Blogging FB...

Five bokushos in progress... goal was white paintings but they have minds of their own.
The little landscapes along the top are leftovers from Colony...

*

Here's a blog link about one artist's discovery of Facebook... explains a lot ;)

I'm guilty... I've neglected this blog as well as reading many others that I really enjoy. FB does make staying in touch much easier and quicker... a short status update can often say as much as an entire blog post. There are times, however, when it doesn't... and the need to explore, untie the knots, really understand what I'm trying to sort out, can only be done by blogging.

So don't think I'm going away, this is too therapeutic to toss to the wind... plus it's my diary. Personal FB thoughts are lost after a page or two of status updates... probably still there but not searchable or neatly labeled (not that I label these posts anymore... I figure the Google blog search will find what I look for.)

Truth be told, I'm not certain that I have many goals left to track... I really thought with the economic turn-down that I'd quietly withdraw from the commercial scene and begin folding my studio tent... maybe retire to a hobby of sketching and watercolors. I still think this is a good plan... focus on setting records straight and maybe print out a book or two to pass down in the family... but basically, move on. Seems there's still a bit of momentum left in the career, however, and a new possibility sends me scurrying to see what I can catch... I'm as competitive as ever. Drat!

Testing Mobile Entry

Check it out.
Sent from my iPhone
===============
AHA! It worked... I've learned a new tech trick ;)

I'd been meaning to figure out how to make blog posts from my iPhone and I think I have the right formula in place... so many times while downstairs in the studio, I think of something post-worthy and always have my phone handy... but by the time I'm back upstairs the thought is gone so nothing is said. Or we're off to the lake house and I can post from there... hopefully, because it will depend on phone connections rather than wi-fi. We'll see how it goes...

Internet Art Shows In Real Time...

Archives - 1998 - Ruralscape - 36x24

The upcoming art event, The Blogger Show, opens Nov 3, at four NE galleries plus the 'net and, of course there's also a blog for the group. I applaud the effort which has already introduced me to many new artist's blogs to peruse.

One might think this is a new and different phenomenon but... not! The idea of putting together works based solely (I assume) on the idea that they are artists talking via the Internet was successfully produced and performed in 1998 near Washington DC. That's not to say that it shouldn't be done again (and again and again,) but let me take this opportunity to introduce you to, very likely, the first such show, "Met On The Internet", strictly based on artists using the Internet to converse with one another... and it happened long before there was a word called "blog."

The art email list, Paint L is probably about twelve years old now, and still going strong. I was one of the original members, artists anxious to use the web to communicate beyond their own neighborhood... the world was wide open and we formed a bond all 'round it! It was a haven after the rough and tumble attempts at dialog on the old rec.arts.fine newsgroup (anyone remember newsgroups?) We had few trolls, next to no anger but lots of discussion, teaching, learning and sharing daily... not to mention good laughs!


At one point the idea of putting together a group show came up and one of our members was in a position to offer the gallery at a large hospital in Silver Spring, Md... it was great! She did all the ground work, we had only to ship our paintings and show up for the opening. As it happened, I did neither, to my regret... too much going on personally for me to participate, but I did create the website for the show. Here is the opening page... scroll down to the list of artists to view some of the artwork included. (An aside... the site was totally lost when I graduated from AOL to the real cyber world and neglected to save all the data. Later, when we realized it had totally disappeared, we were able to find the bones of it at the Wayback Machine which archives old websites. We rebuilt as we could from there.)

This community of artists went on to have other exhibitions, to meet and travel in small groups including NYC for the Christo Gates, Santa Fe, the scenic mountains of Arizona, a residency in the South of France, gallery runs in Atlanta and San Francisco and I'm sure I'm missing more. We had T-shirts with logo and for a long time, made sure it was in all our photos for the web album we kept. Many of these excursions I've made, and hope to make more in the future. In short, it's become a group of real time friends beyond being known only through the keyboard and monitor. It's also a welcoming group should anyone reading this care to see for themselves. Tell them I've been bragging on them ;-) Time restraints have put me in lurker mode lately but I consider myself very much a part of the longest ongoing list of artists on the Internet... (I would love to hear if there's another group of artists that can match or beat that statement.)

I send good wishes to all those participating in The Blogger Show and to those producing. It will undoubtedly bring more attention to this corner of the 'net so we'd best dress the part and be sure our spell check is working. Wonder what effects this show will have on the perception of today's artists... to the artists involved... to the artworld in general? My core belief has always been: just be ready... you don't know what's happening next!

Art Advice, Blogs, et al...

2007 - Vermilion View - 60x48 *

It took a good long while for artists to get on the personal website wagon, and many still depend on their galleries to be their showcase... that's okay, I'm just observing. Goodness knows there are plenty of us now taking full advantage of that option.

So now I see another blogger, Kristy Hall, is advising all artists to blog, the latest advocate of many 'art advisers' singing the same song. Well, don't waste your breath on most of my dear friends. Wouldn't I love to follow their careers, their fun and games, their ups and downs... even if they reserved their blogs for professional updates or dealt mostly with their devoted dogs... I'd read every post. I miss my real-time art buddies, scattered as they are all around the country. Okay, maybe that's not what Kristy (and Alyson and all the others except Charlie Finch) are promoting blogs for... but whatever their reasons, I agree.

KH sez: Many artists work in isolation and blogging can help reduce that all pervading sense of invisibility. I gotta tell you, isolation tends to grow with age... I don't consider that a totally bad thing, it's usually due to personal choices but it's still a stark reality. My social life (aahahaha!) is more online than off... a LOT more.

KJ sez: When you’re blogging about your own work, you have to think about your work. This is my strongest point when explaining why I blog. In my case, I'm reviewing my entire career and trying to put it into perspective, some kind of order. I love the idea of having readers but I'd like to think that I'd blog even if there were none. This is such a valuable tool at this point in my career... I want to get it down before I forget or get disoriented. Oh, hey... maybe I'll get it better than it really was? Who would know?

Stats say this blog has a respectable number of readers... I can call only a dozen or so by name, all artists, so who are the others? Would there be any "collectors" out there? Some blogs are aimed at collectors... on the pretense that a potential buyer would want to know more about the artist... I'm not convinced. I suspect I've done more harm than good to my career via this blog... pretty evident I'm not a flashy, upscale loft type... just your regular, older than the boomers type hermit... not very flashy at all.

And there are soooo many blogs out there... do we really want to encourage more? Other than artists reading about other artists, comparing notes, maybe even a little one-ups-man-ship (nah, we wouldn't do that!) what good do we serve? Well, actually, some are so well written (and illustrated) that they could qualify as books in serial format. I like that!

Art email lists offer conversation and a kind of companionship, but blogs offer self preservation... a way to leave our mark... a mark that tells more about us than the painted canvas ever could... should anyone want to know.

* The above painting shows the difficulty in producing a well defined red in digital format. Looked fine in the editing program but smears when uploaded.

Decor...

'Odyssey' In The Contemplation Spot

Confession... I subscribe to several home decor blogs, maybe because of ongoing renovation at the lake house, maybe because I think it's relevant to keep up with what's "in style" since I'm in the business of catering to that 'style'. Not one to be out and about in social mode in recent years I don't see much of what's being bought and sold these days so I take my cues online.

Decor has nothing to do with art, right? Wrong! Well, maybe on a certain level... when art is more commodity than interaction but for the rest of us, we are basically in the business of pleasing varying and morphing tastes, our own included. So it's good to know what "taste" currently looks like... and there's a lot of that going around out there. Apartment Therapy is a biggie and very prolific... a fun browse not limited to small apartments. I discovered and took up with Silk Felt Soil after a Google Alert showed that several of my Bokusho paintings were being featured... I like her taste! Dear Ada picks up on art she likes from around the web, no preference to hierarchy, just a wide range of personal choices as accessories, often prefaced by "I love this!" There are bunches of other blogs focusing on the finer accessories of which art is just one, check out their sidebars.

Lest you think this is cheapening our artistic influences, hence our artistic creations... no less that Lari Pittman, that California mover and shaker of contemporary painting, admits to... well, here's the story:

In the LA Times, Dean Kuipers spends 60 seconds with Lari Pittman. "I always take the time to look at the women's clothes and shoes. It's not that I'm interested at all in wearing them, but I am interested to see how they're made and what ornamentation is taking place. It's not that it's a correct view of American culture, but it is a view."

So there ya go... I won't say I'm at all influenced by what they're showing about how we should be decorating, but like the man said... it is a view.

Two Years And Counting...

2005 - Oil Sketch

Mulling over a few things... don't know what made me think to look back in my blog archives but it must have been serendipity... October marks two years of blogging - journaling - talking to and about myself. Was never able to keep a diary but my website was beginning to look more like a scrapbook than a professional brochure and I was an active participant on several art lists... most of which I've since either signed off or now read in digest form with little input. Blogging rules! Wonder what the next technical communication variation will be? I don't see myself in My Space type venues... this serves my purpose well... whatever that purpose might be.

And speaking of that serendipity... take a quick browse through my October, 2005, entries... mostly pics of my new exercise challenge but what is written there could have been typed this month. Still whining about the same ole thing. Those exercises, btw, relate to the title of this blog... I'd planned to get back into shape with oils by painting and documenting 100 realistic studies (spurred on by Duane Keiser and his painting a day thing... he being the primary motivator* of the venue.) I quickly copped out of the exercise but kept the blog. Funny... I'd sometimes wondered what purpose all those wordy posts would serve, would I ever bother to reread? Maybe even learn from? New project: each month I'll read from the same period two years prior and report if there's anything noteworthy. (Now... y'all don't go gettin' all excited!) Geeze... wish I had be one to keep a diary...

(* Wow! Look at Duane now! A sponsor and everything! And the size of that studio... and that donut!)

Chris Ray

Back in 1999, sculptor Chris Ray (unknown to me) emailed and asked if it would be okay to feature my paintings on his site as he was setting up space to curate a few reviews of work he liked on the Internet. I said sure and didn't think much about it until he sent me the link. I was most impressed, not only with the professional handling of his selection of my work but the review he wrote... based solely on the work and no conversation with me.

A year or so ago I was looking through his site again and learned that Chris died in 2000. Although we had exchanged only a few emails I felt I'd lost a friend. His website remains intact and I thought I'd point it out since one doesn't know just how long these sorts of tracks will remain in cyberspace. And also to again acknowledge my appreciation... good things happen and should not be forgotten.

Email

I have not previously included my email address on this blog figuring people could find me if they really wanted to and it would just be one more invitation for spam, but my main web site seems to be welcoming enough as the junk just gets thicker and filthier. However I've just learned of a site that encrypts your email address without making the sender jump through hoops to send a message. We'll see... doubt that I'll notice a difference for the first four or five years. Thought I'd pass it along for what it's worth.

A Busy Mind Is A Good Thing

This is my palette... a hinged plastic box with assorted paint pots. A puddle of water in the bottom keeps the humidity up so the paints only need an occasional spritz of water to stay moist. A drop or two of bleach prevents mold. The jars are Nova Paints, the butter cups contain Golden. Lids from large containers of cole slaw serve as individual color mixing palettes. My brushes, not shown here, are quality 1" -2.5" Wooster china bristle from Lowes, a building supply store. But I use a lot of the throw-away types as well. They generally sit in a bucket of water, are cleaned only occasionally and are seldom allowed to dry out.

Funny how it happens... the more involved I become, the busier my mind with everyday problem solving, the more productive I actually seem in the studio. With the eminent closing of the lake house and all the mental baggage it brings, studio work seems to flow smoothly, puzzles are solved, direction is clear. This is not to say I've signed off on a bunch of completed paintings, just that good things are happening. The flip side is that if I slack off, and don't have much on my plate, studio work is uninspired and dead ended. So I deduce that the conscious must be busy elsewhere for the subconscious to perform creatively.

Now, if J should read this, he would question my 'busyness' as I don't appear to be any busier than usual, I just talk a good line. But my mind is in a whirl with details that we didn't expect to have to deal with. Not the money end... that's J's bucket of worms, but how will we use this house, furnish it, deal with it from a distance and the myriad of questions that ensue. Like... okay, we will only subscribe to $10 basic cable since we aren't big TV junkies but do need morning and evening news. How about Internet? Well, for $50-75 a month, I think we will have to do without. Dial-up won't work because we'll just use our cells. I checked for hotspots my laptop might access and seems the nearest one is a McDonald's, can you believe! and not a whole lot more in the area. Would think that being so close (5 miles) to a major university there would be all sorts, but maybe they just aren't listed. Then there's the option of walking around using the laptop like a divining rod, looking for free wi fi.

And speaking of computers... I've been going through old albums of pics taken while we lived in the lake house. Here is my very first 'computer' setup... a TI-99 hooked up to an old b&w TV. That's twenty some years ago, boys and girls!

PS: The plant still lives! Just realized it's the same shefflera we've been carrying around from house to house!

Blog Intentions

Matrix 1, 24x20, 2005

Thought I'd take a minute and outline what my intentions are in writing this blog... not that they won't change because the original intention is a far cry from it's current direction. First the title... where did that weird nomenclature come from and what does it mean? Blame Duane Keiser and his painting a day blog. I discovered him about the time I got a bug to return to realistic oil painting (don't ask... ) The goal was 100 small oil paintings on the order of Duane's work. Ummm... after a couple of dozen I realized my eyes and hands might eventually be persuaded to perform in such a manner but I began to wonder why I would want to. So that petered out and the blog began to morph.

In researching art blogs, I found a preponderance of sketching blogs, lots of other painting-a-day venues, all kinds of art focus groups which weren't my thing, and a few serious artists recording their studio and career experiences, which is what I wanted to do with my own writings. But most of these are early or mid career artists and I felt that I wanted to review my career... look back to where I've been and document a few thoughts as I recall them, possibly showing a connection or path to where I am today. There's no rhyme or reason to the way I approach this, but I try to mix it up by showing new work along with old and not dwelling too much on personal or family happenings, though that contributes to an artist's life as well.

I try to upload an image with each post and it may be current or something relevant from the past that might or might not tie in in some way. Yesterday's grass painting was a number title, for instance. I feel these old works, so different from what I do today, tell more about who I am than the current work ever could, plus I get a kick out of paying homage to a few old favorites. BTW, my website features most of the recent work, but it's more static than this blog (which is much more fun to update.)

Juxtaposed

Juxtaposed, 42x48, Acrylic/Linen, 1993

Here's another turning point. Part of the Track Series, this time on canvas... LINEN, tadaaa! Hey look! There's a Bokusho flat in the middle! Who knew? And note the ruled lines here and there. I traded eye texture for the real thing, but one could note that I'm sort of moving back to visual texture... or not. I don't know what I'm doing, it all remains to be seen. Is fun to find a few roots to tie the decades together.

So I'm off to NOLA tomorrow (a half hour upriver from the Crescent City, actually) I love these visitations, this return to a place where my professional work all came together. I put in my best time there and after years of earlier prep, it all began to come together. It will always be home, fifteen years qualifies as the longest I ever lived anywhere... besides, it's New Orleans... it needs to be loved right now.

I did get my cortisone shot this morning, the doc answered a lot of my questions and I should be good to go for the 5.5 hr trip. Will get some rehab or PT when I get back and plan to start regular trips to the Y again. I don't mean for this blog to stray far from art issues, but when you can't sling your paint around, the interference is definately art related. That includes the pull of the garden and the time outs for extended family. I'll bring two g-kids back with me for a week so art prioities will take a serious shift.

Discovery: I can track new exhibitions at my favorite museums and galleries... actually any website that updates... and Blogarithm.com will notify me each time they update that page. Just subscribe with the URL from the exhibition page and never miss another special show. I use both Blogarithm and Bloglines since they do different things, the latter requires RSS feeds and the former doesn't... the latter updates frequently during the day (and whenever I hit the refresh button) and the former updates only once a day via email. So together, they are a good source for all I think I need. I'm aware that these sort of details change frequently and I'm probably outdated even as we speak, but what else is new? BTW, having mentioned that I was trying out Co.mments the other day, it's great! I'm lovin' it!

See you on the flip side, may or may not have access.

Thoughts...

The following quote is by Hokusai... of "The Great Wave" fame:

"...but all I have done before the the age of seventy is not worth bothering with. At seventy five I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am eighty you will see real progress. At ninety I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At a hundred I shall be a marvelous artist. At a hundred and ten everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age. I used to call myself Hokosai, but today I sign my self 'The Old Man Mad About Drawing." -- Hokusai

Well, I'm not writing this from my old age, but I can see it coming if I squint. The talking heads are fond of saying things like 'fifty is the new thirty' or similar. Well, I'm not fifty and I sure don't want to be thirty again, I just want to be the best I can be right here and right now. Those following this blog will recall that I made a big deal of wanting to regain my drawing skills, among other things, and although I gave it a shot, not with the dedication I'd hoped. I'm in awe of all the daily drawing blogs out there, and I follow a bunch but they haunt me with guilt.

"How hard I find it is to see what is right in front of my eyes!" -- Ludwig Wittenstein. That's the quote that really got my attention. I must try harder to see.

Galleries...

The drama of gallery representation is spelled out quite effectively in a blog called Tire Shop. I've experienced much of what is described, the good, bad and ugly, and have managed to cull the spoilers and focus on the good guys. The next step will be to face up to a few really nice galleries that just can't seem to move the work, are inconvenient to access and, at this point in time, are not prime to my game plan.

This is hard to do, considering how long and hard I've worked to have a good string of galleries handle my work. This ole race horse still wants to run, but not in quite so many events. Opportunities show up and the possibilities of new adventures are stimulating... I have to give myself a shake and just keep on holding the pace.

One point I would add to the Tire Shop article is that in the age of Internet communication, it's very easy to locate a few artists that gallery represents and ask for the lowdown. I still do that, even if I don't plan to join, and it's interesting to hear the answers.

The image is from my May, 2005, show at Carol Robinson Gallery in New Orleans. They made it through Katrina and it continues to be a strong gallery.

DUH!

Under the "Things I'm Slow to Learn" category:

For a long time I've wished Blogger had a link back to the main page which shows all recent entries. As I follow a number of interesting art blogs, I've noticed that Typepad and others have a 'Main' link which allows that. So I put one on my blog, up top on the right. That doesn't help me with other blogs when I want to see what I missed.

Well, guess what? Blogger does have this feature! The whole title is the link to the main page! Okay, I'm a happy reader now. No complaints. Except that the blogarhythm program that announces new entries messes up sometimes (I subscribe to my own, so I know) and skips an entry now and then. Thought I'd pass along this piece of vital info for those who use alerts of one kind or another... they generally take you to one entry, not the whole thing or most recent entry.

Trouble

I'm in trouble... don't know if I'll make my goal or anywhere close to it. I'm realizing that whatever it is that I'm doing is mediocre at best and not likely to get any better. I could make excuses all day long, my eyes are going, my hands are unsteady, it's been too long since I worked in this manner... but it remains crap, every one of them... to the point of not even being able to bring them to a photo state so I can put them up. Embarassing, is what!

So... I took a break and tried my hand at a couple of landscapes... same junk, worse than mediocre. So what do I do? I've got this big investment in oil paints... I need to take another path, I need to bring in some of my own, earned, creative expertise. Stop planning and just let it happen. Allow the use of multi media and work larger... these tiny little cards are for the birds!

Okay... stay tuned... KJ