"Stop decorating and starting making art."
STOP DECORATING
~ AND START ~
Could I say no to that?
No.
The next seven days would by a blur of glitter, faux fur, spray adhesive, toilet cleaner, contact paper, sharpie markers, hot-glue, pink paint, and allot of paper towels.
But first...
A few recent mileposts to help you navigate the ensuing mind-maze:
- Thanksgiving!!!: Was had twice. I was invited over to Meagan Graces house and feasted on two dinners, 20 feet away, in two separate houses. Needless to say, I was stuffed with amazing food. We drank wine and smoked cigarettes into the wee hours of the night as the recently digested turkey transformed from the dead materials of a bird into a pattern of energy called Thanksgiving Cheer.
- Held Stuart Schmidt hostage at my house for the past week! He came down from travels in the North East and accompanied me on all of this weeks adventures. As a rock to hold down reality, few are more reassuring than Stu. He just left this morning, at 5:20 am. Good Luck Stu!
- Oh... and...
- HAD MY MIND BLOWN AT: Art Basel in Miami Beach. Stu and I drove down on December 2nd with Melissa Turner (refer to above epiphany) for 8 hours, in her fantastic painted Van. We spent the nights at the majestic and immortal Everett Ford residence and feasted our eyes and our stomachs thriftily and watchfully as the Miami Money Magnet lingered ominously. We visited the Aqua Gallery, Art Basel Convention and Wynwood Walls, as well as making good friends with the staff at an awesome restaurant near Everetts.
- The ceiling, in case you were wondering, has been fixed. Special thank yous to my Landlords. They are amazing people, and I'm soo grateful I can say that. It was an exciting and informing process watching the repairing. I've got a much better idea of where I'm living now.
But most of this is so last week, if not further in the mist of the past. For the current, juicy news...
Many things have become much clearer.
As soon as we left Miami the hum of the highway became the background sound to an organic factory feeding on images, and inspirations. Materials and ideas communicated together in my brain organically calcifying logical and straight-forward instructions. Projects evolved and changed form as constrictions and freedoms were explored by the imagination. "My" main goal was to get out of my own way, to simply facilitate the condensing of vast ideas into broken sentences, crude diagroms, scribbles, and cryptic keywords.
I sat there, pondering and pondering, fueling a semi-conscious state of tranquility to facilitate the powerful "AHA!" feeling I felt when neurons got talking and synapse started peaking. Like a strange addict I resigned myself to the molecular, cellular, conceptual, and symbolic changes being produced in my main antennae, my brain. All will, all thought of the now, of where I was, or who I had been became incredibly unimportant. I was simply an awestruck witness.
Moonshine is distilled fermented plant matter. The plant is sacrificed and deconstructed so that they essence can be distilled and recollected. All the magical socially lubricating capabilities of the plant are distilled into the powerful liquid we call alcohol. Upon consumption, the powerful effects of the essence of the plant are released in the high of the alcohol.
My distillery was Melissa's van. My plant was Miami and my entire life stream of memories and moments. My alcohol condensed as the erratic keywords and instructions that I left my future self to decode. I've been getting drunk all week on these scribbled distillations. They make for the best holiday eggnog.
"Stop decorating and starting making art."
Art Basel helped me indentify many of my streangths and weaknesses as a craftsman and a thinker.
I deeply connected with certain pieces and ignored others. I thought over ideas and lauged a couple or more times, a few pieces tugged at a tear.
I came to realize the imporance of looking at art. Having the concepts of the pieces in your mind gives you a larger library to better describe your imagination to yourself and others. I was using a palette of perhaps ten color before Miami but now, I have to my disposal a colossal amount of colors, palettes, references, forms, and perspectives. I can visualize my projects in a much clearer and solid resolution, not only visually but also in "instruction" resolution. (does that make any sense?)
I was feeling kind of badly about painting and art a while back. To say that I felt "badly" about painting and art would be an example of a poorly defined feeling. The larger truth is that life needed to be shitty at the time. All aspects of my endeavor in this world felt crippled, worn out, rinsed of ideas, and trapped by a ancient and crumbling paradigm of the world that held no fire, no flavor.
The problem was, I was trying to be somebody else. Not anybody specifically, as much as a combination of people, an average of personalities and styles. I was trapped in some immature idea of what it meant to be an artist and make art, it wasn't an honest definition, just a duplicated one.
I cannot compete at being somebody else. They will always be better at being themselves than I could ever dream to be. I can only ever do the best job of being myself. I can do nothing more. Things can happen because I'm being myself but thats only depending on how well of a job I'm doing at being myself. Hmmm....
December 2-5 contained such phenomenon as to catalyze in me a tremendous amount of soul-searching and honest artist-viewer communication tools. Together I have found a recipe who's results I wish to defend. I wish to share and communicate and talk about the ideas contained within this work to increase the synapse of the global consciousness, in similar fractal pattern to what I felt inside Melissa's van.
We are neurons, our ideas are chemical potential, our communications are synapses. We transmit data unaware of the greater dimension that we are supporting, just as not one of my neurons knows my name, but as a community they can change reality.
Getting the opportunity to travel to Miami was truly a gift. I owe so much thanks to Melissa Turner. Her energy, passion, and perspective on the world have made a signigigant impact on my me. Her faith in teh universe inspires me to put faith in this chaos as well. But rather than giving up control, it feels like freedom. Freedom from both sides of control; the controlled, and the controlling.
Perfectionism is a the same way. When I am working I imagine two truths; the truth of my ideas, my vision, and the truth of the materials. Finding a balance between these two truths is art.
A machine makes perfect things because it is dead.
We, people, your friends, and neighbors, you make mistakes because your alive. We leave a trace of our grity existence. Perfectionism is a world without consequences, as such it is a world without pain or joy. Life requires a large amount of room for error. We see humanity in mistakes, in errors, jitters, scratches. Its these creases in the all-powerful flowchart, the times that scrunch foreheads, and cause pause for consideration. This is where life shines through.
Losing my fear of making a mistake has allowed these recent project to be made. Demanding perfection is an unattainable goal. Condemning its use importance is in no way an excuse for shoddy work but I see now that the hybrid truth composed of the idea of the piece and the reality of the materials is a personal recipe that each artist finds for themselves. Allowing myself the freedom to live and make mistakes (both in art and my life) has led to some very direct learning experiences.
In the meantime, explore my new Etsy store.
I'll be coming up with more fascinating trinkets and concepts as time progresses.
Much love to all of you this Holiday Season.
Best Regards from the Art-Crusader in the South
-Clinto
