When you reach above and beyond your comfort zone there is always a greater opportunity for failure.   When this happens view each failure as a stepping-stone that brings you to one step closer to your goal. The only way that you can ever really fail is if you give up…. Never give up!

F~ Fiasco

A ~Art

I ~ Insights

L~ Learn

U~ Understand

R~ Re-Focus

E ~ Excel

This weekend began an investigation into the senses; Taste, Sight, Smell, Touch and Sound. Exploring their models by definition and how they apply to my creative process. I find that most individuals rarely crisscrosses or merge these [senses} together…  and this is exactly what has happened as I approach the completion of the current painting. Dumping all the senses in a huge vessel and mixing up a fresh batch of perception.

Sunday evening as I placed the finishing touches on the eyelashes on “Remedy of Memory” the idea crossed my mind to modify my current interpretations of the senses… by asking different questions, pushing the (my) boundaries.

Example:

The subject ~ Purple… random, but you will get the idea.

For the most part we all have a collective idea of what Purple looks like.  This is based on our sense of Sight.

The questions that grew from this:

What does purple Taste like?

What does it Smell like?

What does it feel like to the Touch?

What does it Sound like?

This is just one color; think of all the many other possibilities… and then I moved on to the next topic…  eyelashes.

This exercise was conceived as I asked myself instead of what would they would look like…”What would they feel like to the Touch?”

So…what visually entered my mind… walking through an over grown jungle where everything was alive and bursting with nature. Not really anything that would be labeled “scary”, but something wild and vibrant… something breathing energy. (Did I mention that I love playing in the world of a surrealist?) Viewing them in this manner cause me to perceive the eyelashes differently and I started to paint them not as how I thought they should look but how I thought they would feel when touched.

So now… the question for you?

What does Purple sound like?

Remedy Of Memory

Studio time today was spent revisiting ideas surrounding structure and balance. While sketching out the designs for a new piece, I was surprised when my organic shapes transformed quickly into sharp angles and lines.  So I just kind of went with it…  just to see where it might lead. It ended up being a bit of a flashback as I used to create these on a much larger scale, over 10 years ago.

When I when back to school finishing my degree, one of the classes I needed to fulfill for graduation was Geometry.  During that one semester my art changed considerably. What was normally a very organic and free flowing process, evolved over time into sharp angles connected by straight lines. The thing that I found so interesting is that none of this was apparent to me till the semester was over and I looked back on the work that was created.

While working on this dropping in the colors it started to slow down my process. As I explored what feelings were bubbling up inside and what thoughts were stirring in my mind, I have felt that my time spent in the studio for the last several days has been really fragmented and not as productive as I would like it to be.  As I placed this out on the canvas I was reminded that when working on a Geometry problem the only way you could possibly get the correct answer is by doing the steps in the correct order.  I realized that by implementing a more concrete structure in the studio is the only way I will be able to move forward in these next couple of months.

Things have become more involved in the studio. I have larger projects happening and more deadlines. Because of this it seems I have a smaller time frame to complete everything. So when I looked at this piece I was reminded that structure could be my friend for now.

So back to the piece and not all the emotional baggage that I have attached to it.  This was an experiment in structure…. It is still a work in process and may change. But it served as a good reminder to me that sometimes the art needs to have its placement and structure redefined and that also needs to carry over into the studio as well.

I also have to remind myself the structure does not also me restrictions, but it can also be supportive.

W.I.P
Oil on Canvas
8 in x 8 in

Why do I feel compelled to make Art? This is one of the questions that came to me today while I was cleaning my art studio. It caused me to think about what inspires me to make art. Giving me a wonderful opportunity to explore some of the reasons that I have been collecting and storing items to use in future art projects. It was a great way for me to get the creative juices flowing and to forget that the original goal of what I was really doing was “cleaning”.

I started to think about why I feel so strongly about making art. Why am I sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by all of this “stuff”? What is my motivation? The best explanation that I could come up with that seemed concise and not a rambling discourse, “I make art to help me make sense of the world that I live in”. I take in all the ideas, visuals, conversations and everything thing else that I am exposed to… good, bad and the indifferent and all of this gets processed in my head. The art that I create is my response to what has mentally and emotionally moved through me.

It is with this information that I am given the raw material to build a foundation for the artwork. Often the ideas or concepts will race through my mind as a natural progression of word associations that from an outsider’s perception would be view as nothing more than randomness. These are then mixed with feelings and emotions that are stimulated during the process. The journey of the making of the art moves me forward along this path. Sometime this is a path that is organized and goes through the best part of the neighborhoods and other time this path is a little more scary, lets just say a little more primal and less refined, as I have said many times before, “The brighter the light, the darker the shadow”. You just need to have a strong conviction and push your way through to the other side. All of these things mixed together define why I make Art. It is what fills my life with purpose and meaning.

If there is one thing I have learned that helps me, as an artist. In order for me to make art and maintain some level of sanity. I need to be able to adapt and become fluid in the course of the day. At any given moment, things may seem to crumble and start falling apart. It is helpful to have the ability to be able to “switch to damage control” and redirect the creative energy.

This is the preferred goal, but I must admit it is one that I am not always able to achieve, but it is part of the creative process.