Making myself talk (art, of course)

"new beginnings" 4"x 6" (sold)

Generally I belong to the camp of people who choose not to make New Year's resolutions. I tend to check in throughout the year and make lots of little resolutions as I go. But this year, a few resolutions just sort-of "happened". And they all belong to the "being social" category of life.

It began when one evening my partner said " I really want us to begin seeing friends more. It is driving me a little crazy that we never go out and socialize. We need a community". My partner is a social person. I am not. at all. Literally, I could go for months without seeing anyone, contentedly holed up within my own little schedule. I even go out of my way sometimes to avoid people. Not that I don't like people- once I actually get out, I enjoy myself quite a bit. I just have to be pushed. So, I promised him that I would make an effort to invite friends over and go out more.

Then I realized this probably should also carry over into my art life. Happy making studio work, I only show work when someone approaches me to do so. Now there are many reasons for this (some shyness, some not thinking I have enough work yet, etc) But most of it is, I am just uncomfortable talking about (and selling) my art. I LOVE talking art, just not mine. However, every successful artist I have spoken with has told me to go to openings, meet people, talk to people and approach galleries. Oh the horror! So many opportunities for awkward moments and social faux pas. Yet here I go, New Year's Resolution #1 and only: Get out there and talk.

Beginning small, of course, don't want to set myself up for certain failure :). So the goals are to:
1) go to at least one opening per month. The actual opening. Not just quietly sneaking early on a weekday to look at the work.

2) update my blog at least every Monday. I love doing this, but it is amazing how I think I never have the time. and yes, I know today is Tuesday, but today's excuse is my sister left town yesterday evening and we were hanging out. I started off with a bang this past spring and have slowly gone down to one post a month, if that. This includes taking regular photographs of my artwork. Not waiting until every 6mos.

3) contact at least one gallery per month. Here's where I am the most afraid. But even with rejection, it is great practice to finally get to a few that say yes.


So there it is, in writing. Now I am accountable, even if just to myself!

On another note (but still in the talking subject), I shared a booth with two artist friends at the Keep Austin Bizarre Bazaar last December.(you can see all the work at jaynemccoyart.blogspot.com) I was very unsure what to expect, as I had never done an art fair before. This one was pretty small, so nice for a first go at is plus my expenses were kept down with sharing. Other than freezing my butt off- I had a great time! Great conversations with people about both my art and art in general, had quite a few friends come by and say hello (thank you!) and sold some work. Final verdict: exhausting but worthwhile.

Again, met many wonderful people. And a few who freaked out :). Below is the piece that one lady saw while walking by and exclaimed "EWWWWWWWW! THAT'S SO WIERD!!!!" Evidently, she does not share my love for insects :).

"wonderment" 4"x 6" (8x10 framed)

secret spaces...

Spent all morning on the most lovely hike yesterday! I hike regularly, but this one was particularly nice because with the show opening over and new projects not yet begun, I was in the perfect space to just be present in the hike and enjoy. Moments like this come rarely lately- there is always something to either rush off to or my mind is obsessing about needing to get back into the studio. Central Texas is so beautiful this time of year- hot enough to swim, but not yet hot enough to make you feel like you are being boiled inside your skin.




In the spirit of being leisurely, we decided to wander onto some new trails and see where they led. We followed a tiny mountain bike trail down the hill towards the creek. Around the bend of an s-curve, my son suddenly exclaims "hey- there are Christmas tree ornaments in that tree!" He was right- ornaments hung nonchalantly from tree branches with a gold garland winding up the trunk. Nearby, we discovered the sweetest little fort that someone had built in the middle of the greenbelt. The creativity and fun involved was apparent, and while the maker(s) of this space had to at least be old enough to be allowed in the woods alone, it was hard to say whether an adult or older children or both had created this. I love finding these little expressions of anonymous humanity that blend into their surroundings while creatively asserting themselves at the same time. It was such a fun discovery!- we poked around for a bit, looking at the ornaments, finding all the details- like a mock campfire with an action figure placed in front of it and a pine-needle broom, and taking pictures of the dogs inside the fort. While it was just a small portion of our hike, the image of it lingered in my head for hours after.

Most of the time I hike, I am looking down at the ground for little objects and things to place into my collages... I forget about all the times I have stumbled on spaces like this- a set of stones stacked artistically together, a circle of branches, a chair or sometimes a group of plants or flowers intentionally placed or planted. Or even in the middle of a city to find a random sticker with a lovely image stuck to a pole, or a little note.These moments and spaces are so inspiring in their unobtrusiveness and their mystery. There was no need for recognition in their creation, just the simple act of sharing. I love this type of artistic expression because it is about contribution and taking one momentarily out of the mechanical mental place we tend to reside in. It makes me question my own art and ask "what am I doing to contribute and what is the result I am looking for in my own art?" I get inspired to randomly give of my own creativity so that someone else may enjoy for a bit without the trappings of a gallery or designated artspace. Brings back to mind the roots of creativity- to just create for the pure expression/pleasure of doing so.

This brought the idea of a little side project- to look for and document such spaces around Austin and compile them every now and then, posting them to into this blog when I find them. Nothing fancy- just most likely with my camera phone and a desire for creative discovery. I am hoping that out of this I will create my own little anonymous art project and join in the creative expansion!

brushing off the chips

Sigh...on the wings of my last post about the academic approach to art and dialogue and about having past student peers judging my work, comes tonight's awkward interaction at Home Depot. I was there to buy a masonry bit and screws to put up my last piece (YAY!!) for the opening tomorrow night. It went something like this:

cool ex-student (who, btw, was one of the hip students at the Univ. though, he is a good artist, I have to say.which makes it worse.:).): Oh, hi...what are you getting?

me:hi, I have to mount my last piece onto a concrete wall and need some special screws...you?

cool ex-student: yeah, I'm doing some framing. Why are you hanging pieces?

I'm going to interrupt this story for a moment to say that on the Facebook "event" I created for the show, he was one of the people who responded as yes, they are coming. Okay, back to the conversation.

me: it's my last piece for my show.

c es: what show?

me: (I just sort of look at him puzzled for a second)

c es: oh. yeah. I think I remember receiving something about that.(trails off...)

me: right. so this is my last piece and I am glad to be almost done...

c es: so, um, I think I am going to be out of town tomorrow. so, um. um. I don't think I'll make it. um, have fun and good luck....(trails off again and kind of looks at the ground)

me: that's okay. you have fun on your trip. bye.

Maybe he really is leaving town? I don't think so. Suddenly I am in the 7th grade again and someone is passing a note in front of me that is about me and how dorky I am. Now, this is my blog, and I guess I should be really confident and promote my work and talk about how great it all is... but, well, this is my blog and you get to see the real and very sensitive me. I have never been the kid who was popular and didn't understand how to be a "cool outcast" until high school. But even being a cool outcast took more effort and work than I could manage for long. Before that, I was the painfully shy girl who always managed to say the wrong thing at the wrong time when she did finally get the guts to speak.

so, suddenly I am a rejected 7th grader again, standing in Home Depot, wondering what I did wrong. Then I get irritated-I'll show you! You'll see, I'm going to make it and you are going to feel like an idiot!.... whatever. This response is just as childish, because, of course, this is real life. In real life, I could just as easily toil in my reclusive space for the rest of my life in relative unknown, while he stays cool and becomes famous. Actually, that is how things generally turn out in real life. Cool= people like and want you. Reclusive, socially awkward= people stay away, unless they somehow find this a sweet, quirky trait. (thank you to my wonderful friends!)

What to do? I realize I am going to be over-sensitive for the rest of my life, most likely. I am so envious of those who just don't care and are able to take people or leave them... not me. No, I ruminate about every conversation weeks after they have happened, analyzing from every possible angle. I just can't seem to let it go.

I realize that as someone who is trying to make her living by being vulnerable and at the same time is greatly pained by vulnerability that this is my fatal flaw. My greatest weakness. I really don't know how to get over it and wonder if I ever will. It's not about this particular person or this show. This interaction represents so much more about a desire for acceptance and an unwillingness to do what it takes to be accepted at the same time.

I am glad, in hindsight that this person will not be there tomorrow night. This person represents the condescension and pretension that I can't stand when it comes to being critical of another. Instead, I will have some strangers, and some wonderful friends and fellow artists that are amazingly supportive of simply the fact that I pursue what I love and so do they. And understand that everything is a journey and a work in progress. After writing this, I am now looking forward to tomorrow night once again.

getting down to the truth (in art)

With my first solo show opening this Friday, I have been facing more and more dialogue in my head about what various people will think if/when they come.

When I can finally get quiet in my studio, I know that I am making work for myself and my personal artistic pleasure- not for a specific audience in mind. But I do have to say that it is at times very difficult to get into that mental/emotional space. Having returned to school as an older student to emerge as an artist in my 30s instead of my 20s, I vowed not to allow school to change my artistic "vision". And while art school did not change what inspires me as an artist, it did change how I dialogue and question myself about my work. I now have a new perspective on craft and the art world that I certainly did not have before. I have a much greater sense of the history behind the work I do and what other current artists are doing. The positive aspects of this for me is a desire to push my work and my ideas continually- to see what I am doing as research or a constant work in progress as ideas unfold and develop. School has also given me the freedom and desire to explore more and more materials, along with the skills to do so.

The downside? Sometimes I feel downright schizophrenic in my studio. There are multiple professors and fellow students living in my head and critiquing me constantly. When I was in school, this was my audience and I had both failures and breakthroughs while listening and taking into account what was being said. What is difficult about this is I believe that academic art often clashes with art as a business, which adds a whole different dimension to studio work. School-based learning and work is about the idea, the new and the different- gearing work for high-end galleries and artistic fame in a particular setting. A kind-of make it or break-it attitude to making art. When does this push become contrived? As I write this, fragments of many conversations clamor in my head- about beauty verses art, and making work that only the art world is going to respect/understand. I respect the relatively few artists who are able to achieve this kind of notoriety with their work. I find that my personal ideas are never shocking/trendy or new enough to fit in this category. So far, pushing my work into this realm has only created work that I am not proud to show. And I have plenty of it stuffed into my studio closet! :).

Now that I am out in the real world, so to speak, come the other aspect- art as a sustained livelihood based on selling to regular people who like/appreciate art. This is the audience that at this point, I understand the least. I have noticed that generally, the "sweeter" the piece is, the more likely it is going to sell. For ex. I have two ink pieces featuring mice. The mouse pieces are sold already, the insects are not. But, as you can see, I LOVE to draw insects, finding their bodies beautifully foreign, challenging and fascinating. My personal insecurity is that this places me right in the middle- not crazy enough to be embraced by the art world, not pretty enough to be embraced by a wide paying audience. The general view in the art world about mass audience based arts is that it is too soft- not pushed enough and made to sit in a room instead of stimulate. Actually, I should specify the academic art world as the thing I speak of- I cannot speak for the what defines the art world in general. However, the more artists I meet making their living from their art is that this IS their personal expression- they are striving to stimulate in a different way- not to shock, but to beautify and enlighten. I equally respect these artists as well because they spend every day doing exactly what they love, express themselves and are making a living at it.

I think that this conversation is so dominant in my mind because people from both areas of my life are coming to this opening. Inside, there is a part of me that wants to please everyone and wants everyone to like my art. Knowing that such a variety of people are coming reminds me that there is absolutely no way that everyone liking my work is even possible. In fact, some people are going to hate it! Consequently, out pours all those sensitivities, fears and internal conversations. I know that to thrive, or even survive as an artist I am going to have to let this go. Otherwise this is the beginning of a very long and painful road.

I imagine (and realize) that one has to separate oneself from both business, academics and whatever else is speaking, to get down to the truth in making art.

That saying, I desire to make art that gets down to the essence of my being, while pushing my craft and my intention as far as it can go. To revel in the fact that art is a life-long learning process I will never completely master. This is the exciting part. In the end, those voices and fears only serve to remind me how determined I am to be the artist I want to be. It IS the beginning of a long, hard road- but one that I embrace with every fiber of my being.

Recent metal

I'm beginning with the metal pieces, because this is the area in which I desire to grow the most... I recently learned beginning metal sculpture as part of my last semester at the University. I was/am hooked! These pieces are inspired by bite-mark patterns on a leaf I found in Yosemite National Park, CA last March. Every day in my studio when I work with metal is a great learning process. I need to invest in some more tools to have a completely functioning studio to manipulate the metal the way I would like to... The patterns below are a process of studying the bite patterns and welding the "cuts" from the pieces above together. They are currently up for a show, but I am thinking a great deal about using a diamond point engraving tool with my dremel to etch topography lines in these, similar to my ink pieces below. I look forward to taking many metalsmithing classes in the future!!