No Complaints

Dear Fellow Starvelings,

No complaints about being a starving artist this time around, in this year when tragedy seems always to be hanging out just around the corner for everyone everywhere, ready to pounce on innocent people all over the world in all manner of hideous ways. I may not have money to give, but I do have a voice, and I’m very grateful that I can use it: to counter lies with truth, to speak out when I see wrongdoing, to support candidates of my choice — and to use my right to vote, because voting, too, is speech. 

In fact, I’m grateful for a number of things. Don’t worry, I’m not going to get sappy on you. It’s just that … well, let’s see. I’ve got a roof over my head, I’ve got a spouse who loves me (there’s no accounting for taste, I guess), and our family is completed by our two endearingly demanding kitties. We have books, we have music, we have humor (although that last quality is lost on those same playful but non-jocular cats). We have the internet, which helps us to make a living as well as to entertain us and allow us to make friends with folks all over the world, who tell us what life is really like in their countries. We are world-travelers, snug in our office. Our real community is pretty great, too — colleges, galleries, the beautiful expanse of forest, the beautiful ribbons of rivers. 

And I have art supplies coming out the wazoo. Clearance sale by clearance sale, thrift shop find by thrift shop find, I’m finally almost satisfied with the number of color pencils, oil pastels, heavyweight paper, paints, brushes, and sundry other necessities which are now overtaking my work table. 

I only have one problem right now, and I wonder if any of you guys have ever had it. I love my art supplies so much I hesitate to use them, for fear (I tell myself) that I’ll use them all up on unworthy projects and never have enough money to replace them. I know it’s silly. When you have art supplies, USE THEM! Don’t let them dry out, or get lost, or even break because of their precarious positions in piles of fragile stuff. 

At least I have a project in mind, which I hope I’ll be talking about next time. 
 Faithfully, The Starving Artist

 

 

 

Deadline

I almost always meet the deadlines I set for myself at work. 
I always meet the deadlines set for me by galleries.
So why can’t I set a deadline for this blog and actually meet it?
Maybe because I’m so busy meeting all those other deadlines.
So I think I’ll plaster a big sign right above my computer with
some arbitrary deadline for the blogs. Maybe I can make this work!

Hello, I Must Be Jargoning

What with all the snow & cold & sniffles & whatnot, I discovered myself last week without a thing to wear. Yes, really. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been to the laundromat and foraging about the back of the floor of my closet yielded nothing but a few fossilized hairballs. So, heaving a sigh, I filled one basket with Warm and a second with Cold, and set off into the wilds of Sunderland, where my favorite (because usually empty) laundromat awaits.

Because I hate doing laundry so much, I always take something along that might at least give me a tad of simple pleasure, for balance —  usually an art book or journal or just some purty pictures. This time I brought a very plump overview of what the blurbs  contend are the most majorly exciting artists on the scene today (or at least yesterday, since the book was published  in 2008).

I did like a lot of the pictures – 2008, if you’ll remember, was a year filled with taxidermy, toys, and, as usual, huge inhuman installations — but what I found most striking was the language with which these works were described. I’m wondering now if the jargon of 2008 still works today and, if so, should I be taking more advantage of it.

Here’s a list of words and phrases I found in the text which, I think, are intended to indicate that the work under discussion is Very Very Very Important and Earthshaking and Cool:
visual and visceral — appropriation — decontextualization — multiple encoding — iconic — temporal flow — not strictly ocular — juxtaposition — deliriously infantile — revealing cultural codes — strange, mysterious quotidian objects — transformational — process — post-non-representational —

And so on. I’m sure you know where I’m heading with this (don’t use a small word when a bigger or more obscure one is available), but you can’t really get the true flavor without the surrounding text, which both in style and substance declares itself an art know-it-all, with the perfect vocabulary to set itself apart from the yahoos of the world.

Possibly I can boost my own art career by making more and better use of these and other polysyllabic words & perplexing terms. People will read my artist statement and scratch their heads, but by gosh they’ll pay attention and maybe even think I’m some kind of genius.  Then again, possibly I need to get a brand new book describing in brand new, yet still obfuscatory,  jargon just who’s the hottest of the hot cutting-edge artists of 2014.

 

 

 

The (Nouveau) Brut Inside Me

Dear Fellow Starvelings,

I know it’s been a while but don’t worry. I’m still the quintessentially struggling artist,
and I’m not going anywhere (except, occasionally, to my work table). Hope you’ve all
had a wonderful summer.
I’ve been a BUSY struggling artist, anyway. Last month had four pieces in the “Nouveau Brut”
show at the Becket Arts Center in Becket in the Berkshires.  The show was fun, the other artists
were terrific, and the curator was helpful & bubbly & very enthusiastic about the project.

All the artists were supposed to come up with a little screed about what meaning the term “Nouveau Brut” had for them,
especially within the context of this show. Since I feel pretty strongly about what is termed “outsider” art, my piece
turned out to be pretty heartfelt. And here it is:
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

The (Nouveau) Brut Inside Me

I’ve always been a little resentful of the term “Art Brut.”  Apparently Jean Dubuffet, who coined the term, meant to restrict its use to describe the work of artists so far outside the mainstream they wouldn’t even know what the mainstream is. Artists in institutions for the  mentally ill, for example, or prisoners, or lunatics at large, or  illiterate peasants living in huts far, far from Paris and its oh-so-refined understanding of Art with a capital A.

I can go along with this to an extent. Such artists do need to be recognized and appreciated. But to me the term smacks somewhat of condescension, the notion that these artists are in some sense primitive and this primitive state must be preserved in order to maintain their artistic integrity. In the meantime, their art is marketed for high prices to mainstream collectors, and the official tastemakers continue to decide what’s in fashion and what is not.

Still, I’ve always liked the idea of art completely outside convention, springing from the artist’s heart – an artist who may have heard of, say, Andy Warhol (who hasn’t?) but doesn’t want to *be* him. An artist who might be unschooled but is not entirely otherworldly. Can there even be a true “outsider” artist, according to Dubuffet’s definition, in today’s world? Or can an artist be aware of the surrounding culture and yet still be an outsider at heart?

And here we come to “Nouveau Brut,”  a perfect term, I think, for the work of artists who are in some significant way outside the mainstream even though they might know what the mainstream is up to.. Maybe these artists just don’t give a damn about tastemakers and trendsetters.  Maybe they didn’t bother to get an MFA. Maybe they’re old people or poor people or working people. Maybe they’re just driven by a compulsion they can’t easily explain. What they have in common is a passion for the art they’re creating. It comes from their hearts and minds. It does not compromise, ingratiate, or wheedle,

But every artist wants her art to be seen, praised, purchased – including me. There lies the conundrum. The driving urge to express one’s vision of the self and the world, and the hope that the viewer will some way, somehow, share that vision.

        I see that this little piece about “Nouveau Brut” is full of contradictions.
       So is art. 
       So is life.                                                                                       

                                                                                                                 

What I Did Over Summer Vacation

Dear Fellow Starvelings,

I know it’s been a long time since last I wrote, but I’m determined to hang around this time. There’s a lot I’ve learned – both what to do and what not to do.  And there’s an awful lot to write about.

The main thing about this summer is that I got to spend more time than usual with my mom. She turned 97 last month, she still lives at home, and is as feisty and independent an individual as you are ever likely to meet. She sees the portents of mortality, and she’s facing them courageously. Then again, she’s always been courageous. Shy people who stand up for themselves are the bravest people I know, and she’s at the top of that list.

I did some gardening. Mom has always been a wonderful gardener but can’t do it any more. She can, however, give very precise instructions! I did some tidying and got rid of some tins ‘way over their sell-by date to give her more counter space (she’s one of those Great Depression kids who doesn’t want to throw anything away “just in case”).

We went over old pictures, letters, newspaper articles. She told me a lot of stories I’d never heard before about her young days. This time I wrote it down, as much as I could. Every time I visit she wants me to take stuff back with me that she doesn’t want any more. Usually I say no, but this time I said yes, at least to many of these items. I realize that she wants me to have them as remembrances, She doesn’t want them scattered to the four winds or sold at a garage sale. So now I have Mom’s wedding ring. I wear it all the time and find that when I touch it I feel a sort of communion with her. I don’t regret accepting this gift one little bit. It keeps a part of her with me always.

We also sang together. Mom loves to sing. Her favorite song, she told me, is “The Rose.” So I had the bright idea of setting up the DVD player that had been gathering dust in the corner, made a call to Ken, and in a few days Mom got a little package in the mail – a DVD of a Bette Midler concert including The Rose! And by gosh, Mom just loves Bette Midler, as it turns out. We played the concert twice and had so much fun. I love it when my mother laughs.

I’ve done a few pictures for her and plan to do some more.  I talk to her on the phone three days a week. (advice to starvelings: get one of those bundled phone/cable/pc deals where you can use your land phone to call anywhere in the US and have any number of these calls just folded into your monthly bill at no extra charge).

Anyway, it’s time to jump back in the saddle. I’ll have some interesting reports in the coming months so stay on board. Now that really WAS a mixed metaphor, wasn’t it?

No wonder I call my Facebook Art Page: Judith Keefer Tingley – Mixed Metaphors.

Mom and I

Dear Fellow Starvelings,

This week I’m getting ready to visit my Mom in Michigan. I do this every year, and every year I want to spend more time with her.  She’ll be 97 years old soon, and I treasure every minute with her. Sure, we talk on the phone several times a week but that’s just not the same as a good hug. She has a lot of stories and a lot of wisdom to share, and this year I want to act as her secretary, taking down those stories in a manner I hope will do her justice. I’m also going to bring her a present, which she’ll almost certainly try to refuse, but I want her to have it anyway. It’s this collage I did wherein I picture Mom and me as two little girls together:

The Show Is Down; On With the Show

I took my show down last week. It was a wonderful month full of nice people saying nice things about my work (and even buying it!!). I feel like I’ve taken a big first step.

On the other hand, I’m also feeling something similar to postpartum malaise.

I know I need to start working again, and I even have plans for a Scarlet Letter piece and a Cain & Abel piece (settling the score, as it were). But these projects are large & complicated and seem intimidating right now.

What to do? Well, I’ve decided to give myself a little boost by beginning with an abstraction & then finding patterns in it. Like when I was a kid and found patterns in the wallpaper. I’m working with the first abstraction now, using color pencils to discover my own creation within the lines. It’s fun and surprising and I find that I’m actually constructing a coherent picture out of it all, just going with my gut..

I don’t know if it’s art, but it’s getting me energized.  I’ll post the finished product when it feels finished, and you can judge for yourselves.

Art or not, it is serving a useful purpose – it’s getting me going again!

Our Global Village

Today is National Holocaust Remembrance Day. I have been watching SHTETL, a film that asks hard questions about how ‘good people’ can ignore or rationalize or even condone horrific acts that are taking place in their own village.
We must remember and learn from history.
We cannot turn a blind eye to the persecution of ANY group of human beings.
We are living in a global village, and EVERYONE is our neighbor.
We cannot allow ourselves to ignore the suffering of human beings
anywhere in this world.
PBS has made it possible to watch SHTETL online, here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shtetl/

 

Where’s My Head?

To begin, sorry about taking so long between posts. The world, myself included, was overtaken with sad, bad news and the writing of a semi-facetious blog for artists, even struggling ones, didn’t seem all that important for a while.

But when I thought the thing through, I realized that  no matter how sad or bad the world is, we must respond with our art — our smart, heart-felt art.

So here we go and I hope not to get sidetracked again.

I am not including a photo in this post because it would be just too disheartening. The topic  of the post is organization, and I am in the middle of my semi-annual attempt to practice what I preach on the subject. At the moment, however, it seems as though everything is on its way to somewhere else and my worktable is harum-scarum with no place to actually work. Organization, as you may guess, does not come naturally to me.

Still, as we budget our money, we must also budget our time and I am fed up with spending hours surveying the wreckage that is my living room in order to find the right brush, or my clear gesso, or anything else that I desperately need at the crucial stage of a project (I make collages, in case you were wondering, and John Heartfield and Max Ernst and Lou Beach are my heroes even though my work doesn’t look much like any of theirs). Also, it is so much more pleasant to work in a place that is not junked up and just plain dangerous looking. Part of the problem, of course, is the fact that we accumulate supplies and materials somehow as if by magic and it’s easier to put them on the nearest flat surface than where they belong. Sometimes you might even acquire something you’ve never had before (I am now the proud owner of over 200 vintage ties) and they tend to sit for months in the same paper bag you brought them home in. This sort of behavior is heading into Hoarders territory and I do NOT want an Intervention wherein earnest friends and family urge me to throw away my precious stuff. I just need to organize it, that’s all.

At any rate, my self-imposed job for the week is to put like-with-like. All paints together, all fabrics together, all brushes together, all colored pencils and pens and markers in their separate bins. This can be done on the cheap, by the way. You do not have to buy the special “artist’s organizers” found in Michael’s. Although I support locally owned artist’s supply stores, and go to them when only the best will do, containers do not fall into that category.

Organization allows you to find what you’re looking for when you need it. This sounds simple and obvious, I know, but it’s not that easy when you’re working in a cramped space, as I’m sure many of us starving artists are. I’ve used clean cardboard boxes large and small; shoe boxes (good for organizing samples & card-size paper), stackable in-boxes and trays, even magazine racks and laundry bins. Scout out your local thrift store and you’ll find a lot of stuff that can be put to use as storage. You may even find a sturdy office supply cabinet or two.  Think vertical, because otherwise your stored stuff will wind up in a sprawl all over what should be your working area (otherwise known at least in my case as my living room). But you also have to think accessible; in other words, if you stack a lot of cardboard boxes on top of each other it will be a drag to have to take apart the stack to get to the bottom box, no matter whether the boxes are labeled or not. Labels, by the way, are a good idea. If you have to stack boxes, at least put the least used items in the bottom box and don’t make the stacks too high. Three or four boxes should be the limit. Use stackable trays, etc., whenever possible, or furniture with drawers. Drawers are good.

The thrift shop is always my first stop. Big Lots and Costco also have some affordable storage containers. Myself, I don’t shop at Walmart for a number of reasons but that’s up to you.

Use your imagination and you’ll come up with a workable system of organization, no matter what the size of your home or apartment. (If you have your own dedicated studio space, you are probably reading the wrong blog). For little cost on your part, you can get your stuff together (literally), and thereby give yourself both more time to make art and less time for hair-pulling frustration.

A word of warning: One thing you do not want is to find your materials ruined by water damage, mold, varmints, or other damage. NEVER store anything in a damp basement. Cedar chips are good for keeping insects away from fabric so toss a few in, even though the container appears to be airtight. Wood cabinets with drawers are sturdier and nicer looking than cardboard boxes, so keep your eyes open in the thrift store and replace the cardboard when you find something better. Ditto for plastic racks. They’re fine in the short run but over time start to sag.