Saturday, November 24, 2007

The (RE)birth

Well my friends, here we are again. My weekly foray into the online world of blogging. I would have never have in my wildest imagination believed that I would be sitting here writing a weekly blog. But as it stands that's exactly what I am doing. So...here it goes!

I have officially gone back to doing figurative work. For the last year or so I have been driven by this strong urge to create abstract work or contextual work that had an abstract meaning to it. After working in this method for awhile, I have had time to do things like seeing how the paint moves, how it blends, how it responds in harmony with other materials and different mixes and swatches of color. In these investigative paintings I was allowed for all intentful purposes to just create. I was able to freely express myself. The work was more about the mark making and the stroke. It felt good. I loved just putting the paint to the canvas and coming up with great visual nuances that had nothing to do with subject matter.

Over the past few months though, I have been driven; compelled I daresay. I have been compelled to return back to the figurative, back to the representational, back to the subject matter and matters that had driven my passion for art for so long. Some of my favorite artists are/were abstract artists or used elements of abstraction in their work (i.e., Pollock, Basquiat, and even Johns to some extent) which earlier on did also fuel my love for the arts. It is with these artists I wanted to learn and try to develop my own niche in this rough and tumble world that we artist live in.

In going forward, today I started a new body of work which is yet untitled, but will entirely consist of the figure. I will still bring along my self-discovery of abstraction along with it but my main focus will be along the lines of trying to re-establish my figurative presence in my work. I look forward to sharing my thoughts with you on this (RE)birth of my Artist Way.

Until next week...shitsurei shimasu, minnasan...

Friday, November 16, 2007

...

Its that time again people. I had no real idea of what I was going to write about in my second week here. I had kicked some ideas around in my head; I even thought about just posting some of my old writings from my sketchbook. Still didn't have anything to give you guys. I wanted to real bring something new this week. I had hoped to have something banged out by at least saturday that I felt at the time would be worthy of human consumption but alas nothing. Today while I was relaxing and be contemplative, I got a text from my manager at work, which stated that Larry Scott died. I was taken aback by this text message. My response to her was, Wow! So I did a little research and found out that it was indeed true. I had always heard about him and his work but had never really met him. I remember having a conversation with an actor from The Wire (Clarke Peters) about him. He told me about this Baltimore artist he knew named Larry Scott and how good his work was. So I looked him up online and then found his work. I instantly became enamored with his work. I found it to be very urban. Then when I saw his picture, I was like I know this guy. Not on a personal level but just in passing in The neighborhood of my job and at my job (Mt. Vernon). So it was through this conversation I started recognizing that that was him, Larry Scott. I even went so far as to say that Clarke Peters told me about you. So from time to time when he would come to my job to get his art supplies (He really had a thing for Chroma drawing ink) he would ask, "You seen Clarke lately?" I would be like he stopped by or naw haven't seen him in awhile. Just from the exchanges we had out side of the coffee shop near my job or at my job I could tell that he had a great sense of humor. His passing just reminded me of how short our time is on this planet. Of how we should live not only for our futures but for the moment, because we never know when we will draw our last breathe.

Going forward, in a way I am glad I had the opportunity albeit a brief an opportunity it was, to have at least engaged this man in some aspects of my life. It opened my eyes alot to all of the talented artist that are living here in Baltimore making good work and to realize that as an artist I should enlighten myself to the diverse and multitude of art that is being made by these artist that I may or may not be aware of.

Until next week sometime...


"Good, bad, you want to bring out whatever's inside, not hide it."
-Larry Scott

Saturday, November 10, 2007

My First Blog Post!

This is my very first post. I will try to every week on some random day post a blog on what, when, where, and how I am doing in my artistic endeavors. I am hoping that by creating this blog, I will be able to start a running dialogue and conversation about my work. My goal is to have a running record of what I am doing as well as keep somewhat of an online journal as to what transpires in my artistic life. I don't know if anyone will ever read this or quite understand what I am going for but I will continue to post. Occasionally, I may rant and rave about something but I feel as though this blog will be here to help you the reader(or me) as to the madness and meaning of the work that I am going to create and undertake. Right now I am trying to do alot of work and I am applying for shows/exhibitions.

In August, I was in a group show at the ARC Gallery in Chicago called, The 8 X 8 show and I currently am participating in a show in Atlanta called "The Sketchbook Project." The "Sketchbook Project," is a show to benefit a rape crisis center in Dekalb County, Georgia. It is a show where artist were given sketchbooks and over the course of about a month we had to create in these books. The theme for the books was "Fear." So we had to write, create or do what ever we wanted to this books, but the had to relate to our fears in some way. This was kind of a hard subject matter for me to deal with because I had to in someways pour the contents of my soul out sometimes. I managed to get it done but in some instances some of the things I wrote and illustrated showed emotions that I knew I had in me but that I don't readily emote.

Over the last couple of years my work has fluctuated from representational to abstract and back and forth. I have begun to veer back towards being more representational like I was in school, especially now that I have undertaken improving my portfolio so I can apply to grad school again and hopefully be reward for having a remarkable body of work(since the cost of grad schools are astronomical, LOL...no but seriously it is...have you seen the cost per credit hours at some of these schools...sheesh!)

I want to take a more forward approach to my work. I want to constantly keep cranking the work out first and be more productive heading into the new year, even if I don't think that it is good or great work.

Until sometime next week, stay focused and stay sharp...