Inner Workings

Happy New Year, Tiger!

 Lunar New Year Resolutions: 

1. Update blogs more regularly

2. Hydrate! Hydrate! Hydrate!

3. Update blogs more regularly

4. Better posture!

5. Stop being so cynical. Conan's right, it really isn't attractive.

6. Update blogs more regularly...

Ok, so I really do intend to update my blog more regularly. And with the start of the Lunar New Year and Valentine's Day coinciding, is there a better day to start?

So let me begin with a big, fat, juicy Dear Reader, I love you! In case no one's mentioned it to you lately, you are looking fine... Have you been working out?

I, myself, actually have. Yoga, weights, elliptical...the slog has begun, but as much as I complain, I actually am enjoying the feeling that comes after a good workout. I like that I feel like I'm inhabiting my body again - rather than viewing it as a cheese-fueled Segway.

More importantly, I've been working hard in the studio. As I chronicled in an earlier post, until last Oct/Nov, I hadn't made a thing. I'd pick up my brushes and paints, and then wander off to see if there was something - anything - else I could be doing.

Then everything changed. I pushed all my vibrant watercolors aside and pulled out the sumi ink and the images started flowing, flooding and inundating me. I started painting on different types of paper and then on clayboard, a kind of absorbent surface that also allows me to move the paint around and rework the surfaces. I added black and white acrylic, with an occasional hemorrhage of red. I referred to them as benevolent nightmares. 

Here's a update on a few of them and then some new work. I apologize for the less-than-professional photos, but hopefully you'll get an idea of the wet, hot mess I'm loving making.

Puppy in the Clouds, 21"Hx29.5", 2009. Ink and acrylic on paper.

Stallion, 44"Hx30", 2010. Ink and acrylic on paper.

 

New paintings:

From the Bramble, 24"Hx18", 2010.  Ink on clayboard. (I'm not sure why there's a pink cast to this photo...) 

Close-up (...and not sure why this one came out blue-ish.) 

Darwin's Lament, 10"Hx8", 2010. Ink and watercolor on clayboard. (This one does have a red under-painting.)

Army of Me, 10"Hx8", 2010 - first layer. Ink on clayboard. (Again, apologies for the weird blue cast.) 

Army of Me, final painting. 

Army of Me is named after Bjork's wonderful song in which the protagonist cautions, "And if you complain once more / you'll meet with an army of me." I'm fascinated with rabbits, not wascally wabbits but cute lil' bunnies I can imbue with a secret, violent, perverse inner life. In other paintings they're vomiting or screwing other animals, but this one seems to be a painting about self-preservation in the face of utter self-defeat. She's on her back with her crack bared for the world to see, but she's turned a corner and is not afraid to summons an army and get blood-stained going after the jugular - even if it's her own - in order to ultimately persevere. She makes me happy.

 

Next time: What happens when you die.

Always new...

Recently, I saw an interview with Penelope Cruz and Pedro Almodovar on Charlie Rose. When asked about the experience of making movies, Penelope talked about the anxiety she feels at the start of each project. She called it being addicted to the feeling of being new, and described it as a fear that maybe she’s forgotten how to act or to become the character. I think any artist understands that fear and how strangely delicious it can be.

When faced with the empty paper, the white canvas or the blank screen, isn’t there a moment when the beauty of that emptiness meets the anxiety putting something? Don’t we all wonder, what am I doing? What’s going to happen? How can I translate this thought or emotion into something physical?

 

But yet we start. We jump in. The first stroke is put down, and for me, it usually looks shocking and almost mars the blankness of the paper. And then I tell myself to keep going, and the next stroke is laid and the next and then the idea I had – usually pretty nebulous to begin with – starts to take shape. And, if I'm lucky, it takes over.

So this is all to say that I feel like I'm truly starting over after several months out of the studio. And what's pouring out is not something I recognize or maybe even like, except that I do really like it and it's just flowing and flowing into a hot mess – something like a benevolent nightmare. 

Here's some new work - This one's finished:

 Detail:

 

In process:

Red, Black & White - first stages:

Second Stage:

  

In process - first stage (large - 44"H x 30"):

In process - first stage (22"H x 30"):

  

A Word from the Inner Workings PR Dept...

(November 6, 2009, New York, NY) Inner Workings, the AWESOME creativity blog, in conjunction with  the AWESOME girlband collective (Heather Cox, Beth Dary, Susan Jennings, Christy Speakman & Katarina Wong), is pleased to announce the launch of The Art Sandbox (www.artsandbox.posterous.com), an AWESOME blog documenting our innovative experiment in collective creativity...

Dear Readers,

I hope you get a chance to check out a pet project I started with my fellow "girlband" members. No, we're really not a band (although one of us, Susan Jennings, is in a band - Black Lake). We're a collective of 5 artists who came together to have a sustained conversation about our lives as artists balancing the pressures of $$, family, other creative endeavors. We are supporters of each other's careers, sharing encouragement, information and opportunities. We also have sponsored under-the-radar art events/collaborations involving other artists. 

Our current pet project is "The Art Sandbox," a series of events launched on November 5, in which we invited other artists to participate in a "group make" session. We each brought a material we were interested in playing with and shared them with the larger group. Some worked individually, some collaboratively. For more details, check out our blog: artsandbox.posterous.com. 

Your comments are most welcomed!!

Creatively yours,

KW

In memory of my father...

Friends,

You may have noticed that I've not posted anything to this site in several months. I've had such plans! I was going to post some wonderful images from Portugal in June - the tilework is amazing, the beaches gorgeous and the food! Ah, the food...

But sadly, very sadly, my family was faced with a terrible and unexpected loss. My dear father, Foon "Frank" Wong passed away on July 5 due to a stroke.  I've been struggling with trying to resume this somewhat intermittent blog, but it seems that each time I went to write something, I came back to thinking about Dad. And the thought of writing anything until now has been too much to bear. However, it's now four months to the day that he passed and I think it's time to start moving on. In order to do so, I first wanted to share a little about my Dad.

Frank was an indulgent and kind father. He always urged us to study hard but to also get outside and play! While I think he didn't always understand the complexities of raising three American girls given his cultural background, we never doubted for a second that he cared for us deeply. 

Dad was one of those amazing people who instinctively understood things on a physical level -- when we got a piano, he sat down for a few minutes plunking out notes to get the hang of the thing -- and then he started playing basic songs completely by ear. I saw him do the same with a mandolin (!) as well.  He was a strong volleyball player (to his chagrin, I was not, but my two sisters mercifully took up the slack in that area) and he was a talented painter. One of my favorite memories is learning how to paint in a traditional Chinese style with my father -- there we were, both adults yet beginners with ink and brush struggling to paint bamboo stalks. Eventually, my father was able to create beautiful, delicately painted birds, carp and flowers. Somehow I never progressed past rocks.

Often, though, parents remain a mystery to their kids until someone, in this case my ex James, asked Dad about his time in the US Army. Ok, so I DID know Dad had been in the army, but I had no idea that he served for three terms spanning both WWII and the Korean War. I also had NO idea that Dad had earned a Bronze Star for valor!  It turns out Dad was charged with laying communications cable in advance of the US troops, sometimes in very dangerous areas. He was armed but also carried a revolver -  in case he was about to be captured, he was not to be taken alive. On one occasion he was caught in heavy gunfire between the Koreans and Chinese alone to fend for himself and also to guard the precious communications equipment he was carrying. A senior officer making small talk later asked my father about what he was charged with doing and my father eventually told him the story. The senior officer was so impressed that he immediately recommended him for a Bronze Star. (I am eternally grateful to James for having asked questions that never would've occurred to me.)

He spent several years in China in the US Army. One assignment was as a communications officer on General MacArthur's plane. Dad would joke he'd have breakfast in Canton, lunch in Shanghai and dinner in Beijing. I loved that image -- serving your country while eating your way around China. 

In the end, Dad left us as he had always wanted - in good health, without experiencing too many of the quiet betrayals our bodies inevitably inflict upon us. He went quickly, as he had always hoped he would, after a great day of visiting with his best friend Jack, having a delicious dinner with Mom and a neighbor, and finally settling in to watch the July 4 fireworks on his beloved 42" flatscreen. I thankfully had a chance to talk with him that evening and found him in a great mood. Around midnight, however, he suffered a stroke and then fell into a deep sleep, finally passing around 8am the next morning after a good's night's rest, something I know he appreciated.

I'd like to share part of his obituary with you:

"Foon Ah (Frank) Wong died peacefully on July 5, at 86. He is survived by his wife Lucia and daughters Katarina, Daniela and Denise.  

"Frank was extremely proud of his military service to this country. He arrived here at 16 from China and so loved his new homeland that he enlisted for 3 terms during WWII and the Korean War, earning a Bronze Star for valor in the latter. Despite this important achievement, he was an extremely modest man.  

"In a houseful of boisterous and opinionated women, Frank presided in a quiet but good-humored way.  He was a wonderful, caring and loving father and husband. He also cared deeply for his pets. His sudden death is a terrible loss to all who knew him."

While this obituary captures my father's quiet modesty and incredible bravery, it of course isn't a complete portrait of the entire man. I certainly cannot paint the complete picture either in a few words, so perhaps it will have to suffice it to say how much and how deeply my family and I miss Dad every day.

For now, I leave you with a couple of photos. The first is of my Dad and sister Denise on his last birthday. Once he crossed the 80-year-line, he gleefully called himself "an ancient one" - a term of worthy of great reverence in his culture. As you can see, his cake almost seemed to explode in response!

This last one is from a couple of Christmases ago. Dad was pretty much in his favorite spot -- glass in hand, Mom doting on him and Denise's dog Winston warming his lap. This is very much how I like to remember him.

Thanks for reading this.

KW

 

My Unexpectedly Most Awesome Day EVER!

Don't you just love it when your day starts off well enough but somehow the gods decide you deserve a good surprise and the day goes into AWESOME OVERDRIVE?

I'm definitely having one of those great days. First, it's just a stunning day -- upper 70s, sunny, clear-skies. I started out going to meeting for work at the construction site that will be our snazzy new office downtown. I'm sometimes a little embarrassed at how tickled I am about this space but it's really wonderful. The new offices will be in a building that was a former printing house, so means it has high ceilings, is a little raw but wide-open and has wrap-around views. Going to the meeting was a bit of an excuse to see the progress and photograph the views from the rooftop (check out this view towards the Hudson) for a website I'm putting together for our office as we get ready for the move in August.

Some of my colleagues and I went to lunch afterwards at a little dive around the corner that boasted "Spanish" food. No, not tapas, but excellent home-style Latino cooking that was, well, AWESOME. The tostones  -- smashed, fried green bananas -- were a thing of beauty. Often they're more like lead pucks, but these were transcendent. Perfectly fried, crispy and strangely light. Accompanied with a garlic & oil sauce and salt -- magnifico, chicos!

From there I decided to cruise by Chelsea to check out a couple of galleries, since part of my job also includes curating content for our new space -- digital stuff as well as art work and other accoutrements.  I'm putting together a proposal of art work I think would be fitting for our office -- smart, thought-provoking with a sly sense of humor. I don't know if it'll fly, but it was a wonderful excuse to look at art and get inspired. 

Here are some notable shows I really urge NY folks to check out:

Gagosian: Picasso. It's on 21st Street, not their 24th Street space, which is featuring Yayoi Kusama. I'll get back to her shortly. If I have ever doubted Picasso's relevance (and I have), I take it back. This show was a revelation, a great look into the last years of a master who continued to push the boundaries, exploring the fragility of human love, relationships, and existence. The show features mostly paintings but also has some fantastic prints, including this one, which is one my absolute favorites, of a man and woman having sex. 

It's all arms and legs ... and the gaze and caress of love. It's a perfect depiction of the experience of that passion.

Gagosian: Yayoi Kusama. What can I say? This artist makes my heart sing. She's got a (smashing) pumpkin piece that's semi-outdoors:

(I have no idea why this is so blue.)

And a host of eye-popping paintings and this wonderful, wonderful best-thing-ever room:

 

The title is "Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity," but she did something similar at Robert Miller several years ago called Firefly. "Aftermath" also  captures that delight of a summer evening when the fireflies emerge and overwhelm you with their delicate displays of all-encompassing light. Maybe that's what the aftermath of the end of eternity is --  when it's just the ever-present moment.

PaceWildenstein: Chuck Close. Some nice paintings, but you've seen them before. The tapestries, however, are a perfect and unexpected translation of his work. 

Rich in history, these pieces are phenomenal. Kudos to Don & Era Farnsworth at Magnolia Editions who worked with Chuck Close to create these. (This image of Philip Glass was takes from their website. Check out the link above for more info on this exhibition.)

Paula Cooper: Sophie Calle. Back in the land of broken hearts. I was prepared to walk out mid-yawn. (Oh, get OVER it already, honey!) but this exhibition was really interesting with moments of great humor. The show is based on a break-up email she received from a lover. She gave the letter to 107 women, chosen for their professional skills in a variety of areas, who then analyzed and gave their interpretations. I walked in as the great Jeanne Moreau was talking about the man's cowardice (a copy of the letter is available for visitors to take, and I kinda have to agree with Jeanne. The dude was kind of lame). In other rooms there were more videos -- here's a still from one of my favorite moments. 

The dancer is Marie-Agnes Gillot, and her interpretation was to skitter backwards en pointe until she collapsed dramatically, arms splayed out, onto a pile of pink satin toe shoes. It was such an extravagant gesture! I loved it. (I also loved the purse the woman in front of me was carrying -- it was covered in vibrant blood red fabric roses.)

Anyway, ended up back in my studio and treated myself to some yummy Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies I have stashed in my freezer. A perfect, refreshing end to a damned fine afternoon. Hope yours was swell too!

Cheers!

Lila! You Got Me on My Knees

A few weeks ago I went to a dinner party where the conversation turned to Vedic and Buddhist philosophies -- you know, the regular cocktail chit-chat. ANYway, my friend Robin brought up the Vedic concept of “lila” (pronounced lee-la). Lila is a sanskrit terms that means “play,” and it is a fundamental and extremely important idea when talking about those Big Questions – like, what is the meaning of life? How does the universe work?

I’m so grateful to him for bringing this up. Frankly, it’s a concept that’s always delighted and inspired me, but at the same time, I haven’t really spent any time thinking about for a long, long time.

 

Not to go all “ooga-booga,” but have you noticed that when the Universe (or substitute whatever cosmic force you prefer: God, Allah, your subconscious, the Green Men from Mars controlling your thoughts) wants you to pay attention to something, it really has a way to get your attention? After leaving that evening, I thought about it and then as I’m so apt to do, forgot about it pretty quickly until the next day I went to a yoga class as the teacher spoke about the “bliss body.” It’s the great joy and peace that is part of our very being and not dependent on any external occurrence. (Of course, outside circumstances can remind us of our bliss bodies just as they can obscure our experience of the bliss -- but these circumstances never truly erase that bliss body.) 

On that particularly warm, beautiful day -- the first after a long, grey winter -- there was a noticeable change in mood in pretty much everyone you met. It was hard not to feel it yourself – that incredible lightness of being brought on by the first run of sunny days and well, not having to wear 10 pounds of extra clothing.

But our bliss bodies are always here, we just pile up the anxieties and busy-ness on top of it like so many down-filled layers that we end up so burdened that we eventually forget this great source of happiness resides within ourselves every moment of every day.

So after these two very related discussions, I’m going to try to heed the Universe and try to get back to a sense of play in how I think and how I act. I love my bliss body – I’m so much happier and at peace when I function through that body than, say, my late-catching-the-train-cuz-I-overslept-(AGAIN)-body, or pissed-off-cuz-my-sandals-gave-me-blisters-body or my generic-cranky-pants-body. It’s the body that loves to express the lila, the play of the universe. 

It’s also the creative force that in some ways has been missing from my studio. It’s the creative lab part of making art – the playful, what’s-this-material/tool/thingy experience that leads to breakthroughs. 

Lately, as you know if you've been reading this, I’ve been a little obsessed with fur and have had this growing desire to not just paint fur but get my hands in it, yet I’ve made excuses about actually going out and getting some scraps to start. I dunno why; I just have. (Aren’t we always the ones that get in our way the most?)

I finally hauled my sorry self (as apart from my bliss body) down to the fabric district to get some fur scraps. As a firm believer in karma, I couldn’t let myself by whole pelts but even buying the scraps made me feel like I was making a withdrawal from my good karma bank. Then eBay came to the rescue. I found vintage fur stoles and coat collars from animals looooong dead that I could source for a fraction of the price, both cash and karma-wise.

I have no idea what, if anything, will come out of this experiment, but then again that’s kind of the point of play, isn’t it? Who asks a kid, "you spent all afternoon in the sandbox and what do you have to show for it?" When did we ever grow out of needing time to just play and let our minds and hands wander just for the sheer pleasure of the experience itself? When did we start needing to demand a purpose from every action as a way of justifying our existence? Isn't enough sometimes that we just are -- and simply let ourselves revel in the lila of that experience?

Image: Mid-day; Naples, Florida; May 2009

Is It Done? May Edition

 

 

Welcome to the next installment of “Is It Done?” where I get to show you something I’ve been working on and think might be finished.

 

 

 

I'm not sure what I'll be calling it, so it remains in the "untitled" realm until then. It’s a large watercolor and sumi ink painting on paper – about 42”Hx36”. I’m still interested in these large smoke forms, as you can see, but I also wanted to incorporate the deconstructed peacock feathers and fur strips that are a kind of wasted decadence set against the forced cheerfulness of wallpaper-like stripes.

 

 

Detail of the lower right corner.

 

Overall, I rather like it – for me, it’s got the push-pull of something light in feeling with something that’s brooding and much darker.

 

Is it done? Most likely yes...anyway, enjoy!

 

 

 

Next installment: Lila, the creative playground

At My Most Immortal*

For the past few weeks I've been busy painting fur. Lots of R&D time followed by days and days of mundanely painting away. Nothing particularly exotic, just strips of black mink-like fur encircling, piercing and framing a large smoke form.  (Don’t ask, just go with it.)

It's an extremely boring activity, yet why do I also find it, dare I say, exceeding blissful? The kind of ecstasy that gets you labeled a heretic if you lived in Spain in the 1500s. For reals, it's that wonderful, people.

If you've ever met me, you know I'm no near-Nirvanic Bodhisattva. I usually waste a good bit of time resisting the idea of spending the next several hours hunched over a large sheet of paper meticulously painting tiny strokes of sumi ink in a pattern to resemble some black disembodied pelt.  The word "disheartening" comes to mind.

But here's the wonderful, mysterious thing that happens: when I settle into it -- really settle into it -- after futzing with the music, the temperature, gauging my thirst or hunger levels (snacks, anyone?), when I actually start painting and stop resisting, I find myself engrossed in the work. Time stops, petty thoughts cease. They all give way to the activity of placing stroke after stroke on the paper. How such an uninteresting activity shifts and becomes a portal for creative bliss is a mystery. 

I’m thinking about all of this because I just finished a New Yorker article about the late David Foster Wallace*, in which he says this striking thing about the writing process:

“The writing process takes me out of time. That’s probably as close to immortal as we’ll ever get.”**

Much has been written about how people experience the creativy when an activity allows the creator to step outside of time, place, physical location, to set aside emotional and physical states and experience an experience of "flow" as the psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi calls it (in his book that I, in full disclosure, have not read), or transcendence as I've heard more-spiritually-minded people describe it. Wallace's description is certainly in line with this.

Regardless of what terms we use, this is a state I'm hooked on. I live for that unspeakable joy when all the stupid little inconveniences fall away: noticing my shoes are a wee bit tight, the yammering of background mind-chatter about unmade beds and grocery lists, the tickle at the back of my throat. I live for those moments of pure freedom. Time stops and every cell in my body is alive and focused in that single moment. It's almost as if all the things I identify with "Katarina" fall away and for a short bit I'm freed of the specifics of myself and my life. I realize what a weight they can be: the ceaseless list-making, the petty annoyances -- even things I like about myself and am proud of. 

It’s not too gross of an overstatement that in those moments I feel like I couldn't be a better version of me, mainly because on some fundamental level "I" don't exist -- or at least a time when that conglomeration of thoughts, tics, habits, achievements, ambitions, emotions, experiences that make me "me," are just given a rest, already.

Of course one doesn’t have to be an artist to experience this flow. Walter Murch, the renowned cinematographer, writes in his wonderful book (which I have read), In the Blink of an Eye, about movie theaters a the height of flu season filled with coughing patrons who quiet down as they become engrossed in the story unfolding before them.  The movie is so engrossing that they forget they're sick -- art becomes more powerful than physical illness. As outrageous as that sounds, don’t we have these experiences when we are listening to music that completely captivates our attention? Or when reading a great story we find the night hours have slipped into dawn? We can all call to mind an instance when we've become so transfixed with an activity that we've lost track of where we are, how long we've been there, even our own physical discomforts.  

It seems utterly right to look at this escape from the weight of humanity as an experience of immortality, Wallace as suggests. And for me, these opportunities for freedom are rooted in simple mundane actions.  The experience of working in my studio is FULL of these little mundane moments: paint, repeat, dip brush, paint, dip brush, paint, paint, wet brush, step back, assess ... wash rinse repeat. There’s nothing “romantic” about the actual experience. It’s often boring and painful, but then sometimes it gives way to these little sparkling jewels of moments that when strung together are blindingly beautiful. 

That we can all find these moments in even the most boring activity tells me that we contain our own immortality, and isn't this one of the most unfathomable, important mysteries that joins us together in our humanity?

*Though it didn't start out this way, it is only fitting to dedicate this post to David Foster Wallace. I truly hope he has found a greater experience of immortality.

**In honor of Mr. Wallace, references to him will be listed as footnotes, rather than hyperlinks, though I really don't know if he'd object to hyperlinks given what I know about his writing, which admittedly is mostly from this New Yorker article. But I digress.

***From "The Unfinished," by D. T. Max, The New Yorker, March 9, 2009, page 53.

iBay, uBay ...

Here's a sad confession: the first thing I do when I wake up is reach for my iPhone to find out 1) what the weather's like; therefore 2) what I'll wear; 3) check personal email; 4) work email - just to get a jumpstart on the workday; 5) twitter...and now, deep breath: 6) my eBay app.

What this confession will tell you is that 1A) I'm too near-sighted to actually see what's happening outside my window; 1B) I'm too lazy to reach for my glasses to actually see what's happening outside my window; 2) I can't figure out what to wear standing in front of my closest -- I like to tell myself I gotta "feel it" without distraction (which of course is hooey, since 95% of my clothes are black – refer to the laziness point above); 3) I'm an optimist for thinking someone may have emailed me in the wee hours of the night. Usually it’s only my “A.Word.A.Day” email from Anu Garg – but it’s enough to get my brain moving; 4) I need to "warm" up with happy thoughts so I can deal with work email ‘cuz someone ALWAYS has emailed me during the night and 5) I need instant rewards for said work by reading someone’s fun tweet…. Bringing me to 6) eBay, which I’ll tackle shortly – bear with me.

 

So on this first day of Spring (hurrah!) I found out from my trusted iPhone that it was snowing (HUH?!!). I bypassed my usual above-mentioned ritual to grab my glasses to confirm that yes, indeed, it was snowing. Winter’s parting finger.  After completely reassessing my wardrobe (surprise! black sweater and jeans), realizing I was going to be late for an 8:30 meeting with my boss, getting my word of the day (“overslaugh,” verb tr. 1. To pass over someone in favor of another, as in a promotion. 2. To bar or to hinder) and reading “glopdemon’s” tweet about the impotent rage of a car-bound Chihuahua, I still managed to sneak a peek at the items I’m “watching” on eBay.

 

Here’s the weird thing – since discovering the eBay app for my phone, I’ve found it an incredibly addictive creative outlet. Creative, you say? Oh yes, Grasshopper...

 

Ok, full disclosure, I first went on to look for a very specific item. I saw a woman in a local bookstore wearing the most fabulous light grey Persian lamb coat with a matching grey mink collar. Where else are you going to find something like that except on eBay?? Especially now that the Chelsea flea market is all but dead. 

This search reminded me that I wanted to get another antique black butterfly pin. (My mom’s nickname for me is “butterfly” … ain’t that cute? Well, actually, NO. She means it in the sense of a directionless, flitterer. I now realize this is exactly the artist's entitlement, so I like to occasionally wear these jet black brooches. Usually in clusters, as if they’re swarming, menacing, about to get up in your face with their flapping black little wings...)

But I digress, from the butterfly pins, I found real jet pieces. Having no idea what jet was (a fossilized material), I looked further and found wonderful jewelry carved from “whitby jet,” a type of jet found in England and popularized by Queen Victoria as part of her “mourning” jewelry. 

That’s right -- grief bling. (Aren’t we humans amazing? We can fetishize anything.) So now I’m off to the races: mourning brooches, lockets, necklaces, bracelets – all carved from jet. 

But wait! I found a whole other body of mourning jewelry made from human hair. Delicately braided brooches, bracelets, little lockets holding hair locks as part of the hair bracelets. Damn, this is interesting! It's the beginning of Spring and all I want to see are black, mourning objects. Remnants of sadness in this season of rebirth...por quoi? I don't know, the searching is too yummy-fascinating to stop...

As a counterpoint, I’ve also started looking at costume jewelry made from white glass – molded flowers, leaves, beads. To me it looks like carved milk; I can imagine how cool they are on the skin, like milk washing down freshly-baked cookies. Fresh, white light…

 

So have I spent what’s left of my dwindling 401K? Surprisingly not. I’ve half-heartedly bid on a few things (lost pretty much every time) but I’ve found instead that these images and descriptions have captured my imagination in the most unexpected of ways. 

 

How weird that a business devoted to capitalize on the feelings of consumption, of the thrill of the winning bid, has become a catalyst for my creativity in a way that’s so far removed from buying all this stuff. Or that maybe it’s about a different type of ownership, more like the way inspiration is owned as we manifest it in our thinking and our actions --  by becoming part of the journey our own personal “narratives.” 

I like that thought – that these transactions are not mediated by money (bye bye, Paypal!) but instead mediated by the currency of our curiosity. I wonder if anyone else uses eBay like a creative tool. (I save the most interesting pieces into the “watching” category so I can pick up the thread of my creative sleuthing at any time.) It'd be great if we could all see and share these inspirations or threads of inquiry. Maybe this is something delicious could be used for? Hmmmm... Thoughts?

The "Day Job" - Or, Would You Like Fries with That Painting?

 

I’ve been thinking about the recent Holland Cotter article in the New York Times called, “The Boom Is Over. Long Live the Art!.“ It’s an interesting look at how past down markets have creatively-fueled artists by allowing them a freedom that being tied to the marketplace may not.

 

Frankly, my first thought was, Well, we’re artists -- of any occupation in the world, we should be free to create without constraints. How odd to think that a recession somehow gives us permission to, um, BE ARTISTS. Of course, I know I’m being a little naïve in thinking that…but am I, really?? Yes, we all have to pay the bills and more importantly, this reality means it’s always a juggle between making $$ and making art. But I’m wondering if it worth exploring what that relationship exactly is and how it affects what and how we make our work.

 

In the article, Cotter wrote: “It’s day-job time again in America, and that’s O.K. Artists have always had them — van Gogh the preacher, Pollock the busboy, Henry Darger the janitor — and will again. The trick is to try to make them an energy source, not a chore.”

 

Having never had my livelihood depend solely on art sales, I don’t know first-hand what it must feel like when the market drops out from under you… or what it’s like to have a waiting list for yet-unmade work. I remember being in a rather well-known artist’s studio and was rather shocked at how he was talking about getting rid of his “day job” for the first time in his career. What I expected to be this amazing freedom was instead one of the most terrifying things he’d ever done because he had had given up the security of a predictable income every month. Now, he had no idea if he was going to be able to pay his bills from month-to-month, his credit cards were maxed out in order to produce his next show, and although it would probably be a great success, he was plagued by the thought of  “…but what if.” I found myself reaching for a Xanax just listening to him. I guess I’m just not one of those artists who is comfortable taking those kinds of financial risks (and in hind sight, neither was he).

 

That said, my relationship to my day jobs has been complicated, as I suspect most artists’ are. Job experiences ranged from the extremely (and happily) under-employed when I was in my 20s to rather over-employed now in a very corporate setting, now that I’m, er, not in my 20s. The earlier jobs were office jobs for 2-3 days per week that paid enough to support my meager lifestyle – one that allowed me to own my own apartment in an artists-cooperative in Baltimore, have a separate studio and take 2 months each year off to spend in residencies. I loved this time of my studio life because it allowed me to create, create, create. Of course, this all was based on the fact that I lived in an amazingly-affordable city with no extravagances.

 

I’ve also taught full-time as a visiting professor – also great for giving me creative time and that delicious academic schedule, but when I moved to New York City eight years ago, I found myself working – for the first time in my life! – 40 hours a week. Honestly, it took me a good two years of mourning my past freedom and finally to accept how this infringed on my studio life. I’ve thought about teaching again, of course, but the idea of being dependent on adjunct-teaching was too uncomfortable to me, and I also just plain old hated feeling exploited.

 

Fast forward and I still work at the same large corporation. I’ve worked with the same boss for the entire time. I earn a comfortable living and don’t worry if I get sick because I have health insurance. And although I have a little flexibility in my work schedule and have gone to the occasional residency, I also fight every week for my studio time, and it’s never, ever enough. 

 

“Energy source,” Cotter? I don't know too many folks who would see their day job as an energy source. For me, my job doesn’t drain me of my creative energy I need when I’m in the studio, but it does tap me of overall energy. On more days than not, I do feel intellectually invigorated but I still leave the office at the end of the day pretty spent. If I chose to move away from NYC, I’m sure I could have a less intense kind of job – maybe even regaining the lovely academic schedule.  But in the end, I choose to be here for all the craziness, the community, the opportunity (she said still hopeful), the inspiration, the energy, etc., etc.

 

So here’s a question, folks, how does the day job (or lack thereof) hurt or help you? I know I’ve had this conversation with so many of you, so I’d love this to be a start of a more-communal conversation, not just something between a couple of kvetching-artists at a cocktail party. Nothing against cocktail parties, mind you.