mimi's japanese maple
oil on panel
this is my favorite painting of mine. I guess I shouldn't say it but it is.
I love it. I wish I were brilliant. I try to be as good as I believe I can be. I push it. I think. I think about Dante and Beatrice lately. And Blake. I love Blake. So I push the brush around and love the feel of it, the slow melted buttery texture, the piney smell permeates the room and me, coming up from the canvas, turps mixed with aromatic varnish and it just blows me away with all it's color and goodness. I'm in such grand company and I think, how did this happen, this good luck? how did I get so lucky in this beautiful place?
apples
oil on canvas
And then I hate it. My disappointing performances take everything out of me. I hate myself. I can't do it. I look at my books, I have so many books! and I try to remember what I was taught, what I've seen, what the Masters tell me over and over: be simple, be clean and simple, SEE clearly, be honest, and by god keep it simple! and I try with all my being to get to it, but it eludes me and I fail. And I shouldn't. I'm good enough not to fail. But I'm not even good enough to be as good as I am. Dear god in heaven.
So the next day I will work and work and think I have it but when I look again later, it's gone and I know it was never there. This is a curse. It's a cosmic fucking joke. I will never find it. Never.
I started drawing a long time ago. I didn't know you could actually be a professional artist, so for me it was a simple activity I did without thinking. I would draw on everything, inside my books, on every piece of paper, on my school desk, on library books, on walls when I wasn't screwing up or telling lies or being bad. What is an artist? How could I be an artist? I never considered I would someday want to consider those questions.
red man
oil on canvas
In my world, in my family people barely made a living doing what they did. My father fixed televisions at a time when people were making fortunes doing it. But not him. Making sometimes less than $10 a week, my parents fought all the time, everything in their lives, our lives was a struggle. No discussion went without a fight, without someone getting smacked, or at least getting screamed at. Usually all of it sequentially or simultaneously.
Art didn't come into my equation as a consideration, much less a concrete tangible goal until I was a grown woman with two small children. Artists were in museums, just like music was on a record.
shaft of sun vermont
oil on panel
The way I figured it, you died, after which someone went through your things or something like that and discovered artness in your secret attic or whatever. Or maybe like Grandma Moses, you were old and once again that handy someone stumbled into your "artistical" life. (She did that kind of thing, Grandma Moses, she didn't just make paintings, she painted her furniture, her walls, her life. so good.) (I couldn't know she was a terrific self promoter, too.)
I was a young musical person for a time. Looking back all roads were taking me to a very specific somewhere I didn't know existed. I worked my way up the ladder of childhood. I was a terribly troubled child but I tried so hard to be serious when I could concentrate and not act out because doing anything creative was like a tonic, I could feel it fill me with the glow of competence and accomplishment.
dante dreams of beatrice
oil on canvas
this is a work in progress and unfinished but I get a kick out of it in all it's many stages...and there have been quite a few of them. at this point dante looks like a sack of potatoes. but I like him anyway, poor bastard.
Our "nuclear" family was nuclear all right. We were a four person war zone, all emotional killing or being killed. And since I was hardwired radioactive, I was one of those kids no one wanted to be near, much less play with. I despised school until I went to college. And most of my teachers despised me right back. I screwed up their neat 50s 60s school ethic. I looked bad, I acted bad, I wasn't nice and my presence was disturbing to them.
But the music, the drawing and being smart when I could muster the discipline got me somewhat in the game. I was the gifted kid with a rotten attitude and dirty socks, the high IQ with such potential the school counselor would call me into her office to ask "why". As if I knew.
self with hat
oil on panel
this is a fun painting. it's not recent, close to 2o years old but I love it. it says on the top, "beware of enterprises requiring new clothes (and lipstick)"
As the class misfit I could make temporary transitions, forays into the regular kid world because I was good at certain things most everyone couldn't do at all. So I drew pictures, acted, sang in chorus, I started with the trumpet and eventually played all the brass instruments in band and played around with the woodwinds, too just for fun. I was empowered. I had somehow managed to get through my noggin these gifts could be my portal to the living.
I had goals, particularly in music: I decided I wanted to be first trumpet in the NY Philharmonic, so I auditioned for and made All Borough Band in Jr High, All City Orchestra for about 15 minutes until I was expelled from high school. But before they came to lock me up in a juvenile facility, I first had to chuck it all and became an official 1960s fuckup, which meant I gave up trying to make believe I could fit in, ran away from home religiously, fell in love with a bad boy and began to seriously challenge my parents, primarily scheming how to get laid and not get murdered. My father had promised he'd "slit my throat" on the Gyn's table if I wasn't a virgin. (I had regular visits to verify the existence of the royal hymen.) I knew him and he would have. That son of a bitch had sat me down and told me his plan from beginning to end. He gave it a lot of thought.
tart!
oil on canvas
By 15 I was leading an intense life. I'm lucky I'm alive. We didn't have drugs then, not like now. But I was ripe for the old "slave trade want a nice lollipop, little girl?" flip. But I must have had angels on my shoulders or I ticked off the devil or maybe there was a special destiny up my ass or something like that because I came through to that point relatively unscathed.
There were two sides to me: the daughter/school disappointment, runaway, fuckup, virgin "slut". And high IQ girl, maybe artist, maybe actress, who knows singer, drop out musician. I was split down the middle with one side barely keeping the other in check. Which meant I never stooped too low but I never reached great highs either. I was existing in limbo. And something was gonna give but good.
to be continued...
funny.
I started writing this Friday night, around 9 or 10. Just jotting down my feelings about being an artist, something to explain the paintings I wanted to post. I had no idea it would grow to this story. It is a story I've never told this way. I suppose I needed to tell it.
By 1:30am or so, I was noodling it (as usual) and ended up clicking (probably) UPDATE and actually posted it. Too tired to copy and delete it with paintings and all, I added the last painting, my Mimi painting and went to bed.
I should promote it and send emails but for this one, I can't. It was hard enough to make it public. So I'm having a problem writing I to people I don't know face to face to say, "hey come on over and look at my work and get to know about me and my rotten life.". So here they are, for you a person who is interested (enough) in the life of an artist to read this far. I hope you come back to read the whole story. As easy as it was to start typing, once it became clear where it was going it became frightening and humbling to write.
Thank you.
Links to Chapter 2 and Chapter 3
Alysa Salzberg
keri h
roberto luigi
Andrea Wainer
daisyjane
Just An0ther 2 Cents
Salon.com
Comments
Thanks for sharing your work. R
It looks nice. I got to have more coffee.
I am BLOWN AWAY at first read and visuals, tho...
John B, so here I am blubbering like an idiot and now you make me smile with your lovely message and compliments.
First one looks dark in the photo, but it's a relatively small painting and very concentrated, very squishy and juicy and alive. I can almost touch the old tree. (but then again I like it) I should probably give sizes because they're all over the place, some paintings big, some very big and some very small.
Penrose: Yes, my life is good now. As you read on, you'll find it was a difficult road to get me to here. It could have gone entirely the other way. Thank you for stopping by.
Trudge, Red Man was a young man I painted at the Art Student's League. That was a fun painting...yes, that cloud over his head, his twisted little face...he seemed to me very moody. But that hair! and his red shirt. I liked that.
I'll try to give more information. Thank you for looking.
I do love the writer. The artist is close to my heart.
I would love to touch those brush strokes on that tree.
Ican feel them already.
Tears...
Your paintings are beautiful and inspiring. I'm so glad you shared them. I don't have a favorite -- I love them all.
Skeletnwmn, yup..this was not easy to do. I had a couple of people ask about the work and I started wondering myself if I'd ever put it up here. So I called my own bluff. Thank you for the compliments. I hope you come back to see the rest.
Rich: hehe
I am never overtly a mess anymore, just badly in need of hair product (and will ya just put on some lipstick!). I try to remain barefoot and sandaled until it gets too cold for even me. Thank you for stopping by.
mgimnm: I've never been called that, but now that you mention it, ZESTY fits. I love that word: "zesty!". I swear you've inspired me to do something with it....it's a spicy word, all strength and acid and sweet. Your compliments are lovely. Thank you.
And then there is your equally gorgeous writing. I'm hooked. I can't wait to read more. And to see more of your beautiful paintings.
I wish I could rate more than once.
I just keep staring.....
So it's imbued with so much love and good feelings. I stayed over there for a few days, when I was living in the city, just painting their little house and shrubs. I think they have most of the paintings, except this one and another that I managed to work to death but recently resurrected and am using in ANOTHER painting.
art recycled.
Thank you for your kind words. I'm grateful for them. Truly.
Torman: my DMZ is still inside but I'm aware of it. And I do my work. I believe in that...doing the work, moving past what you can. So I try. My mother is so forgiven, that I wish she could forgive me for ever having been so impatient with her and her sickness. And my father is now just a sad memory for me to wonder about. There's only a little love there, and that is a generic kind, a child's need to have a father to love.
I'll tell you a little secret. I didn't cry when my father died. But I cried when George C Scott died because he looked exactly like my father. EXACTLY particulary in Patton. That close shaved hair and his nose I think was prosthetic. But it was my dad as a brave human being. GCS was the father I wish I had, although I know nothing about the man, only that face and his powerful acting. But to my heart, HE was more my father than my father because he gave TO me in his performances and I loved his genius.
Theo, I'm sorry you're not up to snuff. You come on back and read. I won't be shutting up for a while so anytime you come back I'm sure there'll be something else to read if youre up to it. I'm glad you like the work. I really am. So I hope you come back to see more as this progresses.
love love back at you!!
CK Dexter H: Thank you. No I haven't read "Leaf by Niggle" but I'll find it and read it. I love Tolkein. I've not read any but the four popular books of his, but I've read them countless times...at least every five years, I tackle them. So this will be fun.
I'll tell you what I'm reading now - The Three Incestuous Sisters by Audrey Niffenegger. Its astounding.
For awhile I threw clay then I gave myself tendonitis. Then for awhile I tried to learn to blow glass but I've been involved in electricity for a very long time and found that I couldn't break the habit of thinking about my every move and triple checking everything I was about to do so I made a lot of lumps of cold glass. Finally just a few years ago I tried drawing with some success. All of these ventures have been guided by college courses which sped the learning curved dramatically. Now I'm in my third semester of painting.
It is like you said both rewarding and miserably humbling. KISS Keep It Simple Stupid is always my downfall. I think it's like golf because the harder that you try the worse you get. Like yje others though it is here to stay.
Don't be afraid to change. You'll find your language. We always do, even if it's for a few moments. :)
thank you for stopping by!
I'm at a point of just being sick to death of people having kids just to fuck them over and then thinking they're something extra special for doing it. (I know, I know, there are clinical reasons for it and they're wounded, too, but goddammit I just don't care any more.)
So Monkey, I'm glad you got yourself a great life and that you're bringing your beauty out of yourself rather than spreading the pain. I'm no art critic but I think I see some of that pain in your style, your colors, your brush strokes. And I think it's the same spark that made you a "bad" kid that makes you an artist now. Keep at it. You're worth it.
And keep letting it out. The other side will be even better.
but thank you. really.
nerd: it's good to see you. you know, when my father died, I stopped in my tracks...I got the call at my friends house, my heart raced and then I pushed it and him aside. I didn't go to his funeral. he was much worse than I wrote about. writing this was difficult for more reasons than my lack of skill....it was nearly impossible to not make him sound like the monster he was to two of the three of us and still be readable.