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Ok, I admit it. The title is a little melodramatic. But what's the fun in being a poor artist if you can't also luxuriate in behaving irrationally and calling yourself tormented? That's a rhetorical question. There is no point.
And now, I would like to recap on the last two months. I'm glad that I've been keeping this blog as a kind of diary, because it enables me to do research on myself later, when I can't remember even what I did yesterday. I tend to forget most things that are not crucial, and some things that are (i.e. my house keys, my cell phone, money when I go to the grocery store, ect.) While most of you are thinking that this is probably due to drug and alcohol abuse, let me assure you that it is nothing that romantic. I think my handicapped memory is due to a combination of genes (Someday I'll write about my mad scientist Grandfather who was both gloriously obsessive and neglectful, and my Mom who thinks of everything simultaneously.) and a tragic occurrence of cerebrucide. What was that? You don't know what cerebrucide is?
That's because it's a latin term that I just coined myself, meaning BRAIN DEATH. Specifically, the slaughter of brain cells that occurs when you buy a gallon jug of turpentine, take the cap off, leave it under your bed (who knows why.) and then stumble upon it six months later, empty. Luckily there have been studies that some neurons replicate after a few decades, so I might be back up to speed by the time I'm fifty. Then, I'll totally kick everyone's ass in "I packed in my grandmother's trunk..."
Since I know that all of you have been reading my blog religiously, I don't feel any need to recap on the paintings that I've created thus far, but I would like to discuss how I've changed as a person.
For starters, this is the hardest I've worked and the most productive that I've ever been in my entire life. This is a really awesome thing and also a kind of scary thing. Until this last week, I would paint all day long usually for more than 10 hours, sometimes more than 12. I say "until this last week" because this last week has been kind an emotional hellhole vortex, so I've been making hideous objects of total disaster and then destroying them.
Becoming so involved with my work is sort of forcing it to change, and allowing me to feel free to experiment in ways that I shunned before. I've been such a puritan with the realism thing, and I'm allowing myself to believe that it is okay to paint in looser, more abstracted styles and that in the long run it might be more satisfying. And do I dare say...perhaps better?
Still there is so much that I want to do, to create and not enough hours in the day to do it. I'm starting to feel so stressed out about money, and the prospect of having to go back to work if my paintings don't start selling again. The thought of working as a receptionist somewhere or god forbid, waiting tables seems so miserable, I don't think I could do it. Painting for only five hours a day, after a long day at work, seems like just the kind of thing that would drive me crazy. I wish there was a patron of the arts who could sponsor me, but I'm pretty sure that kind of thing doesn't happen nowadays unless you're putting out. The D'Medici's are a thing of the past.
And the weirdest thing that has happened this year so far is that I'm starting to feel like a grown up. Don't laugh, I mean it. Of course, I've gone through the motions for quite a while of living on my own and having a job and being responsible, but I feel like I'm transcending into this peaceful place of knowing who I am and what I want and I'm willing to make the sacrifices necessary to get it. Things are becoming more black and white to me now that were before ambiguities. I think my mother raised me to be skeptical, so I've always questioned everything that I read, or heard, or saw. I've been walking the line for so long that as I take sides on matters now, it feels like taking a breath of fresh air. So many things in my early twenties and in my early teens that seemed so important to me seem so silly now. And while I still have outbursts of emotion and days when I can't seem to care about anything or anyone except for myself and my petty problems, those days seem to come farther and farther apart, and sometimes I've noticed one of my impetuous moods surfacing and I chose to ignore it. Simple. I no longer want anyone to baby me, and so I realize I have to stop acting like one.
On that note, here are two paintings that are done. Painting twelve, and painting 13, which is a little fucked up, but I'm calling it done because it is the last day of February and I'd like to say that although I know I'm behind schedule, I'm not that behind schedule. Keep in mind that I've done at least 3 or 4 other paintings this year, but damn my stubborn inner critic, they failed to meet the criteria of *awesome*.
Painting 12
Painting 13
I know what you are thinking. What's up with that fucked up graph on the canvas. That my friends, is my bad. About three years I made the discovery that you can't put oil paint over sharpie, because sharpie is oil based (this is why you ruin your markers when you try to spit on them). Then, I forgot and threw up onto the wood, which I didn't even use, so I'm totally kicking myself. Anyway, this painting is the beginning of a series of paintings where I will be experimenting with painting planes of light, out of focus. This painting is not done. I have to figure out a way to get the sharpie to stop surfacing to the top of my painting.
And now, I would like to recap on the last two months. I'm glad that I've been keeping this blog as a kind of diary, because it enables me to do research on myself later, when I can't remember even what I did yesterday. I tend to forget most things that are not crucial, and some things that are (i.e. my house keys, my cell phone, money when I go to the grocery store, ect.) While most of you are thinking that this is probably due to drug and alcohol abuse, let me assure you that it is nothing that romantic. I think my handicapped memory is due to a combination of genes (Someday I'll write about my mad scientist Grandfather who was both gloriously obsessive and neglectful, and my Mom who thinks of everything simultaneously.) and a tragic occurrence of cerebrucide. What was that? You don't know what cerebrucide is?
That's because it's a latin term that I just coined myself, meaning BRAIN DEATH. Specifically, the slaughter of brain cells that occurs when you buy a gallon jug of turpentine, take the cap off, leave it under your bed (who knows why.) and then stumble upon it six months later, empty. Luckily there have been studies that some neurons replicate after a few decades, so I might be back up to speed by the time I'm fifty. Then, I'll totally kick everyone's ass in "I packed in my grandmother's trunk..."Since I know that all of you have been reading my blog religiously, I don't feel any need to recap on the paintings that I've created thus far, but I would like to discuss how I've changed as a person.
For starters, this is the hardest I've worked and the most productive that I've ever been in my entire life. This is a really awesome thing and also a kind of scary thing. Until this last week, I would paint all day long usually for more than 10 hours, sometimes more than 12. I say "until this last week" because this last week has been kind an emotional hellhole vortex, so I've been making hideous objects of total disaster and then destroying them.
Becoming so involved with my work is sort of forcing it to change, and allowing me to feel free to experiment in ways that I shunned before. I've been such a puritan with the realism thing, and I'm allowing myself to believe that it is okay to paint in looser, more abstracted styles and that in the long run it might be more satisfying. And do I dare say...perhaps better?
Still there is so much that I want to do, to create and not enough hours in the day to do it. I'm starting to feel so stressed out about money, and the prospect of having to go back to work if my paintings don't start selling again. The thought of working as a receptionist somewhere or god forbid, waiting tables seems so miserable, I don't think I could do it. Painting for only five hours a day, after a long day at work, seems like just the kind of thing that would drive me crazy. I wish there was a patron of the arts who could sponsor me, but I'm pretty sure that kind of thing doesn't happen nowadays unless you're putting out. The D'Medici's are a thing of the past.
And the weirdest thing that has happened this year so far is that I'm starting to feel like a grown up. Don't laugh, I mean it. Of course, I've gone through the motions for quite a while of living on my own and having a job and being responsible, but I feel like I'm transcending into this peaceful place of knowing who I am and what I want and I'm willing to make the sacrifices necessary to get it. Things are becoming more black and white to me now that were before ambiguities. I think my mother raised me to be skeptical, so I've always questioned everything that I read, or heard, or saw. I've been walking the line for so long that as I take sides on matters now, it feels like taking a breath of fresh air. So many things in my early twenties and in my early teens that seemed so important to me seem so silly now. And while I still have outbursts of emotion and days when I can't seem to care about anything or anyone except for myself and my petty problems, those days seem to come farther and farther apart, and sometimes I've noticed one of my impetuous moods surfacing and I chose to ignore it. Simple. I no longer want anyone to baby me, and so I realize I have to stop acting like one.
On that note, here are two paintings that are done. Painting twelve, and painting 13, which is a little fucked up, but I'm calling it done because it is the last day of February and I'd like to say that although I know I'm behind schedule, I'm not that behind schedule. Keep in mind that I've done at least 3 or 4 other paintings this year, but damn my stubborn inner critic, they failed to meet the criteria of *awesome*.
Painting 12
Painting 13
I know what you are thinking. What's up with that fucked up graph on the canvas. That my friends, is my bad. About three years I made the discovery that you can't put oil paint over sharpie, because sharpie is oil based (this is why you ruin your markers when you try to spit on them). Then, I forgot and threw up onto the wood, which I didn't even use, so I'm totally kicking myself. Anyway, this painting is the beginning of a series of paintings where I will be experimenting with painting planes of light, out of focus. This painting is not done. I have to figure out a way to get the sharpie to stop surfacing to the top of my painting.
