Spent The Weekend Making Art

and what do I have to show for it? Well, I would say that overall it did not really go so well. The best piece I will scan and post in correlation with this blog. I had one maybe minor discovery which made the weekend. Overall though, very frustrating and maybe a change in strategy is necessary. The minor success came from a water color and ink drawing that I made. I first made the designs of a figure with orange watercolor. A typical Smirnoff abstract. Then I fill in the design with a nice black ink acrylic. Then I scrubbed out the water color with some water and brush and what was left was the filled in black ink acrylyc which gave a nice stencil like quality???? This has enormous potential as far as future work. Perhaps interweaving some collage abstraction ideas here would produce some nice stencil like qualites and would be an enormous addtion to some of my abstract painting work???? But overall very frustrated with other results, made some ink on paper works copied from old postcards, but overally it looked like not much created more just transferrred and wasted a lot of time. Also, tried out some small icon paintings but did not get desired result. They look much better blown up and larger. But with lack of money and time and studio, I don't think I can pursue that until the sales of works starts flowing in, which proably won't happen because I don't have the personality that goes along with the type of artwork I make. What I mean by that is I'm not putting on a fashion show of coolness which goes hand and hand with promoting -marketing yourself as an artist. So I'm content to work these ideas out anyway until I really have something to say as an artist. I think that overall I have a lack of voice. I know I need to weave the political with the art, but I just don't seem to have the ability to fuse them together at the moment. I can express myself in words politically. But weaving the imagination with the political to make a statement. That is damn hard and I probably need to really think about this if I ever intend on being a successful artist.

Speckled Snake

Artwork by: Terry Whetston

I think political metaphors are a great well of information for images. From these oppressed stories there is some great poetry. Speckled Snake compared the "white man" to a little man when they first came to the America's, but it grew into a giant stepping over people. A monster? History has so much shaped the world in which we exist today. Civilization is the same, always needing growth and the persistence of power to remain strong. Look what happened to Rome? Every empire eventually crumbles. We have dual consciousness. We have what we are on a daily basis, and also what we could be potentially. Our daily selves are always striving to be more of our potential. But circumstance outside of our control do not allow us to achieve this. Perhaps in the near future, time and circumstance will allow us to be that which we so desire. But we are prisoners of outside forces that do not allow us to blossom in the way in which we could if circumstance were different. Thus, our imagination flows into endless streams, and some of us suppress these feelings, in order to pursue the more practical daily material happiness. But some of us linger in the land of possibility, always dreaming of a place where our imagination and abilities can take flight, free from the practicality and suppression of the world we currently live in. Some of us would fight for this dream, and some of us just allow the dream to be as it is. Those that fight risk a lot more and their struggle should be rewarded over time. I for one unfortunately only fight in the sense that I continue to ponder, dream, make art, and explore the realm of dream, whether through writing or other activities that active my imagination and curiosity. In my dreams I am not too different from Speckled Snake who lived beyond the years of 100 and his grossly accurate metaphors about the "white man." The world has surely created a monster which chains us all. Yet, the dream of freedom continues. Who will fight for it?

The Necessity for the Political in Art

I have come to the realization that I need to implement a political element in my artwork. This keeps the Art from being purely aesthetic and brings in the realm of the real. This will give meaning to the work and allow me to use all of my skills as an artist. The most convenient matter to perform this task is through collage. So lets do it!!!

New Approach

Gonna give painting a new approach. Been working on a bunch of watercolors. This really helps getting the painting juices flowing. I want to put down the graphic imagery first. Then Comes the Washes on top. Lets try it out and see what happens.