and so it begins

an obvious post

i'm in the midst of learning an important lesson in art making: mail order is completely unreliable...buy local at all costs!

unfortunately, i was not able to find what i wanted locally, so i am a victim of back orders and slow shipping. what i thought would be some end of the term fall projects are going to end up being beginning of the term winter projects. alas.

i've been doing so much research and reading, but i also feel the need to be DOING. so i have started some drawings as pretty immediate interpretations of what i've been thinking about. the result of just diving in is perhaps that the content of the work is a bit "obvious". but work begets work, especially for me. tell me, dear reader, do you believe that obviousness is automatically negative? i don't think i do, but it merits more thought. it reminds me of the video that lori posted, of david foster wallace talking about fluff words.


here are somethigns i have been thinking about and/or researching:
-english gardens/versailles/history of house plants
-democratizing art
-beauty
-novelty nature
-a quick phone conversation from 6:31pm-6:55pm about chaos theory
-laurel nakadate's discription of her work as "hilariously sad"
-"people want relationships to be everything or nothing...but in between, there's a lot" -laurel nakadate
-the benefits of limitations
-the willing suspension of disbelief
-ghettoization

i also moved this weekend, so that destroyed my studio time. i still have no images to post as a result of my still broken digital camera. i also no longer have internet at home, so i find my entertainment from raccoons peeking into my windows at night.

a stormy brain

i've been trying to do some big time deconstruction of my ideas in hopes of better understanding their roots, and my motivations. filling pages of notebooks, putting them down for a few days, and coming back to them with fresh eyes. drawing web graphs in hopes of connections revealing themselves to me as i work through them.

i recently watched the documentary about r. crumb, and he made a simple statement that i really related to. he said "i don't work in terms of conscious messages. i can't do that. it has to be something that i'm revealing to myself while i'm doing it". now i differ a bit in that i do start off with an idea of the message, but i purposely begin a piece before i have the entire message completely fleshed out. i relate to crumb in how the learning occurs for me during the process of making.

i've had a good amount of studio visits and critiques by now, and more than once, i have received the comment that i have strong drawing skills, followed by an implication that perhaps i shouldn't automatically rely on them. i could be reading that into it actually, but nonetheless it is something i have come to think about. is drawing necessarily the best way for me to convey my ideas? it is something i believe i will always do, but is it a requirement for every piece? i'm thinking more about the ways i could work outside of drawing, and most likely after some experimentation "out there", i will find a way to bring the two ends of the spectrum to some balanced middle ground.

i have some ideas for some sculptural, photographic, and installational works. i also have thoughts on pieces that focus on the collection of information or dialogue, but haven't figured out how i could exhibit my results. for those ideas, i almost think of the experience itself as the piece, but of course if i wish to communicate it to an audience, i have to formulate that aspect.

this is a pretty vague entry. perhaps i am finding that i am uncomfortable speaking too much about my ideas in a public forum until they are under some manner of execution. i will say that one of the web graphs i drew today started out with the concept of overpopulation among deer and humans, and that some of the outer circles of the graph ended up with subjects such as faux bois, human denial of animal instincts, modern illusion of nature, and wallpaper. i assure you that the middle parts of the chart are completely fascinating as well.

at first, the various ideas i've been coming up with have felt pretty disparate, but i am beginning to see that they share a common theme, which has revealed itself to be Control...or Loss Of Control (i capitalized to show how important it is...of course). there are separate intricacies to each idea, and i am more than okay with that, but i still feel very compelled to seek a connection sometimes.

"Works of art have to be free enough in the culture to sustain reinterpretation over the years, and they have to continue to happen, and that's very difficult."

sing it, dave hickey