Thanksgiving Break

Wednesday after class, I hung around school, and worked late into the night; until 4. I slept at school, then went home to prepare food to share for a thanksgiving that I'd been invited to by Cindy, a PAFA student who is older and has had a full Nursing career, and is a world champion weightlifter. When I bring up the weightlifter, she puts in qualifiers like 'in my age, in my division, in my weight class', an I say 'no, you're a champion. You're the best one'. her flight to the world championships was delayed. The event was in Australia, and she arrived just in time for weigh in, and she was livid. She funneled that rage into her lifting and won first place.

I made cauliflower and kale, with garlic. Cindy picked me up from PAFA and drove me to her house (and later back). I met her immediate family which consisted of her husband, her daughter of 26 who was studying 3d computer graphics modeling, her son of 29 who studied sustainable ag and was bound to go live in Maine too, her oldest son of mid-thirties and his wife who were about to move to Naples Florida for the husband to work as a private chef for some rich guy, and her sister and niece, and her adopted son and his family, and the two dogs. Cindy cooked and all of the food was incredible. All of the staples appeared, in addition to a vegetable pie, which has to be my new favorite food.

Cindy texted me later to say that I was a welcome presence and that her kids enjoyed talking with me, (which was a super welcome thing to hear because I didn't know if I was pestering them). Thanks Cindy.

The next day I slept until 2pm, then went to my girlfriend's house, whereupon I slept until 6am this morning. Frances and I (oh yeah, dear reader, we got back together, it's been good for a couple months. I told her I make a better boyfriend the second time around, which is true, and although all of my red flags remain, namely the no wife, no kids, art first, we've had a mutually beneficial thing going), split in the morning to reconvene after lunch. We met at PAFA, then took a train to a suburb to go to one of her friend's pie eating event- basically thanksgiving leftovers pie-feast. It was okay, but admittedly one of those things that could put stress on a relationship, as I felt the clock ticking and the small talk was dull; despite a foray into death as a subject.

The choice not to talk about race around those who have built an identity around race reparations, work etc. hung heavy. Like I'm down to talk about race, and what we can do, but there were straw man stories that went nowhere and met with guffaws which is basically what's wrong to me. There's no story that can cleanse the shameful practices of breeding or continuing on at all, to me, I think, when I get into those conversations. On the way home I had some excess energy and two co-pie-eaters drove us back to our respective spots- I chose to return the school, wherefrom I write you. They pointed out a public arts project of giant light-up poles in the middle of the median on Broad street. Why do we need giant light-up poles down Broad Street? We went a few blocks and I said, 'yeah, I hate those lights', and I was not met with acceptance, but rather 'what, those lights?' and referring to the civic center. 'Well, those lights to are a sin'. And Frances might have smiled at the grumpiness, and I think I mentioned somehow the plastic continent in the ocean, and that that's what we need to weigh our actions against, and that was my big point for the night.
The end.

So I have to do these comics, and they're driving me mad, because they are contextualized under 'Adult Supervision', which either means they're lewd or profound, or a combination, or potentially offensive, etc. we chose this I imagine to give us a lot of headroom concept wise, but egads it's a loaded gun. So I'm writing a little bit to get some of the wiggles out, and hopefully I'l get a good rhythmic set of panels up off the ground that I can work with. In the meantime, a bunch of disjointed parts, Kemeys.

Crit with Stuart

After a crit with Dan, I had another with Stewart at 3. Since our last crit, I'd installed tables and gone though one and a half cycles of paintings, maybe two. The studio reset itself just before Thanksgiving break, with I greatly enjoyed as I became free of some paint pit paintings. I pulled out a couple success paintings from those cycles, and hung out in a studio with a big fabric work-in-progress tacked to the big wall. Stewart said he had turned around after seeing the big colorful wall, as he thought he was in the wrong studio. No, I assured him, this is the spot. He said that the big painting (the 'feelie' piece tacked up to a bedsheets with other colored fabrics tacked and sewn in, like a big fabric collage in infancy) was unlike my paintings. He said that it celebrates color, whereas my paintings aren't about color. I'd kind of thought my paintings were about color enough. . Somewhat. Like, with my colorblindenss I thought the color experimentation I was doing made them about color, but when this crit came it made sense and I accepted it. So not only was Ken Kewley's thing good and welcome, but it opened collage, which might have opened color and shapes again to me- an aspect of paintings I have been very skeptical of. When it's said that my work celebrates color and shapes, I think that person is stupid- potentially. I mean, yeah, it's colors and shapes, let's move on though because I'm trying to communicate here. 

Stewart asked if I still had that little book. It was a book of a Wilfred Owen poem that I'd illustrated and assembled. It was direct collage in a two inch by 3/4inch book, bound with tape and PVA. I did still have it outside in a storage rack. He bought it off me for $20, and I gave him a reproduction that I'd made of it in an edition of eight too. 

I have one crit with each of my critics left to go this semester. I've done somewhat of a successful arc with each of them, and I think I've done good. Where to go from here?

 For Jessica, I'm going to make some beautiful illustrations for a comic book project that I've been doing with my friends. Our next critique is on December 3rd, and by that time I'll have a cover and two pages of interiors done to show her. Last week I sat in on one of her classes, in an emergency illustration refresher, so I could ensure my submissions will be of high quality. I've got two interior pages, but I am not sure if the story is strong enough yet to justify the time and labor etc that I've yet to put in. Yikes. 

For Didier, my assignment is to give my paintings a fair try- to actually go for it in terms of scale and energies etc, and not just 'scale up' but to go for it. 

And for Stuart, it is to make make make, and be engaged. For Stuart it's going to be a lot of starts, and round the clock vigilance. No sleep, mindfulness, bycatch. 

Crit with Dan Miller

I saw Dan Miller had his sign up sheet scarcely populated the day before his rounds, so I signed up for a 1:30 critique.

I'd prepared a comfy chair and a portfolio of 2D drawings from my 666 Serpents drawing project that I'm doing for another class.

Well, he sits in the chair, and I'm not guiding him to the drawings, so we talk a bit about what's in front of us in regards to the studio- and it's moderately good news.

After the Ken Kewley workshop I took out my 'feelie' project that I'd worked on over the summer. It is a felt painting and the joke is that it is also a 'felt' painting. It looks like a flag that my mom would've hung at our old house in Fort Meyers; (my mom got into the habit of hanging seasonal flags outside of our house. They were cute, and it was fun to see them rotate.)

Dan talked about how this piece makes him think of a travel poster, and that if he were to see it as an advertisement, he would like to go there. I thought this a high compliment. I brought up Rob Roesch and a conversation I'd had about 'feelies'- a polemic term referring to works of art that are like 70's was was pedal novelty stuff, and Dan recoiled, because I think I was subconsciously asking him if he cross=thought about his work in a context of 'feelies', which, I.e. hipster bullshit. Seeing a slight panic on his expression I flipped the conversation around, to change the topic because I thought I'd hit a nerve. .

I know Dan's a conservative guy, or a libertarian, or something. He has a video where he's asked if he listens to Rush Limbaugh, and he says "I'm an equal opportunity listener", so I liked that.

I kind of chilled out with Dan, because he's an old man and doesn't need all this pugilistic foolery. He wasn't stoked on my snake drawings, (and neither am I. . ) but,  on one kind of paused and said "well, this is good, but there's no background, and you see it the first time and it's cool, but then you keep seeing it and it gets so tired. Put a background on it." so That's good. No more objects in space, or rather deliberate objects in space..

Another thing is his idea for the student show. It's confirmation of something special to me. I keep hearing it. Just 'do this'; and 'this' referring to how I organize my studio. Dan mentioned an unforgettable wall where the kid just hung everything he loved. The kid sounded by way of allusion autistic or something. Anyway, that's in contention for how I might do the Student Exhibition wall.

Thanks Dan.

Comic Panels

This page from a zone rates pretty highly on the 'hipster bullshit' chart, but it's a foray into graphic novel/comic that I'm excited about. As an abstraction, it reads as like a batman comic, which despite my inclinations to talk shit on batman (though, aside from corporate, what's not to like). . I like batman just fine. 

Panels are me in studio having brain block, individual reading, milieu of contemporary detritus, school vending machine with three selections which are on my mind often; a snickers bar, a honey bun, and a pack of gum, then the bottom quadrant is the concentration of self indulgence/ hipster bullshit. 

I've stopped loading images on here, but I think I should start it up again.


This is intended for an open call PAFA illustration zine (let's see if they take it). Maybe I'm trying to troll them. TBH I was trolling Ringling. Nevertheless media literacy should prevail; I hope. I hope someone tells me that it's hipster bullshit.

I hope someone who doesn't know me sees it's repellents and its redeemers. It's not brilliant, but different. I'm just glad it looks like a batman at a glance. 

Ken Kewley workshop and insights.

i took a workshop over the weekend with Ken Kewley, who has a website I’m pretty sure, if you want to look him up. He’s been doing these workshops for a while each semester at PAFA. I felt like after it, I had an insight as to pafa’s Secret weapon. What’s funny is he didn’t refer to painting concepts  that much (like Stewart preceding), and mentioned the phenomenon that for what’s said, the opposite is true, but through the two 9-5 days, we collaged panited papers and ran color copies then collaged into those, then greyscale copies, then collaged into those, so by the end we had about a hundred little compositions apiece.

Now I feel like I can see kanevsky, and... who else.. Thomas. And mostly those two.

Thomas. I’ve alluded to before. Thomas is a workhorse, he’s the PAFA pace-horse. That’s all I’ll say.

I hung all of my collages outside the studio, and showed Ken on his way out the building, much to his delight. His artist friends are Stewart Shils, Isreal Hirschberg, Ben Huberman, and Nancy Gruskin. He doesn’t think he knows David Hornung, but the name rings a bell. Michael Gallagher doesn’t know David Hornung either. Michael Gallagher curateda show with Ken’s work a few years back.

Ken did say something about student work when Rachel and I kind of cornered him outside our studio on his way out the building. Life is fine, and there’s such beauty, and you recognize it because it’s already inside of you - that sense of beauty- you know what to look for in a way— there’s a couple things that happen when you go out in search of a beautiful landscape- you have this Corot in your head, and you set out to look for a Corot, and you spend a lot of time. Well, the Corot’s aren’t out there. They’re made up. Well, they are and they aren’t. And you find the spot, and set up, and you look behind you and it’s way better.

The student sees it and puts it in, but it ruins the painting. The student doesn’t get that a painting is being made. The painting is different from the reality, and reality is subjective anyway, so the painting is the reality.

My paintings were much improved today. That he and Stewart are buds is funny; as Ken showed tons of Braque whose solutions were often to bring in a pair of colors to bracket in the painting, whereas Stewart (though he hardly mentioned painting terms directly) consistently pointed out the differences in colors that a plebeian might make on mix for (or maybe Braque)- the differences between the shadow colors of one window sill compared to those of another comes to mind. I’ll never forget  staring into such obscure spots in the landscape with Stuart and witnessing the ‘same’ become radically different. . Stewart didn’t say this but hyper generalization in some things, hyper specificity in others. Ken is balance balance resolve. Ken also has fun with the painting in progress, and makes frame animations of the sequences.

Small sweep

A friend of mine offered some food. It’s a bit out that I’m by some standards an anorexic. I don’t think I’m anything, but for the sake of moving on, I’d like to acknowledge that food is a lot of what I think about, and coming into adulthood, the automatic ‘I’m hungry’, or my body will deal with it has not followed. Have I been influenced by outsiders, older people? Undoubtedly, but nonetheless it is something I’m noticing, and that I can talk about it is a good sign, as it means to some extent I have been through it- through being the operative term. … I keep pulling benders (sleepless nights, long painting days; inconsistencies, mixups) to get to paintings. I’m not saying that paintings need to come from benders, but rather that paintings need to be stolen, or captured, or waited out, or come up upon, and the irregularities of life mean that the living paintings need to be found in off times and in-betweens. 

Spending a weekend with Stewart Shils was impactful. In short, it was a return to a painting-thin and fast modality, with an emphasis on color reverence, hierarchies, and brush language (or movement). It was a glimpse down the road thirty years. And I’m Very grateful to have been in attendance. 

I saw Thomas on the elevator a few days later and asked how his painting was going, and made an analogy though now I forgot about what, and his analogy was that he’d just been given a Ferrari, and had to kind of learn how to handle it, and I fucking loved that, and it’s what I think about when I paint now.. Stewart asks ‘how is this moment different from all the rest?’, and is brave in mixing his colors. He’s fast, he’s clean; he wears gloves and an apron, his mixtures (I’m tempted to characterize as blonde, though not necessarily) are complex, but not pretentiously so, and by my account are true mixtures. (This to contextualize my ‘learned’ schemes and lazy lazy shortcuts; I even alluded often to ‘hacking’ a painting, as if I knew what the fuck was going on) 

This morning it was pouring rain. Pouring. My ceiling used to leak, but no longer does and I wonder if it’s been fixed, or if I’m to expect a big break in my luck soon. I didn’t have morning class. I thought I’d maybe wake inspired to make a batch of cookies, but as it goes I woke to realize how manic I’d been, and that by the grace of god, the sleep had brought back some health and clarity, and I could have even more, so I slept in! I must have looked incorrectly at my calendar, as I thought I had a critique at 10 am with Didier William. I must have looked this morning upon waking at 10- I’d already basically missed it. I took it as a loss, and slept a couple more hours. When I went to the bathroom and pissed, and came back to the bed to lie on my back I realized that THAT was true clarity, and this, THIS is true clarity, and after a moment sat up and THAT was true clarity. I had another critique at 1:30 with Stewart (though again I was mistaken- it was for tomorrow’s afternoon), and I had to catch a trolley before I could meditate, lest I miss it. I used the last berg of my deodorant, though there’s always a little left, it’s just a matter of how long you’re going to play that bergy-plastic-sheath game before the deodorant package is considered trash. I considered breaking out the shirts again, as when it rains up here I think of Jamaicans wading through wet and flooded streets; and you have to dry your feet- so shorts would do well for wicking. Things aren’t like that up here, so I wore pants. I’m committed to pants for the season. Everything’s falling apart (clothes-wise) but I’ll make it through winter no problem.  

Williams crit last time was that I could make words but not worlds. I wonder if this is a critique of his own work. To make worlds I believe would be illustration. 

A video I watched was about someone dying of cancer, and she said, you’ll know dying when what you take in takes away rather than adds to. 

When I know I’m dying, I do not eat, and that has been a focus of mine. Because food at that point would take away; there’s no winning. 

Thus capital a Art makes its polemic through the young. It’s the taking in that’s encouraged. Taking in, taking in. But when you cannot take in any longer without dying, you must put out, give; illustrate. 

I think of Picasso or Degas here. Eat eat eat, then, shit? Maybe I’m thinking too lightly of a fantasy 60 year old composer laughing and making pictures ‘flick of the wrist’, ‘to ha e conquered the beast’. It probably doesn’t get any easier. Rumor is it gets harder; not to be shitty. 

So the illustrators are mature and wise in some ways. They don’t feign profundity for some historian’s eye. They make something clear, even if it’s disparate. 

What’s unfortunate for the young illustrator is that they have a lackluster skill set, and sometimes a shallow base of experience. It takes a great measure of self awareness and maturity to acquire the skill set and an understanding of ‘what makes this moment different from all other moments’, to make something of power. The illustrators’ impulse is profound, and the illustrators’ journey long.