ASSUAGING ANXIETY 1

Assuaging Anxiety 1

17x23"

ink, acrylic on colored paper  

May First Friday 2011

 

  

As the Arts Incubator withers away, I look to efflorescence, just months ago.  I’m trying to do so many things to prepare; I'm getting nowhere fast.  As my mind plans, curates, structures the next 14 chess moves, anxious whirlpools threaten.  On replay, I envision Scratchy's skeleton ripped out of his body: Itchy laughs, Scratchy dies.  It's a most uncomfortable kind of tension, a paradox of sensation: my outer body stationary and my marrow sprinting forward.  I often have this psuedo-agoraphobia before social events, which I don't really understand.  If I truly believe that painting can heal, then I should let it do so. 

So this was me, in the afternoon, sublimating my anxiety before my first First Friday.  

First Fridays at the Arts Incubator of KC

Arts Incubator of KC115 W. 18th St. KCM0 64108| 3rd floor Studio 312

I hate having to learn Photoshop & Illustrator - well, actually I hate that any precocious elementary school kid is more adept with the programs than I.    I can't believe I didn't take any computer arts classes in college - it's almost the equivalent of not being able to read or write for a visual artist.  At least I have those observational drawing skills, which are going the way of long division, hand written notes, and many other quaint oddities of a modern world.  


As an artist who is all about the process: authenticity of mark, observational drawing, etc. I don't want to get to buddy-buddy with the technology (or precursor to) that will eventually make hand-made paintings a rare commodity.  First it was photography, then Photoshop and the ease of obtaining projectors, ready-mades, appropriation that have lowered the standard for what we as a society call an artist.  Eventually, they'll advance the technology of 3-d printers, 3-d vision, and holograms until we get to an advanced Ghost in the Shell world where the virtual world is the primary world.  Oh yay.