Artist Date #5: Savage Grace

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Saturday morning, and my heels have hardly cooled from my most recent Artist Date for week four from the previous night.  I’m talking with a group of friends, and someone speaks up.  He says, “A lot of you know that I lost a son in an automobile accident two years ago.  I won’t be able to make this event, but some friends of mine are involved in an art exhibit Monday night in Broad Ripple featuring paintings from women who are using art as a way to work through their grief after having lost their children.  The women will be there to speak about their paintings.  I just wanted to let anyone know who might want to attend.  It will be a pretty powerful showing.”

I believe that one of the key values in art is its ability to allow us to feel our feelings, to understand them and work through them, be they positive or negative.  I’ve come to realize that sort of expression as a healthy necessity in my life.  My problems are insignificant when compared to the loss of a child, but I deal with feelings constantly, as we all do, and sometimes I’m pretty terrible at it.  If I wanted to see some people really putting their feelings out there, if I wanted to know just how brave people could be in sharing of themselves, if I wanted to see the proof first hand that art is not just a plaything of children or something on the mantle to be dusted and quietly admired, if I wanted to see how art can heal and how it can help me and others, this would be the place for it.  Ground zero for healing through creativity.  There was no deliberation.  I was going.

I didn’t know anything about the event other than the location and the few details my friend had provided.  I was going into this a bit blind, but sure that I wanted to experience it.  I arrived and began to look at the exhibits.  Before I’d hardly taken in the work itself I was stopped by a quote by Valarie Millard-Combs posted near the closest drawing stating that hardly two years ago her son passed away at a very young age of a heart attack, and his son had passed away just one week following of a heart attack as well.  Another of his sons then passed away in an accident in his garage not one year after that.  Three young men in the space of a year.  I was amazed she was still standing upright, let alone doing art work.

I felt like I didn’t even deserve to be there.  I hadn’t been through an experience like of that sort.  I’d had losses in my life, yes, but none in such close proximity.  What would I do?  How the hell would I handle something like that?  Perhaps I would do what Valarie did, make drawings with walls in them, separating me from those I’d lost, or with my chest opened up for surgery to remove the pain that wouldn’t go away.  There was also one with four sections, one colored nearly completely black.  “That was all black at first, but then I didn’t want it to be that way.  I wanted to show that there was some color in there, somewhere,” she said, “that it wasn’t all blackness.  There might be a lot of black, but something could come through.  I took a scraper and physically scraped the black pastels away in spots so that I could add color.”

Did you ever draw or build something and then attack it physically so that it would show that you were feeling better?  Worse? 

Jaymie Gatewood had a similar story about one of her pieces that was composed of three red figures against a black background.  One of the attendees asked her about it.  What did it mean?  Why was it so red?

“I don’t know exactly who those figures are…partly me, partly Sara and Nathan?  I don’t know, but I remember being very angry when I did that one.  I kept adding red, more red.  I was physically mashing the color into the canvas.  It was a very physical experience on that one.” 

I went over and looked closely at the piece later on.  There were large chunks of oil pastel stuck against the canvas, ground right against it so that they were at least an eighth of an inch thick in places.  If you ran your hand over it you would feel the bumps.  Jaymie lost her son before he even reached school age.  Her daughter Sara died of cancer when she was just 23 years old.  “Very physical experience.”

I spoke with David Labrum, art therapist at St. Vincent’s Hospice about his work.  He said that those involved in the free program come in for two hours per week and create.  They are given materials, space, and time.  He said he does little if nothing to instruct them, and no previous art experience of any kind is necessary.  Each work is an individual piece created during that two hours.  “I never tell them when to to stop, and they seem to be finished at about the end of the two hours.  I just give them the tools and leave the room.  They are allowed to create what they want.”

There were others viewing the work who were in similar circumstances.  One mother attended who had lost a child to SIDS in the last couple of years.  Another family was in attendance that had lost a young child.  I was thinking about my parents, the rest of my family.

I left the gallery feeling rather drained, and fortunate to have my family and friends.  I’d originally planned to go to my parent’s place for dinner that night, but instead I’d been looking at art from mothers who didn’t have children to invite to dinner.

I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed. 
“Hi, dad?  Hey, I was just calling you guys back to say hi.”

Artist Vacation Day: Ernie and the Hill

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The Artist’s Way has some basic tasks you are supposed to do on a regular basis, such as free writing in the mornings, or weekly Artist Dates.  There is also a group of ten tasks each week.  These tasks change from one week to the next, and you’re supposed to try to do at least half of them each week.  This past week one of the tasks was an Artist Vacation Day, where you take not just two hours, but an entire friggin’ day to yourself to go do artsy, creative, way cool things.

Time was tight.  An entire day to myself is hard to do, and I often don’t allow myself to have it.  As such, I really didn’t want to let this opportunity slip by.  There was one big problem, though.  I had no idea what to do!

I was sitting with my friend Jay having dinner Thursday night, with my week nearing its end, and no real satisfying plans.  “I could go around town and shoot graffiti all day,” I said, “but what I’d really like to do is find a vintage car or motorcycle event to shoot.”  Jay, a fan of such things mechanical, agree that would definitely be cool, but I left dinner with no further ideas.

The following morning in the shower, for no apparent reason, I suddenly thought of the Newport Hill Climb, and annual event held in the Indiana town of the same name.  Its a colorful bit of Indiana heritage that’s a well-known secret of sorts where vintage cars from the teens up through the 50s vie for a chance at being the fastest to top a huge hill that begins right at the town square.  Since none of the cars qualify as rocket ships, it’s a bit like watching a moving car show with plenty of good-natured humor thrown in.

At work I got on the web and did a quick search.  I was certain it was not for another couple of weeks, but what the heck, right?  Result: Newport Hill Climb, first weekend in October.  Bingo.

Forty-eight hours later and I’m heading out west toward Newport.  As I’m checking the map I notice that I’m going to pass within a couple of miles of the historic site for Ernie Pyle, famous war correspondent during Word War II.  I was already running a little behind schedule, yet it bugged me that I’d spent my entire IU existence in and out of the Journalism building that bears his name, and here I’d never even seen his hometown.  That seemed wrong, too wrong to pass up.

I first hit upon a rest area that is named in his honor.  I stopped for a few minutes and wondered, “You mean this is it?  This can’t be it!”  After checking out this monument that was erected in his name, I read a nearby plaque that indicated the actual site was a couple miles down the road.  I had to go.

I found the pleasant little house that had been turned into Ernie’s historic site right at the heart of Dana.  After checking out the grounds for a minute and still wondering if I should be taking time away from the hill climb, I decided “What the heck,” and rang the bell for a tour. 

Probably an hour later (I refused to look at my watch and make myself rush), I walked away with a lot more information on someone who I’d previously thought of as “that soldier who wrote some stuff during the war.”  Ernie wasn’t a soldier, for one thing.  He was a civilian correspondent, but he spent a great deal of his time on the front lines with the troops.  While other reporters were getting the big story on troop movements, fatalities, raids, supply conditions, and all manner of other data, Ernie was sitting in fox holes with infantrymen talking about how satisfying a good cup of coffee could be, musing on the decorations of said surroundings (pinup tearouts), or, sadly, watching men say goodbye to one of their own.  He was the eyes and ears of the common soldier, brought forth to the entire U.S. through his regular columns.  So important were his words that he appeared on the cover of Time magazine and was invited to take tea by Eleanor Roosevelt. 

Ernie was killed by machine gun fire in 1945 on the island of Ie Shima.  His works are still prized to this day.  Being personally familiar with so little of his writing, I felt it was high time I find out for myself why he is so esteemed.  I was particularly happy to find that the book store on site had original, used printings of his collected works.  I picked up a well-worn copy of “Here is Your War.”  The inside leaf states that the book would normall run to over 450 pages, but “this version has been reformatted to achieve 385 pages, in accordance with war time restrictions.”  Inside is a handwritten inscription from a son to his father.  The original article can’t help but make these stories that much more real to me.

Setting my new literature in the passenger seat, I turned north and headed toward Newport, Indiana.  It was a gorgeous fall day, but the sun was getting low in the sky, and I was a little concerned that it was four o’clock and I’d yet to reach my main destination.  Would there be anything left for me to see at this hour?  Had I hung the opportunity up when I entered Pyle’s museum?

Heck no.  (pics clickable)

Before I even reached the center of town I had an eyeful of some colorful machinery.  There were a collection of old cars like this sitting around on lawns and side streets.  This little get-up is called a speedster.  It’s a modified Ford Model T.  This thing has got to be lightning fast, because it has flames!  I’ll be it’ll go (gasp!) thirty-five miles an hour!

Here we have the lineup of contenders for the climb.  You can see all manner of vehicles in this photo, and the hill goes on so far you can’t even really make it out in the background.  In the early days it was a test of the fortitude of a team of horses to see how quickly they could make it to the top pulling a loaded wagon.  When cars became more common, a good truck could make it up.  A not so good truck?  It had to stop partway up and be pulled the rest of the way by the horses!  This is how the hill climb began its history many, many years ago.

Prizes are not awarded for paint jobs, but a sense of humor is always greatly appreciated!

As you can see, these aren’t Indy cars we’re talking about here.  This pickup gets the “go” signal from the starter.  You can just see the yellow light of the starting tree as it begins its descent to the green at the bottom.

Ah, the face of a hardened competitor!  (Ninety-one years of age!)

That is not tire smoke.  Probably had to refill the oil once he got to the top.

Here’s a fine Ford pickup being backed into starting position.  One of the Starting Queens stands nearby.  I like the angle on this one.  I was some yards away when I took it, lying on the ground and grinding my knees and my elbows into the asphalt, but it came out good.

Here’s a ’40 Ford pickup pulling off the line.  I liked the color on this one, and was trying to capture a little bit of the excitement of things – a little hard to do when they’re so darn slow!

As I was shooting I was also taking a look at the folks around me.  This old fella was sitting there quietly watching the proceedings while holding his daughter’s hand.  Every so often he’d rub across her fingers with his thumb.  They didn’t say anything to each other, just held hands and watched the old cars go by.

All that glitters is gold!  Yep, they actually hand out awards to the “fastest” of these machines.  I have received inside information from a former competitor that the rules are very strict for modifications, but that said rules are often bent a little, and competition is fierce!

A comptetitor (it seems so wrong to call them “racers”), makes his way up the hill as the crowd looks on.  Here you get a bit of an idea of the size of the event.  It’s pretty sweet that you can just set your lawn chair up by the side of the main drag and watch all these cool cars and motorcycles go by.  It’s a sleepy little town, but for one weekend a year it’s full-tilt!

This may well be one of my better photos of the day.  The lens I’m using really delivers on these closeup shots.  It makes this Studebaker’s front end really stretch out toward you.  Gorgeous little car, by the way.

I so dig this license plate.  Yes, this guy is going to race up the hill.

The Event Queens fan themselves and kabbitz at the starting line.  There were a group of four of them, each seeing off a driver before he or she left the starting line.

Here’s a better view of the long trip up the hill.  I don’t know that anyone gets to going more than fifty or sixty miles an hour by the time they reach the top – and some don’t even reach the top!

I don’t even want to think what that sunburn felt like the next day.

There were some vintage motorcycles in attendance, and this Rudge was one of them.  I’m not sure I really dig how I composed this one, but I love the look of the old, peeling lettering against the shiny tank.

Here’s a shot of the Rudge set up in the pit area.  Again on this one, like the Studebaker picture, that lens of mine is drawing out the rear wheel and making it look a lot more prominent in the foreground.  I have a bunch of pics like this from the past couple of years.  It hasn’t gotten old with me yet.  Being in the shadows for a black machine isn’t ideal, either.  You’d really want to see this in muted sunlight, like under some light clouds.  Lots of detail just turning into black nothing, unfortunately, but the bike was so bitchin’ I just had to shoot it.

Obviously, I didn’t miss everything.  Though I would have liked to have gotten there a little bit earlier, I was able to take in so much, it was absolutely worth my drive.  This last shot I took while in the car leaving as I was in the line of traffic to get on the highway.  I felt very lucky that a line of old Fords pulled out just ahead of me.  I’m not sure if the lighting is right on this one, or if the sun spots on the lens make things worse or add something to it, but I sure do like the composition.  If  you look just at this little scene, for a minute it feels like you’re in the 1930s. 

On my way home I stopped at the Big Berry ice cream shop in Bellmore, Indiana.  The young lady at the counter, seeing my camera, said, “Are you a photographer?  Cool.  That’s what I want to be.”  We talked a bit, and she said she wants to attend classes in the future at the Arts Center in Indianapolis.  Her eyes lit up as she spoke of it.  At that moment, standing there and contemplating a banana split with six hundred shots of wartime heroes, old cars, and sunburn behind me all I could think was, “Man, you got to do that.  You so gotta do that.”

Artist Date #4: Harrison Gallery

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Friday night in Indianapolis.  First Friday, to be exact.  This is the one night of every month when all the art galleries open up to visitors for the evening.  I’ve taken advantage of it on a number of occasions, but always with a group, or at least with one other friend.  I was planning to do the same this particular evening, but as the day arrived it was clear that I needed to make this my Artist Date or else I wasn’t going to have one this week.  Artist Dates are mandatory as prescribed by the Artist’s Way, as is the fact that you are supposed to undertake these dates on your own (or just you and your creative self, as the idea goes).  Since these dates have so far proven to be pretty awesome, I wasn’t about to mess with this one or give it up, so I called my friend and left what probably sounded like a very odd message (“I’ll see you there, but I can’t be there with you!”) and headed out.

I ended up spending my entire two hours at the Harrison Gallery down on 16th and Deleware.  No shortage of things to see and people to talk to!  (all pics clickable)

One of the first things I came across was this collection of brass light fixture pieces.  Honestly, I have no idea if it was supposed to “say something” the way it was arranged, but it gave me ideas.  I work with copper on my rolling ball sculptures, and will soon be incorporating brass into them (hopefully!).  I just kept staring at this things going, “Yeah, that would work.  I could…yeah, I could do that with it, couldn’t I?  Similar elements may turn up in my work at some point.

I was particularly excited about the Harrison this evening, as Todd Bracik, the sculptor I’d met at Masterpiece in a Day, was exhibiting some of his work there.  My conversation with him that day was a chief reason I’d even thought to hit First Friday this month.  It’s not uncommon that it slips by while I’m out playing a gig, so when he mentioned that he would be showing there I made a specific not to try and check it out.  These works all appeared to be of reclaimed steel.  They appeared to be clearcoated so that they wouldn’t rust.  I *think* this one was called “Blind Bend,” but my memory is bad, and I left my stupid notepad in the camera bag, which was left in the car.  (Somehow I achieved a Journalism major???)

The last of these two is titled “Burst.”  I really wish I’d had something on hand to write them down.  I’m not diggin the lighting in these photos much, either.  You’d think I’d have this camera stuff all figured out by now.  Aside from all that, though, I was really excited to see Todd’s work.  He uses found objects, generally of metal, but not always.  I like metal and the whole idea of recycling or making something pleasing out of what may have once been considered junk.  The whole idea of how much crap we throw away every day kind of freaks me out, so it’s nice to see someone making art out of what might just end up in a landfill otherwise.  There’s also welding and grinding involved with this type of art, which means flames and sparks, and, well, you gotta like that.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see Todd this time, though I did meet someone who was an old friend of his.  I had hoped to talk with him some more about his work, but maybe there will be opportunities for that at a later date.

My true medium!  Thinking of the name signs I’ve been doing, I had to snap this.  It was part of a fun exhibit of children’s works.  These were all done by Cora Hughey, and featured crayon, watercolor, and magic marker.  I imagine she’s a Crayola freak just as much as I am.

Fun little dress…

…with a pencil belt!  If  you’re a teacher during SATs, this thing would be perfect.  “Need a pencil, kid?  I got seventy.”

These little guys are so much fun!  They’re the creations of Jude Odell, a ceramics sculptor. 

Her detail and use of color always impress me.

I really, REALLY wanted to take this one home, but there was no affording it that evening.  The sharp lines and the absolute black of the figures against the white and bright green really catches your eye.

See what I mean about her use of color?  Isn’t that just the greatest?!  Shortly after I took this picture Jude returned to her studio from a visit elsewhere in the building.  I could not keep from telling her how much I enjoyed her work.  She has also done some projects with inner city school children painting bridges and retaining walls to beautify the neighborhoods.  We also kind of bonded over the turmoil and travails of trying to install shower inserts (“All those angles you have to line up, and there’s no room to move!”).  If she had a web site, I’d link to it for you here.  Her stuff is really gorgeous.  She’s had a room at the Harrison for a long time now.  Go give her some of your money.

As I was leaving I snapped one more picture of Jude’s work that was displayed outside her studio on the wall.  These are little tiles that she does.  I was only about five bucks short of being able to purchase one with the cash I had on hand.  Next time I’m definitely making a purchase.  I get a great sense of fun and positivity out of her work, and it never hurts to have that surrounding you in your home.  Which reminds me, she did say at one point in our conversation that she had done some darker, more moody work.  She said, “I got great compliments on it – but trying to sell it?”  People aren’t so apt to surround themselves with dark images, and at this point I’m happy to say I’m not either.

In addition to all that, Jude’s tiles gave me an idea on how I might want to approach some of my sculpture.  I certainly didn’t have several hundred dollars to spend on one of her larger pieces, but I had or could easily find 30 or 40 to spend on something smaller.  So I’m thinking.  I’m thinking about scale and size of work.  We’ll see what happens with that.  I’m not near selling anything yet, but it can’t hurt to have plans.

Hope you enjoyed my date with my creativity.  Eight more of these to go!

 

 

Masterpeace in a Day

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I’m sorry I’ve not blogged about this earlier, but it’s been difficult to get back to the computer this week, partly because I’m not allowed to read anything this week, as mentioned earlier. I don’t want to let this news sit and get cold, though, so I’m getting it out there this evening, even if I can’t re-read what I wrote!

Masterpiece in a Day was an excellent experience, though not for the reasons you, or I, might have expected. The day was set to be a challenge right from the start, as I’d been up playing with the band late the night before, and while the event rules on the web site stipulated work hours between 9am and 3:30pm, I was not able to arrive until about 10:30 that morning. I felt fortunate to have my brother attending the event, as he was a veteran. He had some been-there-done-that advice for me, plus the fact that I had a bunch of crap to unload from my van, and his location made for a convenient dumping ground. Thanks, Ben!

When I arrived at my brother and his friend’s site, I was met with this:

Ben had laughingly told me before that they were going for the largest work, if not the best. To that end, they’d spent over 200 bucks on several sets of canvas totalling a 6-foot by 20-foot area. That’s right: twenty feet long! I told folks later that they had “about thirty cans of paint laying around,” figuring I was overestimating. I was not. They had a lot of space to cover!

Here Ryan applies some blue to the lettering for the graffiti words. He was nice enough to help me move some of my crap over near a wall outlet. I’d hoped to set up near them, but I needed power, so I ended up around the corner.

Here I gamely try to whip some wire into a reasonable facsimile of artistic expression. I had people stopping by pretty often to ask, “What are you making?” I told them it was a little rolling marble sculpture, or a kinetic sculpture, or a number of other variations. The guy who took this picture for me, Todd, was particularly interested in my work, him being a sculptor of found metal objects. His full name is Todd Bracik, and you can find his work here.

This photo could have been taken either hours or minutes later. I think my workspace looked like this for 80% of the time I sat there. One young boy of about twelve kept walking by and offering me encouraging words. Around this point he passed again, and I said, “It doesn’t look like I’ve done much, does it?” and he said very matter-of-factly, “Oh well – good art takes time!” and walked off. Thanks for the boost, kid!

I seriously spent forever making that spiral you see me holding. For. Ev. Er. I had no idea so much time had passed, when some guy came by and asked what I was doing. He said, “You better hurry! You only have forty minutes!” I looked at my watch after he left. What was he talking about? It wasn’t even 2:30 yet. I had over an hour!

After a while a string of folks began going by me to the registration/turn-in table set up nearby. “I guess people are getting their stuff done a little early,” I thought nervously. I kept working. I wasn’t anywhere near done, but I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t expect to win, but I really had wanted to finish the piece in the allotted time.

My brother walked by carrying one of the panels for his canvas. “You better hurry!” he smiled.

What the hell? Maybe I had really better get a move on. Better to finish with some time to spare. It suddenly hit me how I could tie up the whole thing in about twenty minutes. It wouldn’t be what I’d wanted, but I would be able to finish!

Now, about this entry form…I picked it up and read: All artwork is to be turned in by 3pm. I looked at my watch. 3:05pm.

I sat there and stared at the paper. I didn’t know what to do. I had read the web site the night before, and it definitely said 3:30pm, yet I’d not read the registration form the whole time I’d had it. I was crushed. I felt defeated. I was suddenly very angry with myself for even showing up. Why had I bothered? I mean, sure I didn’t think I’d win, but I could have finished at least! I hadn’t even bothered to read the rules! How stupid was I?!

A woman came by with her little girl. She asked if I’d done a sculpture inside. I shook my head. She asked if I was going to turn in what I had. I said quietly, “I didn’t finish.” She left with her daughter.

I wanted to throw everything in my box and leave. Now. I didn’t want to be there anymore. I felt like I’d wasted my time, expected too much from myself. All these other people had finished and I had not. The one thing I’d wanted to do, finish, and I couldn’t even do that. What an idiot!

I sat there and thought about what I could do. I could leave. I could go get my car and just leave, but my brother was there. He had artwork that he’d completed, and I wanted to see the finished product. As bad as I felt, I was more certain that I wanted to see what he’d done. For that matter, I was certain I wanted to see what other people had done. My purpose was bigger than simply completing my sculpture. Even as angry as I was that thought got through. I came to have a good time, and leaving angry was not going to accomplish that. It was going to make it worse.

I got hold of Ben on cell and he watched my stuff while I got my van. I threw all of my crap in there, still rather angry, but maybe not quite so much. I asked him about his piece. He said, “It takes up one whole wall in there!” Better.

I parked again, and went back to look at the artwork. I wish I had some photos for you, but they chased me out while they were doing judging. It’s too bad, because I saw the most detailed Etch-A-Sketch I’ve ever seen in my life. There were sculptures, at least one video piece, paintings, pencil sketches, mixed media wall art. All these people had shown up that morning and just created these things on the spot. Before we all arrived that morning none of it had existed, and now it lined the walls and covered the floors of two different rooms.

I split for pizza afterward while Ben and Ryan cleaned up. We got separated for a while, and I didn’t see him the rest of the time I was there. As I was leaving after the award ceremony (Ben and Ryan, unfortunately, did not take home an award, but were odds-on favorites for the “Most Obnoxious,” apparently!), I phoned Ben. I still had all those thoughts in my head about not finishing. I hadn’t forgotten any of that, not that quickly, anyway. Still, when he answered the phone I said, “Hey, man, I just wanted to say thanks for letting me know about all this. It was awesome, and I had an excellent time.”

I’m still surprised I said that. When I was younger, and even up until just a few years ago, I would have gone with my first inclination. I would have left and written the whole thing off as a miserable failure, and maybe never tried it ever again. Apparently, I can have a pretty excellent time even if I don’t meet every expectation I have for myself.  Achieving that sort of peace with my own abilities and expectations is worth more than anything I can imagine, and I’ll be calling on this experience when similar challenges will surely present themselves, likely at next year’s Masterpiece in a Day. See you there.

Why Tommy kant read.

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It’s like an ABC After School Special, only I CAN read (as many of you may have already guessed).  That is, I have a completely awesome functional ability to read.  I’ve done a pretty good job of it ever since that summer after first grade when my mom made me read 100 books.  (Thanks, mom!)

The deal is, I’m actually not allowed to read.  No kidding.  This Artist’s Way thing?  No reading this week.  Fer realz.

I’m sure you’re all “OMG!  WTF!” and I can hardly blame you for your exclamated lettery confusion.  I was a bit surprised and confused myself.  When I saw the header in the book I went, “Well, yeah, but they don’t really mean no reading at all.”  Yeah, wrong about that.  No reading.  No books, no magazines, no email, no interwebz, nada.

Were I to be totally obsessed and freakish, I’d have refused to do any reading at work and would probably be in some sort of disciplinary meeting right now.  Seeing as how loss of my job would seriously curtail some of my creative activities (like buying massive rolls of copper wiring, plus clock parts off of eBay), I’ve decided to make an allowance for work.  There are also a few other unavoidable necessities like road signs or packaging at the grocery store, but by and large I’ve cut most of it out.

The idea is that reading is one of those insiduous “busy time” activities in which we often partake to keep from doing other things that might be more beneficial to us.  We don’t think of it as wasting time like we do if we’re, say, watching every episode of The Wire all in one week, night after night, day after day.  (Who, me?)

I’ve realized that I spend a TON of time on the internet reading crap (and good stuff).  I’ve only read a couple of non-work emails that were a single sentence long.  I’ve cut out my daily doses of Barista Brat and customers_suck.  I’m not checking in on the Yahoo Rolling Ball Sculpture email list on and off all day, looking for new links, or combing through old posts for bits of info I probably don’t need right now.  I can’t even read any comments that wonderful, superfab people have left for me on my own blog this week.  (I’m treating them as Christmas presents for Monday morning.)  Oddly, I can write whatever I want, so long as I don’t go back and read over it, which I’m not doing, so this post is a first/only draft.  Thinking behind this is that you’ll suddenly free up a bunch of time and be forced to turn your engergies toward stuff that’ll encourage your creativity.

So what have I been doing?  Cool stuff (pics always clickable, btw):

Spiral RBS in process

Nick\'s name sign!

 

So, there we are, kids.  Creative stuff with my non-reading free time, and that’s only since Monday!  Okay, the spiral actually started at Masterpiece in a Day, and I promise to bring you an update on that with pics.  The extremely short version of it is that it was stupendous, and I had a blast, and I can’t wait until next year to do it again.

Even though I can’t read comments this week.  I still love them, and will be reading them as soon as it’s allowed!

Oh, and I’m carving sixty jack o’ lanterns for Halloween, but more on that later.

Pre-Masterpiece jitters

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As I’ve mentioned before, I plan to take part in Masterpiece in a Day, an all-day event hosted by the Big Car Gallery here in my fair city.  It takes place in the Fountain Square area of town, and apparently kind of takes over the area, as my brother described it as being a bit like “a low-buck Burning Man.”  You basically have from about 9am until 4:30pm or so to complete an entire work of art, starting from scratch.  Pretty neat, huh?  Opportunities for all kinds of wackiness abound, I’m sure.

Upon hearing about this from my brother, I immediately wanted to take part.  Said brother is doing a 20-foot canvassed graffiti art project.  I’ll be doing a rolling ball sculpture.  Now, this all sounded awesome and oh-wow-that-is-so-cool-and-what-an-opportunity(!!!!) the day I heard it.

Now I’m vaguely freaking out.

The day I learned of it I imagined me sitting at my rickety card table with a propane torch, bending up a bunch of wire and just having a ball making whatever the heck I wanted and enjoying the outcome for what it was.  However, Other Me, Perfectionist Me has shown up to try and rain on the parade.  Perfectionist Me is saying that it’s “just not going to turn out right, your design will suck, you didn’t plan well enough, you don’t have enough experience to turn out something superfab in just a few hours, blah, blah, blah…”

Perfectionist Me sucks.  I don’t really like to invite him along to stuff, but he shows up, like the friend at a party who can never seem to keep from drinking just a little too much at the end of the night and starts making off-color jokes or unwanted advances toward the womenfolk.  However, since Perfectionist Me is what you might call family, he kind of has to come along wherever I go.  It’s my job to keep him in check so that he doesn’t break stuff, make a jack of himself, and kind of hose the whole party.

In order to kind of take care of all those unhelpful ramblings that have been cropping up in my head, I hereby restate my initial purpose in this event.  It was NOT to create HOLYCOWINCREDIBLE work of art that was going to impress everyone in Marion county, plus those living in Allen and Howard counties.  It was not to put myself in the blast furnace and sweat out something “perfect.”  It was not to win an award.  Here was and is the purpose: to get involved with a fun public event that encourages the arts, have a good time creating a finished piece of art, and to enjoy and accept the results for what they are.

That’s it kids, and I’m sticking to it.  I’m going to pack up all my supplies as well as my original statement, and look forward to a day among creators, probably sipping a Diet Mountain Dew, bending wire, and making something fun and cool.

Artist Date #3: The Walk

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I wasn’t sure when Artist Date was going to happen this week.  It was kind of a stumble/crash/fail situation early this week with lack of sleep and stupid dental visits and whatnot.  I let everything go for a couple of days and just concentrated on getting some sleep.  Not sure if that made my universe full of awesomeness, but at least it got me into today where I went, “Yeah, I wanna go do something.”

Tonight I had zero commitments on deck.  It seemed like a good evening for…a walk?  Yeah, me not the walking guy, and yet this is what came into my head.  “Go for a walk, and…um…take pictures?  Yeah, that sounds cool.”  After feeling like I had way too much crap going on this week, a completely non-hurried walk down the Monon Trail as the sun set sounded pretty friggin’ right-on.

About 7:30 I finally made it out of the house, Nikon over my shoulder.  I also had a harmonica on me (those who know me well are not shocked to hear this), so I played a bit until I got down to the actual trail itself.  It’s a walking path that was once a rail bed for the Monon railroad many years ago.  When I was a kid, trains still used it.  It has been turned into a greenway in recent years, which has turned out to be a pretty fantastic idea.

Along the path in the immediate Broadripple area are various works of art, like this wall.  Know what’s sad?  I didn’t even realize this.  It’s been there for how many years, I’ve walked on it maybe three times, and I didn’t know the artwork was right there.  This is what this Artist’s Way stuff is all about, discovery of influences and resources that I’ve kept from myself for far to long.

This is painted on the side of a building not far from the art wall.  I think this is pretty appropriate, given that the White River is only a few hundred yards from it, and Indians certainly made use of it decades ago.

Lookit all the heads!!!!

The artist must have been a Notre Dame fan.  I’ll let that slide.

This poor little mosaic (well, it was pretty large, really) was leaning up against a building near where it had originally been affixed to some posts.  Pieces are obviously missing from it.  It’s too bad it has fallen into disrepair.  The style of work itself, however, reminded me of my friend Justine, who makes gorgeous mosaics, and who is a constant inspiration to me whenever I feel doubt or frustration with my work.

The Monon goes right past the Indy Arts Center, which is also the grounds for the Writer’s Center of Indiana where I recently skipped attend my fiction workshop group.  I took some time to tour the grounds and check out the sculptures on display.  This one was a huge stainless steel cube with a pleasingly curved concave center section.  I like metal, of course, and it’s stainless (even better!), so I snapped it.

Probably the greatest chair ever welded.  It’s actually a lounger, complete with cup and foot rest!  I had to check it out, and…

Here’s the upward view when seated in the world’s greatest stainless steel lounge chair.  I love this thing.  I, of course, wondered at how cool it would be if you could roll marbles around all those fabulous curves.

I read about the sculptor who does this vegetation sculpture, but it was several years ago.  I wish I could recall more details now.  I do remember that these are made to deteriorate.  No attempt is made to preserve them, so each work of art exists only for a finite period of time.  There’s something wonderful about that, letting nature do what it does, even if it’s to a piece of artwork.  For me this sculpture speaks both of how beautiful and temporary life is.

After leaving the Arts Center I went a little further north up the trail to where it uses a trestle to cross the White River.  The light was nice that time of night, though a challenge to shoot without being able to use a tripod.

On the way home I spotted this sign.  I liked the lighting.  The peeling paint adds some nice texture to the whole thing.

Once back in Broadripple proper there was plenty of evening traffic.  I always kind of enjoy the streak effect of moving lights with a slow shutter speed.  This one was just for fun.

Passing the Vogue, I naturally had to stop and shoot the neon.  Hard to resist all the colors.  I’ll not be attending Retro Rewind – I’ve had my life’s fill of 7oz Bud Light, thanks.  However, I’ll let you all know that Kool Keith will be appearing there in the near future.  Get your tickets while they last.  This place used to be a movie theater decades ago, and back when I was very small I saw Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs there.  They were not serving Bud Light in concessions at that time, I believe.

One more last bit of neonic brightitude.  I wish this place was still a theater sometimes.  It just looks so cool.  I am very glad they never did tear down the signs.  I’m also pretty pleased that very recently they pulled down the expressionless white tile that had been in place since before I was born to reveal the old yellow and red tiles that were beneath.  Pretty cool stuff.

That was Artist Date tonight, kids.  I had a nice time just slowing down and taking a look at things.  My photographer’s eye has a long way to go, but I got in some practice tonight and had fun.  Now I have a whole new batch of experiences to keep my creativity charged up.

Artist Date #2: Birthday Signs and caffeine

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As I blogged about previously, I am going out on an Artist Date every week for a total of twelve weeks.  The idea is to spend at least two hours with your creative self and nobody else.  This week I have a very busy schedule, as I’m going to be spending the weekend in Kentucky with a friend at a festival.

I had to make the Date happen, and time was short.  Much as I loved the Kitchen Door Project, I was not going to be able to indulge an entire weekend day on this one.  Minor sadness there at feeling rushed, but I got through it, thanks.

I was thinking about what I’d conceived of the first time: doing some sort of drawing out at a coffee shop.  It would be the perfect excuse to get out of the house, and just sit at a table and scribble and scrawl just for the fun of it.  (I’ve noticed “fun” keeps coming up in regards to this stuff…hmmm…)

I thought I had some markers that I’d bought a while ago.  A long while ago.  Like so long ago that they probably wouldn’t work anymore.  Probably not, but I looked in my desk, and lo and behold I found this:

Jackpot!  Apparently, I have such a latent desire for things Crayola, that I’d bought markers on two separate occasions and not even remembered doing so.  In addition, there was a whole box of nearly new crayons in there as well!  It was kind of a creepy sign about how I’ve hidden all these little desires of mine away and forgotten about them.  They’re out now, though, and as you can tell from the piece of paper beneath them, I’d have no trouble ruining a perfectly good piece of writing paper with them.  Sweet.

Strolling down to the local ‘bucks, I ordered up a chai latte (how non-edgy of me, it was even iced…and it was good!), and grabbed the one free low table sitting in the corner.  It had two sitting chairs near it, but I figured no one was likely to sit there once my work was spread out, which it likely would be soon enough.

Realizing I only had two or three hours to pull this off, I set right to work:

I two nephews that live far, far away, in a land called Kal-E-Forn-Ya.  I don’t get to see them often, and their birthdays are both next week (not twins, just uncanny timing by mom and dad).  I decided I’d make them both little name signs for their bedroom doors, even if one of them is far too young to even read the thing.  They’re colorful enough that I’m hoping they just stand as a little visual diversion.

Jack’s had progressed pretty far by this point, and I was considering it pretty close to being done, seeing as how I’d already spent a lot of time on it, (over an hour) and I had to move on.  You’ll note that, in my color-iffic enthusiasm I was losing some definition in the characters themselves.  The “k” in particular seems to be getting lost in the background.  Okay for today!

Here’s the start of Ryan’s sign.  I had fun just drawing those great big letters all over the page.  Don’t you remember how fun it was when you were a kid and you didn’t have to color or draw within the lines?  All I do at work all day is write things within lines.  This was the antithesis of that, and I loved it.

“The Ryan,” as I like to think of it, is looking pretty spanky by now.  It occurs to me at this point that my rabid enthusiasm for pigmentary variety is sort of diffusing everything, but what a good time it was!  It’s kind of challenging to try and come up with variation after variation of design and color.  I kept doing that thing where I’d put everything down and kind of hover my hand over the table like I was about to pick something up, just thinking, “Um…what does this need?  What goes here next?  Help!”

I admit I had this idea that some sweet little thing might wander over and go, “What are you doing?  Oh, that’ is so CUTE!  Aren’t you the sweetest thing in the whole world!  I think you’re stunningly amazing and we should start dating yesterday.”

Hey, it’s a coffee shop.  All that caffeine makes you think weird stuff.

What I got instead was some 20-ish guy who came and sat at the other chair I thought no one was going to use.  He was quiet and didn’t bother me, but then his friend showed up.  Then the talking started.  And while it wasn’t an obnoxious volume or anything it was, how shall we say, kind of dumb-sounding.  Intellectually these guys were on the ball, but emotionally they were on the make.  It was all talk about how “That blond chick likes me, but I’m trying to start something with her roommate, right?  And, like, this girl I work with wanted to set me up with her friend, and it turns out the friend is the same roommate!  Yeah!  But, like, this blond chick is all acting like there’s something or whatever and I think I’m gonna have to be, like, ‘Yeah, no.'”

There was also talk of partying at some primo hotel in Chicago that was a suite and who was going to get who to get what girls to bring who and…it kind of sucked.  I used my amazing powers for concentration to largely tune them out and do everything within the Powers of Crayola to create some colorful signage.  Finally, they third Stooge showed up and they left.

It was getting close to closing time and I had to finish.  I had Ryan’s largely done, and now Jack’s was looking a little absent in the background colors, so I went back to it and added in a bit.

Right as I’m spreading this out I get the word, “We’ll be closing in a few minutes, sir.”  Done!

It was about three hours worth of work, but I thought they turned out pretty nicely.  I hope they like them.  Jack’s is based more on design elements, while Ryan’s has a lot more solid colors, but I like those differences.  I’m wondering how this sort of expression will change for me in the coming weeks.  I’m already starting to see things that I like more than others, or ways I’d like to approach a particular design.  Interesting fun stuff!

I packed these off with a couple of Hot Wheels for the boys and mailed them out yesterday.  Happy birthday, little dudes!

I may do some more of these, some small ones.  Want one?  Leave a comment, get a sign!

A Date with the Artist

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Very recently I started working with a program in this book called The Artist’s Way. Without going into too much detail, the book is kind of a process of discovery/recovery for the creative side of yourself. It’s been recommended to me many times, and I bought it probably two years ago, maybe even three, and then let it sit when I got to the part that said something about “This is the part where you stop just reading and start doing the work.” Apparently, I’ve reached the point where I’m ready to do the work.

One of the exercises in the 12-week program of the book is something called an Artist Date where you basically take your artist self out on a date for some “quality time.” You can’t bring anyone else along. It’s just you and your artist for a little creative togetherness.

I’d been trying to think of what I’d do all week. I was going to do something relatively simple like a little drawing or whatever, and then yesterday, when I was adding some quotes and photos to my kitchen door it came to me. It was time to really do the door right.

This door is the one that leads out of my kitchen onto the back hall. It’s just white. It’s been badly painted. See?

This makes it the perfect place to stick things, which I started doing a couple three years ago when I did a goal-setting exercise with some friends. The resulting poster from that exercise went on the door. After that I started putting quotes on the door on little scraps of paper. Vis:

Another goal poster arrived and sat around forever, until I finally put that up the other day and went, “Nah. No. This isn’t right. This door could be awesome. It could be a fantastic representation of what I want out of my life, and the last thing I see going out to work every day. If it’s going to send me a message every day, let’s really make it bangup awesome.”

So how does that happen? Paint. It was time to paint the door, make it visibly back up all the great messages and thoughts that were going to be tacked and taped to it.

I took my artist to the hardware store this afternoon, wandered around looking at expensive paints for a while, mostly seeing stuff that was more than I needed and pricey. I went to the desk to ask for help, and there I spied the magic. One rack of little cans with a sign: “All sample colors $3.98.” It was just a few ounces, but I could get several colors, and I didn’t need much of any given one. Bingo.

Paint chips. This was so way better than trying to pick out paint for a room. I didn’t give a rip if they matched anything – the room, the floor, the fridge, the cabinets, that cute little set of drapes I’d (not even considered) gotten recently. I just wanted color! It was a free-for-all!

I went for bright stuff. Colors that felt positive and energetic. Pool Party (blue). Greeenway (self-explanatory). Cosmic Berry (purple). Buttercup Squash (yellow). Red Gumball (guess).

Five brushes, five colors, forty bucks. A little pricey for me, but I’d gotten a bonus playing the gig last night, so I spent it on…me!

Now comes the good part! All pictures are clickable to enlarge.

Early stage. Just a little green and blue.

Gettin’ crazy with the whole palette. A bunch of shapes are showing up, plus some full panels of color.

Things are really gettin’ interesting now. It was right about this time that my brother stopped over to help work on getting the oil pan off the Chevelle engine. He took one look at it and said, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Painting!”

“Being creative?”

“Yup.”

The following hour was spent getting really dirty and pouring a lot of coolant and some oil on the floor getting the oil pan off, but we got it done, and he split. Back to the kitchen, and I knew I had to wrap things up. This was fun, but one of the things I have to put in to practice is trying not to become obsessed with perfection. I needed to have fun with this, and then just call it good enough and be done with it. I was meeting some friends later in the evening, so I gave myself one hour to finish it. By about 7:30 I had to be done, done, done, no excuses. An activity is no longer fun or positive if it begins eating up the rest of your life. At 7:30 I finished washing purple paint off my hand (see print in blue panel), and stepped back to check things out:

Fun stuff, huh? I was pretty pleased. It’s art. It may not be Monet, but it’s art. It was fun. I had an incredibly good time just making stuff up and doing whatever I wanted, letting the drips run, and being okay with all the little goofs and happenstances that came up along the way. I think my favorite parts are the green bubbly-lookin’ circles (I don’t know why, they just are.), and the dotty little spots on the left frame – those are actually tons of my fingerprints after I dipped my fingers in the paint. That was one of the last bits I did, and kind of felt like a “light bulb” moment. I’ve been doing nothing like this for so long it’s hard for me to think about visual improvisation, so it was nice to feel things waking up a bit.

All in all, I had a pretty excellent day playing around with paint, and now I’ve got something really positive to see me out of the house ever morning. If my experience with the goal-setting posters has been a good indicator, this ought to bring about some positive effects sooner or later. I’m looking forward to it.

Bring Yourself to It

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So I give Jen the sculpture this morning.  Much giddiness ensues.  I am happy.  Jen is happy.  I also let her borrow the two Marbles of the Day that I brought in today.  She already has three at her desk.  A few minutes later I hear the sound of marbles falling all over the place, and I go, “That really didn’t seem to take care of the problem, did it?”

She calls over the cube wall, “I was trying to…I made all five fit!”

Me: “?”

I look over the wall.  Here’s what she’s done:

Sweet!  I had no idea, clue, plan like this when I built the sculptur last night.  I wish I’d thought of it!  I am constantly being given the opportunity to learn from others.  I’m really kind of surprised that this worked out the way it did.  I was so tired last night I was just trying to finish it without destroying it or burning the house down!  This is further evidence of something I’ve heard many times before, and which Diablo Cody mentioned in an interview a while back, “People always bring a bit of themselves to art.”  No matter what an artist does to try and evoke a specific emotion or reaction, people are going to bring their own experiences, believes, their own selves to a work.  I think this is a pretty fun little example of that truth.