The
creative process 2/10/10
Remembering
Jackie Felix 11/30/09
Style
Jumping: the Beatles White Album 9/16/09
Divine
Beauty homoerotic origins
9/8/09
The
role of Religion in Divine Beauty 8/25/09
My
Studio 8/23/09
7/17/10
The 10,000 hour mark
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Working on the Divine
Beauty series in my studio.
I’m reading the book
Outliers:
the story of success by Malcolm Gadwall.
It’s about what makes exceptional people exceptional. Gladwall
makes a convincing case that genius has little to do with great success.
He claims that one of the biggest factors determining achievement
is the 10,000 hour rule. And it is a rule that no one escapes. It
goes like this: people don’t become highly skilled at anything
until they practice it for 10,000 hours. It takes that long to reach
the excellence threshold in anything. It’s some kind of magic
number that’s biologically programmed into us. That’s
it. Not IQ, not talent. Of course Gladwall states that luck, circumstance,
and reasonable intelligence are also major determining factors in
high profile success— Jeff Coons or Bill Gates for examples—but
exceptional accomplishment itself is all about the number 10,000.
This
concurs with the conclusions of one of my favorite writers on the
subject, Robert W. Weisberg, whose book
Creativity: Beyond the Myth of Genius states that highly creative
thought is no different than ordinary thought. Two things distinguish
extremely creative people from others: tremendous depth of knowledge
in their subject, and very, very hard work. Practicing something for
10,000 hours would seem to cover both.
This
caused me to do some calculations. I realized that I’m probably
just now approaching 10,000 hours as an artist. My time in the studio
was always limited by my day job and other obligations, and when you
cut out time I spent stretching and priming canvas, making frames,
cleaning up, and other tangential work, I actually think I’m
just about at the magic threshold. Artists that immerse themselves
in their field starting in college, probably reach the 10,000 hour
mark much earlier. Or some who, like me, have other obligations might
just peter out before the 10,000 mark. I've taken the slow but sure
path with a house and a family and side interests. So I’m just
getting there. Meaning, according to Gladwall, I am just approaching
the highly accomplished level as an artist. This seems plausible.
I’ve been aware of improved ability and added insight with each
passing year, making me optimistic about the future.
I
gave up magic years ago because I knew I could never spend the time
to become a really great stage magician, and the same goes for other
interests like science and Frisbee. I've invested time in many fields:
illustration, various forms of performance, gardening, fencing, music,
rationalism/skepticism, filmmaking, and creative and critical writing,
and they all took time away from being an artist, though arguably
they added to my overall breadth of knowledge. I probably hit the
10,000 mark as a teacher, but when you cut out all the bullshit that
comes with the job, actual hours working at being a teacher are fewer,
and by the time you are really great, the system has beaten you down.
I probably have another 8500 hours to go as a writer. But as an artist,
I believe I am just arriving now. Everything before was lead-up.
2/16/10
Lesbian Swim
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Scene from Lesbian Swim
I
just had the opportunity to see
Swimming
with Lesbians a documentary film by David
Marshall. It was shot in Buffalo, and features Madeline
Davis, longtime gay and lesbian-rights activist.
It’s been making the rounds on the film festival circuit, winning
awards, and it will be distributed by Frameline starting sometime
in March. Of special interest to followers of my artwork is the long
segment of the movie that was filmed in the UB
Anderson Gallery during my survey show
Bruce
Adams: Half Life. You get a glance of much
of the first floor part of the exhibition, and a long look at the
Tattooed
Women series, which
actually plays a pivotal roll in the film. I’m excited to have
my work included in this excellent film.
2/10/10
The creative process
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“You’re so creative.”
I
get that one a lot. Or, “You have so much talent.” Or
worse, “You're so gifted.” These declarations are made
as complements of course, but buried within all of them is an inference,
the suggestion that the ability to make art just comes naturally.
All a creative person does, the thinking goes, is let that inborn
talent flow and wonderful things happen. And the truth is there might
actually be artists for whom it all comes easily. I don’t know
any myself, but I suppose there are savants in every field. Not most
of us though; not me anyway. I find art-making hard work, and I study
the field, and think an awful lot about what I do. There are false
starts and periods of frustration in the creative process.
I
mention this because I am working now on what might be my last piece
from my Divine
Beauty series, certainly my last major work in that group. (I'll
be putting more images from that series on my website soon.) It’s
a large altarpiece, maybe seven or eight feet tall and twelve feet
wide, in three panels. I plan to have the panels fold shut like altarpieces
often do, so there is some fabrication involved. I’ve been researching
altarpiece themes and compositions. I’m also looking through
hundreds of found fashion images for ones that will work for this
piece. I’m pretty jazzed about it. This will be the most complicated
work from the series, and if all goes well it will see its premier
at the Beyond-In Western New York exhibition next September (see exhibition
dates and locations to the right).
Meantime
I’m also deciding what I’m going to do next. The problem
isn’t thinking of an idea. Ideas come and go like fleeting moments
of sunshine between clouds in a gray Buffalo sky. The problem is settling
on one idea that I’m willing to spend the next couple of years
exploring. I’m leaning toward something less defined than many
of my earlier series. I have more freedom to experiment now that I
am not teaching. I want to move away from dependence on found images,
but that presents its own problems for a conceptually based representational
artist. I'm in the gestation stage now, and it's not coming easy.
Coincidently, I just saw Fellini’s 8½, which is a movie
about a director who is creatively blocked while trying to think what
movie to make next. I could relate.
11/30/09
Remembering Jackie Felix
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It
was a radiantly beautiful early autumn day a couple weeks ago, when
close to two-hundred members of the Western New York art community
assembled to celebrate the life of artist Jackie
Felix. Family, friends, and art colleagues alerted by phone and
email came from as far away as Texas to remember the artist who had
passed away in September. As befitting an agnostic who devoted half
her adult life to the art world, the event took place, not in a synagogue
or church, but at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center. Jackie's loss
may have been felt more acutely than usual by those of us in the arts
community who knew her, because she was such an active and vital part
of Buffalo's artistic landscape. For me, there was the added loss
of a valued next-door neighbor of twenty-nine years, but long before
Jackie moved onto my street, I had admired her work as a painter of
uncommon ability.
Widely
exhibited, Jackie was one of those artists everyone knew. She was
actively involved in the art community, particularly as a member of
Hallwalls Advisory Board. She made practically everybody's short list
of exceptional area painters. She was a master of obscure narratives
with an artistic flair for the theatrical; she occasionally even painted
curtains along the wings of her single act canvas dramas. Jackie was
a great observer of the human condition. Her paintings were populated
with men and women, saints, sinners, performers, and lovers. Always
interacting. Even with her paintings of tables that were depicted
isolated in desolate empty space, there was the feeling that someone
had just stepped out of the picture moments before. The primary career-long
focus of Jackie's work was on human connections, how people interrelate,
or don't. To Jackie, even a gun suggested a connection between people,
albeit through violent interaction. Sex, love, lust, relationships
between the sexes; these were the territories Jackie staked out for
herself. "I always have sexual content," she said in a taped
interview shortly before her sudden illness. Indeed, viewing the images
of her paintings flashing on the screen behind the speakers at her
memorial, it was clear that sexuality dominated her work. Her approach
to it was often somber though, even mordant. The dark works of German
Expressionist Max Beckman were one of her influences. But Jackie could
also be wryly humorous and highly inventive.
Jackie
lived one and a half hours past midnight on the day of her eightieth
birthday. She held on weeks beyond her doctors' expectations, predicting
at one point that she would die on her birthday. She was determined
as ever to do things her way, and with a dramatic flair right to the
end. To some people, eighty may seem like a ripe old age. But adjectives
like old didn't describe Jackie. Maybe that's because she only became
the person we all knew later in life. She grew up amidst an immigrant
population on the south side of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Discouraged
by her father from following her art muse, she went to college in
New York City to become an elementary teacher. While in school, she
lived downstairs from struggling actor James Dean and his girlfriend
who she would occasionally have over for dinner. She found Dean to
be lacking personality; vacant good looks were not Jackie's taste.
That was classic Jackie, always bucking popular opinion. She met and
married Philip Fine and when he was drafted she lived on army bases
during his tour of duty. Before long she found herself the mother
of four daughters. Her children reminisce today about what it was
like being raised in a creative household where gift-wrapping paper
was expected to be hand designed, and the kids didn't just color in
coloring books, they made them. But the demands of raising a family
prevented Jackie from any formal pursuit of art.
After
Jackie's husband left the army he found work in Buffalo, so the family
settled here. Jackie remained a devoted mother and housewife until
her husband was tragically killed in an automobile accident. She went
back into education again, this time doing substitute teaching as
a means of survival. Eventually she met Al Felix, who was a widower
at the time with three children of his own. Al was an Orchard Park
English teacher, who wrote poetry on the side and shared Jackie's
love of the arts. They got married, and though raising seven high-school
aged children was a strain on their budget, Al supported Jackie's
decision to go back to school at the University of Buffalo where she
got her BFA and eventually her MFA. At fifty-two, an age when many
artists are coasting on their laurels, Jackie launched her art career.
Jackie
and I had many over-the-fence conversations over the years, often
about art and the art community, our struggles and successes. She
was acutely aware of the challenges older artists face in the youth-oriented
art world. She often commented that she felt her age was a disadvantage,
but she defied stereotyping. She had the spirit of an enlightened
woman in the prime of her life, and hers always seemed like a young
person's art. Jackie once said that when she lectured at colleges
she made sure to use the F-word early on to establish with the students
that this wasn't their grandmother up there.
Jackie
had many other interests about which she was equally opinionated.
For instance, gardening; she was the first one to sell me on the wonders
of the vegetation killer Roundup, and soon after she was the first
totell me I shouldn't use it due to its impact on the environment.
Jackie was very assertive in her beliefs and did not suffer fools
gladly.
Right
to the end, Jackie's work displayed artistic courage, inventiveness,
even audacity. She was still challenging herself, leaping into unfamiliar
artistic terrain. Her biggest fear was repeating herself. Her work
and thoughts had a direct impact on me, and will continue to do so
in the years to come.
9/16/09
Style Jumping: the Beatles White Album
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I
recently bought the newly released digitally remastered Beatles box
set, and I was reminded of the character Kay in the movie Men
in Black. When Kay, played by Tommy
Lee Jones, acquires advanced alien recording technology, his only
reaction is: "…guess I'll have to buy the White Album again."
The White
Album was always my favorite
Beatle album, and it really holds up in the new remix. I was listening
to it while I was painting a few days ago, and it occurred to me that
the White Album provides a good analogy for one of the most common
questions I get about my artwork: why do I employ various painting
techniques and styles, even within a series? In the Divine
Beauty series for instance, I began with
an almost naive approach, and gradually moved toward stylized realism.
At times I reference illustration, Medieval art, the late Renaissance,
and with the most recent work (to be added online soon) pop/baroque.
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So
why do I do this? The short answer is, because that's what I do. Underlying
each of my painting series is a conceptual framework that I adhere
to pretty tightly. That's the constant. From there, I explore different
approaches, often referencing historical painting styles, because
my work is always at least partly about the act of painting itself.
In the White Album the Beatles bounce between light pop, blazing heavy
metal, ragtime, dance-hall music, show tunes, wistful ballads, classical
chamber music, and scorching blues. Inspired by Yoko Ono, John even
contributes a little John Cage-like sound art with Revolution #9 (which
I actually like). Some music critics complained about this diversity,
but I think the album is so good precisely because it jumps
from style to style. It's also ranked by most sources as one of the
best albums of the twienteth century.
Using
diverse painting styles in my art is like the Beatles using various
music styles in the White Album. Except I have a unifying theme. So
unifying in fact, that exhibiting single pieces from a series often
feels inappropriate, like they're fragments of an unapparent greater
whole. In my
Research
and Development series, I took this idea
to the limit with a body of work that intentionally appeared to be
done by a variety of artists from different periods.
There's
another factor at play here too. To illustrate, imagine you discover
the best food ever; let's call it Creplaque. Now imagine that for
a couple years Creplaque is all you eat. No matter how good it originally
tasted, you'll eventually grow to hate Creplaque. That's how I would
feel confined to a single painting style. The closest I ever came
was in the
Paintings
of Pictures of People with Paintings series,
and that wasn't easy. Having said that, I really don't think there's
as wide a range in my work as people sometimes think. It's mostly
figurative, nearly always with a flattened picture plane in which
negative space functions as an abstract counterpoint to the figures.
I usually employ a limited palette, rarely more than four colors,
white, and black.
9/8/09
Divine Beauty
homoerotic origins
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A
recent conversation with a friend about my Divine
Beauty series led me to reflect again on
my intent. I have an artist
statement, but artist statements are, by
design, brief and to the point; much gets left out.
The
origins of the Divine Beauty series goes back to a conversation I
had with an artist named
Sadko
Hadzihasanovic at his exhibition opening
in the first year of Beyond-In
Western New York. Sadko (as he's known professionally)
told me that he is often mistaken for being gay because he deals with
the male figure (he references a variety of sources, some of which
no doubt do have homoerotic undertones). This annoys him, because
the male figure, and particularly according to Sadko, the male chest,
has a long tradition in European art. I was intrigued by the idea
of a straight guy making homoerotic art. I saw it as something of
an artistic challenge; am I capable of dealing with male eroticism?
Is it really about light and shadow, paint and brushstrokes? I left
the exhibition that evening energized. As I exited I told curator
Sandra Firmin that I had just decided the artistic direction I wanted
to take next. Actually though, I only had a vague idea.
To
some degree this elusiveness of purpose has never completely abated
because, as in all my work, there are multiple layers of intent, some
conscious, some not fully conscious. Even within the framework of
the series, the work keeps sidling off in diverse directions. Different
layers of intent are emphasized to varying degrees within each piece.
In the past I've used my work to comment on the "male gaze"
as it pertains to the female figure in art, subverting the conventions
of the nude in historical painting, so I wanted to do the same here
with the male figure. Religious iconography seemed to be the ideal
vehicle for this. One reason is that depicting biblical scenes and
the martyrdom of saints was for a time during the middle ages the
only opportunities many Western artists had to portray the human figure.
And it occurred to me that fashion advertising today often gives off
the same vibes as religious art in a world where the male figure is
still something of a taboo. Ad art and iconography might even perform
similar functions in their individual fields.
Some people have
expressed difficulty getting a bead on what I'm doing, which makes
me wonder if there's something about this series that causes some
sort of cognitive dissonance. In an email exchange with my friend
(and critic) Richard Huntington, he reacted to my concerns that the
intended effect--especially the homoeroticism aspect--might be incomprehensible:
"Martyrdoms, St. Sebastien the most obvious, have been given
homosexual emphasis since the renaissance and before. Posolini's film,
"The Gospel According to St. Matthew," has played in church
basements for decades without any of the uninitiated noticing that
it is gay-themed. The guy off the street might be befuddled [by your
work], the Jesus star-struck born-again might be confused and offended,
a gay man might mistake it for actual gay depicted salivation over
sexy guys, but the rest of us smart asses shouldn't be having any
trouble. It might have been befuddling if you had done the ads straight
(sorry) without all the embellishments that ring bells that you are
totally aware of what you are doing and clear-cut in your relationship
to your subject."
As I mentioned in my last entry (below), Catholicism played a big
role in my development as a child. It left its mark and there's no
escaping that fact. Today I look back at my religious rearing with
a combination of bemused detachment and incredulous affection. I am
an unbeliever with nostalgia for belief. As a skeptic and humanist,
I have issues with religious indoctrination of any kind, but that's
not at the heart of this series. I just really respond to religious
imagery, and of course religion plays a huge role in Western art.
Part of what this series does is ask the question, what if we retained
the conventions of religious iconography, but transferred them to
fashion ads? Part of what I'm saying is maybe we did.
I've had people
tell me they didn't even realize the paintings were riffs on religious
imagery, and I've had one visitor to my studio name most of the saints
in the paintings by their symbols ( where I use symbols). I'm interested
in artistic and cultural conventions; where they originate, how they
develop and change, and how they reveal the predilections of the cultures
they emerge from. I started this series by referencing art styles
of the middle ages but with a loose, expressive painting style. Gradually
I drifted into stylized realism, and baroque and renaissance art.
I've included a few women in the work. Lately I'm changing directions
again, employing glazing to give the work a sheen and luminous quality
like old masters. I'm also thinking of transitioning to mythological
subject matter (the other great theme of European art), but with a
new approach, no more fashion models. I may go back to using live
models. Or I may drop the figure entirely. Who knows?
8/25/09
The role of Religion
in Divine Beauty
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My
recent series of work called
Divine
Beauty deals with religious iconography.
I was raised Catholic and for most of my elementary school years I
was required by the Catholic school I went to--St
Leo's the Great--to attend mass daily. I
accepted this as my lot in life. The parish was an early product of
suburban sprawl, having quickly acquired a large congregation long
before it had a proper church. Services were held in the basement
of the school, though on Sundays you could also attend outdoor mass,
which was like a drive-in movie except you sat in your car facing
an elevated glass-enclosed alter with your windows open listening
to the proceedings over loud speakers. It was especially enjoyable
in the rain because you had to close the windows and watch the action
through water-streaked glass, leaving no clue as to what was going
on. As the congregation rapidly grew, the school's gym/auditorium
was pressed into service as another makeshift auxiliary chapel with
worshipers sitting on the basketball court in metal folding chairs
facing a stage. It was like a high school play performed in Latin.
But the cavernous L-shaped basement chapel was the primary house of
worship. It was a mid-twentieth-century concrete version of the Roman
catacombs: dark with heavy poured-concrete columns, low ceilings,
orange painted pews, and rows of flickering votive candles. The few
existing metal grille-covered windows were at ground level well above
worshipers' heads. Next door was the school's cafeteria, and next
to that was an 18-lane public bowling alley--all subterranean.
Framed
paintings representing the
Stations
of the Cross were spaced evenly around the
basement perimeter. Once a year we would endure the hour-long reading
of the Stations, a thankless job relegated to second-in-command Father
Knalber. The boys would wait with anticipation for station number
13, "Jesus' body is removed from the cross," because the
reading included the words "...and she pressed him to her bosom."
It was all we could do to conceal our laughter from the piercing gaze
of the ever vigilant nuns. Other religious art was distributed throughout
the church and school. The parish pastor, Father Snider, had quite
an art collection, and during his years at St. Leo's there was always
something interesting on display to capture our imaginations. There
were also religious images in our catechisms and on the holy cards
(like baseball cards only with saints) the nuns gave out as rewards
for good behavior. Years of daily indoctrination left me with a genuine
deep-rooted attraction to religious iconography. I didn't realize
this when I started the Divine Beauty series, but an exhibition I
recently had at the Center
for Inquiry in Amherst NY, caused me to
reflect
on the role religion has played in my artwork over
the years. I hadn't previously noticed this, but certain themes and
stylistic conventions reappear with some regularity.
A view of my studio:
Another view:
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