i still believe that love is out there

Studio Update: October..

sketchbook drawing, ink and colored pencil

painting studies, oil on wood panel, 8"x8" and 12"x12" panels

one day, i will be a real artist. sketchbook drawing, ink and colored pencil

going nowhere. oil on wood panels, 10"x10" each

wild geese

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

the object and the negotiation

Art-making is a constant negotiation. Between the world, its movements, this city, a job, family, personal roadblocks. As a child, I looked at the artist as free from restraints, free to create, to make, to live outside of the every day negotiations that seemed to plague the non-creative. I see this as a faulted view now. No one is unrestrained. The artist almost has a more difficult relationship with these factors, as she is constantly clawing out time in the day to create, paving a route that walks between the fantastic creative spirit and the world. I wonder, if given all the time in the world, what kind of art would she create? I believe that it is this relationship with the social order, the daily grind, the negotiations made with time and interest management that make the desire stronger. The work is at times a response or a release from social restraints. It comes from a place that is here and now. The negotiation is as much a part of the art as the object.

Big Girl Job: Ink Drawings in studio

One should be able to seek inspiration from life's daily situations. So I have begun using my time spent in the office as subject matter for a new series of ink drawings, which will hopefully develop into a larger project. Much like the scenes of the suburbs, the American Dream, its loneliness and desires, can be seen in these seemingly mundane objects. The office chair, the computer, the window viewing out onto a bustling New York City street: they are symbols of progress, of success, of having what I've heard it referred to as a "big girl job". The objects, spaces, and technologies utilized to attain this concept of success are utilitarian and serve the purpose of connecting our bodies to our task. They can also seem distant, forgotten, and stark. A few recent explorations below:

Summer Inspiration

"if there is nothing in common between you and other people, try being close to things, they will not desert you; there are the nights still and the winds that go through the trees and across many lands among things and with the animals everything is still full of happening, in which you may participate.."

-- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Dreams of Love: Brooklyn Studio move-in

Officially moved my art storage out of my bedroom and into a new studio space in Brooklyn! On a 90 degree NYC Saturday, my lovely friends helped move boxes, easel, table, etc down a 4th floor walk up and into an old creeky freight elevator off Grand Street. An exhausting few hours, but totally worth it! Didn't have the heart to actually set the space up properly yet, but I am excited to begin working on new projects and share the space with the talented Josh Bricker. Some photos of the day below:

view from our floor

inspirational quotes abound.

i think we should call this the magic throne

the space.

...and it wouldn't be a proper end to moving, without playing in the busted fire hydrant down the street :). I love Brooklyn!

What ever it takes...

I have heard many artists say to not take on a full time job in order to pursue art post graduate school. Call me old fashioned, but I firmly believe that artists need to find a way to financially support their practice (we can't rely on government funding alone), and a full time job is a good option for some. There is no magic trust fund or sugar daddy in my life, as I'm sure there isn't in yours, and if you want to make it in New York City, well, then it better be "by any means necessary" to support this endeavor. It should be that important, and artists shouldn't be above any methods of supporting themselves (within reason).

I personally feel that a full time job gives me security, and allows me to afford a studio space. Now, the great balance will be in finding the time to physically make the work, and to maintain a healthy level of networking within the arts community. And for some artists, this can be done! For myself, art is not separate from life, and whatever situation I am in work-wise or in life, I believe that art has a place within it. Isn't this the great challenge of the artist, to be a part of the world and also ask questions of it, and create from their own experiences? It is the ability to traverse between both the physical world and the metaphysical which makes us visual philosophers.

Here is a link to the MADE HERE Project featuring a video of artists discussing their day jobs, and what it takes to make their practice a reality. I find myself eye rolling at the last guy in the piece, because if it were just that simple, everyone would be an artist.