gratefulness

Hi Friends of Kloe,

I've had clean-up of "Kloe Among the Turks" on my to-do list for ages. Lots of spam found me, and I've never wanted to use a spam blocker or review each comment before publishing. So I'm restricting comments on this blog. You know where to reach me if you want to chat.

It was the right decision to end Kloe--have been swamped with other obligations. I miss the daily ritual of writing, though. My new blog and website are stalled (sigh), but I'll write when they go up. It's about drawing, but you know me--I can rarely be totally serious or stick to the point.

My painting career continues to progress. I now have a dealer and agent who are pushing to get my work out there. Am even on Artnet! I had a solo show in LA and am in studio every day.

Teaching is not so good. California continues to cut education and I'll be back on the dole soon. Students can't get classes they need to graduate. Californians don't want to pay taxes to support education, so they'll support jails and highways carrying smart people out of the state instead.

If you've been perusing the toy aisles lately, you'll notice there are no Bratz for sale. Legal battles with Barbie hurt production, but new Bratz will be unveiled in Summer 2010. Let's hope they haven't de-sassed us.

Finally, my chef and little artist are fantastic. We have a new hamster, Mickey, because Biscuit departed to Hamster Heaven.

That's it for my Christmas letter in April.
kisses to all.
K

Me, Not Me, Me

I know this blog seems so much about my small life and concerns. Artists are typically egocentric, and shy Kloe is no exception. If you don’t self-promote, nothing will happen and no one will notice you or your work.
So after a weekend of talking nothing except about myself and my work, I need to dig a hole and cover myself with cool dirt, maybe grow something, maybe paint, maybe do some good deeds.
Piece of decoration from Pergamon, 2000 years old, give or take.

You Count

As you may have noticed, I added a map gadget to count the visits by country to this blog. I’d experimented with counters before, but found them too difficult (or maybe I really just didn’t want to know how many, or how few, readers Kloe has). A visual map is somehow less serious.
Anyway, I’m truly thrilled to see dots from Central and South America, the Middle East, India (!), Australia, all over Europe.
Of course, some of you I know, but many of you I don’t. I’m wondering why you might look at Kloe...
Are you, like me, trying to lead a creative life in this world that doesn’t value the effort?
Are you an artist mom, a teacher, a lover of chickens/hamsters/worms (I think I killed my worms!!!)?
Are you trying to make art, find the time/money/energy to get into the studio, like me?
Are you a Turkophile?
Traveler, cook, writer, all those activities of the civilized life?
Well, if you have a blog, let me know so I can check it out. I haven’t updated my blogroll in forever, and I’ll put you on there.

Smarter about PR

I’m not really good about public relations. I like to concentrate on my work, not on how my work is presented or sold. This blog, for example, has never been promoted, or had ads, or even a counter. I just write it for me, and a few friends. You!
(By the way, this is my 763rd post.)
Now, however, I’m being forced to reconsider PR. I must be more pro-active in marketing myself, job situation being what it is.
I saw this exhibit a few months ago at Rosamund Felsen. The paintings were sort of nice—loopy, ice cream colors, what I think of as California abstraction. Nothing great, though, and the person I was with hated them.
On the way out of the gallery I saw the poster. It’s a masterful story of romance: sexy yet sensitive artist, gorgeous studio, hint of the hip scene, whiff of wealth, hot Mediterranean garden… and it explains the paintings. It could be all made up, the guy could be the gardener for all we know, but the paintings are now much more marketable.

Ohhh Sweet Turkey

Here’s an email I got from a friend and former student.

Kloe, I just wanted to write and say thank you for having us start blogs in Eskisehir. I have been keeping mine up and it has led to a column in the local English newspaper. It just started but it is helping me find my own place while living abroad which feels good. Thanks and remember you are a good teacher!

…
Thanks, E!
Please check out her blog here, it’s wonderful, romantic, and funny.

Society Pictures

I’m in my new studio now, but haven’t done anything big. I’m getting used to the space with some fun little gouache paintings on paper taken from a society rag. I’m very intrigued by the relationships of people at parties, what they wear, how they hold themselves. The magazine I’m using covers “Latino” and “White” events, without much overlap, which is also fascinating.
Congrats to me, this is my 700th post.

Another Post Computer-less

Ok.
So almost a week ago my mac stalled and stopped.
I took it to a shop.
A day passed.
Another day passed. I'm not getting a good feeling.
They can't back up the info.
A third days passes and they call with the bad news, obvious at this point. Hard drive is done-for.
Nothing retrived.
They can install a new hard drive, but the guy apologizes that it's a bit expensive, recommends I shop around. I tell him, just install the damn thing, I can't shop around. FIX IT NOW, I NEED MY COMPUTER.
So I picked up my now totally nude mac, and pay the nice man...
Imagine a fire guts out your entire office. Or your closet with all your clothes floods and everything has to be thrown away.
That's the way it feels--liberating in some ways. But you know you've lost a lot, you just can't remember what.
And now I have to track down all the software, drivers, etc. I've never done this before.
I'm just a Bratz, after all.
But I'm reinstalling Photoshop, and should be able to post again tomorrow.
In the meantime, Happy Passover and Happy Easter.
Eat chocolate matzo and eggs like this is the end.

That Thing You Know is Inevitable Happened

I've known for a while that I've become dangerously dependent on my Mac and the web. It was in Turkey, that I started to do most of my communicating online. Before that, the computer was not in the living room, the bedroom, the kitchen or studio. It was in a far off office, and if I spent time in front of the screen, it was not a priority.
In the space of two and a half years I've become utterly dependent.
Yesterday my computer just went blank. I was trying to help a friend and attached a foreign camera. I also downloaded a software update. Everything slowed, and stopped. Not good. I didn't even have a yellow pages to track down a shop.
Bad, very bad.
It's spring break so I don't have school computers to check online. What a strange feeling, to be so detached.
Anyway, if you know me, don't email. Thank goddess I don't have an iphone that depends on my computer.
And take a lesson: back up (I do this regularly). It could be worse.

Full to Bursting

I’ve seen six art exhibitions in less than 24 hours and my brain is about to explode with the highs and lows. Plus I’ve started a new artist group that I’m very excited about, a women’s figurative collective.
However, an experience sticks out and must be addressed immediately, a gallery exhibition of one of my favorite local artists, Richard Allen Morris. Several years ago I took a group of students to see his retrospective, and it was fantastic: the students were both outraged and intrigued by his experimental sensual abstractions. Morris has been a constant presence in the local art scene, but has only recently gained national and international acclaim (meaning: there is always HOPE). This show was full of tiny works, like little cakes, with thick impasto and taffy colors.
Anyway, I asked the gallery director for permission to take photos, and he said yes, but when he saw me in my cute little pirate outfit, he said that I/Kloe in the photo might demean the artwork. Which of course is utterly the opposite of what I intend. By inserting myself in every photo in this blog I only show I’ve really been there, and hopefully get my readers to participate in the artwork differently than a straight review with artwork-only photos.
But in deference to Mr. Morris and Mr. Stevenson, I’m breaking my rule and publishing the photos without my image. I do hope they will read this and see that I mean no harm, that in fact I am deadly serious about living and breathing art, albeit with a bit of sexy playfulness thrown in.
Anyway, Mr. Morris, I lurve your work!
With respect,
Kloe Among the Turks

Short Blogger

The other day I met a friend at an opening. He’s been reading Kloe, and it helped him to start his own blog about art and stuff, something he’d been meaning to do. But after his initial post, which was great, he found himself intimidated, thinking each entry had to be perfect, well thought-out, and lengthy. I murmured that some blogs, like mine, are more like twittering, little ideas about what I’m thinking or doing. I told him I like blogs where the writers post often and regularly, if sometimes cursorily.
My friend complimented me that I write about so many different topics, but may have just been being polite…
However, he got me thinking about my “lack” of long, in-depth posts. I used to believe I could be an author, that I enjoyed writing and had something to say. Keeping Kloe for the past two and a half years has cured me of literary aspirations. I don’t care about words enough—I often find them burdensome.
What Kloe has helped with, whether I have readers or not, is clarifying the important threads weaving through my life…

Stalker

I attended a lecture by French conceptual artist Sophie Calle. She and her work (you can’t separate the two) are amazing. She became famous for spying on strangers, but her photos and text are much richer and funnier than just that. She illuminates her life with terribly intimacy, yet at a distance.
Calle calls herself an intuitive artist, and packages her work into one long narrative. She plays with her fears and takes lots of risks, as do many artists. She looks for “natural endings” to each piece, such as ending a relationship, or trip, or life (for example, the exact moment of her mother’s death). She’s very feminine (wore boots and a chic dress to speak), and her themes include beds, sleeping, love and sex. She presents herself as vulnerable. Whether that’s the truth or not is of no consequence.
All this hits home for me very hard, as I’m being accused of using my life in my artworks in a way that is endangering my loved ones. I may have to take down parts of this blog. As a semi public figure, I find it hard to accept a blog is more dangerous than lecturing in front of hundreds of students at four different institutions, where people know my name, see me in person several times a week, can follow me to my car, have my email, etc.

Tapout Response Response

See original post and comments here.
Kevin Freitas:
… the goal of the Tapout was to bring into the public domain, that "dialogue" you perform professionally with your students. Some of the other underlying issues are the notion of "authority" and role playing that every one of us is locked into as either artist, critic, gallery, collector, teacher, etc. - who decides?, who's right?, who declares that what they make or see is art? The goal in part, was to open up the domain of the art world and to shed a little modest light onto its functioning. Specifically, I've found … that any dialogue or support of one's peers is sorely lacking and exists if you're lucky, in secular university settings.

Kloe:
I totally agree with you. I often tell my students that once they finish school it will be difficult to find anyone interested in talking about their work. Even “tough” crits are better than none at all.
There’s hope, however, because of that strange new television entertainment: scathing celebrity critiques of singers, fashion designers, cooks, dancers, etc. Not much precedence for it, except maybe in the literary world. Will it become fashionable to have cultural opinions?

Once out of this environment, that insular bubble is replaced by another bubble which is the gallery and museum. The public is once again left out and required to "appreciate" viewing an object that someone else has declared "art". School critiques are for the most part obselete, what we need is to have those critiques exist outside of the university and in the public domain. This is ideally, what critics should do, but if you read say for example Critical Mess: Art Critics on the State of their Practice by Raphael Rubenstein, you'll discover that even a critic's "taste" has been circumvented by huge auction houses and big name galleries who are preaching entirely to the money choir - the interest is no longer in the art or its meaning/interpretation.
The problem with galleries and museums is that they are not going to critique necessarily an artist they are going to exhibit, make a selection yes, critique no - there's too much of a mutual vested interest, and besides, the artist has gained the temporary status of "accepted" and is beyond any further critique.
You should hear Hugh Davies on Damien Hirst…

Art Tapout is a start Kloe, having only been the second time performed, there is obviously a huge potential for growth and a larger inclusivity. Given the 20 min. round to each critique, it is not possible to bring up every facet of an artist's work nor elaborate on the response. I don't believe any topics were off topic, but once again, in a limited time format, you have to pick an angle and keep on topic knowing that there are other avenues to pursue.
I think you could tweak your format, since you’ve tried it twice… what about having two critics playing devil’s advocate to one another? What about making the rounds only 15 minutes, upping the pace a bit? What if the artist has an advocate in the audience for back-up, as it’s nerve wracking to be in front of so many people AND be critiqued?

Why young? Why all white? curious set of questions. David White made the selection of the artists, I didn't want to for fear of being too biased. His selection makes perfect sense if you think about it and recall his response to the Movers and Shakers exhibit in which he lamented the fact that there was no younger artists with innovative works beyond the medium of painting. The token woman? I think Kloe, you're reading way more into the selection than there actually is, the potential inference to a "boys club" or any gender bias is unfounded. On the flip side of this is the question of choice, and is what I feel is the most misunderstood aspect of the art world. Simply, fewer exhibition spaces mean less choices, couple this with each gallery or museum director's subjective and personal - this is what I like - selection process, and someone will always be excluded.
I do think there is a boys’ club here. I felt it in grad school and I feel it in the selection of who shows in local galleries. I see it when certain media and content are labeled chick-ish, until appropriated by male artists, when it’s “fresh.” Curators and gallerists create their program/stable partially based on their social circle, who they drink beer and throw darts with.
Sorry, you’ve hit a nerve in my pretty plastic body…

Finally, I don't do all this to entertain other people, I do it because I'm concerned about how franchised the art world is and how disconnected from the public it has become. A little honest, direct dialogue amongst everyone, especially here, support of one's peers, the willingness for artists to take control of their destiny, and the the total rework of the art world system, would greatly improve the understanding of art and its rightful place in society. It's a bitch because no one wants to take the lead.
Here I disagree with you. Everything is entertainment. I must entertain when I teach, or I bore. I must entertain with my art, or no one will look at it. You adopt a certain style to attract attention, you speak and write hoping people will listen (and they do!)
You’re taking a lead, and we appreciate it. I take a lead when I suggest to my students gallery hopping as a fantastic (and cheap) date...
And I’m not your nemesis, baby. I’m your ally and fan.
Kiss.

Richard Gleaves:
One person's problematic is another's catnip - I find the tapout happenings to be compelling precisely because of how they blur the categories of theatrical performance and crit review.

I've talked with Kevin about how the two tapout events have gone, and one of the things we concluded is that all participants need to be made aware of this blur ahead of time, since the nature and degree of aggressiveness appropriate for an art crit differs significantly from that of a cage match.

The worst-case scenario here is where the ref is thinking wrestling while the artist is thinking crit review. The best is where the artist grabs the metaphor by both horns and releases their inner performer.

YES! And love your floppy curtain. Will take photos soon.

Money—Blogging—Creating

Heard a fascinating Terry Gross interview on “Fresh Air” with Lawrence Lessing about the internet, blogging, copyright and culture. The conversation focused on how people, mostly amateurs, upload creative content (writing, photos, video on every subject imaginable) to the web for free. Big sites like Google and YouTube make money off all this free content. Some well-created sites, including blogs and MySpace music pages, make small amounts of profit for the artists, but not on scale of the late 20th century.
Lessing thinks this is OK, because the idea of the amateur contributing to culture, as opposed to passively consuming mass media as we did through television and large publishing organizations, is coming back into vogue. Just as before the phonograph and radio many people played instruments and sang, now everyone can make a movie, create their own newspaper, or self-publish a song. Quality isn’t an issue, the action is what is important.
I fit into this argument. I write several blogs and am putting free drawing lessons on the web. I want people to draw as they did before photography was invented, because there is a hunger to create. Plus people miss Bob Ross…
However, I do want and need to make money eventually, because I am not an amateur. The question is how to do that. In the coming year I’ll be telling my Kloe readers more.
I hope all your holiday plans are going well.
And Happy Hanuka!
(student drawing combining Michelangelo with a Picasso portrait)

Gradual Morph

I haven’t been posting regularly. Kloe Among the Turks seems to be transitioning into another type of blog, one less about everyday stuff and more about my struggles as an artist. I need to be careful about what I write about teaching and about my personal situation.
But to tell you the truth, my life is just not as interesting as it was when I lived in Turkey. Well, at least it’s as uninteresting as any long-haired-blond, wide-blue-eyed, high-heeled doll’s life can be.
So come back and read, just not often, so you won’t be disappointed. Someday I’ll be famous, but for now, I’m just a typical starving artist and over-worked teacher, proud mom and frivolous party girl.
kisses

Bitch Out

• A student basically dissed me today when I tried to help him.
• I got sent home from a lunch meeting because I had a kid with me.
• Arnold is threatening to cut pay for State workers, possibly including me, to minimum wage.
• I nearly faint every time I fill my gas tank. And fall semester hasn’t even started.
• Some are reading this blog for truthful information. I AM A DOLL!
• I deparately need pizza, the thickest and greasiest possible.

You. Must. Read. This.

She’s my friend, she’s Turkish. English is not her first or possibly even second language. But she writes AMAZING. Plus she lives in an incredible wooden Armenian house in one of the most picturesque neighborhoods of Istanbul, she’s an artist, designer, but above all, she’s smart. Very smart.
Elif, seni seviyorum.

kloe.500

This is my 500th Post. I never thought I’d continue this far. Have thought I might quit, and have slowed down a bit. But maybe Kloe still has things to accomplish…
I send you all much love from my beautiful, plastic world.

Blogging Pasttime

Partially influenced by me, a student recently started a blog. She’s enthusiastic, but I overheard a colleague tell her, “You must have a lot of time on your hands.”
I wonder about that, do we take time from our real lives to do this narcissistic thing? I regularly dip into about a dozen blogs, but no one’s story is worth reading every day. No writer or image-maker can sustain that kind of interest. Sometimes an interesting narrative arc develops (and we may not even be aware of it as we are writing), but other times our lives are filled with mundane details that would only interest a sociologist.
What’s the value of blogging? For me, who has always kept journals, it gives an order to my days and months. I see threads, I think about bigger stories, I keep my eye above my petty anxieties while I’m experiencing them. It’s like free therapy.
I don’t read blogs of my on-ground friends. I like to hear what’s happening with them over coffee. I somehow feel it’s a violation of privacy for me to read about them without them knowing about it.
So to my flesh-n-blooders, sorry, but please tell me in person (better yet, read me poetry, a theme in my life right now). And you know not to tell me that you read this, right?
sculpture by Andy Goldsworthy

492…

A BIG milestone is coming up for Kloe Among the Turks.

You are Your Avatar

I heard about this study on NPR in which a group of scientists have deduced that if you choose an “attractive” avatar through which to live your online life, your real life will be influenced, and you’ll start to think of yourself as more attractive. You will lose weight, you will choose cuter friends, you will be more social, etc. You will become more like your online self.
Sort of strikes home for me. Did I choose Kloe because she is me? Am I her? I am blond and blue-eyed, and that’s why I chose Chloe/Angel, and not Jasmine or one of the other Bratz (ALL of whom I think are sweet; sorry, I just love Bratz). I have a sort of Bratty figure too. Have I become more like her, or was she always there, a sort of sassy girl hiding behind my Waspish background?
What if I’d decided to use a Cabbage Patch doll instead (shudder the thought)? Would I have ended up on a farm in the Midwest, quilting and riding tractors? Would I not have this fetish for very high heels and baring my metaphorical mid-drift?
Anybody had a similar experience?