Deep Life Indy # 3

Uncle! I surrender!

I've made multiple attempts to write about the Indianapolis art scene of the past 30 years. This as prequel to the upcoming panel discussions which will accompany the 431 Gallery and Ed Sanders shows. I even wrote about giving up on trying to write about it. That turned into a long bit too, and is pointless to post. Bottom line, that's it. No more critiquing local art stuff. 

Subversion is still on the table.

Deep Life Indy #2

Branded!

Prior to In Vivo Gallery, William Adkins formed a group called the Indianapolis Artists' Forum. As with the other groups, Bill was the little engine that could, while the rest of us went along for the ride. “We” were a group of artists currently in Indianapolis. I believe it included Steve Paddack, Brian Fick, Ed Sanders, Becky Wilson. I had just moved back from Texas, so it must have been around 1990.

In our first meetings, we grilled Bill about the name, specifically, about the “forum” requirements. Just what do we have to do? What sort of forum? Bill kept explaining that it was informal, no expectations, just that we get together and talk about art...We still didn't get it. 

Finally, an exasperated Bill threw his hands up and said, “You don't have to talk about art, it's just to present ourselves as a group who talks about art!”

We found this hysterical. Every meeting afterward began with some shtick where we pretended to talk about art.

Such branding is so pervasive now. I'm not sure others will understand how comical it was at the time. 

Deep Life Indy #1

431 Gallery, Indianapolis, 1984

In June, the Indiana State Museum will honor the 431 Gallery with an exhibition including members' art. 431 was a cooperative gallery which Bill Adkins formed, led, and fueled for many years. It formed in 1984 and continued through the early 1990s. I was a founding member and participated in the first auction and show, but then moved to Austin, TX. I returned in 1989 to find a vibrant, concentrated art scene along Massachusetts Avenue. Denouement (Francy and Stephen Stoller), Patrick King, Ruschman Gallery, and 431 Gallery co-existed within the block. In Vivo opened over 431, before moving around the corner. For a couple years, art opening crowds would overflow and block the sidewalks. 

During the ISM exhibit, I will be showing some paintings at Indy Reads. Until now, I was oblivious to the obvious - that the Indy Reads venue is on Massachusetts Avenue, just a few blocks from the old arts area. The entire MassAve is now designated the arts district, but is mostly retail, dining, and pubs. It's easy to forget the past. 

The ISM show will coincide with the much anticipated Ed Sanders retrospective, which will be at Herron School of Art and Design, just a few hundred yards from the ISM. I can't wait to see this show!

Cracking reality, one accident at a time

Recently I had two accidents that offered new perceptions on previous work. Both involve painting, even though I've set that aside for now, and am focusing on the bike art displays and some 3-d experiments with polyform clay.

Some glass pieces from my clay project spilled over my old stash of not-quite-finished paintings. I'm not particularly interested in playing with the "edge" between the painting surface and 3-d reality, but when I saw these pieces on this particular painting....I re-arranged a bit, and something works, I think. Whatever it is seems related to what the painting was already doing. 

The extrapolated concept for this may acknowledge that these glass bits are usually used for decoration at weddings and other major life events... It's a thought of some sort. 

The other accident occurred as I took a selfie with an iPad, using the mirror filter. One of my large shaped abstract paintings was on the wall behind me, and I was and am still amazed by what happens when that painting is made symmetrical. It generates figures, all sorts of figures, quite readily. The slightest movement creates new figures. These remind me of religious imagery. 

Prop 13-143

The movers and shakers of Indianapolis have put a lot of effort and money into the city's image. This makes the language in a new panhandling ordinance peculiar, for it limits street performance in a way that will effectively ban it in the downtown area. As currently written, Prop 143 refers to performance with no verbal request for money, as passive solicitation.  While this version does not ban such activity entirely, it places restrictions that would make it impossible to busk in most populated areas, and after 8pm. 

Many performers are miffed at being called panhandlers, and are focused on changing the proposition to exclude musicians and performers from the ban. This petition by the Indianapolis Acoustic Music group wants a re-write to allow street performance.

I understand the outrage at having one's work labeled panhandling, when it so clearly is not. But I also find it highly offensive that one's access to public areas would be determined by desirability. This seems to be the argument for re-writing the proposition, rather than stopping it. 

Real cities have a range of activity and of people. While safety can be a justifiable reason for limiting activity, this does not include banning people from public simply because they make some people uncomfortable. There are already laws regulating panhandling behavior. One cannot verbally request money or be aggressive in any way. Still, many city leaders have openly sought the removal of panhandlers from the downtown area, because it doesn't look good for the city. 

It's a no-brainer that the artists should not, and ultimately will not, be banned. So why are they specifically named in this proposition? I can't help but wonder if they are being used to do the dirty work...of drawing the line of exclusion between themselves and the panhandlers. Their demand for an exception sets up a dangerous precedent.

If the government allows performers and not panhandlers, then the government also determines what acceptably qualifies as performance (or sets up an organization to do so). By asking for an exception which distinguishes them from panhandlers, artists are inviting the government to regulate their art.

If Prop 13-143 passes with an exception for street performers, it may mark the end for authentic activity in downtown Indianapolis. 

Two Nights, Two Dreams

Has this blog been dormant long enough for me to use as a private dream journal? Doesn't matter, these two dreams are share-worthy. Really, you gotta hear about this dream I had...

One dream was blatantly about death, and one was exuberantly joyful about life. Death came first, and the life dream happened the very next night. Death dream began with sharp pains in my leg (cat-claw-like). I was in bed and half-aware that it was a dream. I kept being attacked and I desperately tried to wake up. As dreamland me looked around, I saw shadows at the edges of the bed. These read as a supernatural presence and scared me. It was something I had no power to control.  I could only be afraid. I decided I would attempt to grab it, thinking nothing would be there. I reached down and was shocked and horrified when I did indeed grab and hold a limb, a leg. I quickly grabbed with my other hand, and was now engaged in battle, with something completely unknown. It was terrifying that it now existed as both a supernatural and a physical force. I held on and screamed for help, but made barely a whimper. I tried over and over, knowing I was dreaming and so I needed to try harder to scream. I tried to pull it apart, and at the same time worried I may be hurting one of my cats in non-dreamland. My eyelids raised and I saw glimpses of light. I told myself to wake up, but could not. More attempts at screaming. At some point I had two pieces of this thing, and by now it was skeletal bones. I had a leg and a skull. The thing seemed somewhat neutered, but I was still worried for my safety. The dream went on, with my trying to escape through winding passages, still carrying the bones. My fear took me deeper into an interior maze, and I knew I may not find my way back out, or if that were even possible.

The next night brought the turtle dream. I was living in a house on a small river, and was standing on the bank, telling a friend about the giant turtles that had been known to come there. This was a very rare occurrence, and possibly even just of a legend.  As I spoke a huge turtle surfaced and made an amazing booming splash with its body.  Within minutes, more turtles rose up and it became a raucous show. These are Galapagos Island sized turtles, only they are splashing around in water. There were also some giant sunfish in the mix. The sunfish were about 3 feet tall. I was simultaneously viewing this scene below the surface  - which is totally do-able  in dreamland. As spectacular as this all was, we turned to the left and another group of splashing turtles arose. They dwarfed the first group. At this point it we were delirious with joy. A little later the place became overrun with other people. Many were friends. Some were frantically trying to decide which photography gear to use. It was a great scene. I got choked up a bit, from the communal excitement over this event. I decided I really wanted to video-tape it, and I went somewhere to get my camera. As I returned, I crossed over a bridge. All around was the most bold and beautiful scene. It looked like somewhere in Canada, as there was some snow, an amazing river scene, with huge birds and swiftly moving water cascades. I taped some of that and then went back to Turtlefest.

:-)
 

More Studio Turf Wars - Gallery Version

 Blythe Hager self-portrait landscape meets topiary fairie mural from 10 years ago, freshly mounted on board.

There was also a little bit of spraying action, but art was removed from the studio/gallery for that.

Spring!!

My neighbor cut my front yard and so I stocked the beer fence.

While Rome Burns

I spent a good portion of the 1990s justifying my work as an artist, especially as a painter, to myself. It was a moral dilemma; a question of validity and purpose. How can I indulge something with such intangible meaning and value? Once I finally acknowledged the value of making art, it became one of the few absolutes in my life. Afterward, I rarely questioned the value/virtue in making paintings, even as cultural dictates changed. Human existence matters and so making art matters.

The continuation of human existence is quickly becoming less of a given. The most recent climate measurements and projections are dire beyond belief. And the worst-case scenarios are looking less and less speculative.

Making art is once again a dilemma. A Dr. Zhivago-like engagement in painting seems ridiculous in the face of world-wide environmental calamity. I won't make environmental art, because that's rarely an effective vehicle for change. And while making non-purposed art is no longer a personal moral uncertainty, it's impossible to do so without making some acknowledgment of broader concerns. All I really know is to acknowledge the situation.

While Rome Burns - I think I've used this post title before. I know it's in a notebook somewhere. I may begin adding an “acknowledgment” of these broader concerns to my paintings - a narrative or emblematic aside that sidecars the primary subject. Artist Randy Wyatt had his “Yellow Man” that appeared in most of his paintings. I want to make a Lane Marker scene, with a sustainable garden silhouette in the distance. Or a Shelter House image with a distant indication of a burnt forest. How would these quietly suggested addenda read in the painting? And in the broader sense? Can I do it without pandering, and does that even matter? It's an acknowledgement that does not solve anything. Again, it's all I really know to do.

New Life in Old Haunts

The original Utrillo's site is going through another (very well-prepped paint) transformation. Kym Tongate and Garry Toney are opening Infamous Studio Tattoo, their second tattoo shop, in the 2630 East 10th Street location. (Their other site is in Wannamaker). This is the little building that could, which is just west of Rural. They will also be showing art, so stay tuned. 

And yes, I do have some images of the place as the 1990s-era Utrillo's.

 Above window display features hand-cut peg board screens 

with street scene photos montaged on the ends.

Randy Wyatt's show, with a huge reverse-on-plexiglass painting in the window.

Post-tattoo and/or piercing suggestion: Soup of the day at Pogue's Run, just east on 10th. They make excellent soup that is always ruled by the ingredients, never over-seasoned.

Rocktown would like to thanks its new sponsor,Near Eastside Chamber of Commerce....just kidding, no such entity.

Latest Work

I am currently exhibiting a new group of paintings in my gallery space, Dewclaw. The show, "Kinkade Meets Turner Paints Sci-fi With Fanbrush" began as a stylistic riff of sorts. I very soon let go of that, and continued on a rather simple, fast, poetic path. So much of my work is now serial in theme or in formal approach. It was great to go back to some good ole free-meandering. That said, the end results have followed a pseudo monster-based theme, which is fine.

 

 "Leviathan", 8" x 8", oil on wood, 2012

 "Genie", 8" x 11.5", oil on wood, 2012

 "Ogre", 8" x 8", oil on wood, 2012

This is such a great way to work, and one taps into all sorts of imagery and subtle expressions which would never arise from a more deliberate or planned process. I think I need to keep this in the game-plan, a running line of non-linear works.

 

Don't stop what you're doing....

Rocktown's taking a little break, but will be back soon. In the meantime, I need a place to keep some links.

http://elisabethcondon.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-most-generous-landscape-olive-ayhens.html?spref=fb

http://hyperallergic.com/58526/prolegomenon-to-an-artist-who-at-seventy-two-is-having-her-first-solo-show-in-a-new-york-gallery/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/trollhunter/

Craft Plaques Statement

I was referring to the painted shaped plaques when I wrote this. I'm still not sure yet, how the 3-d materials-based plaques relate.

"I try to create visual images that are different from anything I already know or imagine. I use painting as a process by which to find this new imagery, and set up various frameworks for guidance. The frameworks themselves are always evolving, and they reveal broader areas of interest. My intended focus may be about materials and formal paint handling, or personal experiences, both cognizant and sub-conscious. Very often I create work around an iconic figure or structure of unknown purpose or meaning.

I began using shaped wooden plaques because they offer an interesting compositional challenge, and because they hint of an incongruous craft genre. They serve to foil any conventional aesthetic intentions I may have. I'm deliberately staging an awkward proposal, so that I am forced to find new solutions and new imagery.
 
These shaped also panels set up a paradox, for they are neither 3-d sculpture nor a picture plane rectangle. These shapes taunt the illusionist world that I treasure, forcing me to make conscious choices about their existence in reality. I must choose to place a representational image on/in these 2-d planes that are also objects. Such images no longer materialize with ease. The outcomes are inevitably negotiated compromises, where painted illusion and personal subject matter and 3-d objects struggle to co-exist in the same perceived reality."
 
-Carla Knopp 3-18-12

Studio Happenings

 I plan on moving the 3-d craft plaques to Dewclaw, and using that as a second studio in July and August.

 Above and below are the recently cut shaped panels, gesso primed and then base painted with arbitrarily suggestive color washes and textures. A few are full into painting mode - acrylic painting mode. There are benefits to doing these in acrylic, sometimes just as a start, and even all the way to completion. Things dry and tend to become permanent to the ongoing process/image, much more readily than with oil. This can help me stay within certain parameters, and keep things cohesive in a good way. The downside is that I don't get quite so engaged as I do when using oil. I tend to fret over things drying, both on the painting surface and the palette.

I have also been painting some non-series works, and getting very disparate imagery. I'll post those once they make some sort of sense.

JYST 1

New recurring post theme - JYST, or "John Yau Speaks Truth". 

The best way to navigate a world overcome by hype and branding is to be honest and open, willfully and brilliantly so. John Yau does this.

This is good for the broader art dialogue, and it is especially good for the individual artist. So much that we do runs counter to prevailing issues of theory and of expectation and of success. Personal fortitude can wear down over time. Yau's essays remind us of the marvel that is artistic exploration. It's very reassuring to have someone presenting such a meaningful dialogue about art. 


His two most recent articles at the Hyperallergic blog:

 A Truly Subversive Artist Is Not Necessarily Someone Who Is Theatrical or Gimmicky
I've coined this notion as "innovation within convention", and thought of it fairly narrowly in terms of style, and more recently in terms of medium (traditional vs. new media). It's very frustrating that art is categorized according to a few signifiers of identity, rather than by actual experience. Yau reviews Thomas Nozkowski is this article. Can it get better?


"At the heart of Nozkowski’s practice is improvisation, a willingness to take something (anything) and do something else to it. He seems to have been one of the few of his generation to understand Jasper Johns’s declaration: “Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it. Do something else to it, etc.”

" This is what subversive artists working in our postmodern epoch share. They don’t have a style, which is, in the end, both a brand and a judgment. How can you produce a brand and be subversive? (It’s like selling torn jeans made by Armani!) Subversive artists always try to undermine conventions, including those that might influence their practice."

And finally:

 "We have yet to consider Nozkowski’s work, and all its formal compressions, in a broader context, preferring instead to isolate him. The reasons for this withholding seem obvious—a deeper analysis of his work would go a long way toward subverting the art world’s elevation of all those other artists who possess an abundance of style and opinions, but, in the end, have very little else to offer us."

Slam-bam!

The Daily Practice of the Impossible    


I thought it was brave for Dana Schutz to move away from the gorgeous color and application in her previous works. Even her most peculiar imagery was rendered with a certain painterly elegance. These newer works have harsh color and flattened spaces. They are not appealing to the eye. Yau's article offers insight into Schutz' conceptual positioning, which I hadn't really considered at all, because, you know, her paintings are so interesting as images. 


He opens with a pretty funny paragraph outlining a (what is still prevailing in the hinterlands) typical 'scum of the earth' attitude towards painters:


"Dana Schutz, who is in her mid-30s, belongs to the generation of artists who grew up in an epoch where painting was routinely thought of as a dead practice. One couldn’t just be a painter, because doing so would be to enter a dusty domain crammed with empty signifiers. It would mean you were doing something that was obsolete (and reviled) — like speaking Latin to the drugstore cashier. The lines were pretty clear: dumb people became painters; smart people became conceptual artists who painted only when and if the subject called for it. This viewpoint might have started out as speculation, but now it’s a stupid and persistent prejudice."

John Yau at Hyperallergic. Bookmark it, baby.

60 Blanks

In endurance terms, it was about six too many. Sanding lies ahead. Priming will be a breeze.

I'm juggling using these as bases for the craft plaques and/or for the 2-d painted abstractions. It's not a smooth transition back and forth - work space organization issues and also very different ways of thinking. Having plenty of them will help me plunge in however and whenever I need to. I will also be using Dewclaw as a studio for a couple months this summer.

I should have swept before I started.

Forgotten painting from the past

 Greg's Gypsie Dream, 11" x 14", oil on panel, 1996?

This gifted painting recently emerged from a friend's collection. He had described a dream to me, and I had a very strong visceral reaction to his description. I remember the piece well, but it's still a trip to see one's own work in person, after a long separation.

Lineup round 4, From the Gut, with Heart

Gwendolyn Skaggs has re-opened SUGAR with her unique curatorial presentation of Lineup round 4, From the Gut, with Heart. I'm honored to be included, along with Erika Keck, Christy Singleton, Alicia McCarthy, Ed Sanders, Mary Addison Hackett, Vincent Como, Art Guerra, Nina Meledandri, Jacqueline Skaggs, Becky Kinder, Liv Mette Larsen, and David B. Frye.

More photos of the show.

Post on Process blog.


Lineup

round 4

From the Gut, with Heart

04.21.12 - 06.03.12

This installation focuses on, and gives emphasis to, the give and take/push and pull that develops when positioning artworks together as objects, releasing them from their makers reins, into my own. In round 4 these objects are kin to words. A narrative that begins with Erika Keck's Rosebud, and punctuated with a period by Carla Knopp's Prone. The artworks anchored, and securely suspended, in between are rich with sentiment, weight, implication, complication, and justification bound by my continuous will and determination to "write" a complete sentence defining "relevancy and meaning" (and the art of). The end result is From the Gut, with Heart, an installation at SUGAR, and, what I have recently been told... "A writers dream". -Gwendolyn Skaggs

Forget everything I've been saying, and just read this

This recent Katherine Bradford review by John Yau (Hyperallergic blog) sums up so much. It's insightful, concise, and even has a conglomerate dissing of  Eric Fischl, Celine Dion, and Tiger Woods. 

In regard to the generation of women painters who have come into their own after they turned fifty, and to the flawed mindset that negates such occurrences, he says: "Their presence argues for a thorough reevaluation of the canonical thinking that has prevailed in America since the early days of Pop Art. That bankrupt narrative, based on the rather flimsy, narcissistic assumption that the art world got it right the first time, with its own obsession with surface and spectacle, leaves little room for the quiet adventurousness and formal variety of these artists' explorations."

It's important to note that it is the nature in which this group of painters are working, that I find fascinating, and that resonates with me. It's not simply a kinship of clan, or of sameness.

Again, John Yau says it best (this after pointing out that we are in an era where nobody knows what is going on; we have no central paradigm): "The possibility that one could be independent; that one doesn't have to belong to any stylistic tendency or group; and that one need not ally oneself with any of the currently fashionable discourses, is both liberating and daunting, but why should it be any other way? Given the openness of the territory, one should not be surprised by how many artists find a way to be a conceptual artist that paints, for example."

Herron "Beyond Campus" Shows + a rant

A nice list of shows featuring  Herron-linked artists, including the above. For some time now, I've noticed that the academic realm of art has become more progressive and alternative than so-called "cutting edge" art. I'm speaking mainly of local developments here in the Indy art scene ('development' being a very apt term here). Cutting edge entertainment art has become a hot commodity, and is linked both to specific real estate investments and to a broader drive to pump and pimp the city.

On the social conscious front, others are trying to guilt us into making our art "do" something that provides a tangible, overt community benefit.

And sometimes these "help our neighborhoods" people, and the investors, are the same folks.  

Neither drive is the world's worst evil, but both are parasitic. Art has worth without these justifications, and while it can be used to many means, it also has an amazing intrinsic value. Few things in our modern life have intrinsic value. Most have value that is derived from context, or branding, or some sort of identity-dependent system of belief. The academic art system, with all its dogmatic tendencies, provides a buffer against all the opportunistic bullshit. It has become an oasis of sorts, where art can flourish as.....art.

I spent 10+ years after graduation trying to unlearn so much, but now the university system seems to hold so much potential for real artistic investigations. I'm going to try to see as many of these thesis shows as possible.