ARCHIVES: November 2009

carpeting blues
Rolling and heaving vinyl flooring

Let me tell you once more about that place in lived in for 18 months when I first landed in Albuquerque in 1995; the converted office on an alley in a parking lot by a dumpster. I hated that apartment. I loved being in New Mexico, but that apartment was just this side of hell. Of course, the first place in which we lived in Pennsylvania was just as charming in it’s very own way.

There were the daily dozen water beetles like big black shiny cockroaches that go crunch. Foot-deep dried pine needles from the dead trees covering everything front and back. The seven-foot tall weed growing out of the asphalt by my worn-out doormat. The bathtub configured so that the water from the shower would drain all over the floor. The disturbingly bright yellow kitchen sink. And the ever-popular dumpster — And the anonymous person sitting inside the dumpster throwing all the garbage out and onto the ground with sheer abandon. The trash truck screeching by once a week at four in the morning to collect the contents of said dumpster. Outside my bedroom window. At four in the morning. The carpeting that covered most of the floors. I hate carpeting.

The carpeting was bright blue. And used. The landlords told me that it was from an IBM office, from a different office building than the one I was now living in. Used office carpeting! They were very proud of that fact. Fine, you live here, I’ll take your house. They had hardwood floors. And no dumpster.

Whenever I have a home studio, I make a point of protecting the floor. Landlords appreciate that, as does the floor. This has meant buying a piece of vinyl flooring, or in my current situation, moving the piece from our previous place so I wouldn’t have to buy a new one.

When I moved my studio into that particular apartment; the converted office on an alley in a parking lot by a dumpster, I had limited carrying ability and therefore bought two small rolls of vinyl flooring, 6x9 foot each, and also a roll of heavy-duty packing tape. I taped them together to cover the floor. I then set up my easel and table and lights and everything I needed.

Within two or three days the first ripple appeared. The ripple grew into a wave. Then it invited friends. Then the whole floor shifted sideways. I pulled and tugged and pinned the flooring down with my weighs-a-ton-almost painting table. Two days later, the whole thing repeated itself. I would trip on my own floor, but in this case I had a good excuse. The easel would rise up unexpectedly on one side. Carpeting would appear around the edges of the room at strange angles. Pull, tug, pull, tug, pull, tug, pin down. Do this every few days for the next few months.

On occasion the dumpster outside my front door came in handy. There went the vinyl flooring. I went back to the hardware behemoth and bought a rug. It’s all about like substances. Like vinyl on hard flooring. Have carpeting? Get a rug. A carpet remnant with bound edges. They sell them at pretty reasonable prices, or at least they used to. It’s all about rug on rug. And having a studio floor that stays relatively flat.

posted November 29, 2009

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from frugal fridays
Creative gift-a-palooza

And because of the wonderful folks over at Daily Kos; I just wrote my first ever Kos dairy as a guest blogger for the Frugal Fridays column. And then I took the weekend off from the computer.

Because creative progressive leftist folks like to make things with their hands, as do various non-political and right-wing folks, here is an abundance of ideas for making home-made and hand-made gifts for everybody. Click here to read the diary and comments.

posted November 22, 2009

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minor chips and beefs
I thought I was a noun

Since when is the word woman an adjective? I thought the word woman was a noun, something definite and not merely descriptive. See the woman doctor hawking tampons on the television, designed by a woman gynecologist. Tampons that is, not the telly. That was the first time I heard the term used this way.

Woman doctor. Woman artist. Women artists. Dang!

The adjectve is female. Female. So biological sounding, so clinical, sexual even. Blood and mucous and ooze. Bone, sinew, cramps, muscle, fat, all kinds of shades of red, fibroids and other strange masses, aging or even worse; intuitive, dark, mysterious... oh no, can’t have that! It’s not acceptable. Nope.

Concerning showing in female-only exhibits... It’s okay by me if the theme of the exhibition, the subject matter of the art being exhibited, relates to being female. Otherwise, it’s just silly.

Woman artist. Man musician. Dog animal. Flavor lunch. Leaf tree. Air sky. Brilliance lightbulb.

I am an artist. I also happen to be a female artist, among other descriptors, although most are pretty much unnecessary in my book when it comes to being an artist. Other labels may be necessary for other things, but not for this. Oil Painter is good. I could go by that. But I am not a woman artist. Period.

posted November 17, 2009

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adventures in paint
Stranger things have happened

What did we used to sing way back when? Stranger in the night, than in the daytime...

Anyhoo, I thought I would show you this. We took a rather not-so-good photo, just for you to see. It’s a very unusual start to a painting for me. It’s half a trip. Tomorrow I go into it for the second round until it’s once again too wet to get into without making mud. Then it will sit and dry to-the-touch for a week or so. I think some folks would stop at this stage and call it done, but I want lots of layers and complexity. It’s not enough right now. I think it’s maybe related in some way to this painting. This is the second painting in the new series discussed in Keeping azaleas company in the October archives.

See those linear marks? I want more of those gray painting paddles, but they are pricey. So, I think for now I am going to try messing with assorted erasers, which are not at all pricey, but are made of a similar material. If I continue to like working with rubbery paint applicators, then I am going to eventually get a set of the official pricey painting paddles. That’s not what they are really called, but I like calling them that. Paddle is such an enjoyable word.

I wasn’t feeling well this morning. My mind was awake, but my body was groggy even though I just woke up a few hours earlier. However, I made myself paint for two hours. Good music helps. And I started another azalea; not an exciting beginning stage, but good solid groundwork nonetheless. And the first painting in the other new series (which needs a name, or do I have one already?), which I thought was done, wasn’t, but now it is. It is dark and red and jagged and is exactly how I feel at times.

Yes, painting is work. It’s really hard work. But if there is no element of fun, or wonder, or bliss, or communing with whatever it is you call god, then what’s the point?

posted November 14, 2009

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creative fun from almost nothing
Unemployment blues... and pinks

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 life circumstances to inspire your art! Lemonade out of lemons and all that...

Pink slip
• Design and/or create a real pink slip that can be worn for the occasion. Is it elegant for going out in style, or bizarre for leaving them guessing, or is it seriously uncomfortable and ill-fitting for an unhappy exit?
• Design and/or create something involving the abstract concept of the pink slip (maybe like a banana peel, only pink). Think about other meanings of the words pink and slip.
• Get a bunch of used slips from the thrift store and dye them pink. Create an installation piece utilizing all these pink slips.
• Do an abstraction based on the sound of the words pink and slip (just about now, the word slip is losing its meaning and becoming very strange to me). Do one piece that is about 90% in different shades of pink, another that is equal parts pink and one other color, and as a challenge, one with absolutely no pink at all.

Downsized
• Do a portrait of yourself as being very small in a large space.
• Do a series of increasing smaller self-portraits.
• Do a series of things getting increasingly smaller in any two or three-dimensional medium.

Loss, rejection, panic, falling apart
• Portray a realistic scene of what actually happened, including any of the above mentioned emotions.
• Portray your feelings of loss or panic in a purely abstract way, with no representational objects depicted at all.
• Think about the push and pull of rejection that results from being let go from a job that you wanted to leave anyway. Express these mixed emotions with a hybrid of styles and/or materials.
• Create a two or three-dimensional portrait of yourself as literally falling apart in pieces. Then do a similar portrait of yourself as reconstructed with bandages, rubberbands and/or tape.
• Create scenes of anything falling apart and/or being put back together.

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

The painting to the right is called Unemployed Cap. Funny story... although not at the very moment, which was during the spring of 2001. The boyfriend was working at a restaurant that had just issued new caps to their kitchen staff. I saw this thing sitting backwards after he brought it home, and there was that face, grimacing right at me. I had to paint it! No problem. He planned to wear his old hat for the few weeks I needed to do the painting. Meanwhile, this restaurant was going on a firing spree of all of their long-term employees... because brand new hires could be paid much less. He was out of work for nine whole days before beginning his next job somewhere else. Nine days! Imagine that! Ahh, the good ol' days...

posted November 8, 2009

All images and content ©2009, Alexandria Levin