Sometimes it’s good to get stopped by the train on the way to work. It’s like a moving museum!
Category Archives: Painting
Flame job
World of Wheels car show. Exceedingly sharp custom pickup.
Traveling art
Check it – I was on my way to work and got stopped at a railroad crossing. Lots of times you can take advantage of a situation like this to check out what’s going on around you, take in something you might otherwise miss while you’re berating yourself for leaving for work five minutes late that morning (or maybe that was just me?). Anyway, as the train rolled by I grabbed the camera and waited for an opportunity. The very last car had some fairly interesting art on it. I thought “Bile” actually looked pretty decent this morning! I always admire that people can get this stuff put up so quickly while sneaking around a rail yard with rattle cans. I also love the idea that it travels all over the country, and you can look at it if you just sit still for three minutes. There’s not even an admission fee to the gallery!
Plexicanvas
Darrell invited me over to his place on Saturday to do some art.
“What do you want to do?” he asked.
“Oh, same thing as last time, I guess,” I said.
“Well, how about we paint?”
“Um, okay, but I can’t paint. The last time I painted was in high school.”
“It doesn’t matter. First we’ll go to the art store. I need to pick up a few more basic colors.”
When we got back from the art store he says, “I have some already, but I needed a few of the standards.” He then proceeds to upend this big plastic bin full of all the colors you see on the floor. “Some?” Okay, Darrell, if you say so.
“What should we draw on?” he asked.
“Um…poster board or paper or something?”
“No…I have some plexiglass.”
I was beginning to sense that Darrell’s line of questioning was more playful banter than any real need for input from yours truly.
Ninety minutes later we had what you see here. I still don’t think I can paint, but it was fun. Darrell is very accepting of my limited skills, which is awesome of him. All he seems to require is the willingness to dive in and give it a shot. He told me I have to come back and finish it with him later. So, no, to answer your question, it’s not finished. Hopefully some of what I did will look better when it is finished, and, no, I have no idea what it’s supposed to look like, which is sort of the fun of it.
Traveling Graffiti 8/14/09
Friday started my weekend of ridiculous busy-ness. The band was playing every day of the weekend, and two of the three gigs were out of town, so there was lots of driving involved. On this day I realized as I was checking my voicemail on my drive to work, that I was not going to have time to go home and change, rather I had to drive straight to the gig to make it on time, as we had an unusually early start. I didn’t take any photos on my lunch break, and only snapped a few out the window in the last fifteen minutes before the gig to try and get anything at all on film – or pixels, whatever. Anyway, you either were going to get some corn, or this graffiti that was on the side of a train which I saw when I got stopped at a rail crossing when I was only about five minutes away from the gig. I know, not much of a choice, but there you go. Sometimes days are like this.
I Agree
Graffiti Mural
A few weeks ago I was down in Bloomington, Indiana, headed for band practice (I’ve actually repeated that process several times since then, but for the purposes of this blog, we’re going to stick with one particular date). I was just a few short blocks from my destination when I passed by an empty lot on my right and a flash of color caught my eye. Glancing over, I saw what appeared to be an in-process public arts work. It was getting dark by then, but I vowed that whenever I happened by there again with good lighting, I’d be shooting it.
Two or three weeks later, timing conspired. I was headed to practice once again, and as I zipped by the lot, I glanced over again and realized that, not only did I have a few extra minutes, but the lighting was about as ideal as I could hope for given the rainy season, relative position and all that good stuff, so I hit the brakes, grabbed the trusty Nikon, and hopped out of the car.
I just like the fact that there’s art being put up out in the public eye where anyone can enjoy it. This is well off the main drag, so you have to kind of seek it out to find it. I enjoy all the color in this mural. It’s definitely a bit of a dreamy sort of piece. The Alice in Wonderland reference is cool. Obviously, the area around it needs some work, but last time I passed it looked like they were doing some more cleanup work with it. If you ever happen to be in Bloomington, you will find it on the west side of the street about three lots south of the intersection of 2nd and Washington streets.
I think it’s pretty cool that this is some art that doesn’t have to be hung in a gallery in order to be appreciated. Maybe that’s where a lot of the value is in it for me. I always used to have this idea that “art” was always Art, capitalized, mind you, and that this Art was created by famous people who were either foreign or born to greatness, and that their stuff was either massive and cut from stone, or massive and in a gilt frame, or maybe not so massive but still of stone or in said gilt frame. This is what my head does to disqualify me from attempting things I’m afraid of doing. It says, “No, that’s not for you. You’re not from Italy. No, that’s not for you. Your parents weren’t artists themselves. No, that doesn’t count, because it’s done with spray cans on a wall instead of oils on canvas.”
This is all about embracing art as enjoyment by the senses, something that can cause you to stop and think, and that is not bound by an traditional, rigid theories on “the way things should be.” I am still kind of weird about calling rolling ball sculpture “art,” but I try to let myself do that, and I try not to blow it off when other people call it that.
Anyway, enjoy the art where you find it. See if you can go out in your own neighborhood or town and find some art that’s not in a gallery. It’s all over the place if you just open your eyes a bit.
In other bits of news:
Tina is still working on my RBS base. I wait patiently.
I wrote about 900 words on my novel last weekend. Slowly but surely…
I showed Darrel some of my colored pencil drawings for the first time, and he said, “Those look great! Cool!” which was really awesome, because I was worred that he’d given me the pencils and then he’d think it was a waste on my meage efforts. He did not. I feel good.
Until next blog, stay creative, kids!
Artist Date #5: Savage Grace
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.”
A Date with the Artist
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.