Metal Sculpture Blog

It is almost 3 AM. Snow was forecast, but instead, a sloppy rain, the hint of winter coming.

Slowly.

I spent the holiday in California. On a beach, by a pool, in the arms of my love. The first such holiday without my children, who are becoming adults and making their own decisions. The first without a turkey, the cranberry/orange relish I make with Grand Mariner. I spent it dancing to bad 80′s music, laughing, thinking little. Reading a great deal. I have been awake for 23 hours (mostly) between planes and airports, rushing deadlines and the wayward acts of a child I hope will soon become a man. I am avoiding ART. I am creating something new. I am redefining, for myself and those who know me, what it means to be an artist. A woman in love. A mother. A member of the world.

Art (dictionary definition): 1. the production or expression of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

What does this mean? I was looking for the etymological significance of the word. Words are usually pretty tricky. I didn’t find anything. Latin. Ars. Skill, Art. Not much help as I focus on my current creation of, of all things, a shopping center instead of a sculpture, painting, or even a blog.

Turnbull, about Fitzgerald, said something about a life being a work of art. Implying (maybe even stating) that Fitzgerald’s life was somehow more relevant, more profound, than his literature and I am thinking tonight about my last post, Dead or Alive, about living and breath and above all, personal responsibility, non-situational ethics, the pain involved with doing nothing and the pain involved with doing too much. I am thinking about pain, about happiness, about the irrevocable, brutal intertwining of both and how I am never content. I am thinking about what is new. Can we truly reject the pursuit of power, or the pious ablution of that pursuit through an homage to fear?

Another definition. I love this.

Human: Originally spelled Humane. Humane has been restricted in its use since 1700 and takes into account only the nobler aspects of man. Whereas Human, in its current and original forms, speaks to the whole spectrum from weak and pathetic to benevolence, compassion, and refinement. Don’t you love it? Keep the word, restrict the meaning.

As artists, it is our job to be “fully human.” Fully alive. Suffering. Wise. Creative. Flaky. Insightful. Substance Users. Substance Abusers. Aloof. Leftist. Against God. Talking to God (s) and/or muses. Chroniclers. Mystics. Psychics. Insane. Sexual. Deviant. Passionate. Intolerable. Good god, what we are tasked with! And god help us if we truly take it into the world. Make the world our canvas, our raw metal on the ground — bringing order from chaos, breath into a day, creating something new (a shopping center, a baby, a garden, what have you?) with the palette at our finger tips and the possibilities in our hearts. This would be better written in the morning. Tonight, in the dark, with sloppy rain falling almost wetly in my desert, it seems that Dionysus will have his way.

ART gets sacrificed, at least tonight, for LIFE.

I am thinking tonight about Charles Bukowski, Janice Joplin, freedom. Freedom to write, to sing, to walk away. Bukowski said, “An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way. An artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way.” A friend said recently that art exists on three levels. The first is when you’re learning your media, your techniques, your tools. The second is when you have bonded with your media and are focused on design, composition, etc. Most art is at these two levels. But basically, these levels are like dead bodies. You can dissect them, examine and classify them, use them as examples. You can even rearrange the parts to create something new because it doesn’t matter. They’re dead.

The third level is when the work comes alive. It breathes. Then none of it matters. It could be severely disabled, or radically beautiful, or unbelievably intelligent and its all the same. It is what it is. It is alive. At this stage, technique, composition, everything goes out the window because, finally, all these things are irrelevant.

This is a great way to look at it– a complicated thing said in a simple way. Either its dead or its breathing. Which of course throws a great deal of my ranting out the window. Dead or alive. Pretty simple.

But here’s the thing. In this world of sterile, condescending museums, decorators and fabric swatches, the inevitable exclamation of “Oh, these are beautiful. I love these. They’re my colors exactly,” and intellectuals who wouldn’t know a new idea if it smacked them across the nose, does it matter? My kids love Zombies. Even the thought of them gives me nightmares. Don’t you have to be alive to recognize life?

Years ago, some friends and I would wander up Canyon Road in Santa Fe. We would get to the top and drink several margaritas so we could be sober enough to walk back down. We talked about creating Baa (Bad Art Association). We would have little stickers of black sheep and every time we saw a work that was terrible, or an environment that killed good art, we would tag it. No explanation. No justification. Just Baa. Like sheep. But then, finally, we didn’t have the guts. We decided it wouldn’t be fair to all the artists who were trying their best. We wouldn’t want to undermine their creativity.

Then, Friday this week, at an opening of particularly good work, I talked with a gallery owner/artist about the show, the business, about work that breathes. We talked about the economy and its affect on the business, and how all the hangers on (artists and galleries), all the ones who jumped on the band wagon, are going to fall by the wayside and only what is good will survive. He talked about February this year and how he never wants to get that close to the edge again. Said where he came from (Cuba, I think) every day was February, 2009 and if you weren’t good, “I mean really good,” you didn’t make it.

OK. Bukowski. Bobby McGee. Breathe.