Tag Archives: paintings

What goes up…

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what goes up must come down

Took my show down today. A good feeling…as of closure.

I eventually managed to send 9 of the 12 paintings off into the world, one way or another. Very surprised that I didn’t end up stuck with most of them…I brought a utility knife and fresh blades with me, thinking I would just cut the large canvases off their stretchers, and then maybe quarter them, for easier transport back to the boat. The plan was to use the colorful canvas pieces as backgrounds for a bunch of handmade journals.

Probably because I mentioned these plans to some last-minute gallery visitors, and to friends on facebook, people made offers for the pieces they liked. I was happy to accept whatever was offered: I guess I’d much rather send the paintings home with people who like them, than cut them up or roll a couple layers of gesso over them…and certainly I didn’t want to live with all of them, wrapped and banished to the bilges of our crowded boat, for the humidity and salt air to eventually destroy, anyway.

(I have to admit, though, I feel a little sorry I didn’t get to experience the incredibly cathartic act of destroying a painting that, just a month ago, took me several weeks to make. I reckon it would have taught me something valuable. I suspect I have chosen the comfortable path over the meaningful one.)

It was sort of like an art auction. *silence*

Okay. Who am I kidding? Really it was more like a hostage situation.

If I could draw a cartoon for this post, I would feature as a rabid, unhinged psychopath in the narrow aisle of an Asian grocery, holding a gun to a painting’s side and screaming “Go on, make me an offer…or the painting GETS it! I’m not kidding! I’ll f****** KILL it!”

Unorthodox method, to say the least (though actually it was all very peaceful…I made pots of tea or coffee, and passed round a glass plate of dark chocolate and mint biscuits…a nice touch, n’est-ce pas?) but it produced very satisfactory results for both me and the individuals who went home with something of mine.

Dare I say win/win?

Thank you for putting up with me all this time. I am grateful to my friends, acquaintances, blog readers, neighbors, and gallery visitors who encouraged me, enthused over the paintings, counselled me, and did such a great job of protecting me from myself. :)

A dozen paintings and a playlist

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Process is nothing. Erase your path. The path is not the work. I hope your tracks have grown over; I hope birds ate the crumbs. I hope you will toss it all, and not look back.

—Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

Here are the twelve paintings I did for my show, together in one post, at long last (a week later!)

No pictures of the show itself, or the guests, because there was no photographer present. There’s no way that I could have done it, I was so busy just trying to have a word with everyone present that I unintentionally neglected my own friends (who were good enough to come and entertain themselves, and then leave without making a fuss.) David went home to his blog and wrote a post about the show on the very same night! Which puts me to shame, as I didn’t manage to do that, myself. I must say, there certainly was a good turnout, thanks to the big group show (16 artists) that opened simultaneously in the large gallery next to my ‘intimate’ little room.

Six days later, and I am deep into other things already…

(WordPress introduced their photo gallery feature just in time! Click on a thumbnail to view the whole gallery in a scrolling format)

Looking back on the paintings themselves with a calm and detached eye, I can honestly say that the process was more rewarding than the finished product. And that’s exactly as it should be, because I have never done anything like try to paint several works for a show before, and could not expect to make ‘amazing’ work just like that. Painting these, I was acutely aware of my ignorance—not just of the technical skills necessary to manipulate paint or treat a figure—but also my ignorance of what it is about painting that makes it come alive, what is that elusive kernel that drove (and still drives painters) to pursue this craft all their lives?

Like any art, you start out and it’s all about you, and all about pretty, and all about being liked, and all about trying to make things look realistic…the slavish reproduction of objects and faces around you; that’s fine, but it’s called ‘early work’ and is only valuable in a poignant way. It’s not seriously any good, but you have to go through that shit and come out the other end, and then maybe you will make something good.

I’ve recently read Annie Dillard‘s The Writing Life, and many of the things she says about a writer’s life are true about any artist’s life. Things can be split into two piles: The Good and The Bad. It is essential to a writer who wants to rise to a level of serious mastery and worth, to be able to tell one from the other. There are no greys, even though there might be small parts of really good writing in a sea of bad writing. Dillard relates a story about a photographer who worshiped the work of a certain master, and wanted to learn how to take photographs the way this master did. Every year, he took a selection of his best work to the senior photographer, and asked him to go through it. Every year, the old man divided the work into two piles: good and bad. There was a particular photograph, a landscape, that the master put into the bad pile. The next year, the same photograph appeared again; again he put it in the bad pile. This went on for a few years. Finally the master asked the young photographer, “Every year you bring this photograph, and every year I put it in the bad pile. Yet you keep bringing it back. Why do you like it so much?” To which the young man stammered, “Because I had to climb a mountain to get it.” Again, from Annie Dillard’s book:

How many books do we read from which the writer lacked courage to tie off the umbilical cord? How many gifts do we open from which the writer neglected to remove the price tag? Is it pertinent? Is it courteous, for us to learn what it cost the writer, personally?

The moral? Your finished work must stand alone in the world. You will not always be around to hold its hand and tell the touching story of how you made it. The process is important to you, yes, because you learn from process…but the process doesn’t matter in the least to the finished work, or to the other people who will view or experience your work. Sever the umbilical cord to your work. You may be an emotional and loving person, and may be emotionally and lovingly attached to your own life (well, I hope you are, anyway) but don’t burden your work with that. It doesn’t cross over well. Your work is either good, or bad, and if it’s bad (i.e. mediocre, self-centered, naive, empty, shallow, banal), banish it from your life (not without gratitude and a certain amount of introspection, certainly you needn’t hate it…but be firm) and go out there and do it again, and again, and again, until you get it right. Until it unmistakably, unquestionably belongs in the Good pile.

Friends have protested when I told them this. They think my work is “wonderful” (whatever that means). Okay, fine, but that doesn’t tell me anything about the work, though it tells me a lot about my friends. Do they reserve a special criterion for works by friends like me—because they want to encourage and cheer me up—as opposed to the critical appreciation they show works by Dali or Drysdale? How can someone who likes Matisse or thinks Goya is “wonderful” then turn to me and tell me they think my work is “wonderful” as well? I mean, you’re really a lovely person, but be serious, will you?

Your friendship and well-meant sentiments are cherished, but your art criticism is not. You do not care whether I fail or succeed…you will probably love me, anyway. But that doesn’t help me. Honesty helps me. It will help me to get better…or even help me to finally see that I may never be anything but a so-so painter. So that I can then decide whether to spend more years (and the years are flying by, the funnel narrows, the opportunities to do something else, and get any good at it, are dwindling) trying to get something right, or acknowledge that my paintings will never be any good and that the years might be better spent doing something else.

No, I’m not giving up just yet…stupid to stop after one’s just begun! There are bits in these paintings that have something…very small areas, here and there, something honest and raw and true. Even I see them. But that is not enough…the price tag is bigger than the gift, right now. This whole show is just that…a visual representation of what the effort cost me. I had to climb a mountain to get it. When the show ends, I won’t keep the ones that didn’t sell, to rot in the bilges of a boat, to live on singing mediocre hosannas to the novice painter that created them. I will, most likely, paint some over, and cut others up for book covers, and erase my tracks, and not look back. The only way I can possible move is forward.

The show came with a playlist on cd, because music played such an important role while I was painting. I wish I could include some sort of player on here, but my blog is limited, and I am in a hurry to post this, before even the strong emotions about the show’s aftermath fade away and I don’t feel anything but weary of the paintings:

  • Profile of The Artist:                     Do You Swear To Tell The Truth The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth So Help Your Black Ass     •     Amanda Palmer
  • They were an Irish bunch…         Anti-Pioneer  •     Feist     •     Metals

Dirty Old Town     •     The Pogues     •     Rum Sodomy & The Lash

  • Reading Monsoon Dervish         The Pirate’s Bride     •     Sting     •     Symphonicities
  • Lady Kitsune                                  Foxy Lady     •     The Cure     •     Three Imaginary Boys (Deluxe Edition)
  • Smoke Reality                                Smoke Reality     •     The Naysayer     •     Smoke Reality
  • Birdhouse In Your Soul              Birdhouse In Your Soul     •     They Might Be Giants     •    
  • The Sulking Chair                        The Perfect Girl     •     The Cure     •     Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
  • Crying Like A Cat                         Edna St. Vincent Millay     •     Beth Lodge-Rigal     •     Children On a Ride
  • Debussy                                           The Holy Egoism of Genius      •     Art of Noise     •     The Seduction of Claude Debussy
  • Senbazuru                                       Princess Mononoke     •     Marco and his friends     •     World of Miyazaki Hayao (Koto and Shakuhachi Duo)

Because the Origami     •     8in8     •     The Best Imitation of Myself: A Retrospective

  • Pyromanicat                                   Stray Cat Blues      •     The Rolling Stones     •     Beggars Banquet
  • Mitzi                                                 Ragtime Cat      •     Parov Stelar     •     Coco, Pt. 2
  • Ton Katze                                        Morph the Cat     •     Donald Fagen     •     Morph the Cat
  • Afterword                                       Chromolume #7 / Putting It Together     •     Stephen Sondheim     •     Sunday In The Park With George

Good for Nothing: A book launch and exhibit

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Lots of people in Darwin have seen Kris…he’s mainly known as “that bearded guy that rides everywhere on a weird bike”. People have seen him carting ladders, or a dozen loaded crates stacked up into pyramids, or whole trestle tables, on his home-built recumbent bike (he’s secretly proud of the way he can transport almost anything on his bicycle), and have come across him riding as far out as Humpty Doo, or Litchfield, or out in the Tanami Desert…with rubber thongs on his feet and just a sleeping bag and a jug of water in a milk crate on the back.

What most people don’t know about Kris (because he keeps very quiet about what he does…he is the embodiment of “the cat that walked by himself”, his own person) is that he pours 70% of all his living energy into projects that have no obvious purpose, nor promise any of society’s conventional rewards.

Hours of each day are spent on whatever his current obsessions may be; Kris doesn’t merely squeeze his passions into the gaps of “free time” left over after a boring ordinary work day…much the opposite, Kris squeezes a little bit of boring, everyday life into whatever gaps are left after he has spent the best part of his day on weird or wonderful projects to please HIMSELF.

He approaches his projects with the discipline and focus that most people reserve for jobs they are getting paid (or somehow rewarded) to do. I have seen him spend many, many hours over a period of 12 years or so, researching and cataloging the mythical, fantastic, unusual beasts/creatures of every culture…sorting them into groups, and then making a small painting of every single one. It’s all been compiled into a handbound book with carved teak covers, handwritten pages, illuminated majuscules, gold leaf, and some 170 original paintings; it is known in our household as Teratologus. A few of our friends have seen the book, but it is not something he talks about or passes around easily. It’s not that it’s a secret, but that it represents too much hard work and…dare I say it?…love, to be exposed to people who would never understand such a project.

Questions like “What’s it good for?“, or being told that “You are very privileged and lucky to be able to live your dreams,” are sad and disappointing. Some of the best things in life aren’t “good for anything”. And as we don’t have much time on this planet to do all the things we want to do, we’d rather not waste our precious minutes trying to explain creativity, imagination, or living without imagined fears, to people who, themselves, aren’t good for much more than criticism and worry. We feel sorry for you, but we can’t help you.

Recently, Kris has been into bicycles. Specifically, bicycles in Australia…not the bicycle as status symbol or state-of-the-art lifestyle wank…but the bicycle as a simple machine that has changed very little, essentially, over the centuries, and is one of the most energy-efficient and accessible modes of transport, loved the world over.

He’s spent the past three years researching the topic. He’s built 5 recumbent bicycles over time, and made two trips from Darwin to Port Augusta, and to Broome, on his home-built bikes. He wrote a book about his trips, research, the philosophy and practicality of human-powered-versus-fuel-consuming transport, of slow-versus-fast transport, of boxed-in-versus-in-the-open transport, and the different mindframe a long-distance cyclist develops…a sort of Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, for bicycles, called Bicycle Dreaming.

After four days of hard slog on the Gibb River Road in the Kimberley, WA, during the heat of the day, I was looking for a shady spot to hole up for the afternoon when I bumped into this marvellous billabong. I propped “Kraken” against a spindly tree on the side of the road and waded into tall grass. 50 metres in I discovered a clear patch of water with sandy bottom and rocky ledge. I was parched and tired. I sat down under the first tree at the edge of the water, had a feed, long drink and a short nap.
I had a leisurely scrub and rinsed my clothes….I spread the rags on hot stone shelves, had another swim, and settled myself in a cool spot. The sun was far too high in the sky to climb back into the saddle; I had plenty of time, and I started scribbling about bicycles in my notebook. I was going to write about interesting things and marvellous places, about great and crazy people, and their legendary exploits, all of it in one way or another connected to bicycles. I was going to describe how I see the world and how it affects me.
At that waterhole in the Kimberley I was at peace. Every half an hour a dusty 4WD would roar past, windows rolled up, rattling their way over the corrugation as fast as their suspension would allow, looking dead ahead,…oblivious to the countryside. Some of them noticed my bright red bicycle leaning against a tree, but none of them noticed the waterhole I was sitting at. They came here to see the country, but their cars made them blind.

—excerpt from Bicycle Dreaming by Kris Larsen

He made a lot of drawings for the book, in pen and ink, and because he was in the mood, painted up a dozen large posters about bicycles, too…loosely based on the old bicycle posters of the early 1900s, but with humor and a wilder imagination.

We held a book launch and exhibit of all Kris’s bicycle-themed works at the Darwin Visual Arts Association yesterday evening. Was so surprised by the numbers of guests who turned up—thanks to all our good friends, who were so supportive and made the evening a busy, talkative, enjoyable one.

We hope you enjoy the books and the artwork that you took home, may they inspire you to never settle into a comfortable, lazy life of non-doing…may they  awaken you to the fact that Making Your Dreams A Reality has nothing whatsoever to do with Having Enough Money, or Being Entitled, or Being In The Right Place, or Coming From The Right Social Stratum. That’s bullshit.

Possessing a dream is all the entitlement, ability, and birthright you need to make it happen. Stop telling yourself lies because you are afraid. Do it now...it is later than you think.

urban snails follow each other down a wide highwaythat has collapsed, and drop one by one into the sea

Kris’s new book, Bicycle Dreaming, is available within Australia via his website.

A little something (nothing) everyday

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Finished the embroidery on the back cover of the Moleskine cahier I am working on for the Sketchbook Project 2011. Haven’t decided what to do on the front yet (it will still be blackwork embroidery, but it has to have more oomph than the back cover) though I really should get working on it by tomorrow—there’s not a lot of time to do this!—so I’ll make my choice in the night, and get cracking.

I finished this part of the painted canvas book covering, today, too. It looks a bit Christmassy here, but the real thing is slightly less red, a little more pink/magenta. I tried to kill the saturation a bit in iPhoto (the original doesn’t seem quite so ruddy) but something was up with my exposure/white balance today…I blame it on the low natural light: the sky was heavy with rainclouds all day, and the blue color cast threw everything out of whack.