When You’re Feeling Badly about Art, See Great Art to Put Things Back in Perspective

Saw the first half of the 30 year anniversary show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Very inspiring. Wall text for each work has a quote from the artist.
Here’s Ed Moses, LA artist I follow:

The rational mind constantly wants to be in charge. The other parts want to fly. My painting is the encounter between the mind’s necessity for control and its yearning to fly, to be free from our ever-confining skill.

Slowly Falling off the Cliff

Emails have been circulating among some colleagues about students “working” for free. We often get requests from people in the community who want a student “intern” to do an illustration job, work in a gallery, or shoot photos, etc. The offer is credit or experience in exchange for the work.
My tenured colleagues think this is terrible, that students should be paid for their services, and in a perfect world, they’re right. You wouldn’t expect a plumber to trade for services, why should artists do it?
Well, plumbers and artists are not the same. Here I am, with tremendous skills and experience, and there is no market for what I do. I should be at the height of my career, but there's no career there. It’s sort of disingenuous for me to discourage students from taking non-paying work, when I work for “free” all the time: for my resume, for the contacts, anything to help me make ends meet.
Friends have told me that my paintings are too cheap, but really, I can’t sell a painting for $100, let alone $1000. I should give up my studio because I can’t justify the rent, but I’m loath to do it.
Am teaching about Medieval Europe, explaining to my students that when the centralized government of Rome broke down, and feudalism became the dominant economic force, very little art was produced. When people are starving, can they make art? When educational systems disappear, as they will in California, will anyone care about painting or dance or serious music?
Sad, sad, sad.

Fell

Sort of pathetic… was skating yesterday and misjudged the wind. My return trip was against it, I got tired, and suddenly I was off the bike path, down. Was wearing wrist guards, luckily. Anyway, today I’m a wreck. Have to be more careful.
Then again, maybe it's swine flu...
Finished a painting, can’t tell if it’s good or not. When your brain is jarred, the eyes don’t see.

Still Gazin'

From a review of “The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women,” at Cheim and Read, Sept. 2009, by Sarah Valdez, Art in America:
My women’s group met to discuss our upcoming exhibition of “Women by Women,” and two different members brought in this article. The New York exhibit included work by Nan Goldin, Tracey Emin, Alice Neel, Catherine Opie and Marina Abramovic.

It’s odd to call an exhibition with excellent examples of contemporary and historical female artists work a failure. But the work in it failed to accomplish its goal, which is anyway dated to say the least, of “reclaiming the traditional dominion of the ‘male gaze,’” as stated in the press release. Even if the appealing images in the show are of and made by women, who’s to say they defy the male—or anyone’s—gaze?

Instead, it proved only that women too can create commonplace—sexy, but not necessarily sexist—images that serve mainly to foreground women’s sexuality and beauty.

This opening paragraph of the review is upsetting. To use “failure” twice is strong language, especially when most of the artists listed above are fantastic in their various media and conceptual projects. Valdez was probably not the right person to review the show, if she thinks that considering the male gaze is “dated to say the least.” Most of the members of our group feel it is possible to defy the male gaze, or try, anyway. We approach it many ways: outright defiance, rejection of traditional stereotypes, working subversively within those stereotypes, creating power within existing tropes and ideals.
Women creating “commonplace,” “sexy” images to celebrate women’s sexuality was radical in the not-so-distant past. My images were recently rejected because they are “improper” (not the word used, but you get my point), so at least in SoCal, people can still be shocked by what a woman paints/photographs/sculpts, etc. The male gaze exists as ever, we experience it every f--ing day, and that Ms. Valdez doesn’t think defiance is important makes me wonder about her.
OK, let’s put on a show, girls…
(image by Rasmus Mogensen)

Funhouse Painting

I’ve been painting a lot recently, several hours straight each day.
For the past two days it hasn’t gone well: colors and light not quite gelling, paint not the right consistency, texture too precious. I worked on a different painting each day, trying to stay loose, knowing I wasn’t improving the pieces, but pushing through. I have to figure out how to salvage these two paintings, which could work if edited well.
Tonight I opened my studio for the monthly public showing. Didn’t want to waste the hours, so I threw up a new painting. After about 30 minutes it dawns on me I’m painting well, that it’s so easy, that my brush picks up the correct colors each time, even thought I’m being interrupted by people asking questions and friends stopping by. I love that little creeping feeling that I can’t make a wrong mark, and as confidence grows, I paint better.
There’s no clear reason why I painted well today and poorly yesterday. I just have to accept my rollercoaster abilities, be happy for the highs and work through the lows.

The Hellenistic Canon of Proportion

A friend picked this catalog up for me at ComicCon, knowing how much I’d love it. It advertises an anatomy doll to help artists and designers with drawing the female figure in action.
As you can see, this is no average girl. She’s a super model, super-hero type, 8:1 body to head. What’s the problem, you may ask? This doll is not “Art.” This doll, and others like it, could inform the anime drawings of a generation. This doll is not making fun or idolizing the female form, but “represents” women as they are.
Kloe can handle a beautifully grotesque photo of a woman in an art gallery, and possibly a Photoshopped woman in an advertisement, and even Barbie, but not this.
By the way, I haven’t been able to find out what is happening to my Bratz sisters, but there are many less of us for sale on the toy shelves. Mattel is crazy to cut us—there are no dolls that compare to Bratz, in my humble opinion.

I am a Painting Machine

Know this doesn’t really look like my work, but did it for a friend. Sort of like it, in an Ikea-esque way.

Trade Show Update

I just received word that the "Trade Show" may be exhibited in Ankara! It came down last week in Istanbul. So cross your fingers…
And even more important, many congrats to M on the publication of her dissertation—she’s now Dr. M! Will send the chipotles...

Underground

Collaborating on a project was, once again, wonderful. The process was challenging, and somewhat frustrating at the start, but that made the successful result more satisfying. I feel we all got what we wanted from the piece: I got to paint, my friend got to do more conceptual body “prints” (created with East LA dirt), a third friend suggested the initial "Home Depot" idea… and the final product was bigger than all the parts.
The magazine loved it (but they said they loved everyone’s work… very encouraging guys).
For my part, I had a great painting day, where everything flowed like magic out of my brushes. I finished the entire triptych in about four hours. Rather, four hours plus 25 years of painting…

1 Day of Art LA

Am participating in a 24 hour project with about 15 other artists for (t)here magazine. We all met last night to be interviewed and pick topics out of a hat.
I’m doing the work with a close friend I’ve been collaborating with for years. We picked “underground.”
Which caused us about four hours of panic.
We’re not exactly participants of underground culture, and does it even exist in LA, where everyone’s privacy is displayed on reality tv? Thought about digging holes to see what we could find, but we wanted to make craft as well as do something smart conceptually.
Of course, it was our choice to add difficulty—the time-based surprise plus working in partnership.
Late last night we settled on underground labor. Shot photos today, photoshopped them, drew, painted, conducted interviews… work continues… sort of fun!