Book Release

It's a book release party and you're invited. The new monograph is now available here. There will be a limited number of copies printed, but sadly I am unable to number them. You can preview the book in the bookstore. Hopefully, my Twitter followers at LACMA , the Hirshhorn and the Guggenheim (we're like this, really) will pick up a few dozen for the gift shops....right. I hope you won't wait for that to happen either.

Thanks to all the contributors: Andrew Howard, Mary Jo Matsumoto, Aaron Miles, Christopher David Koeppel, and D.A. Adams. Special thanks to Justin Metcalfe for directing and shooting the film. The writings are all top shelf, and as I blogged previously, a unifying narrative really emerged.

I am happy with it and thankful to move on.

slow discovery

The book arrived yesterday. The cover image needs to be adjusted, I experienced a lot of darkening and lost focus in the printing process, so I'll have to overcompensate. The final F&S painting's image is lackluster, but it is a difficult one to capture correctly. Other than that I'm pleased. The distortion in color is counterbalanced by the amazing sense of surface detail, as many of the paintings appear from multiple angles and distances. I feel one really gets an overall sense of them if not a perfect replication. Many times over my NYC weekend, the conversation came back to the reproduction of art and how it is never the same as the real thing. So after fixing these two minor issues, I'm setting it loose and moving on. I could tweak it for another few months, but it would never be perfect given the combination of technology, resources and ability at my disposal.

I seem to be struggling a bit these days. I am unable to get more paper right now, and so everything must go on indefinite hold. I was approached by a designer for a bank she is working on, but it remains to be seen if this will actually pan out. It's funny, but even though I desperately need the injection of cash, the reason I hope this works out is because I would love to see the work end up in a public venue. The potential income from the sale is pretty small.

I have refused large sales in the past based on the environment and presentation of my work. I know this sounds insane at my level, but this is the one area of my life where I will not compromise. On the rare occasion I have, it has always been disappointing.


Aside from the all-consuming book and traveling I have been working. These works on paper are much slower, which I find surprising. I really like the size and format, it feels very comfortable to work in. They are large but not huge. Even framed, I can actually see these in a normal space with mere 8' ceilings. When I am able to replenish my materials I look forward to seeing where all of this goes.

In truth, I don't even know if these two works are in any way finished or even if they will be kept around. They seem to me part of a larger process, but I am not always the best judge of my work. In reading and re-reading my book last night I was able to get an external perspective on my work. I'm still chewing on that.

outside looking in

I suppose in any field, one looks to those who are successful and wonders what it would be like to achieve that level of status. I am thinking of that scene in "Basquiat" where a young Jean-Michel is looking into the window of Mary Boone's gallery, catching only glimpses of the artists, the players and the exhibition. We know as the audience that this is foreshadowing, -that Basquiat will soon be an insider himself (Schnabel is a lot of things, but subtle he is not). Yet the character does not yet know this himself. His perception of what is transpiring inside is distorted (again, literally because of the frosted glass) and he will soon discover that which we long for is very often not what we thought it would be.

I'm claiming no moral high ground on this point. There's no nobility in poverty, and less so with age. I have Savile Row tastes and a TJ Maxx budget, and the decisions I make daily over relatively small amounts of money are as annoying as they are often demoralizing. The work sells only sporadically, -when at all, and for prices that hardly cover expenses. I long for 5-figure sales, indeed it is a personal goal. No, what I'm saying is simply that I think it's important to remind myself why I do it, and focus less on comparing myself or my work with anyone else.

I'm watching a lot of people at the moment, learning and listening and observing. Often what I see is encouraging and reaffirming, as it was in New York. But sometimes what I see is tragic and insular, where human anxiety, ego and insecurity impair everyone's vision and they no longer see the lack of quality and substance in front of them. The two commonly-held beliefs are that you can either produce really significant work and live your life in obscurity, or make popular schlock, surround yourself with acolytes and cash your checks. I don't accept a worldview based on dichotomies. Rarely I have seen life be an "either-or".

When you find your own voice, you bring forth a personal vision of the world wrapped in a certain universality. People respond to it, but that doesn't mean it is something that can be easily marketed. When I used to throw parties for a living, I observed that people would not dance to music that was really new and cutting edge until they had heard it a few times. This would confound my DJ and I to no end, because we worked so hard to stay ahead of the curve and bring in sounds that were only beginning to surface. But I think most things are like that. In truth, the truly new intimidates people. I think there's a tendency to dilute it with some stylistic element of familiarity out of fear that if you don't, no one will give it a chance.

I feel very much on the outside looking in. The important, popular people are inside laughing and drinking and slapping each other on the back. Right now, it all feels like relentless struggle. I believe I'll be in there, yet I have to wonder what parts of me are waiting inside. What aspects of "me" will rise to the forefront to deal most effectively with those surroundings? What will be lost, because everything in life comes at a price.

I spent the last few days watching the waves. I haven't surfed in 20 years, and more than a few times this weekend I wondered why not.

le mer

pas de duex (detail), 2009, Rico

I am off to Myrtle Beach to enjoy cold, windy rain someplace else.

In all seriousness, the bad weather should begin to lift tomorrow and we'll get a few nice days in. I am honoring a promise and initiating a new vacation practice by leaving my BB at home and unplugging for the weekend. I've got a copy of "Death in the Afternoon", a sketchbook, and I'll pick up a few stogies at a nice shop I found there on our first trip a few years ago.

Hope everyone has a great end of week and weekend.

tuesday night notes

Interesting night last night. A deluge; rain pounding the roof in a deafening flow, a good robusto, J.L.H. on the speakers. Three works are in play. Janus has been revived and we will see where it goes. There are 6' wide pieces of paper laid out on plywood and suspended off the floor by gesso containers and paint buckets all over the studio. The wall is dirty and paint-stained. I rode my bicycle around the space; looking, thinking, glancing.

I'm ordering another roll of this french printmaking paper. It's a whole different thing right now, I'm letting it lead me.

The forecast for the beach is rain and wind. No blackberry, a sketchbook instead. That horizon, always horizons. As if one could find the end of the world somehow, and maybe turn around for one last look before slipping away. What would one see? A flash, an image, an impression. My 20's were lived speeding toward horizons. Always leaving. Never did I find the end of the world.

I was reading Motherwell's essay on the painter and audience, and this musing struck me; how such solitary beings (artists) can create something (art) that enjoys such sociability. Our work goes out into the world and lives and is greeted and loved or despised or ignored and people see it and interact with it. They know the work, but they do not know us. The back stories, the intent, these things are meaningless (albeit interesting to some) to how the work endures. Art must be encountered on its own terms, and in the context of the viewer. The artist is removed, and in that moment no longer necessary. With abstract work in particular people want answers, but I don't have them. The works don't mean one thing. That's the audience's job.

drawing

These large works on paper seem to have become a kind of drawing. There's a tendency towards more space, a brevity of gesture, and allowing the first pass to stand. Re-living with the F&S paintings this weekend was interesting. Looking at them, really giving them a hard examination, was rewarding. They are good paintings. Something I liked about them was the use of barn paint, a relatively inexpensive, industrial oil-based paint which comes in about 4 colors. To put things into perspective, a gallon costs about the same as 2, 150 ml tubes of artist's oil paint. But cost aside, it is the properties of the paint that I find interesting.

It is thick and viscid, really like used motor oil. It resists blending with other colors, thereby allowing a more aggressive application on the surface. I prefer mixing colors right on my surfaces as opposed to a palette. Not always, but often. I also love the peculiar hues, which -as you would expect, react dramatically to natural light.

I recently came across a book of David Smith's spray paint paintings. He would place objects, -sometimes elements of a sculpture he was working on, sometimes farm implements or tractor parts on a piece of paper or canvas and cut loose. They are simple in concept but really tremendous works if you see them. It's not where you take things from, it's where you take things to.

Maybe there's an underlying anxiety about simplicity in the studio. In fact, what seems, -or even feels, simple is often the result of years of practice and effort. So there's courage in allowing the work to flow easily and not judge it harshly simply because of this.

file under miscellaneous

I'm photoed out, if that's even a state of being. Final edits, I ordered my copy tonight. We'll see soon.

The events of last Thursday resonated with me very specifically. I grew up on military installations most of my life. It is a very specific culture, one that deals with the pain of loss, separation and death on a daily basis. The installation serves as strange liminal space outside the normal world of civilian life. It exists as a separate world.

I have been researching serial killers and mass murders for the past month or so. I was curious about what makes a person that way, -what kind of culture cultivates that mentality, and why it is seemingly so pervasive in our own. Back in the 90's, I had the opportunity to stand in the tower on the University of Texas campus with a friend who was researching the role of Whitman for a play. It's been locked up ever since, and we got special permission. It was damn spooky, pure and simple. In the end, I don't think anyone can understand it. These people disconnect with the rest of humanity, and while ideologies, political or religious views may initially fuel some inner fire, I think it's over simplistic to site them as the cause.

What disturbs me most is that rest of society is closer than they think, closer than they may even be able to admit. Sit in traffic and just look around, you'll see someone on the brink of a total meltdown.

I caught an interview with the RZA the other day and he said something that really took hold of me. That it is the spiritual duty of the visionary man to shine light into the darkness. The blood of the ignorant and fearful are ultimately on his hands if he turns away from this call, this duty.

We must shine our inner light into the darkness.

It's easy to get all heady about painting, but honestly for me that's really what it's about, -and arguably when my work is at its best. I'm not a politician, or a martyr or a leader of men. I'm just an artist. I'm just trying to shine my light into that darkness because I've walked inside of it at times in my life and I know how empty is truly is. Fear is the opposite of love. It's no coincidence that the first law is to love your neighbor, and telling that very few people, -including myself, can even get past that one most days.

When people join the military, it is an uncomfortable but ultimately accepted reality that they may die "over there." To die on post, that's a real transgression.

I went back into "Janus" but I think it may end up failing. I started a new one and there's something about simplicity, -or apparent simplicity I should say. It's been a long night in front of the computer and it's time to call it. I should get my copy in just over a week, ten days or so. Based on that I'll know when it will be available.

I'm off to the beach next weekend and my blackberry is not. I'm going to sign off in early December and enjoy a serious electronic media fast for a few weeks. I've hit overload with it all. I just want to go off and paint and not think about it anymore. It's more fun that way. I've said it before, the studio is never wasted time. 5 hours in photoshop on the other hand....