On Paris

Last night, the world was rocked by news of violent attacks in Paris, the "city of light." Here in the United States, the news broke out as workers prepared to depart the office for the weekend, and the people of France were relaxing at cafes, restaurants and bars on a busy Friday night. For many, their lives will never be the same. They will have lost a loved one, someone they kissed goodbye that morning, or a friend they just called or traded comments with on social media. And for the people of France, their futures are now fraught with the fears of the unknown, of how they will as a society grapple with the question how to respond to terrorism.

Some early evidence point to the conflict in Syria between the Islamic State and the Western coalition as the catalyst for last night's attacks. IS has claimed responsibility, along with the downing of the Russian plane two weeks ago. The world is anxious, afraid and on high alert against future attacks. For me, the saddest part of these atrocities is its impact upon the human consciousness, of how those left behind are beset by crippling regret and doubt, uncertain of whether they can carry on with the same convictions they once had.

Here in the West, where we are untouched by the daily violence and danger faced by those in Syria and other conflict zones, it is hard for us to comprehend what life is like under those conditions. Which is why last night's attack in Paris was so shocking. For most of us, losing a loved one to violence is a rare occurrence. We take for granted that the ones we love will come home to us each night, that our belongings and livelihood are safe, and that things we know and care for will remain stable through time. This is not the realities of people who live in conflict zones. Each day brings new dangers. Each time you see you loved ones may be the last. And yet they carry on living as best as they can. Or they flee their lands through dangerous sea and land passages, with hundreds drowning or freezing to death in the process.

Last night's attacks were the results of political instability and religious conflicts set in motion over decades ago. They were the fruits of intolerance and oppression, now ripened into blood and tears for not only the people of the Middle East, but the entire globe. Those who were previously untouched by violence are now sucked into its vortexes, unable to escape its growing grasp across all demographics.

The question we need to ask ourselves is how we have each contributed to this event, whether it is through direct action or inaction. Did we participate by being silent witnesses to the Syrian conflict and not demanding that our elected officials step in to provide conflict resolution or aid? Or have we been agents of hatred and bigotry, demanding that we add more violence to the already escalating atrocities and growing anti-West sentiments? There are many questions that remain unanswered but must be asked to help us untangle the complex issue of terrorism.

For now, I would like to send courage and serenity to the people of Paris, to tell them the rest of the world is watching and hoping with our hearts that their city of light will not be diminished. That we hope they will use this event to shine their light into the dark recesses of prejudice and hatred and to create change with their continued hope and love during this difficult time.

Witch-hunts

Lately, I've been preoccupied with the story of women accused of sorcery in Papua New Guinea. An article in the Huffington Post last week detailed how women were being tortured and killed by their villages for suspected sorcery. The writer, who met with local women activists trying to combat this practice, also described the socio-economic backgrounds that lead to the culture of witch-hunting.

Photo by Vlad Sokhin from Huffington Post 

The image of this woman being publicly tortured by the mob lingered in my mind, along with another image of a woman being burnt alive. It's something that does not leave your memory - the jarring depiction of modernity juxtaposed against ancient belief systems and gender inequality. For me, this is something I feel I must address in my work somehow, because it is relevant not just in the far corner of Papua New Guinea, but also relevant to our everyday interactions as people with one another.

Violence against women is of historical nature. Throughout time, women's bodies have been traded, used, pillaged, and oppressed by various agencies. Women have only just started to be defined by something other than their bodies in this century, but the road to equality is hard and steep. Often, women are targeted because they have weaker status in society and make easier targets for those who want to confiscate their property. Other times, the witch hunt is simply an explosion of communal anxiety that manifests itself in scapegoating misfortunes on those who are either more prosperous, or who have weaker social political ties.

The phenomenon of the witch-hunt is an interesting one, in that it is present across many different cultures, and also manifests itself in times of social turmoil, when misfortunes are unexplained. It's interesting how the community vents its anger and fear through the purging of one of its own. The innocent victim bears the brunt of their fury, their bodies beaten and broken by the mob's intense anger. To the witch-hunters, they are simply cleansing their community of unwanted pestilence. The burning of witches a symbol of purification.

What I want to explore is the concept of the female body within this context of social pressures. It's interesting to me how the female body is both a symbol of desire and fear. On one hand, the female body is celebrated in western culture, with mass media's constant barrage of the ideal feminine beauty from every lifestyle magazine and ad. On the other hand, the female body is feared and controlled by mass culture in the form of slut shaming, sexual violence, and body image propaganda. In the case of the witch hunts in Papua New Guinea (surprisingly similar to the witch hunts in Salem), the female body epitomizes the evil that cannot be understood, and that which becomes the embodiment of communal fears, and outlet for growing frustrations.

I sometimes wish I could be liberated from my body, and be a formless entity defined only by my mind. This is, of course, impossible. But I feel that I must somehow convey this sense of frustration and injustice through my work, to expand the definition of the female body beyond the usual fine art motif of the reclining nude, a bourgeois fantasy of feminine ennui. Hopefully, these ideas will find their way out of my mind and become paintings. In the mean time, the research about witch craft and gender based violence is gearing me toward future work and providing me with some direction.

The Meaning of Beauty

I realized this last weekend that my hair was falling out inordinately, and that I could even see my scalp through my hair in certain areas. I could not figure out what caused this initially. But after some reflection, I realized that the prior months had been incredibly stressful as I made my job transition from one higher education institute to another. Prior to last year, I had thought I would continue working the evening shift while painting during the day. But life had other plans, and I am now at work by 8:30 a.m. each day, which has lead me to put art on the back burner.

This is my 10th year out of college, and there has been much juggling in the last decade, usually with full time school and part time job, or full time job and part time school. It's been strange to not be in school for the past year. A part of me misses the routine of drawing, of arriving at the studio first thing in the morning and drawing for hours. But another part of me realizes I must move on from these studies and find my own voice in my work.

Right now is perhaps the most difficult period of my artistic life thus far - figuring out what I want to paint or draw, wondering if there is any value to any of my ideas, while battling fatigue and fear to actually devote myself to studio time. It feels like everything hinges on me getting to the studio each evening, and each time I fail to make it out of my apartment is yet another failure.

Things reached a breaking point when I noticed my hair loss this last week, I told myself that it was time for me to practice some self care, and to not push myself so hard. The constant pressure to do something, to make something of my time and to perform was causing me so much stress that I could not do much except stew in anxiety and then battle through another day or work and unproductive studio time.

Rockeby Venus by Diego Velasquez

It also lead me to think about the idea of beauty and permanency. A lot of contemporary artists paint in similar genres. Examples include seated/reclining nudes, portraits, landscapes, or allegory. What I find intriguing is that few artists use models who actually look like real people, as in people with wrinkles, scars, sags, and other imperfections. A lot of artists will make a model look more perfect in their work, thereby enhancing the idea that beauty is the study of perfection rather than truth, and that physical beauty is the universal language of human desire. However, the human condition is one of continuous decay and regeneration, and the processes of aging and death are rarely represented in paintings, since most artists are fixated upon capturing beauty. Even when aging is represented, it is more of a study in technical proficiency rather than commentary on the actual process of aging itself.

While I'm the product of the atelier system, which has revived classical drawing and painting and given many contemporary artists sound techniques, I have been feeling more and more drawn to non representational art, mainly for their devotion to exploring contemporary issues. Few artists I know of in the contemporary field are exploring topics such as gender, poverty, and politics. It seems like the market is being saturated with genre paintings catering to patrons who want to decorate their homes with works of similar aesthetics.

So what is the artist's choice? Granted some artists are creating work outside of these genres (Vincent Desiderio, Steven Assael, Rose Freymuth-Frazier), but these seem to be the exceptions and not the rule. While there is something hugely satisfying about carefully rendering an object so that the viewer is awed by the illusion created, something seems to be missing from the contemporary painting world. There is a disconnect between contemporary realism and the rest of the world, as if we are representing the 1 percent of privilege that exists outside of the realm of the 99 percent faced with real problems.

What is the purpose of art if not to speak truth? For beauty will fade, but truth remains. I grow tired of allegory and talking in circles, and wish for something more visceral, more connected to the actualities in which we live. I'm not speaking of painting to shock or to glorify ugliness and pain, but rather depicting something that calls to the humanity within each of us, outside of the ideologies of mass culture and consumption, something that would be sincere and true. Perhaps this is the direction in which my work will progress, and I must find my own voice and vision in this grand tapestry that we call life...

Studio Habits

The Artist In His Studio by Rembrandt Van Rijn

Spent much of today on the road - driving to work, taking the bus downtown, and then taking the train home. Probably 3 hours of my day was spent in transit, feeling impatient about being in transit. Got home and promptly crawled into bed for a half hour, where I lay in half sleep, feeling too exhausted to feed my mewing kitty and my hungry self.

Days like these, whipped by rain and cold, are especially hard on the soul. This is why I now sit writing with a giant bowl of rice and stir fry next to me. Comfort food to comfort the soul.

The soul. Some days it lives so effervescently, full of life and light. Other days the light goes out and the soul goes into hiding. It seems like nothing can call it out of its hole except special foods or the warm touch of loving hands.

I love that I've rediscovered writing again. Sometimes it just comes in phases and I cannot control when I want to write and when I don't want to. Lately, it feels like a lot of thoughts are stuck in my head and need to get out. Maybe it's because the art outlet is blocked.

Studio habits of the artist is so important to the art making process. Some artists work on a regular schedule. Others work erratically in bursts of energy. Either way, it's work, and it has to be done. I'm still trying to balance a full work day with studio hours. Sometimes I feel it is impossible. And other days I find extra bursts of energy to head out into the evening and into the studio where I work alone in the vast silence.

Much of art making is like throwing stones into a dark pond. You can't see the ripples but you can hear the water lapping. You're not quire sure where the stone has gone, but you know it has been cast, and you wait for the waves to move across the surface of the pond and eventually reach the shore. Much of it feels like it is in vain, and it is very lonely work. It gets you thinking why you are even throwing this metaphoric stone? What is the meaning of this act? Except that it is inborn and automatic, and that you must throw this stone from time to time or go mad.

After a full day of work at the office, when I've interacted with many people, it is a strange shift to go into an empty room and be still with myself. In some ways, social media is prohibitive of the creative process, because it populates a virtual space with people, and it takes up room in your mental process when you actually have to be alone to produce work. This is why I probably need to take another break from social media in November, so I can focus on myself and refinding that solitude which I need to produce work.

Some people are really good at blocking out the world when they work. I am easily distracted and find it hard to focus when I know there are exciting news on social media or things I should find out. The little red status update number that pops up next to my Facebook app calls to me like a siren, and I respond by mindlessly tapping on the app for more updates to feed my curiosity. Sometimes it isn't even curiosity but just a restless mental boredom, and social media becomes mental junk food that fills my ennui.

When I get home from work, there is a tipping point at which I will decide not to walk to my studio. And that tipping point is around 6:30 p.m. This is why if I don't get home until 6 p.m., it is really hard for me to unwind enough for me to start dressing for the studio. I think if I were to schedule models to meet at the studio by 7 p.m., I'd have to hustle out the door. Necessity drives all invention, and social obligations can also drive art.

An artist I met over the weekend remarked that she schedules one show a year for herself. She said otherwise she'd never make any work. The deadline forces her to produce. I've never had a solo show, and I'm very curious about setting a deadline for myself this year. I can say that life gets in the way, and that I must change certain circumstances before I am comfortable making art. But the reality is that each act of art making is accumulating to something bigger. Like saving money. It is hard work to save money and to be on a budget. And no matter how much you save, some goes out the door when emergencies arise. But trying to save is the difference between those with money and those without.

So I must try with art making. To have the resolution and say "no matter what happens in my life, I will try to make art whenever I can with whatever time I have." Would this be enough? Will it be the difference between an artistic life and one without art? To quote Rilke on the impulse of making art: "ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I... And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must," then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse."

And with this, I'm off to the studio.

Self Discoveries via Others

Today was a bit hectic. Running around the city trying to do a bunch of errands while fitting in some much needed art talks and shows.

I don't currently consider myself an artist, primarily because I'm not making work regularly. *Contrary to popular culture - most artists are not drug addicts who don't bathe and laze around in their underwear before throwing paint at a canvas. Most artists are hardworking goal oriented professionals juggling several part-time jobs while making art with most of their spare time. Therefore, it was especially refreshing (albeit a painful reminder to stop having excuses not to paint) to listen to an artist talk and see new pieces by my good friend.

There were several important realizations that formed today as I listened to the artist talk and conversed with the artists and their partners:

As my friend spoke about her work, I realized that I am more drawn to ideas than technique. As someone who studied in the atelier/classical method, it's almost always been about technique for me - how does this figure look? What is the proportion? So on and so forth. But as my friend spoke about the ideas of death, the body, and symbolism (you can see her amazing work here), I realize that most of what I care to paint about can be represented very simply. As she mentioned how she tried to reduce most of the idea of the human body down into its simplest forms (scars, skin), I thought about how often I cripple my own artistic progress by trying to think of some large ways to represent my ideas.

A lot of my formal art training was in the manner of European narrative traditions. Historical scenes such as the Raft of the Medusa are deemed as the highest form of expression. Artists in the 17-19th century competed for the coveted Prix de Rome, which signified the zenith of professional debut for young painters.

Raft of the Medusa by Gericault

This means that my artistic training and its school of thought exhorts me to produce work that resembles the above example. As you can imagine, this is a bit daunting for a young artist just starting out in his/her career. I lack the resources to hire and stage models. I also lack the time and technical proficiency to produce this type of work. This type of painting is probably what keeps me from painting. The more I think about creating this type of work, the less I actually get to work, since I'm already petrified with anxiety.

What interested me during my friend's art talk was how she so articulately wove together all of the themes she had been exploring since one of her first shows. The ideas of mortality, the body, and its decay. We had a great time as an audience participating in a brief discussion, during which we touched upon strange Victorian death rituals such as hair wreaths and death portraits.

Following my friends' talk, another Chicago artist talked about his work, which was primarily abstract and more graphically oriented. A long discussion ensued about his technique, and the gallery owner expounded on how the artist's work was similar/different from other Op Art painters. Although I liked looking at this artist's work, I found the long talk on the technical aspects of his painting (how he created the effects by layering washes etc.) to be incredibly boring. I wanted to know more about the ideas behind his work, and to understand where he is headed in terms of his artistic development outside of technical style. This was when I realized that I primarily use painting as a vehicle through which I can explore the world. And to me, the world is full of mysteries that are interconnected via strange phenomena and by basic elements such as the body.

Op Art by Victor Vasarely

This also brought me to the realization that I had been trying to create my first work in the wrong way. Here I am trying to develop very narratives that are terrifyingly complex (multiple figures in complex background), when really most of how I see the world is through small details. You only have to take a look at my Instagram feed to see this tendency.

With this series of revelations, I now know a bit more about where my work is headed. I think I will start concentrating on smaller details and to focus on what I find interesting rather than trying to construct a huge masterpiece that I do not yet possess the stamina or proficiency to tackle. It's like working out in some way. You start with an isolated exercise or movement that eventually allows you to work up to a more complex series of movements. A dancer starts with a plié or squat. An artist starts with a small study or series of sketches for small paintings. Eventually the artist has developed enough momentum and technical skill to take on larger pieces.

Right now, I need to follow my instincts and paint what I find the most interesting, and somehow weave together all my love of the bizarre and absurd into small pieces that are more vignettes than long narratives. Eventually these vignettes will come together naturally to form the grand narrative (*This is why looking at an artist's work through time is so important and telling). In the mean time, I'll be painting and actually engaged in the process of thinking through ideas and weaving them together, instead of struggling to create a large piece that somehow defines me as a painter (which makes no sense, since when does one piece ever define an artist?).

Home on the Range?

Photo from http://tinyhouseblog.com/

Rainy evening - wet streets. Everyone rushing to get somewhere on a Friday night. Myself included.

Made it home to numb my brain with some SVU and cat cuddles. Sometimes a mind just needs to be mindless in order to rest. While surfing Facebook, where I read an article about a Google employee who is saving all of his income by sleeping in a truck that he parks in the company lot, I thought about the things I call my life. It's interesting how we define ourselves through our dwellings. A colleague of mine recently purchased a new condo, and she's spending a lot of money decorating it. It's a way of self -definition - how we decorate our homes, what we decide to furnish it with, the neighborhood we decide to live in. Somewhere, in the back of everyone's mind, is the all American dream. A home of one's own, where one can express oneself through stylish displays.

Yet somewhere in this American dream lies a catch. You must pay for your self definition by working at a job, which often takes you away form your stylish home. You may have to commute two hours a day and sit at a desk or stand in a room for eight hours. The remaining fourteen hours (of which eight you are sleeping) affords you a bit of leisure time with which you can enjoy your surroundings. Basically you slave away to collapse in your stylish apartment for about four hours before you pass out from exhaustion.

So I think this Google employee has the right idea. Why not save all of his money and pay off his student loans? Why not save up enough money to buy a home someday when he can actually be at home to enjoy his hard earned purchase? What is the point of spending money renting a small room in which he only spends time sleeping?

If all of us lived in mobile homes that could go from place to place, would we be as set upon our identities and properties? Would we be more willing to let go of things that aren't good for us, knowing that we can simply drive away to the next destination? Another town? Another state? And what if we spent less time decorating our homes on wheels and more time experiencing life instead? Wouldn't we be more aware of our aliveness, not having to work and commute 8-10 hours a day just to afford a place to live?

Perhaps the mobile culture will eventually become more mainstream. The recent trend in people building tiny homes on wheels is the beginning of the fraying of the fabric of the all American dream of the white picket fence. What's the point of a fence when you don't want to stay in one place, when you want to get out from the plot of land? A life lived in freedom may be much more valuable than anything money can buy...

Autumn Thoughts

The fall moves in slowly in Chicago. Leaves reluctantly depart from trees and form crisp carpets of gold beneath our feet. The days grow shorter, and everyone rushes to enjoy the last rays of sunshine each day. They know that winter comes too soon.

This should be the best time for painting, when the weather is still between freezing and boiling. But I cannot produce anything. I don't know why. This slow silent fatigue that sits upon my brain and freezes my hands. Projects left stillborn, sculptures left to dry into jagged forms, unfinished and unsmoothed.

I started a new job at the end of September, and have even less time in my day. Up at 7 a.m. Arrive at work by 8:30 a.m. Leave the desk at 5 p.m. for an hour of traffic. Arrive at home by 6 p.m. 11 hours of the day gone. 13 hours remaining. Subtract 7 hours for sleep and 6 hours remain for everything else - eating, working out, people. And art. But often there is no time for art.

I find myself besieged by guilt as I struggle to find the willpower to make it to the studio. Most nights I wile away the hours on online news, social media feeds, and then the occasional correspondence with friends.

Then last night I met up with a female artist friend, who is unfortunately moving away to the West Coast. She is fairly well established in the art world, and is on a hiatus from painting while she focuses on her health. We spent several hours talking about the state of the art world, and about what it means to create art of substance. A focus on a single theme/thesis seems to be the most important element according to her, to which I agree.

But we also talked about the evolution of an artistic life, how it's not simply restricted to making "art." I feel that you can experience so much within the mental realm and not translate any of it into "art" for it to still exist. How many souls have lived and departed this earth without leaving anything behind? Yet their minds processed all the things we saw. A sunset. A lover's sleeping face. A child's cherubic hands. A dead animal. These impressions brushing up against their mental framework - crashing like waves against their subconscious and consciousness.

Lately, I've been finding myself draw to psychology, to maybe becoming a therapist. In some ways, everything starts in the mind. It's where we all begin. A thought illuminates the darkness within our primordial minds. A thought that persists through the ebbs and flows of life. A thought that blossoms into new forms. A therapist is privy to so many thoughts. The therapist helps the client organize his/her thoughts, discarding those that no longer serve a positive purpose, creating new ones to build a bridge to goals.

A therapist is like a mirror held up to your face to help you examine yourself. Yet it is also a two way mirror, for the therapist also examines him/herself in the same process. Like two reflections of the same but different. I think this is the same as art. Like a mirror for the viewer and the artist. The artist reaches through the mirror to the viewer. And the viewer's potential thoughts reaching through the mirror to the artist. The art is the permeable membrane that stretches between the two.

So in many ways therapy is the same as art. Like a bridge or portal between two worlds, through which transformations occur. This is why art exists on a separate plane. It exists in the plane between worlds. It is the catalyst for change as well as the distillation of thoughts.

In this way, commerce and business run perpendicular to art's call to existence. Commerce bases its direction upon the clients' needs. It capitalizes upon providing solutions for customers to generate sales. Therefore, a product is designed with an existing problem in mind, and can only succeed if it is meeting a need that already exists. Art also emerges from a need, but it is a need that is first generated in the artist's mind, outside of the viewer's gaze. However, there is a collective consciousness into which the artist taps, which generates the bridge between the collective and individual consciousness. In a way, an artist is speaking what the collective feels unconsciously, and is the medium through which the collective unconsciousness is manifested.

But unlike commerce, an artist must perceive the societal problem first and believe in the necessity of the art work even if it is rejected by society. In this way, an artist the opposite of an entrepreneur, who adapts and changes his/her product until it is suitable to the public. Inventors are similar to artists in the creation of their design and innovation. But the transition of innovation to adaptive use also means the transformation of art/innovation into product/commerce.

I worry often about the transformation of art into commerce precisely for the same reasons. When an artist first conceives of an idea, the innovative aspects of the artwork is the generator of energy for the creative process. However, once an artist creates the art work, he/she has to find not only a viewer to whom they can connect, but also a client to whom he/she can sell the work. Just because the connection exists does not necessarily mean the purchase of a piece of art. This is why the gallery system exists - to provide the commercial adaptation of art into a product.

*More to come later...

Creativity

It's officially been a year since I finished taking art classes, and shifted my attention to become a professional painter. However, many things changed in the last year, and here I am surveying what I've accomplished in the last 12 months.


Initially, I was set to paint during the day, and to continue working the evening shift between 3-10 p.m. This changed when I had to pursue a new job, which meant shifting to a 9-5 schedule, and painting after work.


There are some disadvantages to scheduling creative pursuits after a full day of work. One is that I'm already mentally exhausted from the commute, work, and social interactions. Two is that I am also physically exhausted and often find myself making up excuses for why I should not go to the studio. Three is that the studio is very lonely late at night, when everyone else is gone, and I am left alone to my thoughts.


Of course, there are up sides to working late at night. One is that it is quiet and I am left to pursue my creative thoughts. Though usually that ends up making me go to bed very late, since once the mental gates are open, it is difficult to stop. Then there is the advantage of going straight to bed instead of rushing to work after studio time, which brings stresses of its own.


Either way, juggling both creative pursuits while working full time is incredibly difficult. I think, at times, of whether it is possible to do both. While others are working at their craft, I am away devoting my time to other tasks not related to developing my artistic skills. This is why I have decided to start writing my thoughts down, because reflection is what keeps me moving, keeps the water clear in my mental pond, so I can focus on the deeper realms that may emerge one day.


I've been reading Rilke lately, and his words really soothe me and echo within. He talks about creativity as if it is a life force, like the sap of a tree that cannot be forced out. It is something I struggle with constantly, battling my fears of inadequacy while trying to nurture my creativity. Sometimes it seems that the mundane tasks of everyday life will simply swallow up any creative energy I have, and transform it into routine action that amount to nothing.


At times I do glimpse the far glimmer of something that is eternal. When I am able to sketch something down. When I am able to capture some sort of beauty. But other times I am so overwhelmed with the idea of creating "good art" I find myself unable to do anything.


Currently, I am working on an ecorche sculpture, in the hopes of learning more about anatomy. But it has been a slow process, and I think it may actually be blocking me from doing other work, since the clay is alternately too wet or too dry to work with.


I'm not sure as to what I want to paint next. I had resolved not to paint still lifes that have no symbolic meaning back when I finished school. But now I wonder if that's perhaps a bad decision, since painting of any sort is a form of practice and creative expression. I do notice that my creativity runs in waves. Usually I must ride the wave for as long as it lasts before I give up and do something else. Struggling to ride the dying wave is silly, in that I cannot find the same spark to continue the same level of intensity I felt when the creativity was flowing.


So therein lies the question - whether creativity is something that can be nurtured and coaxed into blossom like a sapling. Whether all the small things I do matter in the long run.


Lately, I have been getting back into fitness. Tracking my food intake and working out. Every little bit counts. So maybe this is the same for creativity. These little bits that I do add up to something bigger, to a future I cannot yet picture, but will march toward simply in the act of trying.


Someday I will look back a these early days of my artistic journey and find my pain darkly comical. For by then I would have seen even more trials and tribulation and be even more aware of all of the seeming impossibilities that prevent me from accessing my potential. But for now this struggle is very real, and it is difficult to find humorous. In writing this, I am letting it out a little at a time, like a slow poison being cleansed from my blood stream. Waiting for yet another evening of solitude in my studio... trying to reach something that is unreachable.

New Blog for My Thoughts

Recently, I decided to take myself off of Facebook, after receiving a message from someone I did not know, but from whom I had recently accepted a friendship request due to her love of art. The message, in the form of sage advice, basically chided me for how I lived my life and what I chose to post on Facebook. This led to some rethinking on my part of my identity as an artist and writer, and prompted me to take a break from social media. Aside from Instagram, I did not blog or post updates for most of March.


During this brief sabbatical, I had time to think a lot about what my art means to me, and how I want to be perceived as an artist. In many ways, our public image is both within and outside of our control. Most artists spend a lot of time carefully crafting their public images, and send out only those posts and updates that would contribute to their self-constructed identity, which is in part myth, and in part truth. *I believe that no one really knows the truth about themselves or others, so most of our thoughts are futile grasps at temporary senses of knowingness.


Once I disabled Facebook, I was suddenly aware of how quiet my life was. No longer filled with the static and hum of all the constant updates and colorful interludes of other people's lives, their snapshots of this moment or that, I was left with the realization that somewhere in the quiet, my life was proceeding uninterrupted, that the sun still rose and set, and that I was left unchanged but somehow outside of the stream of consciousness that my online community shared. I was, in essence, left with solitude.


In solitude one has immeasurable power. It's the vantage point from which critical thought and exploration could proceed. I suddenly had a lot more time on my hands. Instead of reading about a friend's adventures or life event, I was reading about the holocaust, female genital mutilation, and generally exploring issues that which had intrigued me for a long time, given my fascination with anthropology, culture, and gender discourse.


At times, I felt the need to broadcast my thoughts to someone, to anyone who may dialogue with me about my discoveries and share in my inner experiences. Somehow that's always been the driving force of my life, to connect with others on a deeper level and to spark conversations that would encompass all that which cannot be readily described in just a few words (except for in haikus), or be rushed through in polite social settings. My mind's words fill me with both excitement and anxiety, for they are voluminous, and can occupy caverns with their prodigiousness.


Although I think of myself as both a writer and painter, I feel there is a distinct separation between the two art forms. In painting, the visual element is that which first arrests the viewer's eyes. The symbolism and other ideas and meanings come secondary to the initial visual impression. In writing, the flow of thought and construction of words form the gradual image. In many ways, the two processes of expression run counter to each other, in reverse so to say, although in both writing and painting, they often both begin with a singular image or idea for me.


So I finally came to terms with the need for me to find an outlet for my inner thoughts and words, but not in the context of social media, where interactions are generally defined by brevity and levity. Rather, this would be a blog through which I would explore my consciousness, and refine my artistic development with the help of writing and discourse. While not an official blog about my art work, I hope it would serve as a platform from which to view my art concurrently. Being both a writer and painter, I feel this is the best manner with which to approach my creative process, and to give life to my thoughts.


With that, I hope you will enjoy reading this blog. But even if you didn't, it would still be something enjoyable for me to write.