Daily Crucible: thoughts and images every day...

balance

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 07:02:00 +0000

My apartment building has walls as thick as onion skin. Like a busy hive, the sounds of life permeate the walls. Private becomes public. I recently--as in 15 minutes ago--was treated to quite the Opera of Love. Almost an hour long, the neighbors' lovemaking followed some musical conventions, much to my amusement. Buildup, crescendo. Repeat. Fin.

Now, silence. The only rhythm is my fingers typing this entry. I type. I delete. I retype. I wonder how to experience the edges of my work in fluid, organic ways that won't restrict movement or growth, how to create definitions allowed to change sizes.

In yoga, our edge is our limit, yet a fluid limit. We are more flexible one day than the next. As our practice deepens, our edges shift. For me, that sensibility exists in art as well. Limits that are flexible and open to growth yet contain a viable structure with a bottom line that is usually better left uncrossed. Why? With yoga, the value of ahimsa, or nonviolence, is key in learning to go up to one's edge but not past it. To do so would be violence to one's self, one's body. The art world, however, values pushing past the edges, breaking boundaries, and even being transgressive. I struggle with how to reconcile these antithetical points and still live in what is true for me as a person who makes art, makes love, lives yoga.

Paradigms of competition

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 01:32:00 +0000

The zero-sum game: that's the way it is if you're a competitive person and you see capitalism in that way. Zero-sum game implies winners and losers which I don't agree with. Somebody has to win and somebody has to lose, it all comes back to zero (minus eight, plus eight). But I don't agree with that because all boats can rise on a rising sea. Good films can help other films to be open. There's a different psychology at work. If you're overly competitive, you'll be exclusionary and say it's a zero-sum game (I must get eight and he must lose eight). Gekko simplifies it down to a painting. He says he bought this painting or this building for X and he sold it for Y and he made that profit and he assumes that somebody else got beat, but that's not necessarily true. You don't always lose.

--Oliver Stone

There is competition, but it is used in a good way. It is positive to want to go first, provided the intention is to pave the way for others, make their path more easy, help them, or show the way. Competition is negative when we wish to defeat others, to bring them down in order to lift ourselves up.

--Dalai Lama

Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers and never succeeding.
--Marc Chagall

Competition is a by-product of productive work, not its goal. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. --Ayn Rand

The only competition worthy a wise man is with himself. --Anna Brownell Johnson

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:52:00 +0000

Do I contradict myself? Yes, I contradict myself. I am large; I contain multitudes. ~ Walt Whitman

words for autumn

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 23:12:00 +0000

Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by. Now overlap the sundials with your shadows, and on the meadows let the wind go free. Command the fruits to swell on tree and vine; grant them a few more warm transparent days,urge them on to fulfillment then, and press the final sweetness into the heavy wine.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

The benefits of an injury

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:15:00 +0000

For the last several months, I have pushed through physical pain so that I could continue doing my bread & butter job, massage therapy. While I have part time gigs doing other non-bodywork things, I have depended on massage to make ends meet for almost the last 12 years. Despite regular self care--ice packs, salt baths, liniment rubs nearly daily, and receiving bodywork (roughly every 2-3 months --not enough, really)--my neck and shoulder decided they had enough and I wound up dislocating my collarbone after a particularly strenuous shift.

The soft tissue around the joint puffed up like a souffle. I spent 2 days under an ice pack and was finally able to get the tissue and the joint treated with acupuncture and medical massage. As I allow myself to rest, I feel my body becoming aware of itself. I notice how my body uses energy as I move, and enjoy the transition from forcing my body to work beyond its capabilities to respecting my limits.

Naturally, this has consequences in my life. I cannot work (do massage) right now, and while this makes my body happy, my bank account is losing an alarming amount of weight rather quickly. Trade-off.

Fluxus is the watchword of the day as my entire life moves into ambiguity for the next month or so: work, health, school, money. The constant of spiritual practice helps me stay grounded, as does the support of my amazing friends, yet I also feel a crisis of faith--I was called to my path, but lately it is steep, rocky, hard to pass. Can I make it?

This injury is a blessing in disguise because it makes me rest and consider my next move; I am forced to make choices that support my calling--letting go of a safe, secure job that drained me of the energy to make art and opening my hand to receive the next right thing. Scary, but also exhilarating.

Dash Snow

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:55:00 +0000

Mixed feelings about the passing of 27 year old Dash Snow, an itinerant graffiti artist/debaucher extraordinaire. A descendant of the American Medici--the De Menil family--I find great (unintentional) irony in his choice to distance himself from the greatest art family in the US by becoming an artist himself. Way to rebel Dash. He died of --what else?!--a drug overdose. Another casualty at 27, along with Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix and Dash's likely alter-ego/inspiration, Jean-Michel Basquiat.

I wonder about the transgressive culture that breeds these feral creatures only to document their self destruction and then profit from the sale. I question the culture of sensationalism that says this brand of living is somehow more intense, or more intensely lived than someone living a more private, interior intensity. I don't prefer being hit over the head with obvious, ham-handed metaphors, thank you.

And I am so very tired of attempts to convince me that his short life is so valuable because he chose to be transgressive, or that he is somehow original. Dash, it's all been done, son. I can appreciate the curiosity of living outside a mainstream population, but that does not necessarily make a person daring, interesting, or original. Perhaps it just means they are homeless, and without a certain, shall we say, pedigree.

Anyway. I am sorry for the loss for his obviously devoted friends, his girlfriend, and their 2 year old little girl. There are so many that will miss the human role he played in their life, regardless of the many opinions about his contribution to art.

More figure studies

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:15:00 +0000

Figure with Gray

colored pencil on Ingres

Man Sleeping
charcoal on Ingres

Man
charcoal on Arches

Woman

conte on Ingres

space

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:19:00 +0000

What a nutty month June was! 3 professional exams, 2 academic exams in my art history class, 2 continuing ed classes for my massage license, plus work. I didn't work in my studio at all in June, and the disconnect feels foreign and awkward, like seeing a lover for the first time after a big fight.

July allows more space; my exams and continuing ed courses are finished, and my work schedule has evened out. When I entered my studio yesterday, just taking stock, the sense of absence was palpable. Noticing that fire in the belly to just work, take the ideas from my sketchbook and make things happen. Yeah.

Guardian UK Art and Design Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:17:00 +0000

I have wondered what the model's experience is like since I am always on the looking side of the easel, rather than the one being looked at. I happen to like it that way--being seen is not something I feel entirely comfortable with. (As a child, my favored superpower was usually invisibility, a la Violet from The Incredibles.) But this entry on the Guardian UK Art and Design Blog details the experience of one model as she sat for painter Diarmuid Kelley. The finished portrait--above-- is entitled "The King of Spain."

CFAM--Andy Warhol: Personalities

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:44:00 +0000

Until next January, Warhol's Polaroids will be on display at Rollins College's Cornell Fine Arts Museum. Just couldn't resist that one of the Governor of Collie Fornia.

Quote of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:44:00 +0000

That for which the public reproaches you, cultivate. It is you. -- Jean Cocteau

Quote of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Sat, 23 May 2009 01:25:00 +0000

Painting: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic. - Ambrose Bierce

Skull A Day

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Sun, 17 May 2009 19:34:00 +0000

This is the book cover for Noah Scalin's Skull A Day project. His work evolved from a blog into a book, and now asks for submissions to continue the daily project.

He made skulls from food, trash, paper, traditional art media, etc. Definitely worth a look.

I love this guy, partly because I enjoy El Dia de Los Muertos, and skulls are a major motif of that holiday. Also, I was impressed by his ingenuity with materials.

(I like materials.)

Weather

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:22:00 +0000

The weather has blown hot and cold this week, uncharacteristic for this time of year. My herbs are still alive on the porch, a little dry and curled from the wind, but opening back up under the warmth of the sun.

I am re reading a good book in slow, deliberate moments. A chapter here. A few sentences there. In between quotidian things I steal these words like kisses and savor them. They are bringing me back to life.

Like my windblown, beleagured herbs I too unfold, emerge, open back up under the warmth of the sun and well chosen inspiration.

I have returned.

Hibernation

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 21:23:00 +0000

It has been two months since my last confession--I mean, post.

For the time being I will be taking a break from this blog while I pursue some real-life things that need attention. I will be back.

Be well.

Listening Post

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 07:13:00 +0000

Bowmboi by Rokia Traore

The Silver Tree by Lisa Gerrard

Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder

...mp3s don't have art on the covers...because there are no covers. boo. hiss.

Reading List

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 07:06:00 +0000

Reading Judas... (Pagels and King)

Seven Days in the Art World (Thornton)

Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)

I noticed a bigger ad campaign for the electronic reading devices at the bookstore and on amazon. This makes me sad; though no Luddite, I mourn the way technology takes over our experience of the world, and bleeds it of sensuality. I much prefer the sensation--and delight--of opening a personal letter, in someone's own handwriting, partly because I know they touched the same thing I now hold in my hands.

Books are also a conscious experience--the feel and weight of the paper between my fingers, the way the page sounds as it turns, the smell of ink (ahh, "new book" smell). All those words seeping into the imagination...

study from life

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 06:57:00 +0000

Steve

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 06:52:00 +0000

On Bullsh*t

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 06:46:00 +0000

The Emperor has a "wardrobe malfunction."

Recommended Reading: On Bullshit by H.G. Frankfurt

Curiouser and Curiouser...

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 05:55:00 +0000

Thus spake Alice. She must have been in art school.

This one time...

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 05:45:00 +0000

I am dating myself here, but I loooooove Schoolhouse Rock. My favorite was Grammar Rock Verb; it sounded a little funky, like the music I was raised on--namely anything on Soul Train.

Soul Train ruled. I still remember seeing the Gap Band perform on the brightly lit stage, and Don Cornelius ending every broadcast with his deep voice intoning "Peace.....and Soul." So, imagine how green I turned when Cameron Diaz got to dance under the Soul Train sign with her Soul Train aisle made of people instead of stuffed animals (as mine always were) in "Charlie's Angels." Sigh.

Now, if only I could get my hands on some Pop Rocks, this reminiscing would be complete.

still life (apple)

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:00:00 +0000

oil on canvas, 6x6

still life (pears)

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:00:00 +0000

oil on canvas, 11x14

pearls before swine?

noreply@blogger.com (Stella) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:28:00 +0000

Holding a grudge: drinking some poison every day expecting the other person to die.

(author unknown)