A little view of my studio life:

A Thousand Words to Describe the Big Picture: My Artists Statement

What is an artist, but a misfit, who does not belong with misfits? As if the island of misfit toys even rejected one of their own, exiling them to their own winter island.  But they crave it, this loneliness, because it is too hard to look up; too hard to take in all the details; it is too much. Why were many of the great artists tormented into near insanity? I will spill it, here, now, in a language that others will understand; because many believe that art is in the eye of the beholder—this is wrong—it is in the eyes of the artist, understood by no one else, and thus our very form of expression is a failure, and so, I write it now in English.

The reason is their extreme sensitivity to the world around them: everything is taken in: colors, sounds, happiness, relationships, injustice, indifference, sadness—It becomes conflicted and remixed all in one; white noise—yet somehow we interpret it, but no, this cannot be done on a cognitive level—all must be forgotten, yet at the same time all things must be present—think of those actors that can get into the skin of any character, of musicians or painters that can feel political injustices better than any proficient political scientist. The swayed emotion in Beethoven’s Fur Elise. Mary’s pain in Michelangelo’s Pietà. The confusion is Picasso’s Guernica. Will Smith’s performance in The Pursuit of Happiness—Interesting word pursuit: that’s what art is—for it is never fully attained. It is desperation to convey this sensitivity that ultimately drives us towards insanity—because who can convey a million thoughts all at once? We take all of it in, yet produce so little.

People say a picture is worth a thousand words, just as this paper is a thousand words, yet we still fall behind, and driven to convey these perceptions so clearly, we become creatures of self deprecation and perfectionism—only pushing us further behind in our productivity, yet further forward in the skill of our craft.  It is this sensitivity and this drive that ultimately will break us—everything has a cost, and this is the price we pay for our becoming indispensible to the human race. It is this process; this finding one’s self amid the white noise that brings us peace. It is not that we have created art, but participated in it, as if some higher power or invisible hand is guiding us. To this we are grateful. It is as the Greeks said—we are not geniuses, but have geniuses—leading us by the hand through the chaos.

I am a painter. I prefer the shut doors, in apprehension that others will see what the real process of what my art is. Sometimes I delve so far into nothingness while I paint, that I will suddenly awaken as if out of sleep—and when I awake I realize what has happened—I find that I had been crying, or dancing, or painting with my left hand, or both at the same time—sometimes painting on opposite ends of the canvas simultaneously. It is at this moment when I wake that I realize that I couldn’t have done those things if I had tried, yet, somehow, it was me. In waking, I gaze at what I have created, my thoughts taking the shuttle across the corpus callosum, right to left, and the left argues with the right, critiques it’s thoughts, sometimes harshly, and sends them back again. Right, left, right, left, right, as if steps in a journey are synchronized with the drumbeat of a brush on canvas—a million times, a million strokes, a million shuttle tickets.

The journey becomes one, and no one’s, and the artist is along for the ride. The art is never fully theirs, but yet, it is their creation, their child. It is as if it has a mind of its own, and from the first stages, the final product is predictable, yet containing a sense of uncertainty. It is a blessing, and a curse—our creative womb opens, creating a mystery child—and through this birth canal, or better spoken, channel—we channel our feelings, our thoughts and our emotions, yet not fully. Never fully, for it is not fully our own, and it seems, many a time—as a painter, all we do is fail, and end up only protecting the surface of a canvas from the elements, and expose it to the critiques.  Critiques. Everyone. The eye of the beholder. In a sense, that statement could be true. For art becomes something entirely different, a packaged gift for each individual, the product of the artist extricating solace amid the white noise in the lives of those individuals. In a sense, “art is in the eye of the beholder,” is entirely false, yet entirely true. Indispensable. This indispensability is the realization of a work of art.

It is the gift of Providence Himself, gifted to one with unsteady hands, and a crude mind and spirit. Art is a refining process, for the artwork as much as the artist. It is not so much about art, as about life. What we leave behind is not art, so much as stones to step on or stones to avoid. Art is a gift, given by Providence, and given again through the artist. It itself is a misfit, the same as the artist, but you see, that’s what makes it beautiful, irreplaceable, and invaluable—the same as life—and each day, each stroke is unique in that sense, and time becomes valuable. The way you live your life, that is art, and that is what The Great Creator has been trying to teach us—we are his—his crowing creation, yet we are not fully His, because we are ourselves, and He chose that. So who is along for the ride? The Art, or the Artist? 

More Watercolors...

Here's a couple watercolors I've worked on recently...

This one was more of a learning project than anything. I tried doing a bunch of things I've never tried before in watercolor (like techniques from oil painting), and I'm pretty surprised I didn't turn the colors into mud by the end. I found some of the things I tried didn't work, and some did. I decided to set the painting down before I tried too much on one sheet of paper. I was working from a photograph that a friend took when we were fishing in Valdez. 

This one I did with my local painting buddy Tom Nixon a few weeks ago. It's more of a study of wet into wet. It's a super easy technique. I'm going to be doing more of these here soon...

Ha this is a catch up post...

Hey everyone! I was really busy the past five months or so with school, and preparing for my show, and a bunch of other projects. I've been able to do very little artwork over that time, but hopefully that will change soon. Here's just a couple I've done:

This is a watercolor, and was actually at my First Friday show. I wanted to work with mostly negative space, and I really liked how it turned out (except for a couple little spots, but i can be my own worst critic right?). I'm planning to do a few more like this, leaving the white areas as just suggestive foliage and other things. I really like the effect, and just how soft it is. 

This one was more of a study. I kind of rushed it. It's a Bison grazing on the side of the road in Canada.    I haven't done much wildlife paintings, so i figured I'd give it another shot.

I'm putting this in here because it was quite the little project. I just finished it today! This is a coin collection I've been working on since I was a kid. It has 150 coins from over 25 countries including the French Polynesian Islands, New Zealand, Guatemala, England, Holland, Japan, China, Czechoslovakia, El Salvador and others. I made the coin holders from shelfs of an old jewelry box, hand made the frame, and got the glass custom cut, and painted and stained it to give it an antique finish. I'm still working on the collection by the way, so I'll end up filling the repeated coins with newer ones, and leaving the rest in a box. It was kind of out-of-my-ordinary "art" project, but it was fun and I like how it turned out.

December 7th First Friday

I just recently had my first First Friday, at Tammy Phillips Studio and Gallery. It was a great learning experience, ha and I learned a lot of what not to do (which frames to get, organizing my work into a theme...). I must say there is a learning curve involved in the whole marketing side of it. I haven't been huge into selling or marketing my work until just recently, so everything is new and fun. I'm planning on getting another body of work together soon, and hopefully having some more shows, so we'll see how that goes :P. Thank you everyone who came, and thank you Tammy Phillips for inviting me to show at your gallery in December! It was great!

Watercolors

These are some recent watercolors i've been working on, also a couple from earlier this year. I'm messing around with a few techniques i haven't tried in a while, and a couple new ones altogether. Enjoy! 

Carving in Ivory

This is my very first attempt to carve into Ivory, or do any carving at all. This is a piece of Mammoth tusk i got from a friend. The carving is of a Big Horn Ram. It's kind  of sloppy, but it's my first one, and I'm not really sure what tools to use yet. I think I found a new hobby.