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

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

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