Man, I been talking too much. This morning I gave another how working artists work talk and on wednesday I'll blah blah blah about early 20th century american art (thus the Dove, the Hartley, the Burchfield books on my table). I've been calling old friends and I seem to have opinions about everything. But before I say another word, I'm gonna promise myself and you (my dear readers) something.

In a few minutes I'm stepping into the room in which I paint and I'm not going to read and prepare for a talk (that's done enough), and I'm not going to write another chatty letter to a friend (they know I love 'em), and I'm not going to clean. These are all tried and true avoidance techniques. When really, if I simply face the challenges all those (yes, too many projects in process is part of the problem) stops and starts have, I will feel better. The more I talk and the less I work the more the fear of being a faker comes in.

I'll paint today, hit the wheel after work tomorrow, throw a bit more on wednesday maybe and start in on that new sketchbook I'm ready for. I'll take my lunches sketching again. If you don't hear from me, don't worry, kids, it means I'm busy doing what I'm supposed to do. Shut up and paint. So, talk amongst yourselves, I'm going to get busy now.

take care,
Rachael

Just under a year ago we lived in Atlanta, worked a lot, made art and good friends, engaged in long lazy conversations with friends on porches, and scraped together our nickels so we could go see troublemakin rock-n-roll rumpshakin music on friday and saturday nights at the earl and the echo and the star bar. We're now in a new town, happily setting up our new life, working a lot, making art and good friends, and every once in a while going out to see live music. Glad we saw The Forty Fives and The Sadies last night.

Last night we were happily among the other seedy characters in a teeny bar listening to one of Atlanta's finest troublemakers. They sounded good (loud, tight, frenetic, and honest) and standing there listening and reminiscing reminded me of a pockteful of simple truths:

Life's too short to worry about what other people think as you live your life. Make the art, the music, the strange things you wanna make.

Playing music, painting pictures, writing small bits of nonsense are all about connecting to other people. So certainly you want to work your hardest to make the best you can.

Loud is good.

The tall people will stand in front. The girl who smells like salami (really) will be next to you all night. There will be discomfort but if the music is real it is really wonderful to hear it live.

If you were born to be a rock star you will crisscross the country playing dive bars for a couple of bucks and listening to a lot of people say you rock or you suck but you will be honored and excited to be on that stage. Even as it wears thin, you'll keep it up and more than your inner circle of friends will be glad you did.

Passion in the process is contagious.

Just about what I thought but mostly I just loved the rock and roll...

Take care,
Rachael

Arthur Dove is and has been and will be an inspiration. He took a lot of risks in his life and his art and somehow managed to always make work that rings true. I'm thinking about Dove and Dow and Homer a lot lately. These men who wanted and needed to paint, found their place ( Geneva, Ipswich, and Prout's Neck) and regardless of how their work was seen or accepted, they made the work they needed to make.

It's foolish though that only a few could see the truth of Dove's work when he made it.

I centered something today and actually managed to get it off the wheel. It might not survive the kiln. It's sure nothing too special, but it is a step on a larger road. The object is nothing compared to the thrill of how it felt to have control, to feel connected to that clay for a minute or so...and not to wreck it! My stupid thumbs get in the way a lot but yet, I'm learning.

OK, so, I'll keep trying to make and recycling the mucked up clay. It certainly helps to remember the people (love me some dove) that inspire.

take care,
Rachael

Ah. It's absolutely beautiful today and I have the day off. My studio is cleaner, my head is clearer, there is food in the refrigerator. This post will be short because shortly this writer will shift back into her painter self.
The other day actually I did a short career talk at a school of the arts (think FAME) and tried to explain how I have two interwoven lives: a life as a artist and a life working in the non-prof arts field helping to grow and support other artists. I told the teens how I personally saw the two roles as working together, even if some weeks I was more a manager and some weeks I was more an artist. I wonder if I would be much good at one without the corrective of the other...

A hand shot up. "So, uh, how much do they pay you to be an artist?"

It's tough. That moment when you realize that no-one will pay you to be an artist. But then, the kids kept listening and I think some of them got it. The work is it's own reward. If you have to make it, you make it. The same old, same old: nothing worth doing is easy. I returned to my busy schedule and desk piled high with a smile and a sense I'd helped in some small way.

And this weekend, I saw some contemporary prints. Both the Handprint Workshop ( the view from here ) and ULAE are all over Rochester, which is itself home to a print club. I missed the talk but did manage to get a good healthy does of Renee Stout and Barton Lidice Benesand even a little Terry Winters (not this stuff , but one big red wonderful print).

OK, I'm off to muck up that perfectly clean studio. I'm back to work and my attempts to center tomorrow but today I get to be an artist and nobody has to pay me nothing for that.

take good care,

Rachael

Back from our mini vacation and I'm back on my mini obsession to center clay. Some time last night, some time tonight, lots of attempts, lots of mess, trying to trust process while I learn technique while I patiently practice is an excellent corrective to my arrorgance with drawing. Well, maybe it isn't arrogance, but it's hard to break old habits, hard to remember how much further there is to climb up the mountain when you feel safely camped out on a hill. I've been drawing fer a lawng time. My hand naturally grabs for a pencil, normally wants to make a mark, feels right when drawing lines. With clay the whole thing is new. There are parallels of course, and a few times I've worked and watched the clay move from one thing to a new thing in moments.

Only all of those things were sloppy hunks of wet dirt. I sorta managed to get sorta centered a couple times. It all got mucked it up at the end but part of this process too, is learning to pay closer attention. Last night I held a couple of forms in a few different stages of drying and felt the clay's weight, the object's form, the balance of the whole thing. I listened carefully to everybody else's problems and solutions (all of my fellow students have plenty of experience, I'm the first grader in the 11th grade calculous AP class). I watched in horror while my teacher turned my wheel speed up several notches (I'm getting used to it).

This whole wacky process of stepping back to the beginning of the making process is thrilling, scary, frustrating, maddening and magic.

Feels good. So what are you learning?

take care,
Rachael

oh and there is art in western new york (more proof)