This evening

“look at this dollar bill, see how I can spend it.”
John Hurt found his way into this coffee shop. Maybe it’s just the sugar sinking in. I’m flying. This gentleman is rank. He called this a coffee shop. My teeth are going to rot from sugar, from pastries. I give him a dollar. He says I didn’t have to. I told him I was going to before he started playing the first song. He plays another song and looks at the pastries through the glass of the display case. He’s charming and confident. Is he wooing? Fun guy. This morning we had a Scott lecture of the closeted of great painting, and I hoped to be the most closeted! Let chinese coffee rot my teeth out, and let me stink a bit and tap my feet and play music like this guy. In Chinatown, 4-29-18, with Alfred at the Mong Kok Bakery on 10th street in Philly.

Rough cut

Now it’s been a short while since I’ve posted. I’m under stress. I’m waking early from stress. My digestion is mute. I feel unwanted. I’m going to a meeting, so I’ll have to put on a face soon enough. I hope I can paint at the meeting. I’ll take a photo too, to work from photo. There’s so much noise in the art world. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed.

24Hour Draw-a-thon

Finished the Draw-a-thon this afternoon, 24 hours of drawing (in my case, painting). It went well attended (very, nearly 40 students I guess), and went smoothly. There were no fewer then three crucifixion displays to paint from, and a Hell, and a couple Deposition/general biblical tableauxs, to which I painted in some sort of reverence. In all, over 24hours, I netted 10 paintings, one’s a heater, at least two are non-finito, at least two are bad, and the first two I accepted as special- they’re all special, even the ones I can’t remember.

I went to animal drawing class afterwards at the Natural History Museum and drew a taxidermy Okapi. John Horn came by and demonstrated some hatching and said, “there are no concaves in nature”, and “I don’t know if its true or not, but I think it’s true”- this in relation to hatching; no ‘u’s only n’s? I was zonked from the 24 hour event. I said thank you and that it was important advice earnestly, and snuck out of the museum to go home from there. 

Walked through the Moore College Galleries, of some Guerilla Girls show. Students were on the floors, drawing from the show, which was curious to see, drawing from Guerilla Girls posters- maybe it was a graphic design class. 

A classmate suggested that PAFA replace the Chuck Close show with one from a female artist. I would like to see a Cindy Sherman show there, sure, and the Guerilla Girls posters got me thinking about PAFA’s curation. I bet that Chuck Close show was relatively affordable, being that it was largely his process work, reified. I hope for PAFA’s curation to get a little bolder than to tote big-timers along (and again, I presume at bargain)- I’d hope for, well, that WWI show was good. . I’d hope for the contemporary wing to hook it up for artists, and not the other way around contractually.

Went to the UPENN museum with a class, and filled a couple large pages with thumbnails for projects- mostly ceramics. Went to the PMA this evening, saw porcelain works that inspired me.  

Here’s some ideas: 

David and Goliath with David as the mystic artist. Satirical and ironic, David assumes an occult posture, maybe with a foot atop a football helmet- standing in for Goliath’s head. The artist stands in this fashion before an easel, and two options here:

A. Paints a cup, like as a still life object, atop a table. The whole thing set into a 15th C. Background-type landscape painting. 

B.) Paints himself, a little more handsomely, and maybe with a halo too, as a self portrait, same background-type setting. He paints from a standing mirror. He’s atop a hill, and the crowd (of mouthbreathing sports fans) are down below.. He still stands on the football helmet. Maybe the receipt for the football helmet hangs out of his back pocket. 

___

Yesterday looking out the window of PAFA’s 9th floor, I saw thousands of sports fans- eagles fans, out for to see the hometeam parade down broad street. It was about 11AM, and there was much alchohol. Teenagers climbed atop Trash trucks and shouted in symbolic conquest. I thought, ‘God, sometimes I wonder if I’ll be able to paint-cups my way out of this.’ I thought it was funny. Paint apples out of this, etc. . There’s a funny saying that crazy is trying the same thing twice and expecting a different result- it’s just a saying- what of practice- makes perfect-and perfect what? - more just sayings. 

I’m thinking of this sculpture of a hello kitty that’s Jesus Christ with a blessing mudra. 

I’m thinking of a sculpture of a saxophone pipe- maybe painting it and calling it ‘this is not a saxophone’, how nerdy, maybe it could be a bass saxophone and it says ‘this is not a tenor saxophone’ 

Another sculpture, same prettymuch, lucrative, a trumpet one-hitter, or a clarinet, (though I imagine less lucrative)

I read the order-of-operations version of cave painting centered rituals, where the hand prints go after the stabbing of the painted symbolic elk or whatever. I saw at the PMA tonight still life paintings depicting a kind of ‘this is what I have’ kind of thing, and, I don’t know if it’s the same but I thought about (well, first a painting of all of this, but paint can get clunky sometimes), so, I’ll write it here- posting say a pile of money on social media or any material possession, then go the gratuitous ‘likes’, in red hearts etc. blessing the ritual, and hoping too for a successful hunt, however abstract that may be. So, I think that concept is consolidated herein, unles I want to get into Pieto-type contrivances. I did think from this though, that it would be worth painting a dollar bill. I’m also seeking top legibility. What says dollar more- a symbol like ‘$1’, or a painting so real it fools the eye- of a dollar bill, or a dollar bill? How about ONE DOLLAR.? Kind of gets back to the question what’s the value of a dollar doesn’t it?

A modernist corner is entered when upon approaching acknowledgment of the object, the subject becomes self referencial and withers into itself. Be careful with symbols, and be impeccable with your word. More sayings. 

Acid Rain

I heard rain this morning- a crackling sound from outside of my window, like how embers pop in a bonfire. A thought came to me as I remained lying of toxic radiant green-ness, eating at the walls of my building, like the atmosphere was compromised and the insides of buildings were a bastion for a hellish ripping apart.

I took a nap. I rode to school on a bike and thought still about the anthropocenenic vistas of a failing ecology. The world was indeed alien feeling as the sounds suggested upon waking.

Frost covered the ground (or was it salt? , but they wouldn’t salt the lawns, would they?) and the road I thought would be merely wet had also sections with crystalization- slush. I rode through streets with up to an inch of slush, and thought about end times. How cynical to conclude that the weather represents something so large as a finite end- it’s just a feeling, but it feels like more than that, on rainy days a feeling may seem as fact, an artifact from past tracks. A clack on metal framed rack, my u-lock, brings me back- but only to the beginning of the thought itself- today’s staging of the same scene- a commute; late to a self-guided class in a hall of plaster casts. I draw.

A soft romantic throws a rope tied to a life raft. A note scrawled onto the side reads ‘to commiserators idly waxing the abstract, grab hold’, and I’ll see you around.  a veritable sandbox of verisimilitude and brass tacks, egads!

Continued complaining

I’m not sure what to do with this, and I don’t know who my audience is, so in the meantime I’m dumping it here. It’s my follow-up to a statement I’d posted in the school elevator, and a kissing cousin to something that got em into trouble elsewhere recently. Here goes:

It occurs to me I have to write a follow-up to my elevator statement. Something short, but with some elaboration: 

What happens when constraints are placed on eligibility of works for show is akin to hegemony. It’s a prevailing norm, dictating (well, let’s say guiding or rewarding) participation. At best from this we can hope for mannerism, that is work that quacks like contemporary art. The offenders are manny- those who ask for works of a particular style, or theme, or of a certain subject matter are the elephants in the room, second to them are the craftspeople who make works that resemble ‘relevance’ as they reinforce the norm. 

What I’m ready to continue harping about, and what this elaboration is about, is about student work- the work that’s being done here at art school. What this college, is good at, known for, is foundations studies. By weight, works made here is academic in nature; yet how many shows have offered an outlet for such work? 

I suppose that’s it. 

Well, I’ll say, cards on the table, it would be good to paint ‘out of fashion’, because we’ve seen what it does in historical waves- it brings glory: glory to the rejected! Glory to the misunderstood!, which again, playing a hand would be to make work that was whatever was not going on en mass. Thing is, our options are the same as they’ve always been; the ‘old’, or the ‘new’, except it’s apparent the the ‘new’ is largely old. 

Is a skillset out because it’s irrelevant, or because you can’t do it; asking for a friend. Look at the appreciation for Late Guston, Katz, Hockney. . So the thing to paint is the unfashionable, which would mean in investing terms, buy skills, short style, because one’s going for a bumpy ride, and the other can participate in the latter. Why am I making public my complaints? It’s at least one part giving voice to vulnerabilities- if I’m painting the unfashionable, then that’s the secret fashionable- do it too and run the market!, another part is to be vulnerable- it’s very possible I don’t ‘get’ the art I’m making polemics of, and I hope you would be proactive in either making work more legible or enlightening me to my ignorances- please don’t outcast me. 

Yet another, other reason I’m reaching out, is that we both (if polemics, then your side, my side) have my opinions regarding power. I seek to empower us, that we not repeat the past (the past say hundred years in particular, and with nesting eddies therein approaching the present, as fashion goes)- that we recognize zombies for what they are (read on ‘zombie formalism’ from Jerry Saltz, or just reckon what it means and you might be close too). So, my best bet it would seem would be to learn academic painting, at a good school, because it’s one of the most particular educations to be had, and to sit pretty on a bed with unfashionable paintings under the mattress and no show history, like Lucien Freud, like Hopper.

I’m getting way ahead of myself- and cynical. Really, what’s wrong is that the student work has no stage, and the mannerist works, often illegible to the population for whom they are intended (or militant on the behalf of), continue to pump out of art institutes, adding to the overall noise of a culture characterized by waste and overabundance. It doesn’t need to be a figure painting, I’m no purist, it just needs to be self-aware, and in the meantime, well done. 

Kemeys

Thinking about it, I say this all the time too, my favorite authors are those who whine. They write from their hearts. J.D. Salinger, I think took this to an intellectual level, aware of the appropriative qualities of the format. Poe, Goethe’s Wether, . It’s not idle- it’s full of potential. I think of my audience- it’s myself, sort of. It’s a younger version of myself, it’s myself up until the 

moment of writing. Problem can be that I don’t say anything constructive at all. There’s a tendency towards polemic. It’s terribly relatable. I think of the anecdote from Jorodowsky- he’d written this screenplay, and some other director took it on, and failed at it- the movie was terrible. Jorodowsky and his son in the theater relished the failure of the unfortunate director. How human that is, he noted, to be thrilled at someone’s shortcoming. Goethe says in Werther that there is nothing so unfortunate as a bad attitude- windows and mirrors. A friend asked what my art would look like if I made it as Robert rather than Kemeys. I had a dream where my mother called me Robbie, and my sexual non-blood aunt was there- it was a dream centered about my youth. My colors flooded, and water abounded. I called my mom yesterday. She’d just finished her big fund raiser project which is centered around alleviating hunger in her county. She called me Kemeys. Last night I must have dreamed about piglets. When I meditate, I’ll nearly hyperventilate in two sections, and vivid flourishes go while I hold my breath. In such a state did I see piglets, in a pre-natal from, glistening. I couldn’t hold on to the memory- a wall developed in my mind. This comes from reading another circus book. I’ve written since 2013 at least, into this blog. This morning I realized I’d dreamt of Noah, and maybe Abraham. I proclaimed my Jewishness, to the disapproval of a Jewish figure. 

Stayed late last night. Was turned down for a landscape residency. I hope I am changing. 

Sugar and coffee

Picked up the last of my ceramic sculptures from Bronwyn’s class at the Starr Garden. That might do it for the class. I made a connection in Yaffa, who wants her portrait done. She is a PhD and so is her husband. As with the high achievers, she is enthusiastic and full of ideas for a portrait. She envisions a tesseract of a piece, involving sculpture, photo, writing, calligraphy, video, painting, everything, to tell her life’s story. Like cubism- but more, she describes. I am yessing my way though the planning stages. I have made preliminary sketches thus far of her in traditional garb from her ancient tribe. 

Submitted for my friend’s zine project. I did the cover and an interior spread. The friends are putting together a dummy and will try to get Ringling to pay for printing costs through a small grant. I moved out of one of two studios here- one is plenty, and I’d learned that lesson before too. Still life class I hope to make my bread and butter, though, and I didn’t think I’d say this, but I love portrait painting and relish the two portrait classes I am in- back to back, allowing for a minimum six hour painting day. I plan to paint after those classes on Mondays too, now having terminated from Starr Garden’s ceramics class. Where I’d been new at ceramics and making a couple sculptures per class, I have slowed down in gaining some proficiency and feel that it’s not worth my expenses to attend these community classes. So my painting time is as follows: Mondays, 6hours with potential 6 bonus hours, Tuesdays, Three with potential for six, Wednesdays, six with six, T, six with six, F, draw, (and I hope to splice in a dance class forthcoming) in addition to Museum draw 2-3. 6 6, 3 6, 6 6, 6 6, draw (6). 41 paint, 6 draw. 21 p, 6d. 

Three bad paintings today; it can feel as though the world is ending. I chatted with a model who used to live in Tallahassee at the same time as me (though I was mostly in Highschool at that time, there are still plenty of overlaps). He hung out with a friend group I’m familiar with. He’s the kind of guy my uncle talked about in his deathbed letter- the eccentric people- they’re more interesting. I agree. We went on a bike ride through Chinatown and got lunch the other day. I’ve got a life-sized portrait bust of him on my desk that I’m looking at periodically. When I first saw him model I thought “now this is a man!” very sexy. I’m going to do a report on Tintoretto. I guess he was a rock and roller, and used the language of Titian liberally, and to criticism by the likes of Vasari. I’ve not read much, but I like him already. There’s a draw-a-thon coming up- twenty four hours of drawing. I scored about fifteen slices of pizza in the last two days, and a trash-banana, and pastry and a bagel at tonight’s class. That’s in addition to nuts from my studio-mate, and dates and fruit from Yaffa from her Jewish harvest holiday celebration. What good fortune! 

I’m focusing on horses recently, and hope I can get to an understanding of their anatomic construction, especially as we will draw from a live model coming up shortly in an animal anatomy course. With all of my proclivity for scheming et al, I should drink less coffee and eat less sugar I think, as at the end of the day, I’m in the right place and would be wise to cut down on the drugging. Bronwyn gave me a thorough critique of my zine images, and what I consider as my first critique. To my heartfelt astonishment she ‘got it’ on the spot. Glass casting is coming up here at pafa and I’ve got some summer do-dads in moulds and weighed out. I must consider whether to make new do-dads to round out the batch- a time commitment. I have ideas. I did the thing this afternoon and committed to a still life subject. I scraped down my block-in and will do some measured drawing and color mixing before a second block-in. The theory is to preview the composition and make whole decisions therefrom. I’m chanting Catherine Murphy in my head while I paint. 

From a book I’d read over winter break it was said do not hesitate to buy good books, and since I have not hesitated. I have plenty of reading to do and what’s more my teachers this semester have each recommended and required in some cases several books for our referencing and curriculum. For my materials and techniques class a link was sent to a digital archive of, god, it must be over a hundred books about artist materials, techniques, histories, etc. I’ve written down a few of interest to me, and let’s se if I get to them. Email me if you would like a link to over a hundred free digital artist books, I’ll pass it along. Yaffa gifted me two of her husband’s shirts that were going to thrift. I think I’ll cut up a couple shirts then to use for painting rags. It’s wonderful to be a part of a community. I continually lose my school id. What do I do with that thing? It’s the coffee and the sugar I imagine.