Thanks be to Adria, my advisor extraordinaire! Yes, I met with her this morning in order to bemoan my angst-ridden existence as an artist. I wasn’t at the point that I needed to cut off an ear, mind you, but I felt defeated. (I decided to spare her my festering mom-angst complaints…) But THEN…she tells me that such despair is normal, and nothing to fret about. REALLY??? But, I’m so GOOD at fretting. I might say that it’s what I do best. But now… because I understand that struggle is NORMAL in the art world, I somehow feel better. Why is that??? I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I’m a moron and that it’s obvious that there is struggle in creation. Duh. Let me clarify: I think that there is a perception that renowned artists who are dead had lots of struggle in their life, but that any living artist worth her salt shouldn’t admit to struggle. She should appear matter-of-fact…as if the canvas/paper/clay WANTED to be that way. I remember someone in architecture school used to talk like that…”it wanted to be there/like that/bigger/smaller/etc.” I always thought that was a crafty way of turning what is a subjective statment into one that appears to be objective. My point is that no one likes to admit that they struggle. Right? This gives those of us who do struggle a migraine. Thoughts?
This weekend, I am planning on going to the South End Open Studios. Should be fun! I’ll report next week on my findings. I’ll also let you know who provided the best snacks.
So, my recent drawing is a self-portrait:
That’s it still on the board…closer:
Note the look of thoughtful and mild angst…I tried to be “realistic.” Actually, if I had truly wanted to be realistic, I would have put some crud on my shirt that my four-year old somehow got on me at breakfast time. I’m going to do another self-portrait. We’ll see what happens.
I have no brilliant artwork from my son. He does say the funniest things, though. Yesterday, at the dinner table, he told me that he was “weary and tired.” Such drama. At least he can express himself, and not automatically resort to a fatique-fueled meltdown. Why can’t we harness the energy of preschoolers for our energy shortages? I’m sure that a single classroom of them could power all of Vegas for a day. Or, if you throw in some cookies and chocolate milk…you can power it for an entire WEEK.
But I digress, as per usual.
I’ll end this post with the amazing work of someone who can draw like crazy!
Please watch this video HERE of him completing this drawing. Pretty amazing, right??? I notice that a little hand didn’t come over and put down some little conglomeration of Lego. Hmm. He must have different working conditions from me. I assume that he’s drawing from a computer image, but if that’s the view out his window…then his working conditions are RADICALLY different than mine. (I’m not complaining…just an observation, mind you…obviously, his studio must “want” to be that way…)
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slightly wonky 