my current venture…

my current project:
page22.etsy.com

i’m making little purses and will move up to other fabric items.

I <3 etsy.

November already?

I honestly cannot believe it’s November already. I also cannot believe that I survived October. Two art openings in one month (for shows that I was in) is an exhausting experience. The first opening came with a lot of rather unexpected (and unwanted) drama for reasons I won’t go into. It had nothing to do with me, but they just sucked me right into it, which really is not cool. The second opening was super awesome. That show remains up until January 4, 2010 at Lancaster Museum and Art Gallery in Lancaster, CA. Please, if you’re in the neighborhood, check it out. Not only is LMAG a very cool space run by very cool people, this is a really good show (and i’m not just saying that because i’m in it!).

My immediate attention is focused on using skills I have developed for art to create objects that are more useful, or useable to people. I’ve focused, to this point, on purses. I’m still pushing myself and playing with new methods, but I’m trying to make something more practical and utilitarian than something than hangs on the wall. The difficult thing is not feeling like a sell out… but even artists have to eat. I could very easily say things like, “i really want to make art that people can have, that they can carry with them, rather than some austere thing that just hangs there,” and while that may be true to some extent, i can’t deny the motives for this are more mixed than that. I need money, purses are less expensive and more desirable to a wider commercial audience than fiber paintings at the moment. Hell, Mark Twain was once a journalist, right?

So, i make purses. I’ve been fusing plastic for these little zipper purses i make. I am making bags out of fabric too, but it’s very cool to be making them out of plastic. It’s not so much a ‘green’ thing. I really like being able to make something new and nifty from something used and mundane. These fused plastic bags are cool, and fun. And at somepoint, i may figure out a practical way to decorate them without destroying them.

I cannot embroider on a plastic purse without leading it it’s ultimate destruction. Because the fabric is not woven, i would be ripping teeny tiny holes in it, which would weaken it, and if any force is put on the fabric, it would probably rip through. Bummer, really. I’m thinking of ways to attempt to deal with this problem, but the fun is, i may be able to make sheets of plastic and embroider them for the less practical things i do (ehem, ART!!).

It’s not like i’m a total shill. I like purses. Infact, i collect purses and handbags of all kinds… of course i lean towards the novel: weird, interesting, or pretty is really what works for me. I’m not a huge ‘label’ buyer. There’s nothing wrong with it, they just tend to be expensive– and all to often, they all look the same. I want something INTERESTING. not the same old bag with a pretty designer label on it.

And the ‘interesting’ designer ones tend to be WAAAAY out of my price range (um, yeah, still a BROKE artist).

I will probably work my way up to creating larger bags, but for now i’m having a blast making little bags.

Other things? I still find the ‘outside the box art’ to be attractive to my makers sensibilities. I love self portrait photography, especially when it involves narrative or character. Maybe I should have been an actor, i really enjoy playing dress up.

Someone once advised me to create works about what was obsessing me, what i was vexing over and turning over in my mind at the very moment. It’s hard to live like that, especially when one’s obsessions tread through very personal waters. (I am beginning to feel like the only single woman in the world, and it’s not fun…).

WELL world. I love ya. I will really try to post more often.

I need my studio

I am having one of those days where I want to be working on art, but i feel blocked. My studio is not ready yet, and it’s my own fault, so whinning seems sort of indulgent.

I have a couple projects: sculpture, deconstructed paintings, fiber paintings, and embroidery projects. It’s all a matter of freeing the space and then making it happen.

I keep working on small projects because it keeps me sane. I need to have my hands moving, and some noise going on in the background. It keeps me happy.

okay, this is a very short post, i will try to post again soon. If i manage to start posting daily, i’m gonna give someone a heart attack!

98dthqasv6

To Write Love on Her Arms

Ah, art. Where have you been? I have found a great organization called To Write Love On Her Arms. The mission is to share love and compassion with people who are hurting and to help people who are drug addicted find the strength to go through rehab, as well as an aim towards aiding those who are depressed, suicidal, and who struggle with self injury.
I stopped hiding the fact that I was a cutter over a year ago. Hiding it is silly, like trying to hide the fact that you’re screaming at the top of your lungs, “PLEASE SOMEONE SAVE ME!” With the help of a great psychiatrist, the love of a variety of friends, and the Grace of God, I found a way out of the cycle of self injury and self punishment. But there was a time when my life was a dark and ugly cycle of pain and heartache. I have spent an entire lifetime watching the effects of an addiction up close and personal, and I know the ripples of these things go out in concentric circles farther than we often imagine. We think, I’m not hurting anyone. It’s my body, it’s my life.
Like the man who cheated on his wife, and ended up leaving her and their four daughters in order to be with the new woman. This was over 10 years ago, and only a week ago, I saw the continuing ripples of his decisions way back then on his beautiful daughters. The hurt and the heartache that was driven into their lives by what he did with his life.

And I’ve known the children of Alcoholics. The effects YEARS later of knowing someone who for reason beyond their understanding felt the need to drink and drink until they passed out every single night. The drinking might make them mean, and so there was the inevitable need to learn to be pleasing or invisible as to avoid falling under the anger and wrath of a man or woman who no longer controlled what they were doing or saying thanks to glass after glass of liquor or wine.

And my life. I know that there are still people in my life who watch very carefully every choice I make because five and a half years ago I took several handfuls of pills in an attempt to kill myself. Goodness, has it ACTUALLY been 5 years? And you know, I did a pretty decent job of it, the fact that I’m still alive is a remarkable gift from God. What I took should have shut down my liver, and yet by a beautiful gift of a miracle, it didn’t. I’m still alive.
There comes a point when depression becomes so crushing, when anxiety becomes so intense and painful, when life piles on yet another layer to your already heavy load, that you think that you are beyond hope. You are beyond rescue. It’s a point when it takes all your energy to just keep breathing, to take another step.

But, you are not beyond rescue. You are not beyond hope. There’s a cool passage in the Bible when Jesus heals a guy who had been sick for 38 years. 38 FREAKIN YEARS!!! I thought 10 was a lot… or 15… but, this guy had been sick and paralyzed for 38 years. Jesus asked him a really simple (to almost a ridiculous level) question. He leaned over and asked the guy, “Do you want to get well?”

We all have to recognize that there’s a point when getting well is beyond us. We have dug ourselves down in this hole, be it depression or cutting or suicidal ideation and attempt, or drug and alcohol addiction… There is a point where you cannot go forward alone, the weight of the burden is too great. This is the time when love matters. This is the time when you reach out to God, and you reach out for help, for those who can help you carry the burden until you can let it go, and carry a much lighter pack on your back.
You are loved. Now, and always, whether you know or recognize it. You are loved, and you are never beyond rescue. Seek help. There is life beyond the pain you are experiencing right now, and there are people out there who want to help you find it.

Working by Night

I’m still working, but in addition to making art I’ve actually started writing.  HA!  I announce my writing on my blog, what a shocker.  I’ve been writing how-to articles on the eHow Website, with the idea of building up my writing and trying to supliment my rather non-existent income with writing.  I write all the time anyway.  Three blogs, email, facebook, and twitter.  So I added eHow.  I was unbelieveably shocked when I wrote a quickly fired off article about something unbelieveably basic and it got more views than all my other articles combined.  Granted, my previous articles were on slightly esoteric subject matter — but good grief!    It goes without saying that the key to actually making money on a site where money is based on usefulness and people actually viewing your articles, the way to make money is to write articles people want to read… I just never really realized how BASIC an article can be in order to be (thus far) fairly successful. 

What was it?  How to Boil Water (fast).  (BTW– my ehow is Laurel22)

I just find it very funny.  It’s been about a month and I’ve made 43 cents but when one article gets more views than all the rest of my articles combined I think I might be on to something.  I guess it’s all about writing things you know how to do so well you don’t even really have to give it a lot of thought anymore.  Recipes you know so well you’ve changed them up a touch.  Things you can do without worrying because you do them so well.  I don’t know…

I know, the thoughts on making money on ehow seem to branch from the “this is my art blog” theme, but– here’s where my point comes in…

What if art worked like that?  Maybe it does… people are attracted to things that interest them, things they can relate to, things that amuse and intreige them.  I think sometimes in our theoretical background the ideas have to become more and more complex, more and more esoteric until art because this inside joke that a few stuck up snobs stand around chuckling about, while the rest of the world looks at us in disgusted wonder– and then just cynically assumes were a bunch of con-men (and women), nuts, and psychos who want to play an “emperor’s new clothes’ trick on them in order to part them from their money. 

Both sides are to blame.  The masses don’t want to spend the time to delve into some esoteric nonesense (Agnes Martin comes to mind– and the many artists I knew in school who reminded me of her… ), and then end up missing some really amazing pieces out of a need to not just sit with the ambiguity and who are far too uncomfortable with things they don’t completely understand.  (Ever thought that not understanding is just part of the journey?  No, because you never understood that.  OH paradoxical).   Artists are intellegent people (though i’ve met a few that seemed to go out of their way to defy that convention), and more than one study i’ve skimmed over the years has suggested that very intellegent people have a greater tolerance for the ambiguous and undefined than those who are comfortably less so.  (I also remember being told that a lot of fairly intellegent people have rather sophisticated senses of humor… the compliment warms my cockles).  

I am an artist and I tend to enjoy very much working with non-didactics, working with metephor and symbol and inside jokes that maybe five people will get.  My trade off is the decision to work with methods and materials that are beautiful and tender and very familiar to people.  Lofty ideas with Common Methods, perhaps.  But sometimes people, they get so wrapped up in the Art World bullshit that they start to buy into it.  Then they talk about their paintings like they’re tablaeus into another universe and when the average person looks at them it’s 2 red dots, a blue line, and a splatter of yellow.  WHAT THE?!?!  No, it’s an investigation into the minimalist ideals of a primal world by expressing a caveman-esque esoteric belief system that relies on the simplest of means as demonstrated by the childish scrawlings and use of only primary colors.

Excuse me, that’s bullshit.

Artists need to talk like people, and PEOPLE will begin to be more receptive and appreciative of the striving alone in the darkness to express the inexpressible yearnings that exist in all of our hearts.  But if you start talking like a freakin Art History Journal article, people’s eyes will glaze and they’ll turn away intimidated and confused.  Or, no matter how well meaning you might be, they’ll just assume you’re full of shit.  Even I’m guilty of that assumption at times, and I’m one of the crowd here, so…

Well, that said, I continue to work.  Making work that is simple in it’s complexities, that challenges with layers and works on the premise of having elements that are deeply honest and yet somehow manage to appeal to a wider audience.  It’s my Looney Tunes Paradigm.  Watch a Bugs Bunny Cartoon with a two year old sometime and you begin to realize that those things are total genius.  The two year old will be laughing because bugs bunny fell down or because someone shot daffy (again).  But I’m laughing at the text and the witty banter and the hilarious dialog (ah, pronoun difficulties, OR  excuse me whilst I adjust my accoutraments– Daffy’s lines were always such total genius).  I’d like work that appeals to the five year old in all of us (ooh, pretty colors) and the genius who really uses words like Esoteric and knows what they mean (ehem).

Ah, i’m hungry.  Think I’ve ranted enough for the moment.  Peace.

woah, caffine please

I am waiting.  Seems to be the theme of the day.  tonight, LATE tonight I have to drive down to the Airport to pick up my mom who’s plane doesn’t arrive in LA until just after midnight (and THEN there’s customs)… so I’m going down to LAX in what is essentially the middle of the night… Me?  I have a sleep “issue” (some might call it a disorder, i’m slightly more optimistic until an expert can be slightly more definitive), which basically means that I don’t sleep at night (it’s currently 955PM PST as of this writing), and for the first time in ages, i’m actually sort of beat.  And it’s only 10pm.  WTF?

Reading and thinking about Grants and Grad Schools and Residencies and looking for places to show is one of the things that gives me this headache.  I don’t know WHY but I’ve been on the fence about being an artist off an on for years.  ALmost a decade, really.  It’s one of the few things I can do consistently well, but there’s so much fear that I won’t be able to pay my bills (kinda like RIGHT NOW) with this.  SO i think about doing something else.  But there’s a part of me that was trained to think like an artist who’s goal was to navigate the elite artworld and the idea of turning my back on that completely is sort of alarming.  I end up turning back and forthing, like a plastic bag twisting in the wind, just not knowing what to do. 

With Art there is inherient risk.  THe raw honesty that is called for in my work is one of those things that keeps me sane, but it also makes me crazy knowing that i’m hanging my “raw honest” ass out there for the world to see.  That’s more than a little scary.  So I hem and haw and think about getting a fall back that will pay the bills comfortably well and buy my art supplies and not force me to be out there hanging in the wind if I don’t want to… but allow me to work on my own thing at my own pace and make myself very happy– without needing the outside approval.  I discovered sort of late in the game that money is not all there is to life but it makes living quite nice.  And I’m not really keen on being totally broke all the time, it’s f***ing depressing.

SO? go on and become a teacher?  Look for a joe job at the moment and continue wondering?  Start my own business designing the world around my own vision?  Make art and work my way into the gallery system?  put art on the back burner for a couple years, turn the corner and go become an RN so that I can pay for the fun I want to have?

Travel Nursing is what I find very attractive.  THe opportunity to pay my bills quite admirably, and let go of the roots for a while.  I know I’ll want them back eventually… but I could spend five or ten years moving from place to place going here and there working all over the US and discovering where exactly it is that I want to be.  I cannot express adequately how much i don’t really like being in California anymore.  I don’t even know why.  The things that brought me back aren’t what they were when I was coming — everyone’s moving on– and so I keep thinking, what is there for me?  Who am I?  What do i care about?

I miss Chicago.  No kidding.  If i had the money to do it, i’d pack up right now, and move right back.  Or to New York.  I just don’t feel at home in California anymore.  It’s a little like wearing an itchy sweater, i just want to take it off.  I’m not sure that I can just yet, but I’d really like to.

Does giving myself an outside source of income qualify as giving up?  I just don’t know.

one more thing before I sleep

If you ever want to get a total complex, try attempting to get photos on a Stock website.  They don’t exactly tell you that you SUCK, they just tell you that your work lacks commercial viability.    Yeah, if you want to give yourself a full blown twitchy complex, spend about two hours digging through every one of your digital photographs that you can find and looking for what you believe to be the best of your work in photography (that doesn’t involve a self portrait, because that really IS the best of my photography), to be told that your composition style is not befitting a commercial environment and your work is unsellable.

I need a drink…  instead, I think I’ll go to bed for a couple hours.

Oh and the other nice thing?  They make you wait a FULL MONTH before they let you try again.  This is so depressing.

Old Work

It’s really strange to look back at shots of work I was doing five years ago. The work I began in art school was such a departure and yet i’m not a different person…  It was good to depart, to walk in a totally different direction, to find my way with my own two reasonably capable hands.  Some friends would get very upset with me if I began painting again, and yet, there is something so magical about it.  It’s the immediacy and responsiveness that one doesn’t get so readily when you’re making 2mm long stitches in front of the television.  or beading and beading and beading.  I swear, by the time I’m done with that beaded piece it’s gonna way 10 pounds.    I am really tempted to bust out the postal scale and weigh the beaded piece right now, because I know I’m not even half way done.

I added more pictures to my website.  I need to add images of the current and newer work, but I’m still working.  I think the current lust to print comes from a very simple place… I miss the immediacy that is involved with that pursuit, and painting.  The quickness, motion, movement, etc.  I miss it greatly.

I am looking for artists to participate in a collaboration show I’m going to propose.  Every piece must be created by at least two people, perhaps more.  Nothing is created alone.  Because that’s sort of the point.  We learn much from each other and for as lonely a pursuit as art can be, no one creates in a vacum.

But sleep is nessisary and needful right now.