Emotion: Day and Night

This post will be quick...

Depending on who you are around and what the weather is like, yada yada, depends so much on how you approach and act towards your artwork. Sometimes the best moods are not the best to be put to work in coming up with an idea or design. Sometimes, on the opposite side (feeling annoyed and angry) can cause some of the best work to come out.

You just need to find out how to work with yourself and put these emotions to use. What have I learned today and in the past 22 years? It is that I know what gets me angry even though I can hold it in, put on a fake mask and not react what so ever. I also know, yes, what makes me smile. 

By understanding yourself to the best of your abilities... over time you will realize the importance of emotions in general. It may seem odd, but sometime I will to be around people who make me upset and angry, for when that happens, something very powerful comes out of me. (seeing that I said that I try my best when I am angry not to shhow the fact that I am upset) 

Often times I don't even let anyone know, and I just leave the room and walk out into the city and try and get lost...

It is when I get lost, that I find an original/stunning aspect of amazing life that changes my mood and brings such a flow of ideas to my mind. So when people tell you to "get lost", say thank you, I'd love to find something new in life... who would not want to? 

Importance: Homes... or the Lack of One.

I have recently gone through a not so grand session of being homeless. Along without having a home includes lack of materials including my studio, paints, brushes and canvases. Oh yeah... and a bed. It was almost 13 degrees out last night when I slept in my car which I do not even own a pair of keys to... it took prayer to bring even a moment for me to fall asleep. Ice glazed over every window, not nearly enough clothing and of course no blanket, I have not ever in my life felt such a bitter and painful freeze in my fingers and most important my toes. 

I slowly felt the numbness from my toes crawl up my ankles then shins and I began to get even more worried about my health and if I would ever fall asleep for even an hour that night and the next... thinking also how I got through the previous nights. 

What to do? What did I learn? Why was I hear, and by hear, I mean lost and located in the city of "nowhere". Friends and family are not a good thing, but a great thing that provide love and influence... two major pillars in thinking and eventually putting together a work of art. I missed my home and what was held in my studio, but thought that this was and will be, a great learning lesson. Learning about warmth and comfort of course, but for me, the most interesting and dare I say "coolest" part of living on the streets and like a gypsy was that I had finally become something I had always appreciated: A Beatnik! 

Living this Beat lifestyle is one of harsh conditions where you come across many times when you bum cig's, or even pick up a burning one off the ground because you do not even have a lighter to light it. Yes, it does sound gross and third world, but that is the life of a Beatnik... on the edge, the very furthest edge. Many may die in the process but I realized that I always had a bed and a pack of cig's at home waiting for me. Oh yeah, did I mention food? Because not for nothing, in three days (this is a fact) I had eaten one half of a buttered roll which was given to me for free from a local deli that I would be able to walk to in this fucking freezing conditions outdoors. Along with the half or a roll (the other half I shared with someone in exchange for maybe a sip of beer or a cig, because that is how the system works) I had one half container of white rice. That is it, it really is the truth. 

Now if you are reading this and asking about a job and school, well I could not get to work without a car and my final semester of school begins in two months. As well as my job getting slower and slower and eventually having to get let go due to lack of customers in the restaurant. 

On top of all these things I did not have was a cellular phone. It was knocked out of my hands by a friend who was trying to give me a high five and shattered. So now without any quarters or any numbers memorized in my head... how am I supposed to do anything dealing with communication. My best bet was to head to a local place where I knew where people/friends of mine would be. So I went to a bar, like I spoke of in my previous post about the importance of meeting and communicating with people. 

All of this is so serious and cannot be fully understood or felt unless you are put through it. It has made me appreciate so much and one of the most important of these was my Art and my Music. 

I now have actual content of struggle and suffering  to input into my work that will not be forgotten.

"The Importance of Travel and Meeting Others"

If it were not for the certain bars and taverns (The Cedar Bar, The Knights Circle) in the New York School's Greenwich Village locations, such artists as Pollock, Kline, Smith, Motherwell and Newman may have not exchanged words and arguements that led to such a revolution in Art History. While Still and Rothko met at Berkeley, they eventually would head to the city as well. Drinking and interacting is just as important as painting/sculpting itself in that if it were not done, there would be no updated influences to create new work. This city (NYC) as well as the state would also lead to the eventual deaths of many of these painters in this rugged group... with an exception of Arshile Gorky who would be left hanging from a tree in my home state of Connecticut. 

Myself, I feel that going to such bars in your local towns in which you live/work/study is such an important aspect to the life of an artist. By going out, not only do you meet new people who may become future friends, enemies or even spouses, you, without even knowing it, learn so much about others as well as yourself. A conversation begins and then others join in... subjects become sensitive and cause controversy... the greatest possible aspect of speaking in a group to help create and think of new ideas. 

For example, when I previously went out to a bar in downtown New Haven, Connecticut, I had a peaceful and arguement free night which I have no problem with. As the night progressed I thought of colors/lines/compositions that compliment each other, just as the friends I was with at the time to sketch down into a work to be done when I got home. As we went out to leave and have our final cigarette, drunk and under many influences, a fight between two females (one a friend and one a stranger) which made me start to think.

At any moment, like this fight at the end of a near perfect night out, something that was once complimenting had become contrasting. It depends how you look at this night as a whole. Was this last event seperate from the rest of the night, or does the entire night represent my thoughts on a future work. To put it into mathematical sense, I would say while painting a beautiful and peaceful work (90%) all of a sudden came along the other (10%) of contrast that is certainly not balanced evenly, nor a Golden Line of Proportion. The comparison between peace and hate throughout this night was at a very odd and uneven ratio.

In the end, Balance as well as Ultra-Contrast and Oppositions can lead to a deep thought on my artwork. I learned new ratios, new personalities and the fact that at any moment, a bomb may be dropped out of nowhere. Connection to painting? When to stop and leave the work alone (when to leave the bar and end on a good note). Yet, it is impossible to predict when to stop working, or when to leave a public place with fellow artists. 

Go out, meet new people of all sorts, because if I had not done so, I would not have learned my new ratio I have began to experiment with in my work. Give this ratio a try.

Quote of the Day
"Ours is a far from perfect world, but it is all we've ever had, all that the greatest artists of the past ever had.  At that, it's beautiful enough." 
Abstract Expressionist Group Portrait