Regarding Art

I had a boyfriend once (yes, incredulous but true) who, when I would tell him I was doing my art,  would jealously respond --  “Who’s Art?”  As I was writing about my summer adventures I noticed that there was one storyline on politics, which I made a separate entry, and then another plot regarding art.  Remember that great Harrison movie “Regarding Henry”?  What follows is my exciting remake, “Regarding Art”:

 

This tale picks up in July.  Aside from becoming a political and economic spectator, I was frantically painting in order to have my series mostly complete and ready to take to local galleries.  I didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped, primarily due to the adversaries of doubt and negativity.  Although I didn’t quite fall into one of my favorite holes entitled “I’m not really an artist” but did succumb to the slightly shallower “The gallerists will laugh at me!”.  I think in my last blog entry in mid-July I wrote that I’d decided not to look for an exhibition space or gallery in France this year, but I decided to stick with my original agenda (I should know better than to make a commitment since I’ll always try to weasel out of it).  The decision to not promote my art helped take the pressure off, especially since I was having trouble resolving 3 of my paintings – they were missing something that was escaping me.  Normally I just put such paintings aside and whatever escaped me before eventually surfaces a year or two later.  But when I decided to keep to my word, the pressure came back because I’m on a schedule!!!  The engineer in me decided to take control and made quite a nice spreadsheet allocating so many hours to each painting to “get them finished” and crossed off the list.  I found out that art doesn’t get made that way, but a lot of chocolate chip cookies do.

 

So at the end of July before heading off for 6 weeks of travel around Europe, I rented a car to throw some paintings in the back and peddle them at high-end galleries in a town nearby – St. Paul de Vence.  The town, quaint and painterly, attracted many of the famous artists from the last century who lived out their lives on the Cote d’Azur.  These artists – Picasso, Cezanne, Dufy, Leger, Matisse, Chagall, etc – would pay their room and board during a painting expedition for a quick sketch on canvas or a scribble (in Picasso’s case) on a napkin.  So much art was deposited in inspiring St. Paul, and its heritage continues as it is THE place to buy art on the Cote d’Azur.  Anyway, I rented the car in a complete state of terror, but needing to peddle my wares before going away to visit relatives if I were to hope for a show in September or October.  I wasn’t feeling much like putting myself out there, and everything from driving a car (a stick-shift) around here (where I’ve never driven – didn’t have a car when I lived here prior), to going to the galleries (French gallerists are sure to be even more snobby than in New York), to updating my website (I needed to explain this “body of work” and do it in French) was overwhelming.  While I’m really good at marketing, I now know why artists generally aren’t – aside from having the skills, we have to have the motivation and be in a mood to deal with rejection.  I wanted to just not do this, partly because I didn’t feel prepared.  Although I had some paintings in the car, I really needed to make a portfolio but hadn’t since few of the paintings were definitely done and the rest in flux or contemplation.  So I asked friends and family to pray for me and that accountability alone kept me from playing hooky.  Although the car rental was expensive, I’m grateful I had the money to get it.  A friend from church gave me a ride to the Nice airport for the pick-up.  The driving was really easy, and I enjoyed it.  My Ma helped me translate my artist statement into French since I didn’t have the time.  All the gallery staff were very nice and helpful, with lots of good conversations in French about art, and I made 3 gallery contacts that I was hoping would amount to something.  A French artist in his mid-50s and inhabitant of St. Paul offered me coffee and a long chat about painting abstracts.  He told me that painting good abstracts is more difficult than any other genre and that my paintings should “have balls”.  He was running a gallery displaying his art and that of his friends – a co-op, I suppose, but one of the largest galleries there.  We dissected his paintings and talked art philosophy for almost 2 hours, and I even convinced him to look at my website after he told me he didn’t use the internet.  So I figured it was a successful day.  I drove into Nice the following day, talked to one artist who was selling only his own art in a gallery, but really didn’t see much.  St. Paul is really about it for art, and though my contacts didn’t work out, I’d been to neither St. Paul nor old-town Nice, so I got to do some sightseeing and just be a tourist as well. 

 

So I’m now getting ready to remove the paintings from the stretcher bars and roll them up into my suitcase.  I’ve posted them to my website – 11 in all.  While I’m not sure a couple are resolved and completely finished, they are what they are for now. (Some are obviously overexposed due to a tug-of-war between my camera and a hyper English setter in which my camera underwent the hammer to be repaired – I’m not joking!  It doesn’t like water pictures, which will limit my picture-taking in Australia and New Zealand but should get me through the trip.  I plan to use a friend’s camera and improve the website pictures this week.)  Eight paintings are in a new section on the website entitled “My Sins” which is the series I was promoting for an exhibition here.  Their titles and the artist statement regarding them pretty much says it all, so I won’t rewrite it here. Three additional paintings are in the general abstract section of my website.  Two I did while on the road in Germany and gave them to my cousins.  One is called “Go Orange” which, aside from matching their decor, firmly endeared itself to my cousin’s Dutch husband.  Just check out their bright orange football jerseys next time you watch a European match.  The other is the “Red Pirate Ship” which I thought my other cousin with 3 boys would enjoy, and it also coincided with her decor. 

 

The last painting is called “111”.  The September day I returned back to my apartment near Cannes, I received an email from my brother about a train crash and that he was on the train after the one that crashed and was OK.  After reading the news reports about the head-on collision in Chatsworth, I went into some sort of emotional shock.  My brother has a side business (www.lapassenger.com ) informing commuters on the Metrolink trains in LA of train delays and cancellations – a big help to commuters who may need to drive to work to be on time.  My family and I have helped him promote it from time to time, and because of it he’s quite close to the passenger community – mostly commuters.   Being a Friday and all, he might have taken that earlier train if the workload was light.  Plus he always sits in the first car behind the engine which was where the most casualties occurred.  I was addicted to the news reports, which was dumb because I always ended up crying, especially when some of the interviews my brother gave were featured.  I still think I’m adopted because the rest of my family seemed to get over it quickly, but I just had a very unexplainable hard time with it for a week or two.  So I have to paint these over-sensitive, illogical, unpredictable feelings, and what came out was this painting.  I read a lot of meaning into it, which I wrote to my brother, but now I think I’ll just let it stand on its own.