paint a show

1:38 AM 12/15/2009 (date written)

paint a show

just had a thought about how i paint on a daily basis; from day to day; with no prospect/s for showing anything anywhere in the near or far future. Partial Ans: I paint ideas rather than sets of themes. by this I mean, I work on ideas as they form and I have the interest to set this idea/form in some way as a permanent marker for the idea; make a painting, or a photograph, or a sculpture, or a ?????. As the days go by and one idea after another pop up or are drafted, i make decisions as to which idea gets recorded and with ideas are left behind to be or not to be for something in the future.

When a prospect comes up for showing my work at a gallery or museum, i will then paint; work up a show covering several ideas either related directly as a set or related indirectly as derived from related ideas. Confusing. Yes. No. This way I don’t windup with a store room full of physical stuff that no body wants, including me. When I am contracted with a gallery as an ongoing adventure, I will usually paint a number of related pieces for showing at this specific gallery. For me this can become a pain in the ass because it interferes with my real interest in just working up ideas that are every changing and thus exciting to me. This motivates me to paint, photograph,sculpt, print, etc. The gallery contract thing becomes just another job, in a way, where i spend hours repeating myself. in the end the work begins to suffer because it is boring to me, boring to make, and comes out communicating that it is boring to look at by others too.

What do I do? Nothing. Keep on trucking and do what I have to do to get up tomorrow and make something productive and exciting to me in the studio. I really don’t care if it is exciting to anybody else. Arrogant? Yes? Necessary for me in order to make the art on a continuing basis.

I am not represented by a gallery at this time. I like this because It makes me free. And being free is most important to me as an artist. For a gallery-artist-David connection to work well, the gallery needs to take what i do. Take what i do –promote and sell it. Leave me to my ways to make art. I then will leave you (the gallery) to do your thing. If we both do our thing very well we both prosper. Any break in the link and the adventure fails. This has been my gallery history. Most gallery-David-connects wind up as failures. This is so. This is life. Can we move on?

1:55 AM 12/15/2009
somewhere in what i wrote above is a kernel of truth. i will need to analyze the above to see if i can locate this kernel. what will id do when i find it? nothing! move on to tomorrow and ask some more questions through paint, wax, plaster, pencil, computer, prints, listening.

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