Just keep doing your thing, man!

OK, first off I would like to point out that the last post provoked a pretty interesting conversation in the comments section. If you found the last post intriguing, have a look at the comments.

But now, on to other topics.

I recently had a conversation with a friend about a guy we both know, a common friend of ours. Let's call this third person (the subject of the conversation) Frederic. Frederic is a musician, and has achieved a certain level of success, having released several albums and played live shows and tours all over the world. However, as revealed in this recent conversation, Frederic is frustrated that his success seems to be peaking, or topping out, and he has not yet achieved 'recognizable household name status'; he's not a superstar.

But this is where the conversation got interesting. Frederic is what I would call an 'artist with integrity.' He is trying to do something which is personally meaningful to him, and which also has a politically engaged dimension, and is in fact succeeding quite well at this, at least in my opinion. But this effort, guided as it is by a strong and highly personal internal compass, puts him almost by definition into a bit of a niche.

I think that artistic work which manages to 'hit the jackpot' of widespread cultural acceptance gets there for a variety of interconnected reasons (such as timing, artistic skill, promotional visibility, etc.), and I think that luck (or chance) also plays a role in the process, but the point of this sentence is that I think it's frequently true that work needs to have an element of non-specificity, of universality in order to 'make it big.' (Just think of those vague and generic lyrics in your favorite tune by U2 or Justin Bieber!) This, then, is the corollary question: "Is widespread cultural acceptance (hitting it big) fundamentally incompatible with a strongly held, highly personal vision, especially when there are elements of that vision that are 'challenging' in some way?"

I think the answer to that question is probably "No these things are not fundamentally incompatible, but they are not frequently seen together and when they are, chance has played a role." One way that chance can influence this process is that something in the artistic work might happen to coincide with something current in the zeitgeist, which is always evolving. Artists can of course intentionally try to 'ride' something they see in the zeitgeist, which can be seen actually as an attempt to engineer a sort of universality; after all anything floating through the zeitgeist is by definition universal, at least for the moment.

In a sense this idea of 'hitting it big' hinges on the fantasy of the 'one big thing'; the hit album or hit song or hit sculpture or painting... the one thing that everyone notices and makes you suddenly famous.
But... there is another way.

And that other way is....
Just keep working. Stay true to yourself. Continue to evolve. And just keep making the work.

And then, slowly, over the years, you gain a different kind of fame... a kind of esteem among your peers. And this sort of renown can often be achieved even when the work is challenging.

The world is full of great examples of people who embody this approach, but the one who came to mind as I was having this conversation was JG Thirlwell, better known as Foetus. He came to mind not only because he is one of my favorite musicians but also simply because he IS a musician, and we were talking about musicians, and he provides a potent embodiment of the the 'just keep working' model, a potent counterpoint to the 'one-hit-wonder'.

JG Thirlwell is not exactly a household name in the world today; in fact he's somehow managed to stay comparatively obscure. But the guy is really a musical genius, and his prolificness (I checked... it's a real word) leaves most of the rest of us in the dust; just glance at his impressive discography. And here's the thing: his work has always been challenging, and therefore niche. A quote from his Wikipedia page: "Recurring lyrical themes include destruction, persecution, anxiety, abuse, incest, masochism, angst, self-destruction, self-abuse, lust, prejudice, murder, failure and machismo, often expressed using American colloquialism and black humour." Yet, somehow, he has transcended the self-ghettoizing consequences of this sort of lyrical output to become, over a career of 40 years, highly respected and sought-after by other professionals not only from the music industry but from other parts of the entertainment industry as well. And how did he manage this? Well my theory is that it's because he is fiercely original, hard-working, and therefore prolific. 

It's really about persistence, and staying true to your self and your vision. If you just keep doing your thing, the world will eventually catch up to you. 
OK, not everyone can be the next Taylor Swift, but would you really want to be? Sure, the piles of cash sound fun, but I can only imagine that one sacrifices a lot of freedom for a life like that. 

Just keep working. 

(For a taste of two different, not overly 'challenging' sides of Foetus, click here and here. And believe me, if those tickle your fancy, there is SO MUCH more to discover.) 

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OK, change of topic. I've been painting for days, maybe even weeks. I finally got into the swing of it. It's slow work. Painting crumpled fabric is especially slow. 

I keep discovering new painters I like. 
I'm currently rather enthralled by Mati Klarwein. 
I've even developed a real respect for Alex Grey. 
With both of these guys the subject matter is a little hit-and-miss for me, but I love the precision and the highly personal vision that they both espouse. 
I continue to be fascinated by Ingres and Caravaggio. 

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Last week Kodiak and I checked out the Jim Henson exhibit at the Albuquerque Museum.

It was a great show. What an inspiring guy. The Jim Henson Creature Shop was the first place to hire me when I moved to LA to get into Animatronics, and although Jim was dead by that time I did meet his son Brian. 

One thought that I had when seeing the work on display was... "I know how to do all this stuff, to build these sophisticated puppets, and it's an unusual and versatile skill, and it's a bit of a shame that I don't do more with it.... I should build some puppets, and... Have a puppet show!"

Head mechanism I built for some puppet or another, incorporating eye mechanisms and multi-axis ears.

Doctor Octopus's upper two claws from Spiderman 2, which I built and puppeteered on set.

Build puppets and have a puppet show? Hmm... we'll see about that. 

Anyway the Henson's exhibit was a good show.

(And how's this for a tie-in... click here for Foetus doing a cover version of Elton John's 'Rocket Man' with lyrics re-worked as 'Puppet Dude,' a tribute to Jim Henson!)

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And lastly, a few people picked up on my brief discussion of the Datsun 240Z from several posts ago, and asked if I would in fact write a whole post about that car. Well I really don't think I will do that; there is so much already on the internet about that car and I would mostly just be regurgitating info that's already out there. Suffice to say that I have owned two of them and I love them. They're very fun to drive. 

Check out this recent auction of a totally original 1971 240Z that sold for.... $310,000! 
Holy guacamole! 

I'll leave you with this, the 240Z from Mad Max: Fury Road... You had to have a sharp eye to catch this car in the film... it's barely in there, but I saw it immediately.

Adios, muchachos y muchachas

Science

I recently purchased on eBay a lot of 40 back-issues of a certain French fashion magazine, called Numèro.

I did this because I have the idea that these magazines might be a good source material for painting beautiful women. But it's a little more involved than that, really, because it's not hard to find images of beautiful women online, or in Playboy or Penthouse magazines (I have quite a few of those). You see, I believe there's something fundamentally different about the attitude expressed by the women in fashion magazines from the attitude expressed by women in erotic media. 

I find myself quite interested in these subtleties. (In much the same way that I have, in the past, found myself interested in the subtleties of posture and style of dress in their capacities as means of communication - consciously or unconsciously - about who we are, who we want to be, and who we want to fit in with.)

In fact I was disappointed and perplexed when I tried to google variations of 'differences in facial expression porn vs. fashion magazines" and came up with nothing. This seems like a viable topic for a scholarly dissertation... to me anyway.

So here is my opening statement, my hypothesis, the assumption upon which I decided to purchase the Numèro magazines:

• The range of facial expressions, and posture for that matter, affected by women posing for erotic media tends strongly towards 'demure,' 'seductive,' and 'submissive.'
• In contrast, the range of facial expressions and posture affected by women posing for fashion tends more towards 'confrontational,' 'self-assured,' and sometimes even 'aggressive.'

One obvious observation to make here is that erotic magazines and fashion magazines have different target audiences. Erotic media is primarily targeted at men, presumably men who are interested in sexy women, and so it follows that female models who convey with their body language and facial expression that they 'want' to be with these men who make up the audience will help sell more magazines.
Conversely, fashion magazines are marketed to women, presumably with the idea of selling clothing and cosmetics to these women. And so what's being sold here is a fantasy of self-assertion, strength, and even beauty that the female audience might be able to attain by purchasing the items on sale therein.
Something interesting that follows from these points is that both magazines are selling fantasy; and that beautiful women are the locus, the vehicle, the blank canvas for that fantasy. It's all very aspirational, in a way that feels sort of private and personal and possibly a little bit shameful.

I believe that feminine beauty is a kind of mirror, reflecting back at us a lot of hidden data about the culture we live in as well as our own hidden psychologies.

Can you tell which of the following images came from fashion publications and which came from erotic media?

My guess is that you CAN tell. The facial expressions are fundamentally different. 
(Unfortunately, there are also a lot of other clues in these images which you may have consciously or unconsciously noted, and which made the determination easier. I tried to 'even the playing field' by only using fashion images in which the shoulders were bare.)

If I relax the requirement of having bare shoulders, the following images from fashion publications illustrate the point more clearly, I think.

These facial expressions, at the 'assertive' end of the spectrum, shall we say, are simply not found in mainstream erotic media.

So by now I have spent quite a bit of time thumbing through the Numèro magazines in search of interesting faces and interesting expressions, and I have some data on which to evaluate my original hypothesis. The truth is that the range of expressions on display is really very broad, and encompasses pretty much everything from angry or annoyed all the way to demure and seductive. At first glance, I find the inclusion of 'demure and seductive' to be a bit mystifying, but I might have a sense of why this is... a new hypothesis if you will. Perhaps it is the case that fashion magazines are presenting a broad and inclusive fantasy so that all women can see some version of themselves in that 'paper mirror,' whether they are feeling angry or assertive or romantic or submissive... albeit a better-dressed version of themselves.
Erotic media, for the most part, does not need to bother with this wide range of expression. Men are seeking out this type of media for a narrower set of reasons. (I imagine that there are dark corners in the landscape of erotic media catering to niche tastes, and that a broader range of facial expressions can be found if you look for them.)

So there is a lot more overlap between these types of media than I'd originally assumed, but if you're looking for images of beautiful women wearing any facial expression other than demure and seductive, high-end fashion magazines are a great place to start. I don't regret my purchase.

In a way, this entire 'experiment,' or 'inquiry,' really just serves to underscore the potency and importance of facial expression in terms of its ability to evoke a psychological or emotional response in the viewer. We humans have, after all, evolved over eons to respond sensitively to infinite subtleties in the faces of our peers.
Fashion media, erotic media, and many other kinds of media for that matter are just taking advantage of this instinctual human ability in order to engage us in a fantasy of one sort or another (depending on what sort of media we choose to engage with) and the type of face most often used to sell this fantasy is the face of the beautiful woman. Because, to (almost correctly) quote Peaches, "The girls want to be her, the boys want to be [with] her."

So what sort of facial expression do you respond to? And what does it say about your psychology? Are you looking for someone to show you a 'better' version of yourself? Or just to accept you? To nurture you? To protect you? Or to challenge you? No matter what it is, there's a facial expression just for you, and you can find it in a magazine.

For me, personally... I like the intense faces, the strong ones, the emotional ones. Long-time readers of this blog will already know that. And what does that say about my psychology? Well, I think I sorta kinda might know the answer to that, but hey... that's a bit personal, don't you think? If you want to 'read' my psychology, you'll just have to wait for my paintings.

And speaking of that... there is an interesting question floating in the ether which is "why will I not share images of my paintings in progress?"
The simple answer is that I do not want anyone's opinion, be it positive or negative or anywhere in between.
To once again quote the great painter Andrew Wyeth,
"People only make you swerve. I won’t show anybody anything I’m working on. If they hate it, it’s a bad thing, and if they like it, it’s a bad thing. An artist has to be ingrown to be any good."

*Very slight shift of topic... Another thing I really like about high-end fashion magazines is that some of the photo spreads can really reach the level of art. One can only assume that these magazines have decent budgets for these spreads, and in the hands of visionary photographers or production designers, these photos can be very interesting...

OK, there you go...
That's all I have to say!

Sorting Things Out

Let's see here... it's been almost 2 months since I've blogged and that is a long interval for me.
So, a lot has happened.

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Our main car broke down and was in the shop for almost a month, and so I pressed my old 1971 Datsun 240z into service, which sort of revived my love affair with that 49 year-old beauty. After the sensible family car came back from the mechanic I fixed the Datsun's speedometer, completely re-did the suspension and brakes, and then finally fixed the heater, making it a viable winter car. In fact, over the years I have fixed so many things on this car and really, the last major thing to do on it would be to paint it.... but... it's sort of perfect the way it is. It's like a 'stealth nice car,' a little sports car that is very nicely sorted out but looks like crap. Perfect for Taos.

I could write a whole blog post on my love for this car, but I think I would lose most of you along the way!

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Way back in November, Christina and Kodiak and I took a road trip to the Big Sur area of California for Thanksgiving. Wow, California has gotten expensive. But Big Sur is just as beautiful as ever. 

I used this trip to deliver Big Mother to the fellow in California who bought it. Woohoo, that's the third pice of art I've sold in my life! 

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And speaking of travel, I just got back from a 7-day meditation retreat in Crestone, Colorado, which is about a 2-hour drive from our home. Christina had attended this same retreat last year and had then done it again a few weeks ago, and she liked it very much so I gave it a shot. In the last year or so there have been some indications that I should perhaps take a good clear look at certain elements of myself and see if I could clear some things up, and a week of silence in the mountains seemed like a good place to try. The meditation aspect of the retreat (which is a really big part of it - sitting in silence for about 8 hours a day) did not really hit home for me, but ironically the experience turned out to be quite useful for me anyway because of a book I was reading and a conversation I had with a fellow retreat attendee which dovetailed nicely with the book. They say that one of the goals of a Buddhist meditation practice is to 'open up space' in your crowded head, to allow things to come up to the level of consciousness. Perhaps this did actually happen for me; perhaps the meditation served its purpose after all. In any case, completely checking out of your life, ditching your phone and laptop, and just sitting quietly for a week is bound to have benefits. I did find that I was drawing compulsively, which is something that I wish I did more of in daily life. The fucking internet is always getting in my way.

The thangkas in the meditation hall were spectacular. This is Ritrö Gonpö....

And this is Karakulla, protector of mothers, families, and children. 

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The last time I posted on this blog I wrote that I was feeling blocked about painting, specifically with regard to the topic of choosing subject matter to paint. Well after that blog post things opened up a bit for me. First I painted a small painting, the subject of which did mean something personal for me; in other words it was not strictly a technique exercise although of course it functioned in that way to a certain extent.

Then, I settled on an idea for my next painting which I'm really quite excited about. Being fairly large and incorporating multiple figures, it will be significantly more ambitious than anything I've painted yet. But then, for about a half-day, I again found myself feeling very frustrated and stuck because in order to start sketching for this painting I needed to take some photographs of some human models and that just seemed really daunting to arrange. But after a quick and helpful conversation with Christina I decided I would simply take photos of US, of her and me, and use artistic license and photoshop to tweak these images into what I needed them to be. What followed was about four or five days of drawing, as I made the preparatory sketch for the painting... which felt great. 

During this time I also prepared a 'canvas' to paint on. Actually I'm going to paint on hard board (masonite) as it has quite a few advantages over canvas. But this process of making my masonite 'canvas' was really a much bigger pain in the ass than I wish it was and this has everything to do with the fact that I don't have a proper place in which to paint. As I mentioned the masonite board is fairly large and I've needed to carry it back and forth between my crappy little studio (buried in the back of our home) and the metal shop, sometimes with wet paint on it, and that is a pain. So my determination to build a proper studio has increased dramatically. I'm currently weighing various options, ranging from a 'building within a building,' (or a separate structure within our existing shop) to building a free-standing studio from scratch to assembling a prefabricated 'shed'-type building, each of which comes with various advantages and disadvantages. 

So... just when I'd found a subject matter and finished a preparatory sketch that I was pretty inspired to get into, life conspired again to keep me from painting. An old friend from college called me out of the blue and hooked me up with a very well-paying mechanical design job, which threatens to keep me busy for a little while. Oh, sad irony! Well, it could be worse. The money from this job might just end up building my little painting studio, so I shouldn't complain. 

Meanwhile I continue to draw from live models every week... or almost every week. I think my drawings are actually getting better. 

This is my favorite one from the last few weeks.

Insert random image, unrelated to the balance of the blog post. 

(This is a poster that was wheat-pasted on the walls of a construction site in lower Manhattan when I visited a few months ago. When I saw it, I loved it. Man, I had to work hard to get that poster off the wall, cleaned, and transported back with me to Taos. But it was totally worth it.) 

and lastly... California, with my sweetie.

Ciao