ARCHIVES: June 2010

beachless summer
Sand, sanding, sandpaper

For a girl who wants to keep moving forward, this has been a tough time. My feet hurt. My feet are hurt. Both. I seem to have developed a case of plantar fasciitis. Don't get it. It's no fun. It hurts. It's also healable, so that is where I am headed. On hurt feet. Ouch.

My feet spend too much time being pounded into concrete, while I carry heavy loads that add significantly to the weight my feet have to bear. I wear good shoes, so that is not the issue. Everything else is. So we are working on working around that. Being an artist means you get to be creative about all kinds of things.

My feet want sand. They love love love to walk naked on sand at the beach; at that exact spot where wave meets shore. It's their ultimate happy place.

Beaches are diminshing. Beautiful white sands of the Gulf, now literally tarnished. Most Atlantic beaches are hemmed in by development, so the natural ebb and flow of shoreline gets crunched by real estate. The Pacific — oh so far away at this point in my life.

I recently did two small paintings on panel; two different trees that just did not work out. They were dull little pieces, and my paintings deserve better. So I sanded them down with a superfine grit sandpaper, leaving most of the image there as a ghost shadow. I have just discovered that these make for wonderful base paintings for abstracts. Oooh, so now I am going to dig out the work that I am not so thrilled about and sand them down too. Heh.

Pressure. Scraping. Pounding. Sand. Evolution. Move forward however possible.

posted June 28, 2010

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transition time
Flux, or maybe not

It’s interesting how the word flux keeps coming up in my head. I just looked it up, and like most things, some definitions fit in an eerily perfect way, and other meanings, not so much. I thought I was in a period of flux, but I am going to have to find a better word. Although, period and flux have an awful lot to do with this one body of work. Funny. But in retrospect only.

I had written about this ten-painting series when I first started. This was when I began painting for the first time in a purely abstract manner, using only a state of being as my point of reference without any objects tossed in for good measure. I finished them recently. I now call them Period Pieces.

The painting to the right is the last one I completed from this series. These paintings are too big to fit on my scanner. Scanning paintings is the best way to get a high-quality image. For a few years I had been pestering my brother to take photos of my larger than 8x10” paintings, but out-of-state brothers can only be pestered so much, and the boyfriend took over these duties for awhile. Being the DIY type, I tried myself, now having that sweet little second-hand digital camera... but this is the only successful image I got. I came out really red, way too red, but I added a little cyan in Photoshop, and the colors adjusted themselves very nicely. The boyfriend has a paint-covered tripod that I am going to borrow for my next session. It seems I can’t hold my hand that steady after all. Artwork needs a tripod.

I thought I was going to return to the semi-abstracted trees for awhile, and I tried, but I think I need to paint bigger tree paintings and my current studio won’t allow for bigger anything, unless I want to work on one at a time and then have the finished pieces disappear into some warp in the time-space continuum, because really, I don’t have the space to store them here on earth. Not at this very moment anyway.

A lot of time is spent visualizing my dream studio, along with the rest of my dream house located on my dream grounds, with mountain views. The dream compound; studio, house, greenhouse, gardens, guesthouse. There is lots of storage space. Really nice organized cabinets and shelves and racks for paintings. You would think I would be visualizing collectors lining up at my door, so that storage space would not be so necessary. Okay, shift gears. Again.

I am painting more states of being. I am having fun with this abstraction thing. I am also missing the fine representational painting, but I can feel the direction shifting and that too is churning inside my head. I thought flux was a transitional phase, because my work is going through a transitional phase, and I want a word for it. Next...

posted June 14, 2010

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creative fun from almost nothing
Synesthesia; which certainly explains some things

This monthly feature on developing unlimited creativity is best referenced from the two original creative fun from almost nothing entries from the archives; September and October 2009. Read those two entries, and the entry below will be all yours. Use the concept of synesthesia to inspire new ways of perceiving things. And for more synesthetic inspiration from this misfit, check out the illustrated lyric-poem; Synesthetic Melody. Don't forget to roll over the images.

For as long as I can remember, each letter of the alphabet has had a corresponding color. So do numbers, days of the week and months of the year. For example; 2 is yellow, T is black and Wednesday is a warm tomato color such as cadmium red light. I think of a number or look at a letter, and I automatically see the color in my mind’s eye. This was not anything I ever questioned. I always though it was normal, and it is normal for me.

This is the curious condition called synesthesia, which concerns the natural synthesis, or combining, of different senses. The most common form of synesthesia involves letters and numbers having colors. Less common forms involve the connecting and crossing of sounds, smells, tastes and touch. Hearing a certain sound may stimulate a certain smell or color to one particular person, and something entirely different to someone else. These are not conscious decisions. They just are. Synesthetes (people who have synesthesia) don’t consciously assign colors, smells, shapes or anything else to other things. These odd descriptive qualities for things are inherent.

We each have our own individual systems for perceiving certain things. My letter R may be a deep red, but for another synesthete the letter R may be a cool pale green. Neither of us is right or wrong. It’s all individual perception.

Only some people have synesthesia, a very small percentage of the population. Don’t despair or feel less creative if you don’t. If you don’t have the preconceived notion that the letter F is blue and the numeral 8 is brown, then you are more free, and it will be easier for you, to portray them in other colors as you choose.

A few synesthesia-inspired things to do:

• Make an alphabet chart with each letter portrayed in its own color. If you have synesthesia, use the colors you already see. If not, or for synesthetes who want a challenge, then you can assign colors according to any system you choose.
• Do the same thing as above with numbers, geometric shapes, names of states, or any other system you would like to categorize by color.
• In any medium, get very elaborate with your first initial or any other letter. Give it a color, a texture, a visual sound or scent. Give it a whole back story.
• Think of one of your favorite songs. Assign colors to the notes, the instruments used, or the letters in the title. Use those colors in a pure abstract piece (nothing recognizable) to describe the song.

Excerpted and paraphrased from the book;
Creatively Unblocking Creative Blocks
Author: Alexandria Levin
ISBN: 0-9743267-1-2
Published by Painted Jay Publishing
www.paintedjay.com

posted June 4, 2010

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so there
I am a successful artist

In a recent entry I wrote that lately it seems the art world views acquiring an MFA as proof of being serious about your art. Would that be; serious about your art or serious about your career? Because it’s really not the same thing. It’s like labeling someone as a successful artist. But what does success mean? I have always thought there were three definitions of success for an artist. You can have all, or some, and the levels of each may vary at different times in your life. The boyfriend adds a fourth to the list, something he considers very important. They are as follows:

1. Career success
This would be having a nice full resume with lots of juicy items on it such as solo exhibitions and positive magazine articles and inclusion in museum collections. It is the exterior measure of your being an artist. It is outside approval. It also means the opportunity to get your work out to a larger audience than those who already know you personally. Career success is positive for both the artist’s sense of achievement and the greater cultural good.

2. Financial success as an artist
I would define this as earning enough directly from your art to support yourself in a comfortable manner; having what you need with some extra to put aside for a rainy day; when money ceases to be a concern. This does not include money you earn doing something else, even if it is art-related, but only what you earn creating exactly what you would create if money were not involved.

3. Success in the studio
To me, this is the most important measure of success, and one you can only truly answer for yourself. It is a measure of growth, exploration and dedication. If your work is evolving, if it is challenging to you, if it improves over the long haul, if you are having some fun along with all your hard work and you are involved in some pretty good conversations with your muse in the process, then you are doing just fine in this category. If the bad starts and the not-so-good finishes don’t get you down, you learn from them and they are arriving with greater infrequency, and the ideas are flowing then you are doing very well. And if the work you were doing twenty, or twenty-five years ago is all the rage right now, but you are way past that yourself, well honey, know that you are way ahead of the curve.

4. Being an inspiration to other artists
I never thought of this until the boyfriend brought it up, but truly, this is a great measure of success. Whether you teach your skills to others, extend your hand in any way to help another artist, or inspire by being a living example that the life of an artist is well worth living despite all the stupidity and frustration - then yes, this is a high measure of success. (Because well, hey, there is plenty of stupidity and frustration to go around no matter what you do, so you may as well chase your dreams.)

4a. Of course... When your artwork itself gives inspiration
Whether it is inspiration to other artists as to what the possibilities are, or as inspiration to the general public in terms of any message you hope to get across... If your work has a strong positive affect on an audience, consider that a success.

Career success; I was there, I had it, I was on a steady upward trajectory and I still want it. However, it has become elusive at this time. The quiet voices tell me this is temporary, it’s a Delaware Valley thing and it will pass. Financial success; I was halfway there before moving here. Now, the only way I can go is up. There is no further down. Studio success; In my tiny little studio on my tiny little budget I am on the verge of whole new bodies of work. Perseverance, creativity, it’s all there. This is the one category I never ever doubt. Being an inspiration; This was a surprise to me, it wasn’t in the plans, but I guess I am there too. And it’s pretty cool. I like helping members of my tribe, the artist tribe. Most of us are good people. Inspiring artwork; It’s been awhile since I have been able to guage this since I have no real public career at this time. But I have been in places where this was a common occurance; it was clear for many years in both San Francisco and New Mexico and I know it will come again.

Are you with me on this? Smooth the ruffled feathers a bit. Lick your wounds. Put on some loud music and get in there and create. Define your own measure of success.

The painting to the right is called Blue Ear Dog. He is a warrior. He stands tall.

posted June 2, 2010

All images and content ©2009-2010 Alexandria Levin