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