back from nyc. dealing with a backlog of computer work / shipping art / and collecting myself to the grind. paintings to come.

leaving for nyc today, be back on the 26th.

http://filesharefreak.com/ is a good source of information for people who fileshare.

where i've been, where we'll go / oil, pastel / canvas / 23 x 28 inches

after everything / oil, pastel / canvas / 24 x 30 inches

from cws

Started writing in my composition book but I wanted to feel the keys and its cold outside and im wearing a shirt with holes in it. Fall came about a week ago and then in a day the weather dropped to winter status so now during the day the light is sharp instead of thick and the wind is like daggers instead of a heavy blanket; the cold makes things precise and the pain is vivid and clear, even in depression the way the mind works in the winter is cleaner and without the haze of the heat so that one can think and make good grounds forward in who they are as a person. It was a couple years ago now that I first started to be a painter ( a painter is someone who paints like a writer is someone who writes) and I knew that it didn’t matter where the paintings would go or what would happen to them after they were finished, the important part was that the paintings got finished and that they were made, anything further seemed like ego or a need to prove something that didn’t need proving. A really good picture never needs any help, its like a confident person it just exists and there’s no tricks to it nothing that moves the eye away from the exact nature of what it is. That’s where I am trying to get with the artwork and im not sure if ill ever make it there because its very easy to use tricks and its easy to just let things slide with the picture. You tell yourself that its better than most things so that makes it good enough but that’s not real; whats real is if that picture has everything you could possibly do to make it as true as possible, there can be no shirking away from the duty you owe to it because you started it.
I think its been about a week now since I did any serious painting. I may have picked up a brush and put something down five minutes here or there but I haven’t been serious, real serious and I don’t know where that went and if it will come back. I assume that its not gone because making the picture is something I love and if you love it it should be there somewhere inside of you until you aren’t around anymore. Sometimes right before I sleep and my eyes are closed I think about what it means to die, what it means to stop existing in the way that you are now and not just some change in how you deal with the world or with yourself but that you aren’t even where you were and if you are somewhere else that doesn’t matter because the only implication that you can draw is the non existence of what you know and the fact that even knowing if its false is gone. It scares the shit out of me and once I start thinking like that I try to stop and go somewhere else but its hard and its like being on a rollercoaster and wanting off right before you plunge down the steepest part but its impossible and you just have to go down screaming. Sometimes though sleep is very pleasant because my mind wanders to all sorts of beautiful things like lying naked with a woman you find beautiful or being wrapped so warm in a blanket that every soreness in your body suddenly disappears and all that’s left is this soothing feeling of comfort and then sleep just comes in an instant where the mind shuts off and you are waking up the next day feeling completely rested and good. The real problem with not painting for a week isn’t that the motivation isn’t there but the reason why because its in the why that the cause exists and the symptom is merely a reaction which cant be helped. I feel very at peace and not so sad and not extremely tired and worn. Today I looked through a lot of Francis Bacon’s catalog of paintings and there is a great disparity between good art and the things that survive as images for hundreds of years. Some artists make things and they have lasted so long their greatness or whatever it is you want to call it is hard to challenge. Its frustrating to see a painting and just be blown away, its beautiful but its also maddening trying to get to the same place; and the crazy thing about it is that there is no trying to get there, it simply happens and comes or it wont its not about force at all and so in that way these great works of art teach the new artist to be patient and to work hard and diligently but one must realize that failure is very possible if trying to get to that point of greatness is the goal. I believe that having lofty goals like that help make the pains of life bearable because the richness of the dream applies meaning to all actions even idle ones.
So now its come to the point where the picture is more than just getting it done, the first two years felt like a practice in learning patience in that this way of life is a long marathon and that breaks are needed to keep the mind healthy and it also lets the artist evaluate closely what they are making. Now its become about layers and time and applying the idea in steps rather than all at once. Im not sure if either way is better if doing it all at once in one flourish makes a better picture or if that’s the inherent way that I should work but I do know that one must explore and develop constantly to get to newer places. Plying the self so that it develops to become that greatness so that working one normal day and just an accident occurs that was completely unconscious, there it is it finally grew and now its come out and shown what it is and that will be another step. That’s why people go to school because for those who take advantage of educating themselves they get to understand the many steps it takes to reach a higher place than where they started. It kind of reminds me of this pyramid they used to show us in school when I was younger about how a person goes about fulfilling their needs, food and shelter being foremost, things like wealth, comfort, love, creativity being higher up on that list people only reaching those points if they are able because they don’t have to worry about feeding themselves or having a safe place to sleep. As a society in whole maybe we are trying to reach that plateau so people can put their endeavors not into farming but into exploring the galaxy and finding new ways to make pictures or write stories, or ways to love, good ways of being idle and having time to appreciate existence rather than struggle with it; you know time spent developing the meaning of humanity rather than struggling with the survival of it. Survival can be easy in its straight forwardness but I doubt it helps in the longevity of life because if you are just surviving part of you isn’t in love with life and loving your existence is a key aspect in being able to make life meaningful. Survival is necessary but there is much more beyond that, so much more. And im not knocking on those who must survive as being wrong because in all of us there comes a time where it is all we can do and we cannot be blamed for it in the slightest but what im saying is there exists much more outside of that and it can be the most beautiful of things.

if you are looking for a Paint program or a free photo editing program very much like photoshop that is free and open source download GIMP. It does a lot of what photoshop will do but free. There is also a version for windows if you are so inclined.