Art for the sake of art

Ira's show is amazing. I'm so proud of her. Really, how often do you think video installations bring top dollar from collecters? I can pretty much bet the house not so much. I know she's amazing and I know she creates solely for the love of her work.

http://punchgallery.org/exhibitions/2008-12.html

4/25/07

April 25, 2007 - Wednesday
The piece that doesn't match my collection

I looked in your eyes last night
My heart busted wide open
contents spilled on the floor
asking you to forgive my faults, my mistakes

You stared through me, beyond me
with icicles in your eyes
and said you could not forgive
It is not in your nature

At that moment I realized
that you were right
We just don't see eye to eye
I've been looking at a painting
Seeing what I wanted to see
Forgetting that the artist
made his own vision
No matter how hard I impressed
my own collective experience
on the visual in front of me
My interpretation would never be more
than just merely mine

I can no longer cling
to to broken pieces
that continue to cut
me deep inside


11:45 AM - 8 Comments - 9 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

'Road to Rome' trailer

'Road to Rome' trailer

Some of my photography in this project

10/12/07

The conscious mind shows what needs to be seen.
It's all a very slick user interface if you think about it
The subconscious stores away all the data of our experience
We build our characters, motives, desires from the entirety
But we look back to give homage to experiences creating the end result
Or draw conclusions of how we got from A to B based on what's left in the memory banks.
Underneath not-so-pretty files that quietly fold over and into one another

I think it's ok.
I am one of the fortunate ones that chooses to see beauty
I know all of that other stuff is there
I know it is equally integral a part of my totality
But I choose to pull from experience
Beauty
Love
Passion
Kindness
To look at as the portrait of my life
Everything else is there
Like the rabbit skin glue
Or the gesso
Or the foundational strokes
They give the texture, paint and linseed a strong home to rest
So that I’ll sleep with ease

Drafts, Edits, and Posts

Why do I have so many more drafts than actual posts?

Possibilities:
1. I hate being misunderstood more than anything (misunderstood would include loosely such things as prejudices, assumptions, and all around ego-centric states wherein others impose jugement on me/you/anyone else).
2. I suck at editing. My mind is a gift and a curse. Although it is very stimulating, it goes speed-racer like a mouse on cocaine and I can't always keep up. I seriously have to resort to music/tv/books/sex to shut it down in order to sleep.
3. I don't want to be vulnerable right now, (nearly everything I post is from my heart). As strong as I am, I also have a lot going on at the moment. Some tidbits: I have a close friend facing a vehicular homicide sentence (non-dui, just a freak accident). I found a couple of significant folks from my past. My grandma is dying. I can't fall in love for the life of me. It's very overwhelming.
4. I am on a creative cycle that is quite revolutionary. Renaissance~esque coupled with category 5 storm destructiveness. Very confusing to say the least.

"You made me acknowledge the devil in me
I hope to God I'm talking metaphorically,
Hope that I'm talking alegorically,
Know that I'm talking about the way I feel"

Help me break

Please baby help me fall in love
And catch me with left field's glove
If you hold on you'll feel DiMaggio's glory
And I'll complete your story

Don't worry love u gotta get it all right
Cuz there's always a sequel if it aint quite
We got enough if we let it come alive
Exponentially we can multiply

I don't wanna cramp your style
Or hoard you in insecurity's file
I'm not like every other girl
I'm very aware I need to compliment your world

I'm ready and been shoppin, gotta get this right
Heart and mind stuck, can't even fight
Love's quicksand and I have nothin to say
Heaven's prison: passion's a helluva price to pay.

My letter to Randy: About being an Artist & taking the step to oils

Randy,

Thanks for taking the time to write.

Apologies for my screwed up keyboard, I spilled oj on it and my wireelss one is out of batteries. I hate to edit emails so it might not look perfect.

All that aside, I wanted to get back to you. I'm just getting over pneumonia but I'm definitely on the upswing. RE: your questions:

My education could go on and on... I love education (clearly) and it adds to my credibility on paper...but it really has nothing to do with me being an artist. I was an artist long before anyone taught me. I feel fortunate to have had natural talent since before I even entered school. But being naturally talented held me back for some time. I didn't see that the people trying to teach me could really show me anything other than new medium or tools. I am not a fanm of formal education in the arts. I am however a fan of understaning art (history, other artists, etc). It was only when I found a mentor or two that I really understood what it was to learn and grow. The few people who have been that for me taught me to find things from within, never taching me something I didn't know. Example: I was afraid of building up the paint when I used oils. I would never go far enough in fear of ruining the piece. Once I became able tto build the piece up (and pull it back from time to time) I was always producing pieces that felt so amateurish. Sometimes it's not about the amount of paint or time spent, it's about not being afraid of going there. That is a classic byproduct of acrylic painting. It takes several SEVERAL pieces to get accustomed to oils, but it is worth it. It will take you to such another level as apainter. When the rush is taken out of the process and replaced with finesse you will be creating a piece like never before. The patience part is hard to overcome as well but it is so much more fulfilling. BUT the best part is oil always looks better than acrylic. Even as soon as a week, Ac. loses it's lustre that no glaze can mimic. The colors stay richer as well. If you ever do show/ sell, your work is also worth more.

That's about all I can think of for now. I'd love to tell you more if you like.

paint in chiaroscuro, showing visual emotion..... a series

I'm beginning to see continuity. I've been wanting to paint a series of works that represented emotion as it is in the inside, the feeling to the outside, the visual. I have been working and reworking for some time. I'm seeing a pattern of chiaroscuro (light on dark contrast) and it stirs an overwhelming response about emotion in my dearest companions. Up close, subtleties come to life. From afar, dark emerges

Duality and compliment
In dark and light
Whole, no saturation
Like apple before the juice

I'm flowing into a
simple state
the gallery's pride and joy
look at blood from the outside

Portraits like love and pain pulled so much
From inside to travel from mind to life
with strokes absent evaluation
and without consent

They're talking through constant traveled roads
That clear shiny black asphalt
fearlessly holding the hand of
grasses who still embrace the snow

The yin and yang
I work out on each canvas
will blend and divide like charges coming from the heart
in a dance of black & white

dark inside, outdside light
the product of soul's emote gently slips out of subltle confines
or sees the need to violently escape
If you look with soulful eyes, it's never less than beautiful

Dark flows into light
and back just the like, day into night
I painted life to free temperment
that tantrically embodies sweet placid reserve

4 days... my drug

I've been painting for 4 days.
Up till four every night
Sorta feel like a snowstorm hit my body and I didn't have the sense to go inside.
Nowhere to go but the 2 foot door into someone's mind.

I'm that little red balloon
that the boy chases all over London
So precious
He just has to have it.
More because it's always out of reach

But all I'm doing is chasing the outer limits of the atmosphere
Don't know why
It's just a means to an end
So far into my own head

But art makes me so high
and noone can make me stop
except myself
and today I realized I'm outta control

Art :: Life

September 8, 2007 - Saturday
Art :: Life

I want so many things
I need so little
Like so many others
I need to pause
to evaluate and differentiate

All my needs
sustain me until my end
And in the end

All my wants
Pleasure and satisfy
Like a drug in the now

I'm told to take what I need
and strive for what I want
But somewhere along the way, my lines got crossed
I can't seem to figure out
How taking what I need
does not equal getting what I want

Maybe I'm just that simple.
Maybe all I want is all I need
Is there a difference?

Or possibly I'm just that selfish
I take what I want
paying no heed to the waste beyond my needs

I don't want anything in my life I have not earned
But I need it
Blood
Water
Air
Love
What have I earned of these, if anything?
How pretentious to assume I have
How sophomoric to believe I have not

It's tough being a philosopher
an artist
an accountant

I reconcile
yet I'm abstact

Logic rules
within my ambiguity

And all that's left is me

9:32 PM - 4 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Here: Deep Poetic

Not a glutton so I know when I don't need anymore
None of that.
I'm good, I got it all inside.
Creativity is the fire
Dose on that all night
With a fever of ninety-nine degrees on my wall
And oiled brushes staining canvas like lovers' sheets
Method is my style
Control cock blocks my flow
And I'm intent on getting what's mine

Hanging on is a means to an end
Activates self-destruction
Go-on. Turn a blind eye
Only thing I'm gonna leave is:
'Wondering why'
I know it hurts them
To see me in this state
Where chaos and order make love day and night
In Exodus they all excuse themselves
Cutting losses
Taking comfort in hindsight

There's paradox in tragedy
They bathe in blood sweat and tears cuz I'm
Succeeding in pushing every last one outta my life.
Take the left AND the right just leave without a fight.
Some of em try and stay.
Weathering sub-tropic storms
That surround my life
Rewarded pain as a prize when they come along for the ride
I paint Gilligan's Island for 'em
Start dolling out refunds in no time

Hanging on is a means to an end
Activates self-destruction
Go-on. Turn a blind eye
Only thing I leave you is
Wondering why
I know it hurts
To see me in this state
Where chaos and order make love day and night
So follow as
They all excuse themselves
Cutting losses
Taking comfort in hindsight

But you.
You are still here.
Long after the linseed and oil have dried
And I used all the ashes to texturize
Beauty from the fury that destroyed
Without subsitance to keep itself alive.
Here. Reading braille when I'm blind.
You let me struggle, fail and compliment my life
Making love in copulas that bind
Got me wanting to stick around
Maybe, this time

Tortured Artist

So I've been thinking about being an artist. A friend of mine thinks that we are all tortured souls. We either fight these battles or slip into the scenery (whatever the case) somehow it's torture. Are we just crocodiles that cry in order to keep our eyes moist amidst all of the chemicals used in our various mediums while all the while everyone thinks we are tortured?

I've come to question it all these days. I suppose I was very tortured when I was young. My passsion was so strong and my family so weak. My iq was high and my artistic vision was deep. But I never had an identity. I was the "girl next door who was a great artist and as going to attend Harvard" in those days. That's the identity that was given to me. When my family fell apart (literally) and I fell in love with a boy who eventually got another girl pregnant, I started wondering what I truly was.

I did what any tortured artist would do and I started searching my soul..... I started *experiencing* things in order to know who I really was. I lost my virginity. I quit school to see if education really mattered only to find out 15 years later what it meant to me...only could I see the true value after working my ass off to get it back. I tried drugs and did not like them. I pierced myself when piercing wasn't cool, had a mohawk when mohawks weren't cool. I tried finding love, but instead found sex. I didn't excel at Harvard, but I was the best damn bartender you've ever met. Adventure was my heroin. I moved to LA on the fly, then moved back home on the fly. I traveled to every continent except one. I started companies and started more. I became a philosopher, a friend, a mother, a lover, and an advocate. Believe me this doesn't leave much time to be artistic. I did anything to not face that art was part of me. But eventually you figure out there's just some things you can't change. To be happy, you just have to love it

So now that I've come full circle, who am I? I suppose I can be for people what they want me to be, but for me....

I'm an artist


tortured or not, it doesn't matter

Is there anything else I could have been?