another day, a year later
I've been laid off now for almost a year. I've looked for work under every stone, pebble and bush. I've applied for work I'm ill suited for. I can't believe that no body is building anything...I had a call, the receptionist was a flake. She kept wanting to call me back so she could give me directions to come and interview...we played phone tag for a week, then they filled the job.
I dunno.
I've been doing some artwork, and god knows that makes me happy, but there's the concern, this black thing that was put there by my father and his people...a man without a job is a bum. My Dad's people work, they aren't afraid to work, and they live to work. I just don't feel like I'm right with the world if I'm not gainfully employed by someone...and there's the headaches of not being employed...looking for work, paying the bills, making the separate payments to all who claim to have an interest in you, whether be insurance, Hospitalization, my business license, Taxes...I dunno. So I struggle.
I revisited an old mad scientist moment. I began experimenting with combining sculpture and painting. I'd made some sculptural canvas' in my 4th year of school. The shapes were somewhat arbitrary and they were built to have things push up beyond the stretched surface of the canvas. this interruption in the surface leads to it casting shadow's, like dunes in the desert. I got the idea when the porch light was cast across the surface of the screen door in front of my studio in Cleveland...So many things occurred to me in that place. Any way, I built a couple of these and painted on them. My teacher at the time was some middle aged balding fool who believed he was teaching me to paint by having me develop an artistic vocabulary (?) and my (and the rest of the class) assignment was to come in every week with three new descriptive art words. How this related to mixing colored goo into a color, and then a fixing it to a surface still leaves me puzzled. so I put these sculptural canvas' up for a critique. He paced as he looked at them. He would prepare to say something and then stop himself. After about 20 minutes of this odd behavior, he said to me " If you wish me to give you a grade, you must cease these particular experiments. Trying to combine sculpture and painting is something I'm not prepared to discuss...I can't give a grade to Art..." and then turned on his heel and went off to discuss what he was prepared to discuss with somebody else. These new experiments have met with a bit of hoopla. They are so different from what I normally do. There is no actually meaning to them. The color palette was taken almost color for color from the dreaded work of Chagall. (shudder) I wanted something toy like, the project concerned the three guys (now 2) who were putting together the gallery across the street. They had some interesting plans, but the direction and fire to do it was lacking in them. I decided to call the triptych of sculptural paintings "three men in a tub". It works sorta, I've never seen anything like them before. I'm putting them up for sale...I want $1,800 for the three. We'll see, if there is interest, then I'll make more. I'm thinking of a few things...the stretching of the canvas seemed strained on the multi armed frames...struggle. Life. Life is struggle.
I'm also building a simple loom for Kathryn. She runs the program where I take life drawing, seems I'm the last man standing since the teacher broke 3 ribs and the other regular is going on vacation it's just me and talkative old lady from Reidsville. I'm the one who's going to have to set up the model and run the course...my first teaching gig. Oh boy. anyway I need to get to work. the loom aint going to build itself...and I would like to re configure my tool box while I have the time.
I dunno.
I've been doing some artwork, and god knows that makes me happy, but there's the concern, this black thing that was put there by my father and his people...a man without a job is a bum. My Dad's people work, they aren't afraid to work, and they live to work. I just don't feel like I'm right with the world if I'm not gainfully employed by someone...and there's the headaches of not being employed...looking for work, paying the bills, making the separate payments to all who claim to have an interest in you, whether be insurance, Hospitalization, my business license, Taxes...I dunno. So I struggle.
I revisited an old mad scientist moment. I began experimenting with combining sculpture and painting. I'd made some sculptural canvas' in my 4th year of school. The shapes were somewhat arbitrary and they were built to have things push up beyond the stretched surface of the canvas. this interruption in the surface leads to it casting shadow's, like dunes in the desert. I got the idea when the porch light was cast across the surface of the screen door in front of my studio in Cleveland...So many things occurred to me in that place. Any way, I built a couple of these and painted on them. My teacher at the time was some middle aged balding fool who believed he was teaching me to paint by having me develop an artistic vocabulary (?) and my (and the rest of the class) assignment was to come in every week with three new descriptive art words. How this related to mixing colored goo into a color, and then a fixing it to a surface still leaves me puzzled. so I put these sculptural canvas' up for a critique. He paced as he looked at them. He would prepare to say something and then stop himself. After about 20 minutes of this odd behavior, he said to me " If you wish me to give you a grade, you must cease these particular experiments. Trying to combine sculpture and painting is something I'm not prepared to discuss...I can't give a grade to Art..." and then turned on his heel and went off to discuss what he was prepared to discuss with somebody else. These new experiments have met with a bit of hoopla. They are so different from what I normally do. There is no actually meaning to them. The color palette was taken almost color for color from the dreaded work of Chagall. (shudder) I wanted something toy like, the project concerned the three guys (now 2) who were putting together the gallery across the street. They had some interesting plans, but the direction and fire to do it was lacking in them. I decided to call the triptych of sculptural paintings "three men in a tub". It works sorta, I've never seen anything like them before. I'm putting them up for sale...I want $1,800 for the three. We'll see, if there is interest, then I'll make more. I'm thinking of a few things...the stretching of the canvas seemed strained on the multi armed frames...struggle. Life. Life is struggle.
I'm also building a simple loom for Kathryn. She runs the program where I take life drawing, seems I'm the last man standing since the teacher broke 3 ribs and the other regular is going on vacation it's just me and talkative old lady from Reidsville. I'm the one who's going to have to set up the model and run the course...my first teaching gig. Oh boy. anyway I need to get to work. the loom aint going to build itself...and I would like to re configure my tool box while I have the time.
posted by ak at 9:58 AM
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