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...