Unrealistic Goals

I would love to hear what unrealistic goals people set for their paintings.

Lately I've been making attempts at producing a painting that no one has ever seen before. Nothing like it before EVER!

I have a little dog that sits with me in the studio and sometimes I can't see him and I call out his name and he's just right behind me. I make a painting and look at it and think its totally new then I look through a magazine on the table behind me and it looks like the one on the back cover.

We need some touch.

For me it all comes down to the need for human touch. In life we gotta be loved. By what? Other humans of course. And pets too. I don't think anyone can truly go it alone in this world. The magnificence of human touch can change your whole body chemistry in a split second. Whether from your lover, Mother, or a good friend. I think this translates to the canvas as well. People will always have a desire to see the human touch. To see what one person has taken the time to make important admidst this violent, swerving, overwhelmingly beautifully scary universe. Making one image that serves as a protest to gravity and all things suppressive.

True as painters we have a lot of visual competion out there. I just saw the new Harry Potter last night and it was full of dazzling effects. And the effects were the main reason I went to see it. I'm glad there are visual things out there to provide contrast to what I do. Sometimes I think of the latest visual technology as a challenge but mainly I think of it as another area on the visual spectrum. Painting and Computer Graphics and everything around and in between need eachother to make eachother important and unique. And as an extra note about Computer Graphics there is a lot of redundancy and repitition of certain effects and character design. Every genre has room for innovation. There are so many things that haven't been done yet in the world of painting! And we need to be doing them!

we still sleep

I am in Toledo Ohio. My apartment is near the school (Center for the Visual Art at University of Toledo) and the Toledo Art Museum, but it is safe neighborhood. When I heard some fire cracking sound from outside, I always thought it was fireworks. I ran to the window and looked for beauty. Recently, I learned that it was not fireworks, was a gun shot. I hear the sound often. I stay inside, having a cabin fever. The view from my window is not like a city view, but the sunset is absolutely stunning. It takes my breath away each time.

As for the race that Chris was mentioning, some of my students are trying to be innovative, but most of them are still interested in examining dinosaurs and trying to ride on them. So, I am in the position where I can ride a huge dinosaur comfortably and people are eager to ride with me or pat on me, though I feel guilt (which I will try to explain later). There is a holiday sale at school in a week. I am painting roses for it. I do enjoy. I really enjoy looking at beautiful thing like roses and sunset. When I see a beautiful things, the desire to capture them emerge strongly from inside of me. Racing in a fast car in this society seems to me that we are trying to do what other people told us to do. One of the most important things in art is to find yourself and express it beyond what other people tell you.

I don't want to say that we should ignore the society and look into yourself is the only way. However, we should all know that we do out best when our passion and devotion meet together.

At my school, I am the only painter painter. The student who are exposed to painting through me get my perspectives on painting. This is why I feel guilt sometimes, because I know that there are many other ways to look at this medium. I justify my position by letting students know that they are getting my perspective and that they should be open to other opinions at their stage. Some people might say that teachers should give over all perspective on the medium, but at the college level, we can be bias. In the politics, extreme left and right groups create the middle at the end. Art is not democracy.

In this fast changing society, various medium for artistic expression have been appearing. But how much have we as human beings changed? Do we have two hearts? Do we inject food from a needle instead of eating by mouth? We still cry and laugh. We still sleep.

Why Bother?

So I woke up this morning and learned these things from the NY Times:
1) North and South Korea had just launched artillery at each other
2) Paul Krugman thinks the economy will stay this bad, and probably get worse, most of all because Republicans will block any attempt to keep the ship from sinking further
3) Yet U.S. corporate profits in the third quarter of this year were the highest EVER
4) Bob Herbert illustrated how JFK's call to sacrifice for the sake of the country is a long-lost notion, with none of our current political leaders asking enough or inspiring people to think beyond challenges and actually hope for some dignity in this country
5) There are still 2 wars going on that we are involved in
6) I think you get the point...

And then I tried to go to the studio, but thought: what's the point, what am I doing? And I thought, who would ever engage in an arcane practice that provides no practical service to anyone, geared towards a minute audience? Why would someone do that? Who could possibly think that makes sense? So then I wondered who might convince me otherwise? Are there really people who still might try to ride a 64,000 ton dinosaur into the sunset in a race against a Ferrari? And then I realized that I used to know SEVERAL young people who were foolish enough to try such a thing....and I realized that I used to look at what those people were doing; and I used to give them a hard time about it, because I thought that if they're crazy enough to try such an audacious thing, I should try and help them do it as best they could; and I used to share beer with these people; and I enjoyed all of it; and I MISS those people...

Anyone there? Anyone want to make a case for riding a dinosaur? If so, post some images, or text, or video, or both...

In all firrilzness, I have been thinking of everyone and hope you are doing well, and I thought I'd make a blog where anyone interested could post some imagery, get some feedback, and open up for comments from anyone. We could even schedule a Skype studio visit if you're interested...

Satellite, Non-accredited, Low Residency Hot Air

If you are hungry for annoying questions about your paintings or your painting practice, you are in the right place...