Monday, December 27, 2010

My Diagnosis

Last night was the last night in a very troubled weekend. I won't get into all that here, but I will say that it happens occasionally that life seems to flush me right down and out. Yes, I know that sounds more than a little self-pitying. Regardless, it's hard for a lot of people to remain positive when the negative is so loud. But it doesn't take much. For example, I have a tiny little 3 year old 40 pound miracle living in my house that, while many times is a challenge, does also sometimes reward me with pearls of glowing wisdom just when I need it. My kid has been known to lay a gentle hand on my cheek and say something profound just when I had forgotten profound happens. Last night she was sitting with me and her dad on the couch and pretending to be our doctor. She diagnosed David first, placing a light-up pen against his arm and proclaiming that she knew what he needed to feel better. "You need to live for mommy and for me." is what she said. And to me, after pressing the pen to my forehead, she looked in my eyes and held my face and said, "I know what you need to feel better. You need to live hard...and love people." I have been thinking about this all day. Live hard. Love people. She was not privy to the conversations her dad and I had been having earlier, or to the moment I spent on the front porch alone, talking to the memory of my father, but this felt very much like an answer to unasked questions. Live hard. Love people. It's simple, but it's everything. She's a good egg, that one. I got up this morning feeling energized, feeling awake and alive, feeling ready. I jump in with both feet, with my eyes open, with my arms outstretched. I declare 2011 the Year of Living Hard and Loving People. What about you?

xoxo
Laurelin

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Positively Charged

Yes, it has been a while. I think I'm settling back in piece by piece and finding my way back to myself. So here we are again, and the year is nearly over. The natural inclination is of course to revisit, reminisce, rewind and remember. But I think it's also about assessing where your feet are planted now, and what direction they're pointing. Not only should we ask, "Where have I come from, what have I done?" but "Where am I and what do I want?". These questions may be of even greater importance.

It's easy for me to say that this has been an incredible year of successes, and just as easy to say I have disappointed every expectation. So how should I decide? In which direction should I point my toes? Well, I suppose that depends on whether or not I am motivated by a resentment for things not accomplished or encouraged by a solid string of minor successes, and the possibility for more. I don't exactly trust either of those options. I am not convinced my first five months of freedom were a waste since production is at an all time high. I am also not convinced that I've actually accomplished anything since I am broke and unknown. So what I have come up with is that I am right where I should be, and sitting here with my eyes open, and that is all. I can't worry about what comes next, only prepare to be there to meet it. My point is that all the time I spend thinking about this life path just bounces me from disillusionment to bolstering and back and forth again. It is exhausting. I don't blame anyone for getting tired on this road. So instead of the ricochet danse macabre tugging me slowly toward crazytown, instead of keeping my head on a swivel from backward to forward and back again, I am just going to look down. I'm going to look at my feet and know they're still planted beneath me. I can't say what's been, because memory shifts reality, and I can't say what's coming because I can make no map for a road lost in a fog bank. Who knows what happens up ahead?

What I can hope for is that I stay here, inside my self looking out through these eyes and translating experiences to thoughts with this mind. For example, music is the voice of life. I love music. I love to draw, and I love to paint and I love to write and I love to love. Love feeds on love too, you know. So I chose, at the end of 2010, to be a positive. I choose to let life be life and find a way to be happy I can record it. I might get it a little twisted, a little crooked on the paper or canvas, but I am here to record it. I think I'm going to do what I can and let the rest go. It's too heavy.

Jealousy is an ugly, diseased thing. It doesn't even work for kindling. It just smolders there and smokes up your vision. Better to feed my fire with trees lovingly sown and long cultivated in fertile soil. I feel a peace setting in with the waning year, like I have my hand on the right rope now. I feel like I can trust it to pull me down an often foggy road to where things are suddenly, perfectly, clear.

Happy endings, happy beginnings. Congratulations! You get to be a child of the universe.

Peace. Bliss.
Laurelin

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

In Triplicate Veritas

Having come around to the fact that this art business thing does snot necessarily come easily to me, I have spent a lot more time than usual venting to my friends. Venting is as healthy as it sounds. It's not complaining, commiserating or whining. It's letting off steam, right? Letting the cloud disperse. And outside all that noise, I can get a little bit of clarity, a little perspective. During one particularly unpleasant steam-letting session, I discovered I need to organize this thing into shifts if any of the me are going to get any rest, and therefore do a good job. I thought this information might be helpful to another person who may be struggling with competing professional desires in the same mind. I have labeled these three me as follows: The Artist, the CEO/Gold Digger and the Santa Mariposa. They are each signed in the headspace check-in sheet, and let no one step on the toes of another. That means one at a time. That means when I'm in a business meeting, my head is present, all of me is present. And when I'm in front of a canvas, I'm not thinking about being anywhere else. The Gold Digger doesn't come on til two, so I have a few hours to just be a painter, you know? Between the three of us, I may actually keep this little vessel bobbing above the deep.

The Artist: This one seems fairly self-explanatory, but maybe it gets forgotten a little. Beneath all the networking, marketing, research, bookkeeping and schmoozing, the art is all there is. This is the meat of the whole sandwich (giant grilled portabella for the rabbit-fooders). They say it's only 10% talent, but garlic bread is probably only 10% garlic. So, above all else, if I have energy for only one of me, it has to be the Artist. I never want to talk myself up a good game and have nothing to deliver when it comes due. But my Artist has no interest in spreadsheets and business plans, in even leaving the house. She has to clock the f- out at some point or this just stays a very passionate basement hobby.

The CEO/Gold Digger: If the Artist is the heart, this is the forever grinding gear collection of a machine where a brain should be. When the CEO/GD punches in, I can put down the brushes and take off the smock because this me is not concerned with creating art, only opportunites. I call her a gold digger, because she has income at the forefront, but she's also the one who does the scheduling, follows up on leads, researchges companies the other two me want to work with, etc. This me loves lists, notes, Post-its, emailing, composing correspondence, and formatting contracts. Don't ask this me about light source, but give her a pad of paper and we can map out my next five moves in five minutes.

The Santa Mariposa: This is the bridge that holds the other two together. This me is not interested in composition and line and texture and light and blah blah. This me could not care less about the merits of digital calendars. She is neither a barracuda nor a dandelion seed. This is where I am absolutely free to be out of either aspect of my business mind and just make friends. This is the butterfly. I actually do enjoy people, and meeting new ones is many times a pleasure. The "Santa" portion of the title might suggest some kind of higher enlightened state, which...no. I just mean that this me befriends, welcomes, engages with whoever passes in front of me. And the "Mariposa" speaks for itself. This me is social to say the least. That's not to say, a party girl. In this mindset, I can talk freely and openly with people about my art almost as an outsider, since this me had nothing to do with making it. I smile and shake hands, say a person's name three times to remember it, exchange numbers, business cards, make plans, make friends. I just can't be the kind of artist who watches a video of her opening while sequestered in her tower, you know? I don't want to be separated from my art. A person doesn't have to like me to like what I do, of course, and vice versa, but I would at least like them to know who I am a little.

And that's about it. They key to juggling these three is scheduling. I don't know how many more or less you might need to perform whatever it is you're about, but this is my basic three. That may change, since I'm really just figuring much of this out. But I was pleased to learn I had a way of slicing and serving the pie instead of everyone jumping in at once. Damn, I do use a ton of metaphors don't I? Analogies? I'm like a pole cat in a Scooby-Doo facotry! No? No. Ahem...anyway.

What used to happen is that I would have a little free time and everyone in my head would start speaking at once. I should use this time to research grants or sort through and catalog my photographic references. I should use this time to polish that painting I'm just about done with. I should use this time to call that couple back and thank them for their interest. All of those avcenues seem worthwhile, but I was going crazy trying to decide what took priority. So, here I am in triplicate. It's strange how splitting myself into distinct personality types/career skills has actually made me feel less insane. I hope that helps. For anyone in a similar position, any tips?

xoxo
L

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Who's Driving This Life...Crazy

So the other night I had a dream that was so freaky it almost made me laugh once I woke up and thought about it. You know, there are a few dreams you can figure out no matter who's having it. I don't usually go in for the dream dictionaries, since I think a snake might mean a different thing, even subconsciously, from one person to the next. But...the water dream seems pretty solid in definition regardless of who you are. It sticks out as a truism because it's so vague. Water is emotion. Drowning in it? Is it following you in a threatening manner? Are you swimming happily? Found out you can breathe underwater? You can Lego snap your situation to water and you have your answer. This wasn't one of those, though I am expecting a torrent in my sleep sometime soon (not that kind). I had the other kind. It's not the same as falling dreams, which are pretty obviously about being completely out of control, sucked down ever faster by the greedy arms of gravity while the earth hurtles up to meet you and your fragile vessel, right? There's not even anything to hold on to! That's a different level of helplessness, and one I hope never to know...again. No, the dream I had went something like this:

I found myself behind the wheel of my car (do you see where this is going?). I pulled up to a red light feeling like I hadn't slept in weeks. Maybe months. I was the kind of tired that nothing can combat. Not coffee, not anything. My eyelids felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each. Like, I could actually feel my whole face struggling to keep them open. I noticed D sitting in the passenger seat, and I knew O was in the backseat, and I was roused from my stupor by the thought that I might be putting them in some danger. So I slurred to D, "Hey, maybe you could drive for a little while, honey?" And he, just as bright and chipper as a man who'd slept as long as I felt deprived of sleeping, said, patting my knee, "Oh, no you're doing great! You are doing a great job, so you got this. No problem." Well, the light turned green and I slid out into traffic with my eyes closed. But we didn't crash. We just kept driving. The car, apparently realizing I was out of commission, was driving itself. But cars, perhaps contrary to what you may have thought, are terrible drivers. We swerved, we careened, we narrowly missed, and I could not wake up. I had my hands on the wheel, but had no strength to move it where I chose. Well, when we nearly clipped a lamp post turning a corner, I tried. I grabbed that wheel and wrenched it right while stomping the brake with every drop I had left. Nothing happened. The car refused to listen to me. The end of that dream is lost to the fog, but I feel like I ended up getting it to stop, but by that time, I was alone in it.

This went into a second dream about taking a retreat in a house that turned out to be a haunted old military bunker I was afraid to stay in, and afraid to leave, though there were no doors and all the screens had been ripped out. It had the look of a mansion at the end of a loamy overgrown country lane, but was, in fact, a deserted and crumbling Swiss cheese fortress set back in the middle of nowhere. But I couldn't leave. I was terrified of the ghosts, everyone else had left me there, but I was sweating bullets at the thought of walking out the door.

You might ask what part of all that I found very funny. Well, it's funny to me. I won't go back and forth about what these things might mean. To me, they are as obvious as water and falling. That first part was about my life as an artist, and that second part was about my life as a smoker. These are two ways I identify myself to myself: an artist and a smoker. These Siamese dreams may seem very similar (out of control, insecurity, fear, confinement, etc.), but are actually quite opposite.

In the car, I wanted, after I knew I couldn't just get out of the driver's seat, to take this car under my control. I wanted to navigate it, make it go where I wished, answer the pull. But life must be negotiated with, I think. Ask for what you want, really mean it, then be open to the reply, willing to receive. Life is a river [Oooh, water (emotion) again!], and it keeps on rushing, bumping over you if you're a rock, wearing you down, bending you to the current if you're a reed, and taking you everywhere you ever would and wouldn't want to go if you're a piece of driftwood. But I am a woman. I swim in the river of life, I navigate its waters in my little boat, and if I'm not careful, I can drown. The car and I were fighting each other. I was not listening to it, and it was returning the favor. My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to open the lines of communication between the me that is a person wanting to make money, and the me that is a conduit for art things. Simple, right?

That second one may be of less interest to you if you are not a smoker, and we're not really here to talk about that, so I'll be brief. Anyway it's, like I said, the opposite of the first one. If you've never been addicted to something that is bad for you, you may not understand, but it comes down to fighting against yourself. Nobody can argue a point to me like me, I know all the weak spots! I, on the one hand, am working to convince myself to stay inside on the basis that it is too scary out there without my (crumbling) support. I, on the other hand, know the "support" is haunted (full of outdated ghosts of ideas about who I am) and crumbling, and want to get the hell out of it before it collapses on me.

So while the first dream was about negotiating control so that I might stay and steer this life, the second is about finding the courage to abandon an old comfort that now threatens to kill me. Funny, right? Hm. Well, I guess you had to be there.

xoxo
L

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

On Human Realism/The Figurative Figure

I love to paint eyes. It's one of my most favorite things. It does occur to me, however, that some people get very uncomfortable when looking at a paining that is looking at them. When you're standing in front of a painting or drawing in which the figure's eyes are focused at the viewer, especially if the figure is life-sized or close to it, something internal is made a little wiggly. It's different than staring at a still life, for sure. And that's just it: figurative painting can't sit still. We watch a sleeping person in a painting, recognize the form, the structure of a human face and body, and because it makes no sense otherwise, we place a mental overlay on top of the image, a recording. We imagine, we make believe, the figure is breathing. Now, open that figure's eyes and point them right at the viewer, and that's why so many have trouble staring at one for long. The viewer is engaging in a staring contest they cannot win! Maybe something primal inside them taps them on the proverbial shoulder and informs them that the total insano facing them down doesn't even blink. He doesn't even blink, man! And so they cower, they look away, move on.

So how to make that moment something someone would invite into their life, into their home? Well, as much as it can tap into some human reflex to run away, that's not the only human reflex.

I think about this a lot since I paint figures mostly, and many times, the person I'm painting is not someone the buyer even knows. I try to imbue my figures with some sense beyond the obvious, each one specific and different in a way that, hopefully, different types of people will have a reflexive reaction to. Something for everybody, I guess? It's kind of optimistic, really, to believe that people will feel the way I want them to when they look at a piece, but it happens whether it's designed to or not. It's a great social experiment! I do it for me: pour something of my self into this person, this representation on canvas, and it acts like a visual for a conversation I'm not having out loud. It's very interesting for me to see who is attracted to which conversation.

Anyway, maybe none of that is real. Maybe I'm reading too far in? But I can't help it! I'm around my own paintings all the time, staring at me from out of their imagined worlds. Sometimes I do get drawn in. Sometimes I realize I'm engaging in that conversation. Since it's not a great idea to engage in too much circular self-to-self, I remain hopeful that not everyone is afraid to look a painting in the eye. Hopefully, someone stumbles upon my staring contest champion, and feels what I felt when I made it, speaks the language of that moment, and takes them home to pick up the thread of conversation. Maybe you?

Cheers!
Laurelin

Monday, September 6, 2010

On The Eve Of My...

This is what I found I had written in the wee hours a few nights ago on a piece of paper, on the back of my to-do list:

"As dangerous as it is to be hopeful, it's the only way to be. Defense, offense, the law of gravity, attraction, positive tension. The theory of relativity. Intuition, precision, marksmanship, design and marketing. I wish I had some tools to understand this with. That's what business school, marketing, is for! I have to hope I recognize a lesson when it arrives instead of knowing what to look for. Yes, luck, but also presence, awareness, an ability to step outside myself (because otherwise - insecure), and yes, hopefulness too. Am I inviting my own demise? Why would I do that? This is one of the times I can say for really real I have no fear of success. Fucking subconscious is a sticky wicket! No doubt. But I feel more a sense of calm in the face of unavoidable downfall. Like I was tired of waiting for it, glad it's here. But I also feel a strong sense of transition. This miserable complacency vanishes in the face of something else. I am ready to move forward, to ascend a little. Fuck all other options. I remind myself to keep an eye on it, whatever it is. I guess I'll know it when I see it."

Bit of a midnight rambler, but I can dig it.

Whatever I want I can work for, maybe even get it. But the thing for me is just to do it. I protect my right to perform my craft to the best of my ability, and I pursue the opportunities for me to present said craft doggedly. That's the hustle. And while the hustle can get dirty (physically, emotionally, spiritually), it is never without worth or impact. That means I get out what I put in. The work is never done, but the work is the thing, so who's looking for an end?

Every day new bliss(ters)

Cheers,
Laurelin

Monday, August 2, 2010

Dare To Be Stupid

So last night I was hanging out with some friends watching the Weird Al concert at the conclusion of the State Fair and while our Nerd Laureate was performing the aforementioned song, I think I had a Grinch moment. Let me be clear for those of you who may not have little ones who force the Great Green Who on them repeatedly, I mean the Grinch who's heart grew three sizes at the end of the story. I felt an enormous swell of love for the man and the myth that is Weird Al. He is flippin' weird. Maybe my response was inflated based on an afternoon spent with my good friend Darrick and his thorough embrace of all things odd, his life of art, his fascination with strange. I admire him for his willing journey into himself, and as many times as I am challenged to see things differently every time I am around him, I am equally challenged to redefine the way I see myself. In the presence of people the world has dubbed "outsiders" or "weird", I have to wonder what the world dubs me, and if I deserve it.

Our society is two faced, I don't think I have to tell you. The people who revolutionize anything are weird, the people who change things and therefore move things forward, who shake things up, they are weird. They have to be. They have to "dare to be stupid", or they never dare anything. The fear of judgment, fear of success and fear of failure that keeps so many people in their respective boxes is a machine we've designed for ourselves. So how do people break out of it? Can we break out of it? It's not just what people around us say, but what they don't say. When they're saying that the economy is shaky for people stepping out on their own, that it's a shame, but the industry isn't interested in anything but what sells, when they say nobody has done it that way before, what they're also saying without saying it is that they are afraid and you should be too. These same people admire the free thinkers. They read books about them, watch television and movies about them, pore over them in magazines, but never make the connection that their idols are not so different from themselves.

Ask any group of people what their dream job is, and you will hear a wide variety of possibilities. But they are that: possibilities. They're not all outrageous, so why is there no room for those things to happen? Somebody wants to be a wedding planner, somebody wants to be an exotic animal groomer, somebody wants to be an artist. In the grand scheme of things, none of these dreams is outrageous, so why is it so hard to make them happen? Maybe as much as we admire people who stand tall in their profession, we resent our peers who attempt the same fate. In that, are we resentful of our own desires? It's easier, on some superficial level, to have what you need and nothing more. You don't have to answer for your success, sure. You can keep complaining about being unfulfilled, okay. You can commiserate with your peers endlessly. What would you have in common with the displeased masses if you were no longer terribly displeased?

I could go on and on about the psychology of our group resignation from the dream life. But in keeping with my title, I'd rather focus on the opposite. The world needs pinpricks of light in the gray. The world needs weird. That sounds kind of obvious, but maybe it's something we need to reexamine. Because we are all weird. Why is it only for the game-changers that it's allowed? Dancing tango by yourself in your kitchen, modeling mythic creatures late at night, collecting anything, singing. You think about the big ways you are weird, and all the little ways too, and remember that your idiosyncrasies, all of ours put together, are what make life awesome. So whether you get through your fear by ignoring it or hearing it and moving forward anyway, I hope you try. I am trying. I celebrate your efforts, and I hope you celebrate mine. Let nobody tell you how to be inspired.

xoxo
aurelin

Thursday, July 29, 2010

The Meaning of...

Okay, so I think it's fair to say that my paintings many times end up being a little bit of a puzzle for the viewer, and in this way might lend themselves to people asking what the hell I was trying to say. Sometimes that can be irritating, since I don;t always want to figure out what I mean. Can;t I just make pretties? It actually took me a while to find out what I was trying to say, and it came about in a way I wouldn't have thought. I was surprised, in a way, to be staring at my paintings, thinking about why a person with animal parts might appeal to me.

Artists strive to bring to their medium the way they see the world, maybe show people a new way of seeing something they've grown accustomed to, see for the first time something they ignored before. All of that is about the now, right? Even someone who paints their dreams is painting their now. Even someone who paints their history is painting how they see it now. A samurai through the rose colored glasses of a contemporary Japanese painter will still be telling a story about where he or she is at right now, their relationship to their own history. I don't think you can excuse the artists from being present in their art. It's like writing, or dancing or singing. It all comes through the person creating the piece, and is therefore specific. In this way, you could read deeply into anything an artist does, and maybe you should. Maybe you shouldn't. Listen, I love, love, love Tori Amos and her music, but her lyrics are specific to her experience. They are also, however, specific to my experience. That's the beauty of poetry: it's not necessary to know what the person creating it was intending. And art is poetry.

Asking a person why they chose this or that, what a piece means to them will both expand a viewer's understanding, and shrink their individual experience. In the eye of the beholder, anything can be beautiful, or terrifying, or inspiring. So I am happy, on the one hand, to let my paintings mean whatever they will to the person spending time in front of one. BUT...they do mean something (maybe different) to me. Like I said, this was a realization that came about after I had already followed an art path I found especially enjoyable. In short, I like painting people with animal parts. But did they mean more than what they seemed? Did they have to mean more? It's kind of like having a secret thing for feet and then realizing you have strategically placed feet in all your paintings. I felt naked when I realized.

I identify very strongly with these creatures, these in-betweeners. I say it often, and it's true: they are both and therefore neither, both greater and less than their parts. As am I. They serve two purposes, really. They represent the sometimes strangeness I feel walking through the world as a person on both sides of an ethnic fence (sometimes shunned, sometimes viewed mystically, sometimes adored, sometimes ignored), and also to widen the viewer's perspective on an issue I feel very strongly about. Much as I consider myself a bit of a bridge between two cultures, able to speak both languages, understand the flaws and strengths of both cultures, these creatures would, in their world, be the bridge between species. A person at home at the bottom of the ocean who could look and speak like a human being would be the greatest possible go-between. Who better to speak for creatures on the other side of the language barrier than someone of both sides of it?

So I suppose all of my art is about bridges. I guess if I were a landscape painter I might focus only on bridges. If I were an abstract painter, I would focus mostly on the fuzzy place two opposites met. If I were a singer or a dancer, I don't think I could help but culture mash. How could I? I do not want to be excused from being present in my art. I don't want to be dismissed as another fantasy artist, but I don't want to be tied to it either. This is my now, my present, my life. But I hope that I can create art that means something to the viewer as well, something that transcends my experience alone. I guess whatever meaning sparks the biggest flame is fine with me.

xoxo
Laurelin

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Nothing Changed, Nothing The Same

So I told myself I would update this blog twice or more per week, keep myself accountable, force me into the open. I suppose it also forces me to do something noteworthy every day, or nearly every day. So today I engaged in behavior some might accidentally label "wasting time". But I don't think it was. Now that I'm in this position of self-employment, of tightrope walking, or insane freedom and unbelievable restriction, I am having to redefine what I consider time well spent. This all goes to what it's meant for me to make the leap to full-time artist and all the mental masturbation and brain torture that is involved in that. But things do get really, really quiet when I'm painting, when I'm drawing.

The thing nobody tells you when you're "following your bliss" is how much internal detritus you have to stride through (head held high) to keep following that little beacon of light. Every day spent on my own terms is a battle to affirm that my own terms are the right ones, that I'm doing everything I can, and everything I should. See, I am 100% sure in my decision, but the world around me seems somehow surprised at that. Seriously, if you think I made a mistake you don't know me very well, and it's not really up to you anyway. You do your thing, this one's all mine. Alright, enough defensiveness. I revel in the fact that almost all the people I've told about leaving my job actually do support me. I mean, yes, the economy is bad right now, but am I really expected to put everything on hold until it changes? When is that? Okay okay now, really, I'm over the negativity.

Here is actually what I wanted to talk about today: I slept until about 8 o'clock today. I drove D to work (O is with Gramma today), then went to the thrift store. I spent almost two hours and came out with a big frame, a pair of jeans and a sweater (shop for sweaters now and you have a much better chance of greatness). I went to the music store and bought nothing. All of this was starting to feel like the aforementioned "wasted time", but I couldn't bring myself to go home just then. I drove past my house. I drove down a road I've never gone all the way down before. I rolled my windows down, cranked the stereo, and headed...out. I drove and drove, singing along to Bob Seger, Akon, Bob Marley, Bon Jovi and whatever else I happened upon and liked. I ended up in the middle of nowhere. I ended up parked under the shade of a giant oak tree on the side of a road bordered on both sides by fields of amber grass. I got out and leaned on my car and just waited. I stayed like that for a good thirty minutes, listening to country songs I've never heard before, and never had much affinity for. I watched the wind move through those brittle blades and make a rolling ocean from a dry plain. And while I can say over and over again that I appreciate the quiet wide places like these, I think I forgot exactly why until today. It becomes abstract, a love of nature, of a living earth. But recently, I feel a gentle tugging from behind my belly button to spend more time where the colors saturate and bleed, where you feel so alive your senses almost crowd each other out of your head. Too much. I didn't do very much of note with my time today, but I did something amazing with my space. I fell in love again with swayback barns, fence posts, roads that meander, never letting you drive over 15 mph. I have harvested full, ripe fruit today. And tonight I'm going to eat it. I can't wait to get to writing.

Always,

Laurelin

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Step One: Introduce Yourself

Hi, and welcome to my head! I've named this place The Basemental Studio because mostly that's where I'll be conducting this tour. One the left, as you descend, you may find me jabbering about the business end and social implications of being an artist, on a fact-based view of the jungle of minutia the business of arting involves. This will hopefully keep you up to date on the course this ship is navigating. You may find there some advice that I've taken, or plan to take. You may stumble upon a lecture, already in progress, on the benefits and drawbacks of an online presence, representing oneself, flooding the market, and other such survival mechanisms. Depending on why you're here and reading, you might think that could get boring, but then you probably haven't ever engaged in one of my patented all-night wine-soaked tete-a-tetes on income, class and the slow poison that is fear. Is there a bohemian culture left and how do you get in? How do you get out? What, that doesn't sound like fun? Well it's been known to end in skinny-dipping,and that's all I'm saying. Ahem.

Continuing. If you look to your right, depending, again, on why you're here and reading, this hemisphere may at first feel difficult to navigate. This is where the messes happen. This is where things spill and risk getting better for it. While I will probably update you on the progress of paintings, drawings, and other projects, the process of doing the thing, rather than the thing itself, will probably be the subject of most conversations. While it's difficult for some artists to strap on a business hat when they're just trying to be creative, it's equally hard for some business minded artists to step outside of what sells and remember the poetry inherent in what we're doing. So while, yes, income is validation on some level, and being commercially successful has it's appeal, the right side of the studio will ignore all facets of the literal, and get to where I am most at home: in metaphor, in poetry, in why blue is so ceaselessly exciting, even when it's dull. Most of my paintings hint at a mythology, and this is where that mythology is writ. I hope you'll come with me. This is not where we machete through the underbrush to clear a path, but where we cultivate that untamed riot in all it's terrifying beauty. This blog serves to lead you through both sides of the Basemental Studio, down the path between two equal and opposite realities that make up the answer to what it means for me to be an artist. There is no map, we write the map.

Cheers,

Laurelin