Entry 73: Garden of Eden

Have you "liked" Eden Fine Art's new NYC Facebook page yet?
- Fresh, positive, pop -
Now featuring works by Warhol
(...and me!)
Got Eden? 

http://www.facebook.com/edengallerynyc?ref=stream

 

 

Entry 72: Studio 120 - Dum dum head

Just found out my video series Studio 120 has been nominated (along with THOUSANDS of others) for the best videos on Youtube contest.

 -Wow -
Much appreciated - thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/user/La102438?feature=vmdshb

 

Tee hee hee - I don't care how it happened.
It's a compliment and I'll take it thank you very much.

My unimpressed housemates express their ambivalence in a performance piece they call:
"Shut up you dum dum head -

IT WAS AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE!!!!!".

Entry 71: Pip, "Marge and Pepe"

 

Like Pip in Great Expectations, I think I need a benefactor - more silent Arthur Lustig than a scheming Havisham would be nice. Someone who can help cover the costs of studio space and production in exchange for work (while leaving me alone ) bc, I have to say, struggling to stay afloat while pushing to produce work and be seen is getting really, really, REALLY old.

 

So, anyone who isn't a cobweb covered old person scheming to destroy the spirit of everyone around them is encouraged to apply for the position. Will consider psycho mobster types as long as you don't pop up out of water or scare me. Need a Lustig but without the "I will kill you" ovations.

 

I.E.: someone who can support me without fail but won't cause me to have nightmares ...it's a lot to ask, I know, but I do come with a great work ethic, a few references, a strong desire to achieve, a really cute dog who likes to eat. Add: I don't take vacations or long walks on the beach....

 

...okay, so -

 

For reasons waaaay beyond my control - I haven't been to the studio in about two weeks but yesterday, Easter, I took the trip and spent the day working on "Marge and Pepe", a portrait (sort of) of a dog and a woman being done on unstretched, primed  canvas. "Marge and Pepe" isn't really about a woman and her dog but it's about loneliness and safety and our desire to build relationships where we can and when we can. 

 

 

As in most of my work, the under layers and "background" designs pop thru the primary images. For me, allowing the lines and colors to flow in and out the different images, provides a pop and the feeling of movement and energy to flow seamlessly. So, the background isn't really the background it is part of the portrait, image or idea.

 

Pepe against and with wallpaper and blouse design.

 

 

 

Correcting crease in the sleeve - after this was taken, that section was wiped down and started all over again. Instead of feeling like a blouse, it felt like an over worked convoluted mess.



Happier-ish with the base I've got to work with now -
just have to waiting for the paint to dry so I can rework the crease and make them crisper.

 

 

 

I think I need to extend the ring finger on her right hand (the hand holding Pep)and build more of a solid connection to the pinky...looks a little like her hand is on backwards...

Her face has a long way to go but she'll calm down soon. Been focusing on the placement, width and design of her eyes - she's gone from 50's, dime store novel, seductress, to being semi crossed eyed, relaxed, sporty young girl which better suits the character I want to represent.

 

 

 

 Fingers crossed, one of these days, I'm able to get a space and a partnership or work situation that is able to provide proper support for the work..... need something soonish because my spirit is wearing thin.

 

 

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Entry 70: Strolling a little further down the Lane - what I've learned and how I responded

I love to paint.

I absolutely love to paint.

I live to paint, my head is constantly in a state where it's working on solving a painting "issue" or working on the next few pieces and calculating what will need to be done to make them work. But I've learned to have other types of artwork or try to have alternatives available at my shows so I can not only offer a variety of work to people but also so I have different price points for people to chose from. I'd love to stand above the crowd and demand people buy my paintings but #1 my ego isn't that strong and #2 I believe it's important to be polite and provide the widest range of audience the opportunity to take something home...if they want to. Sounds simple enough but it took me few years and lots of listening to figure it out.

Thru my experience in painting and showing, I've learned something flattering: a lot of different types of people like my work. People from all different backgrounds - racial, financial and people from all different ages feel akin to the energy that's expressed thru my figures and the space that surrounds them on the canvas. But I've also learned that the work I produce is not something everyone can afford or room (4ft x 4ft or 4 ft x 5 ft and larger) to hang so it is with that varyied audience in mind that I started to put together pieces that have the same feel as the oil paintings but are in different price ranges (as well as sizes) and mediums.

Several years ago I really started to hear people when they said: "I love your work". I started to hear it as less of an ego boosting compliment and more of what they were actually saying: "this is how I feel", "this is how music feels to me", "this is how my head feels"..."you captured how I FEEL". Or, best of all, "I've never wanted a piece of artwork before but I can't stop thinking about your work". However, all the compliments were followed by the caveat "but I can't afford it" which is something I've learned to remedy.

Whether it's painting figures in motion (from black and white photographs) OR serious, contemplative, dour or exuberant and happy portraits - the work is meant to express the energy or felling or inner conversation that person could be having at that moment.  The work is also meant to express an action or thought and not just be a recreation or nice depiction of the person in the picture and that is what people seem to be drawn to - the expression of what life feels like on the inside of our heads and bodies. Confusion, excitement, anger, frustration, joy, realization, trepidation, etc. I'm lucky in that people usually see the reflection of their inner world performed on canvas and recognize what it is I'm trying to do as opposed to seeing my paintings as strcily being something that would look pretty hanging over the couch. It's deeply flattering to know viewers feel it, feel the work and want to have it and I'd love for each person who feels a strong connection with the my paintings to be able to take a piece home but I cannot lower the prices of my paintings - it took me years to have the courage, experience and self respect to raise my prices to a level I was comfortable with. So, instead of lowering my value, I've found different ways to offer work but without feeling diminished. I decided to invest in producing work that everyone from the caterer to the collector could afford: prints - original, limited edition, one of a kind, hand pulled silk screen prints and also poster prints of my work:

"Waiting"" as a two panel silk screen piece. "Waiting" is one of dozens of silk screen prints I've produced and had available at my shows.

"I am a man, I am here, I am here, and everyday I earn my place everyday"
"I am a man" is one of my favorite silk screen prints - he's a young, black, city shoe shine boy from the depression but he's also someone who could be treated with very little regard - like an ant, under our shoes. But he is - he is here. And like all my characters he's saying "I am and I DO make my way in this world" but unlike a lot of my characters he's saying it with joy - he's young, proud to be working and sees how he will make his way his better future.

The expression of a painting is still there - the strength of intent, the idea but less expensive and more intimate.


The poster prints I had made last year, have been even more popular. The initial investment took some time and dough but it's really gratifying to see people who are so excited by the work be able to take a version of it home -

A few poster prints of my work.

Lesson learned: because I finally heard what people where saying to me about the work I was able find ways to afford different types of work to a variety of people and price ranges I'm now looking in other directions as well. My newest obsession is to have work printed on fabric and see it used in clothing....Project Runway here I come. Finger crossed.

• To see more paintings from last year's solo show "Living in a Culture of Disregard" visit: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.117816578350900.20217.117743535024871&type=3
• To see more prints from last year's show visit: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.130628390403052.25184.117743535024871&type=3

"When you find a piece of art that you love,

you find a piece of yourself" -

Eden Fine Art 

(212) 888-0177

Entry 69: A walk down Memory Lane

So, in order to start making steps towards my goal of getting work in a gallery in New York, I made two big girl trips to the city in 2011. The first was Labor day weekend, the second was Sept 28th thru Oct. 04th. The first weekend was designed to help me learn the layout of the city a little, gain some insight and see some neighborhoods. The 2nd weekend was designed to be the weekend I was going to march into each and every gallery I decided was a top match for me. I spent the weeks in between researching spaces, art reps, and galleries in an attempt to find buinesses I thought would be a good to partner with...if they would take me. Using online sites, like art-collecting.com: www.art-collecting.com/galleries_ny.htm,  I gathered as much info as I could so on my 2nd trip to the city I'd be armed and ready. And that's what I did - portfolio brochure in hand, I went from gallery to gallery and asked if they would please take a look at my brochure and consider carrying my work.

To see a video about the portfolio brochere pictures above and getting your work out there go to:
http://youtu.be/y6XfpiYZJAs

The first weekend was a dream- took a bus from Providence to the city (won't do that again unless I have to), met up with my old high school pals Kathy and Paul and spent the next 3 days running around the city explored. 3 days of taxis, subway rides and walking, walking walking later and I started to get the rhythm and layout. I took pics of street signs, gallery and building placards, looked in windows and talked to people. It was pure magic and I did not want to leave.

The 2nd weekend was a bit more stormy...literally. I drove from RI to NY in the ran, out to Kathy and Paul's house on Long Island in the rain, got up the next morning and Kathy and I took the communter train from LI to the city in overcast/sprinkles but when we landed in the city grey and black clouds billowed in and absolutely filled the city skyline. We spent the rest of the day being pounded by a massive storm - thunder and lightening but marched ahead with our plans to knock on doors till I managed to gt someone to "yes" and show my work. 

Torrential downpours, flooding, excitement. But despite the "incovenience" of weather, by the end of the day, I had walked into all my top gallery choices (all the ones I knew of at the time anyway) sporting a bright orange rain pocho from Walmart, a backpack and a handful of my portfolio brocheres. Every gallery I went into talked to me, every gallery rep liked my work and every gallery said "no".  I could have been deflated that smart littlle me wasn't snatched up on the spot but it didn't feel like a failure because I did it - I stuck to my plan and after 9 months of hard work I had stuck to the plan I'd written out and I was here in NY pushing my work. Granted, I got so overwhelmed I cried a couple times while talking to gallery managers but they were talking to me...... and being nice. I did it, WE did it - I was in NY, with a friend for support, showing my work to top galleries! That is/was something incredible to me.

At the end of it, after a full, emotional day Kathy and I headed to Penn Station and the LIRR - soaking wet from the storm, exhausted from my moment to moment anxiety attacks and inner storms we sauntered in only to find out a breaker on the railroad had been hit by lightening earlier in the day which caused the entire system to fry which left us and thousands and thousands of other people completely stuck till about 1 am:

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/l-i-r-r-knocked-out-by-lightning-strike/ 

Cut to the chase: we didn't get home till 3 am. In total it was a 15 hour day in the city.

Cut to the chase: We got up the next day and did it all again.

Cut to the chase: My friend Kathy allowed me to take her picture, later that night, just at a moment when she probably wanted to murder me which then lead to a painting I am incredibly proud of -

Painting of my very patient friend, Kathy, at midnight, in a Times Square Starbucks
waiting to get the LIRR home after spending a very long day with a very trying me in the rain..

Detail from "Waiting", a 2 panel piece -
oil on acrylic and aerosol with oil crayon and pencil on canvas

Detail of a section of hair in "Waiting". Like most of my work, the lines, color and layers are meant to express an inner energy - in this case exhaustion, lightening, frustration and excitment.

Details from "Waiting", a 2 panel piece -
oil on acrylic and aerosol with oil crayon and pencil on canvas

This detail comes from the lower section of "Waiting' - as in a few sections, it's left fairly to help express depleting energy or draining energy.

Detail from "Waiting", a 2 panel piece -
oil on acrylic and aerosol with oil crayon and pencil on canvas

All work available thru Eden Fine Art -

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Entry 68: One year ago or how to hang by a finger nail on the edge of a cliff

One year ago I had my first solo show in New York City (Brooklyn really). Because NYC is the culture capital of the world, having a show in NY was something I had dreamt of almost my entire life but had no idea how to make happen. I didn't know NY, I'd only been there on a high school field trip once, I never went during the big adventurous 80s when Basquiat and Madonna were running around it's ruins, but, and most importantly, I honestly believed only certain types of people could go to New York. Like you could be stopped at the terminal and rejected for being too small town, too pedestrian.

To me New York was a place only open to people with courage and a strong sense of who they are and what they want. The idea of NY represented a strongly structured person, defiant and cocky, of singular vision and unwilling to bend. To me, it was a a place ordinary people with 2nd hand clothes do not go - for most of my life, I had this weird idea that people are not allowed to go to NY unless they have themselves completely and totally together and are fully formed human beings with very nice shoes. I am not any of those things but I am a person who's not only gone to New York but knocked on gallery doors, had 100s of pieces shown and managed to attain a place in an international gallery in Manhattan. If I weren't me writing this I'd have to say that's kind of F-ing incredible.

But I have to say - this year has been both exciting and completely devastating, uplifting, filled with desperation and unrelenting hard work. This year has been nothing short of  trial by fire. Nothing, nothing, NOTHING has been easy and if you read thru this blog or visit my Facebook page you'll learn - I've spent a large portion of the last 12-13 months struggling to survive. I've spent huge blocks of time without any income or a working vehicle, food or clean clothes. I've had to sell my furniture and some of my favorite belongings, been insulted by people I adored and trusted, been deeply humiliated by circumstances, I've even had to take food and handouts from friends just to make it from one day to the next.

And because of people and issues way beyond my control I've been on the brink of losing my apartment, truck and my little Bugsy man. I've spent most of the last year hanging by a finger nail off the very edge of a cliff and feeling that tiny bit of security slip and crumble to the point I thought my life was done....but, as it turns out, it's not. I am still here damn it and I am very proud to say my work is hanging on Madison Avenue right now - something that wasn't even in my realm of possibilities last March or April.  I honestly believed that was an impossibile position for someone like and that that tupe of recognition was only granted to certain kinds of people - like a magic wish.

Detail from reworked face in "I am" - a painting that hung in NY last year.

Now, I can say, I'm still not completely together but at least I have a better grasp on what personal courage can be and an even better idea of what I am capable of.....sometimes. I can say I know I am capable of reaching beyond what I understand and am most comfortable with. I also know New York is the greatest city in the world filled with generous, kind, helpful people and  you don't really need to have very nice shoes or be a fully formed human being to go there but if you're going to be an artist who shows in New York (or anywhere that isn't in your comfort zone) you do have to be willing to hang off a cliff and dangle your feet in the uncertainty.



Limited silk screen edition of "I am" featured in solo show last year.

To some it up: I am no longer a tourist dreaming about having my work in New York. I am no longer a tourist ambling thru my own life, dreaming and waiting for things to magically happen - I am here.

...now let's keep our fingers crossed I'm here to stay for a while...

To see video chats on not giving in to fear of failure, philosophies behind painting and artwork, how to get your work out there and the life of an artist visit my Youtube channel: Studio 120 -

https://www.youtube.com/user/La102438

 or go to:

• Studio 120 - #3: Don't let a fear of failure keep you from trying: http://youtu.be/WVThQBANo68 

Now it's time for me to go dangle somemore.

All work available exclusively thru

Eden Fine Art, NYC
on the corner of 50th and Madison  

(212) 888-0177
Visit: http://www.facebook.com/edengallerynyc

"When you find a piece of art that you love, you find a piece of yourself" - Eden

• To see more paintings from last year's solo show "Living in a Culture of Disregard" visit: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.117816578350900.20217.117743535024871&type=3
• To see more prints from last year's show visit: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.130628390403052.25184.117743535024871&type=3

Entry 67: A quick thanks

I'd like to say thank you to everyone who's visited, liked, shared and posted comments on Eden Fine Art's brand  new Facebook page. I'm incredibly proud to be an artist in their stable  and deeply appreciate your generosity and kind support.
Thank you.

But if you haven't visited Eden's site yet ...
well, dude - grab your happy, freak flag and get a move on!

 

Up on the page right now "Leap frog":

"Leap frog"
- oil on acrylic and aerosol with oil crayon on 48" x 60".
 

Video from my Youtube series Studio 120 - #31:
The construction and development of "Leap frog"
from beginning to end -

All work available exclusively thru

Eden Fine Art, NYC

(212) 888-0177
Visit: http://www.facebook.com/edengallerynyc
 

"When you find a piece of art that you love, you also find a piece of yourself." - Eden