The Elusive Subject

Return

2009-06-08T14:56:00.008-04:00

I am working again. I am making solid starts, anyway. It has been a painfully slow and ponderous process to regain some control over my self. For many months now, almost a year, I have been struggling more than I could see with a deep depression. I hid it from myself. I may have hidden it from my therapist, though I suspect he saw it all along. I went out of my way to hide it from the people I work and play with. I even tried to hide it from the people who love me. I allowed life to lose all meaning. I stopped even trying, convincing myself that everything I did was fraud and that I would be found out at any minute. While I don't believe I have it in me to commit suicide, my thoughts were laden with the idea. I stopped sleeping a few months ago, when it became too frightening to turn out the light and put my head on a pillow. As soon as the world became dark and quiet, everything I had been hiding from during the day rushed in to fill up the space, every self-recrimination, every self-criticism, all the self-hatred and yes, those graphic imaginings of hurting myself. The only time I slept was when I was just too exhausted to stay awake any more, and then I would sleep for entire days. The quality of my life, and of the lives I touch, was diminished. Outwardly, I became withdrawn and detached. I would come home and pour over the headlines trying to convince myself I was interested in being involved. Sometimes I would just sit and beat myself relentlessly with frustration and anxiety. Inwardly I was obsessed and paranoid. Everything anyone did that wasn't exactly what I wanted them to do became a personal attack, in my mind. Everything anyone asked of me became stressful and repressive expectation. I wanted to become as small as possible and disappear forever. I wanted everything to just stop. I held myself back from these people who's only crime was caring about me. Advice and concern were scorned, and in some cases belittled, as I could...

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Robert Henri, The Art Spirit, and The Importance of Accepting Reality.

2008-08-29T16:13:00.017-04:00

I have had a rough week and produced not a stroke of artwork. I studied and did some exercises, but I had no inspiration to really create. It happens sometimes. Sorry, I have no pictures to attach, but there are plenty of words here. "A work of art is the trace of a magnificent struggle" (Robert Henri, The Art Spirit, Philadelphia, 1923. p.268). A few months ago, I was contemplating the idea of creating art for art's sake, of painting what I choose to paint by the means I feel necessary to employ. That sentence sort of sums up the problem I found I had with this. I could not put the idea into even as inadequate a set of words as those. A friend, mentor, and teacher had suggested I consider pursuing fine art. I had to admit that I did not understand what a fine artist does. I was trained, as a commercial artist, from the point of view that art is an occupation for making a living, like any trade. Someone has a visual problem to solve, and you solve it visually, for money. (Unfortunately I did not get trained beyond the basics of this problem solving, however I was given a strong grounding in those basics. That's really not the point here, though it does contribute to understanding my lack of understanding.) I could not say, with any confidence, that I understood how one goes about producing a work of art without someone asking for something specific, or what the real purpose of that work might be. At one point in my college education, I was even encouraged to look down on fine art students as hacks with no real training in drawing or painting, encouraged to "express themselves," and set loose on the world to produce whatever crap they could muster. (I have since learned the false-hood of this idea, but it was quite effectively, if very informally, taught by some of my favorite instructors.) My friend tried to explain art to me in a couple of hours. Having some knowledge of how I think, he came at it from both a conceptual basis, as well as...

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The Value of Failure

2008-08-22T01:08:00.007-04:00

Last night I decided to paint a self-portrait. Actually, I decided a couple of weeks ago, but that's a whole different subject. So, I set up my easel, laid out a very simple palette, and started blocking in. I got lost in the creative state of mind and really had a good time. I didn't push the value range as much as I could have. I also didn't get into fine details. I did get the canvas covered and really enjoyed doing it. Today, when I took a look at what I had done, I was really surprised. The drawing was awful. It didn't look much like me, well, maybe me as painted by Fernando Botero, but that would be extremely generous (or terribly insulting to Botero.) (Please forgive the terrible photos. One of the things I am learning is that you really have to control your brush strokes to keep them from randomly standing out under bright lights.) I decided I could fix it by lengthening the face. I scraped the bottom third or so of the canvas and took a nap. When I woke up I was still disgusted with the painting, and frankly done with it. I kind of wish I hadn't scraped it now. Regardless, I only scraped the shirt and a little of the background and chin. Now, I didn't start this post to talk about how horrible this painting is. (But I'm sure there will be some more of that before I'm done, in fact, I plan on it.) I started this post because, without actively forcing myself to, I accepted that the painting was a failure, but that this in no way defined me as a failure. Whutchoo talkin 'bout? This is something I've struggled with in the past. If I didn't perform something perfectly, I not only blamed myself, which is natural if unfair, but I took the extra step to apply the "failure" definition to my whole self. The distinction is key. Just because we fail, it doesn't mean we are a failure. Defining yourself by the outcome of one action is horribly detrimental to the self-image. If I convince myself I am a failure, I will act as a failure. ...

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Less Fear?

2008-08-12T03:00:00.008-04:00

Well, I decided to stay up and finish it. I already see the things I don't like. I hate the mouth of the pitcher and I made the reflected light from the handle on the pitcher too bright. However, I have cleaned my brushes and I just feel like going to bed. I learned a lot in this little piece and feel like I aged a bit. I am feeling a lot better about laying wet oil paint on top of wet oil paint. Funny how that happens when you bother to try it. ZZZzzz... P.S. This was the first time I used my new easel. I like it! It's a Jullian French Easel. It takes up too much of a footprint to leave it up where it is, (I'll trip over it if I go to the kitchen in the middle of the night,) but it is definitely use-able in the apartment, and I think I will really enjoy painting outdoors with it! **Edit** Okay, it's twenty or so minutes later. I guess I lied. I re-dirtied a brush to fix that reflection and the shape of the handle itself. I still don't like the mouth, but that's it... I'm done with it! (And no, I'm not taking another picture! :P ) Note - No More Student Grade Brushes! What a nightmare. One errant bristle and I had to retouch three different colors. Yeeesh.

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Fear

2008-08-12T01:02:00.006-04:00

I want to talk about a subject that’s very close to my heart—fear. We all know it. Some of us avoid it at all costs. Some of us welcome it as a motivating force. I fall somewhere in between. I have been looking into the eyes of my fear for a while now. For instance, I discovered that fear is what kept me away from art for so many years. I know it is my fear that prevents me from doing some of the things I really want to do with my life. Fear paralyzes me just when I get a good idea. Fear keeps me prepping canvases and making new glass palettes when I should be painting. Fear keeps me making excuses when opportunity knocks or people in my life get frustrated with my being stuck. Most of us know, intuitively, that the creative process can only take place when we work and work and work. Make a hundred thumbnails. Draw all the stuff out of your head until you start to clarify your idea. We’re supposed to work some every day, even if we end up wanting to throw most of it away. Many of us never get the process started. I am starting to put names on my fears. I fear that I can’t paint a picture exactly the way I see it in my head, so I never start. I fear that I will finish a painting, and it will be the only one I have in me. I don’t want to let it out because then I won’t have it in me anymore. Over the last several months I tackled the fear of trying. I had been avoiding art for so long that I was starting to deny I had ever created anything worth looking at. I went to drawing class, and I put myself in a position where I had to draw. I was there to draw and there was no way around it. I learned along the way that I can still draw exactly what I see in front of me. I also learned something new; I learned I can create right out of my head based on my reactions to the motif in front of me. I am no longer locked into strict academic drawing. I would never have discovered that if I let my fear keep me out of the studio. Now I am...

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URL

2008-08-08T01:01:00.007-04:00

Just a quick post to mention that I have now set up my custom domain to come directly to this blog, instead of forwarding through the registrar. Please note any links, feeds, bookmarks, etc. should point to www.elusivesubject.com. I probably don't need a post for this, but after all the fiddling required, and updating my stats stuff, I thought it couldn't hurt to be specific for the one or two people who might be reading. Thank You!

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lines and colors

2008-08-08T00:29:00.002-04:00

A few weeks or so ago I was doing some searching for information on John Sloan, a modernist painter from Philadelphia. On the very same day this very cool blog, lines and colors, maintained by Charley Parker, featured a post about John Sloan. Nearly every day since I have stopped by lines and colors to discover an artist I didn't now about, or something new about an old favorite. For example, I had never heard of Brian Blood, but now I can't get enough of his work and wish I could afford one of his originals--beautiful stuff. Charley Parker always has something interesting to report on. I appreciate his sensibilities. While I don't always dig every artist he reports on, I do always appreciate his handling, and the very thorough job he does of researching and linking to relevant sites. Check out lines and colors. You won't be disappointed.

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Day One

2008-08-07T03:48:00.000-04:00

Well, I guess it had to happen eventually. I started a blog. Here I will discuss my journey into the bowels of art. I don't think that's too graphic or negative of a description, either. :) Many years ago, around 1990-1992, I went to school to become an illustrator. I studied "Visual Communications", otherwise known as general commercial art, for a year, and then specialized in Illustration for a quarter. For reasons that are not important here, I had to drop out and eventually start working. After a couple of years serving food in a Nursing home, I got my big chance. I went to work as a designer, illustrator, and graphic artist (not to mention retail clerk, telephone receptionist, shirt folder, heat press operator, mover, and all around lackey.. oh wait, I mentioned it) in a screen-printing shop. After three years of indentured servitude, and all-around soul draining, I quit and went to work in a restaurant kitchen--for about the same pay. My impressions of the art business were dismal, and my attempts at freelance illustration did nothing to improve them. So I gave up. I had not the courage to persevere. An opportunity to begin a career as a computer programmer presented itself with the y2k boom. It turned out to be pretty easy to do and paid like a dream. After the first three years I began to experience depression, and I assumed it was my job--not my career, mind you, my job. A little therapy, a job change, and 40 lbs off my ass got things rolling along smoothly once more. Several years later, the depression returned, and I figured it was time for another job change. Back into therapy again and I got myself a new job, with less responsibility, more pay, and couple months off before I started. But this would not solve the problem. After eight months or so, I read some articles about Attention Deficit Disorder in Adults that sounded like someone was describing my life. Honestly, nothing I had ever read sounded so familiar. This had to be my...

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