I’m really lucky to have artist friends. My every day job
brings me in contact with some really cool scientists and administrators, but
on my own time, I relate almost exclusively with artists. When you know an artist well over a period of
time, you can watch their work take shape and evolve. You have conversations
about all sorts of every day things but it always turns back to art: making
time to make art, getting over fears, finding an audience for your art,
obtaining materials, developing new methods, struggling financially and
socially.
I’ve noticed recently that many of my favorite artist
friends have a strong narrative feature to their art. Clay Harris makes comics-
writing and developing a story are just as important as finding source material
for locations, arranging perspective, and balancing darks and lights. My buddy Eric in San Francisco has been busy making detailed computer graphic drawn images of
himself in elaborate dreamed and nighmarish scenarios. Zofie Lang’s recent works focus on
fairy tale stories. Zofie creates assemblage boxes- part sculpture, part
collage- inspired by the dark and mysterious archeotypical stories of European
oral folks tradition.
I’ve always loved expressive art the best: art that’s heavy
and dark- moody and emotional. I’ve struggled for a long time with the desire
to lay my soul bare while being afraid to put myself out there- to be judged,
condemned or worse- ignored. I’m less afraid of this now than I used to be. I
realize that fundamentally- people are all the same inside- and respond well to
honesty and openness. I don’t really
have any secrets. But then I wonder if I
don’t really have anything interesting to say any more either.
The left brain with it’s linear thought- the part of our
mind that puts one word in front of the other, is different than the right brain
with its big picture conceptions the still image is frozen in time. How can I bring the two together to make art
that tells a story- communicates feelings- conveys the subtlety and conflicts
that are the core of human experience?
I think in the most traditional art-school way- most of the sequential aspect of my art comes with each new piece that's developed- the way that one idea builds on the next. A more literal narrative comes into play in my journals- here I can
combine the written word with images, and every page is a new day. This is also where my art is most expressive because it's easier to make demons when you know they can be closed up in a book- rather than having to face them every time you walk into a room and see that image hanging on a wall (or on an easel, or propped on the floor leaning up against a wall). My art
journals began when I was 18- now I have a collection of nearly a dozen- chronicling
my development as an artist and a person and they sit on a shelf in my new
dining room studio. But how should I share them? Reproduce them for publication?
Blow them up into big printed posters? Display them somewhere? And I fear that the
more public my journals become, the less safety and privacy I’ll feel while
making them. The fact that I made them just for me is part of what makes them
so special.
