to enjoy the wildlife, brave absurd windchill factors, and experience racial diversity. Actually, these are all just things we happened to notice we were experiencing after we moved there for one singular reason, so M could procure a very special and valuable piece of paper from the University of Michigan. This paper would happen to have his name, the phrase "Doctor of Jurisprudence," and then the signatures of some important people who can vouch for him in case anyone tries to tell him he actually didn't spend 2.5 years in Michigan reading a lot of mundane things (including but not limited to how to determine the property rights of a whale post harpooning) with a convincing level of comprehension.

Anyways, M managed to qualify for his special paper. And there were some other nice people in Oregon who happened to like him and who would also like to employ his services as a Doctor of Jurisprudence in the upcoming year. So here we are. There is only one flaming hoop left at this stage. In 24 days from now he must sit down and convince the State of Oregon that he learned enough during the paper procurement process and that he is of sound enough mind to remember and apply all the things he learned for many years to come. Then maybe he will be able to make a livelihood as a Doctor of Jurisprudence.

But enough about that. What else happened over the last 1.3 years?

-We managed to obtain another cat. This one is big and fluffy and orange and full of trouble. We call him Crookshanks.

-I de facto ran a small business. It wasn't especially pretty.

-I started running and can now last at last 1 mile before I start to feel like a complete bitch.

-I died my hair blonde.

I think that will do for a summary of things up until the present.

Since moving back to Oregon I have managed to make our apartment cozier and more organized than any place we have ever lived. It is good for my anxiety. I also have a, get ready for it, A WHOLE ROOM TO MYSELF! That's right. I can make shit and do whatever I want in it. It is awesome.



So yeah. From this day forward, I shall be making shit and maybe writing about it.

Two Projects

This week has been spent working on a couple of digital projects. One for Nd, one for Sean.

I feel I was really able to hit the mark with the project for Nd. It is a logo for a city planner turned private planning consultant. I am still working on Sean's, which is for the company he started with a friend in Guatemala. It is coming along, but is mostly still in experimental stages. I haven't come across any idea I am totally crazy about yet, but such is the creative process.

Strangely, I don't really mind sitting in front of the computer for four+ hours working on experimental design projects after a long day of work Odd? Yes, I thought so.

The one thing I am learning is that simple design is usually the most successful. I tend to start cautiously, only introducing one or two elements at a time, but this quickly grows into a stage of frenzied excitement, during which I slowly grow frustrated with the lack of progress I believed surely must await with all the added flourishes, and then, painfully and slowly loosen my den mother grip on their unique wonderfulness and pare them down, one at a time, until the not so shitty stuff remains.

As time consuming and frustrating as the process can be, it is totally and completely necessary because the end product usually shares little or no resemblance with whatever I started out with. It is kind of sad and amusing to think that all those initial seeds of inspiration are usually just delusional little nuggets of desire to create something expressive and beautiful. At least in the end you have a product you would be willing to show your mother without feeling the need to wear a paper bag over your head.

Momo is good. I am good. Mike is OK. He has a lot of homework. But we ordered pizza, so that eased the pain a little.

Gnight blog.

Momo, the Queen of Peaches

We welcomed Momo into our apartment after a traumatizing car ride home from the humane society. She is in good health the vet says, and should be over her temporary post-shelter kitty cold sometime in the next week. We documented her first evening thoroughly.









Momo! We love you!

Cat Times

Two pieces of news today.

#1

Gonna get me a piece of glass tomorrow.

What for?

Monoprints. The cheapest form of printmaking around.


#2

Gonna get us a cat tomorrow. That's right, a 12 lb calico kitty. And we might even call her Momo, the Queen of Peaches.

The complex we are in allows pets, so we have decided to take advantage of the opportunity and get a feline companion. It was actually Mike's idea, believe it or not.

And the apartment is just about organized. I finally have assembled our much needed floor lamps and taken the last of the boxes sitting in the hallway down to the storage unit. And I have an art corner. I am going to start using it tomorrow, right after I get my piece of glass. And then there will be much print making. Maybe I'll even rent a booth at the farmer's market this winter.

This is what our apartment looked like the first week we moved in.



And it looks pretty much the same now, minus the bike's in the corner.

And this is the kitchen/art niche the first week we moved in.



It is less barren now, the walls lined with book shelves filled with art supplies.

And yes, I did just have to take my china out the instant we moved in so I could play with it and pretend I was about to cook something fancy. Of course, no such thing happened, but it was fun.

Updated pictures to come once the camera charges.

Sean