This is not a politics blog...

los boletas oficiales

For good reason, I am a wretched Citizen. I often make my decisions at the polling place based on the sound of people's names (last year, I only voted for female school board members). My absentee ballot arrived today with not one, but FOUR rainbow colored ballots. The guilt just washes over me as I think of the people who have fought and died so I could cast my measly votes. Then my cynic steps in and says it doesn't matter because who ever gets elected will get bought off regardless. Then my really super cynic starts kicking me in the shins because now that I registered, I'll probably get called up for jury duty (does anyone actually like jury duty?). The word on the street is that all registered voters get called at least once a year in this town. Dutch has lots of opinions, and I know if I am lazy, I'll just adopt his wholecloth. The thing is, I do care about certain issues an awful lot, but it takes work to sift through all the fuzz and noise to get to the core of the issues.

Things I do have opinions on...

a classic movie poster from Saul Bass

Right now, I am putting together a lesson for the junior high kids about movie poster design. I plan on showing the usual posters from the golden age of design (the 50s and 60s) and I have put together a lot of material for them to look at and read (maybe stuff for another entry) and so now I have design on the brain. And what is even worse, I have been obsessing over how to explain it to 11-13 year olds. Because they are young, I can cheat a little and make simple, illustrated rules that they could theoretically follow without completely understanding (a real issue, considering that I speak English, and most of them speak something else at home). I am struggling with the fun challenge of creating a foolproof schema.

an unbearably beautiful tea label

I was at the grocery store looking for tea and I bought this brick of pu-ehr, and as I was considering which one to buy, it struck me that this tea label is almost unbearably beautiful. One of the things I am considering limiting is the children's palette. We will be using photoshop, so they have potentially millions of colors to chose from. This is a wonderful example of a limited palette (there are only three colors). They also, left to their own devices, tend to cluttered compositions, and random things they find from the web. I will be giving them a list of limitations, and hopefully it will be enough to get their minds going, but not so much that they give up.

::

The tea label is so inspiring because in addition to its limited palette, it has some fine patterns (repeated motifs) and I love the whimsical junk (sailing vessel) included in the seal. The composition is very straightforward, but it works, both in a utilitarian, and an aesthetic way. I don't read Chinese, so the meaning of the characters is completely lost to me, so I can't rate how effective the communication is, but they are always purty (am I betraying my love for exoticism here?). I tore a tiny corner and smelled the tea and looked at it, and I knows pu-ehr when I sees it, and the price couldn't be beat ($3.69) so I bought it. The really gratifying moment came when I was at the Ferry Building today (home of the most overpriced, pretentious, upperclass little specialty groceries in the city) and I found the exact same thing, with an English translation (Yunnan Province Green Pu-Ehr) and an equally English price, $12.50. That works out to $2.00 an English word.

Beware, Graphic Content

Georgia's Suggestive Flowers

My latest project for the little munchkins (aged 11-13) caused me a little anxiety. I let them draw names of artists out of a hat and their assignment was to research their artist and create an informational pamphlet. I had fun picking them out. I had to come up with 45 names! Naturally, I chose my favorites first, and then as many of the canon that I could recall off the top of my head. I tried to think of artists who would be mostly appropriate for my students, ones with enough information on them, and ones who were interesting. The art world, like any world, is messy and not always rated G. I was pretty confident that with a little digging, most of the artists produced something that was appropriate for school. I even gave my students a lecture about what to do if they found something disturbing. Oh how I love Junior High.

Diane Arbus's Freaky Twins

A few artists I knew were going to be borderline inappropriate, like Diane Arbus. I was relieved when most of the students got started with very few problems. One boy flagged me down almost immediately. I started to imagine meetings with principals and parents. I was quite relieved to see that he only had a page of Georgia O'Keeffe thumbnails. I asked him what the problem was. He told me he simply couldn't continue and he refused to elaborate. I pressed him, and finally, he whispered to me that he didn't want to look at people's privates. I told him it was just flowers, but he remained unconvinced. I let him do a different artist.


El Greco, rending the very fabric of the spacetime continuum

Another male student found El Greco to be too disturbing. He wasn't able to tell me what the issue was, but he looked genuinely upset, so I told him he could research Charles Schulz instead.

Teaching Moment

Of course, I remembered too late, that there are special safe search engines that are especially maintained for web-searches such as this. I am reminded, in spite of how the research has shown that studying the arts improves reading and math skills, it is constantly on the budgetary chopping block. It simply isn't safe. I am seriously doubting the wisdom of trying to teach the arts in a state-sponsored environment. Maybe I am overreacting. Now that I think of it, teaching isn't safe. Gah! What have I gotten myself into?

Lovely Murals

I saw these recently and I don't know anything about them, besides the general date on the side of the building. Which, now, I am not so sure, was it 1936?



This makes me nostalgic for a time when murals didn't have to make a political statement.

Back in '89

I found one of my first devoted sketch books. From 1989. I was 14. One of my neighbors was an art teacher at the JC and he was always encouraging. There is a note in the front saying my drawings were very good, but that I should work on value and form. The cringe-factor is so high that it is not going to be painful to put it in the recycling.

Priced to Move

Yesterday I gave away all my remaining oil paintings. It sounds terrible, but it actually was a lot of fun. They were done five years ago, in my sad man collage period (not anything that I'd really like to be remembered for). I also gave away the huge nude that hung for a while in the living room until my roomies got tired of her. She is going over someone's fireplace.

The lady who took them exclaimed that they were "way better than than I expected" so good in fact, that instead of painting over them, she was going to "hang them up." I even signed them for her. I got to be an art celebrity for 30 seconds.

I told this story to a few friends. They were all vaguely horrified.

Filthy Lucre Rant

I am going to make a 12 hour attempt to get some dough out of my next out-from-under-the-bed art collection, just so I can say I tried. If no one calls in the next 12 hours, they are going on the free-list (where my real fans lurk) because I cannot move them.

Why Its Easier to Just Give it Away

This kind of "art" is produced by the tons in art schools. For people to part with money, for stuff that essentially has no material value, the artist has to be a big deal. I like it when people are happy and although money is nice, I'd much rather the art go to a good home. It is so depressing when things don't sell, that I'd rather avoid that at all costs (what! I am not a Damien Hirst!!? Will My Ego Ever Recover?). And I hate putting pressure on my friends to buy things (no pressure! no pressure!). This is why real artists have agents to deal with the chores of pricing and bill-collecting. Its not just tedious, its actually painful.

"I have no idea what she is doing."

I have no idea what she is doing., originally uploaded by Ms. Art Teacher Lady.

Asks the H, to no one in particular.

We were at the sculpture gardens at the De Young and there was this amazing sculpture, La Maternite, by Juan Miro. It is very suggestive. It was clear by the way the patina was worn off the bottom of the opening that lots of other people were inspired to, uh, interact, with the sculpture just as I was.

Once I stepped back, the most amazingly jolly security officer came up and gave me the gentlest reprimand I have ever received. H, we should have invited her for drinks.

peelingpaint1, originally uploaded by camille94019.

I have spent a few more hours staring at my digital pictures. I found a good example of lens distortion, which is endearing.



Time seems to be slipping forward quickly, and normally I'd be all for whatever gizmos the future brings and I feel a little defensive and ludditish for stubbornly holding to the film cameras, even though my inner accountant is perpetually irritated by film/processing costs.

Supposedly the Impressionists are popular because they mimic the way normal people see. I guess we are all myopic. We see things through St Paul's dark mirror. We see things fleetingly and incompletely, it gives our imaginations something to do, our intelligence something to connect. The Impressionists present a point of view that is unashamedly human.

Digital presents a mechanical world entirely devoid of ambiguity. Every detail, every crack, every mote of dust is is dutifully rendered on a screen that is stridently two-dimensional. A surface that holds no secrets, no room for interpretation under its flashing, LED-illuminated face.

Film has mechanical aspects too. The camera's single lens and flat celluloid is at odds with our two eyes, concave retinas and fatty brain. Even then, the film itself has layers. Depending on the quality of light, different emulsions react. Even when negatives are scanned, some of that layered, nuanced quality is preserved. This is especially true of the primitive cameras, that somehow miss rendering every hair but present a rich gestalt.

Missing the blades of grass, but capturing the desolation, the $30 Holga

NB I had originally started this post to explore the idea of embracing digital as an art medium, which I abandoned as soon as I started thinking about painting. While that is still a possibility, I currently don't have the skills or inclination to pursue it. I'd have to reinvent what I expect and how I relate to cameras, which may be a future thesis.

NB I hadn't wanted to use the word "gestalt" because it sounds like I am an academic-wannabe, but when I looked up possibly synonyms on Thesaurus.com, it thought I meant "coastal." So it has to stay.

Correspondence

sent to the Son of the Steppes

A long time ago I signed up with the Post Due postcard collective, and sporadically ever since, I have sent postcards to the folks. Sometimes I even get some back. I just discovered that one particular gent, Ryan, has been posting the ones he sends me on his special blog. I am lucky! He sent a bunch to me. There is the most recent one.


to Dax in Chicago

I have been laboring at my drafting table all afternoon (just taking breaks to eat bread and chocolate) catching up with nearly six months of backlogged postcards.



to Ryan in Austin TX



to Carolee of Post Pod



to the KB in the Hamlet



sent to Amanda in Brooklyn

This one was particularly fun to do. The original card was a art-reference card of a northern renaissance triptych. One of the panels was illustrating the Wedding at Cana, and this woman reading was sitting at the end of the table, rather prominently. I wasn't sure if she was the patron of the piece, or a prefiguration of Whistler's Mother. Either way, I like her.

Here's the card Amanda sent me.

Good Advice

I was in a bit of a tither earlier today. I was working on the next Fat Camille and all sorts of critical words kept popping into my mind. Nasty words orbited around my head like mean little asteroids. It got so bad, that I started incorporating them into the story, as if I had Tourette's, where the more I wanted to ignore them, the more impossible it became. Then I felt even more retarded. This wasn't a part of the story. I didn't want this here.

'Cuz its My Fucking Praxis

Usually when I am working, its Deep Camilleland, and my voice is the only one I am hearing. I create a safe bubble where things can crawl out, do their funny dance and leave their little tracings on my pad. Then later, when I am editing, photoshopping, or wielding the mighty white-out, I can be critical, brutal and be concerned about larger issues of flow and coherence.

I have gone through The Artist's Way about a half dozen times over the past six years. I used to always skip the part where she asks the reader to list out all the critical things that have been said, that have created a "block." After twelve years of pursuing my art, I have developed a rather thick skin, and outside criticism hasn't been much of a hindrance (not to say there aren't plenty of other internal hindrances). I was feeling guilty for the first time and so crummy that I thought briefly about scrapping the whole book.

Locus of Control

I had forgotten about the Rule of Silence-- the idea that while a project is in its proverbial infancy, it shouldn't be exposed to the harsh florescent light of judgment. It should have a nice warm place to gestate. Otherwise, the artist will start picking on warts that aren't even there, and there won't be anything left of the original idea, and it will, actually, be lame.

I am going back to my drafting table.

Shhhhhh.

PS, The illustration at the top of the post is from the H (see her link on the bottom). Its the first page of her brilliant picture book about a geisha's training, which I truly hope to see at the APE. Hey, H, if you want the originals, let me know. I chose it because of the nature of this post, I really couldn't put anything up that I am working on right now. That will come later.