After 5 or 6 or 10 revisions, this is it. I am not sure why, but the colors are not quite right rich enough on this upload.
45″ x 66″, inkjet on aluminum.
Just as I am beginning to make my way through my stack of books, the website/blog BrainPickings releases their list of the Top 13 Best Psychology and Philosophy Books of 2013. Suddenly the ground that I have gained now lost and I am 13 books behind. Still, if you don’t know this site, I encourage you to take a look.
What I can tell you about my current progress on the book list, posted on October 7th is that, unlike other areas of my life I follow new leads and directions more easily. I try to pay attention to what I am wanting to read, what is really calling to me. Why is this easier to do than in other aspects of my life? I will have to talk to my therapist and read some more books and report back. Here’s my progress report so far.
2) Banksy : The Man Behind the Wall by Ellsworth-Jones. I finished this book right before Banksy hit Manhattan this fall. It is an easy read, and while not a great book, it gives an interesting glimpse behind the scenes of the famous street artist’s world.
5) The Sacred and The Profane: The Nature of Religion by Mircea Eliade. This book is not for everyone. Because he addresses myth and culture in an academic style, reading it is a bit of work, but I have found it a worthwhile read and an inspiration for my religious series.
4) Salvador Dali’s Tarot.”After initially not being fond of Dali’s work, I have grown to appreciate both the artist and his art. I did not realize he had a Tarot series until I ran across a print in an antique store. This is an excellent introduction to his work and the thought behind the meaning of his Tarot images. It does not address the Tarot itself in any depth. For a great group of Tarot images from early to contemporary, see The Art of Tarot by Christina Olsen.
7) What Are You Looking At? : The Surprising, Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 Years of Modern Art by Will Gompertz. A really excellent read which I highly recommend.
9) True Meditation by Adyashanti. This is a very nice book consisting of his lectures. If you are going to read just one Adyashanti book, and if you have any interest or appreciation of Eckhart Tolle, you will love his book, The End of Your World. This book was recommended to me by young-adult author Whitney Stewart when I told her that I was enlightened for an entire week one time (another blog post for the future).
9)The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is described as a “haunted odyssey through present day America” and is a great new novel by the author of The Secret History. When I love a novel I want it to last for a while and at 800 plus pages, it does.
It has come to my attention that I’m caught in a loop of my own making. Not that this anything new.
I decided to start my art making period, the majority of which falls October through March, with something light and fun. Making a few circus pieces seemed a fun and somewhat psychologically relevant way to start. Later I would work my way into the heavier, odder images I’ve been carrying around in my head for a while.
Unfortunately, the art ideas in my brain sometimes do not mesh with the deeper psychological self that wants to move in another direction. I created three images fairly quickly. I only needed to spend a few more hours editing and finishing them before I could move on. That’s when I realized they actually needed a completely new and fresh look, one that departed from what I’d been doing. So I re-entered the loop, and reworked them. I was satisfied. Until, that is, I got up the next morning and realized that the guy who had created them the day before was a bit lost and confused about what finished art is. And on the cycle went. Now it’s approaching mid-December, and I have three circus images and their multiple variations to show for it.
I woke up yesterday and knew it was time to move on. Time to get out of the circus loop. I was tempted to label it a failed experience. Instead it has led me to question why I am fighting the experience so hard.
In Jack Kornfield’s wonderful book, A Path with Heart, he talks about “the war within.” An example of this is when we attempt to move in a direction that is at odds with the internal (or external) flow of our lives. This is when things become a struggle.
Which brings me back to one of my old issues: fighting the flow by attempting to force my will onto the process, instead of looking for the direction that is opening for me. Funny how things loop around.
Ok, If you have been following this work progression you will know that I have reworked the circus images twice. So here is another one….again.
Several years ago I saw the movie, Interview with a Vampire. While not really a great philosophical movie, and I think I am being generous here, one concept really stuck with me. The new vampire, Louis, played by Brad Pitt, was baffled as to why, if vampires are indestructible, the oldest one was only 400 years old and not 4,000 years old. The explanation was simple: vampires failed to evolve.
Flash to the last part of the movie and you see Lestat, Louis’ maker, hiding from streetlights in the corner of an abandoned house. The once grand and confident vampire, afraid to go out, was feeding on rats and starving. He too had failed to evolve.
I sometimes get signals that it is time for me to evolve. When Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone, I knew that I had to either embrace the new culture of connectedness or hide in a corner. Years later I rode the tide of digital photography from shooting straight photographs to manipulating my work–using Photoshop–into collages.
I am now faced with another opportunity to either evolve or retreat into a corner.
This year was one of my best ever; at the same time, there were some unexpected rejections on the art front. I initially thought that only a re-evaluation of my art was in order, but I am reconsidering this idea now. What is needed most, I believe, is a re-evaluation of my perspective, my lifestyle and perhaps most importantly, my ego.
So I am trying new things: little experiments with the look, materials and meaning of my work. I know that many of the pieces I am creating are stepping stones to the next place I’m going.
And as far as self is concerned, I am returning to the places that have helped in the past. I am rereading an amazing book, The End of Your World, by Adyashanti, along with writings by Pema Chodron. The real challenge, for me, is to recommit to what helps most: meditation.
So here’s to new art, a new perspective and to stepping out of the corner and into the light.
I have been feeling a strong pull to do something different in the past few months. While most of the people who know me would recognize this and pieces like Nurses in a Boat, that I posted previously, as my work, they are I think a departure and for better or worse bring a freshness.
48″ x 60″, inkjet on aluminum with varnish coating.
Ok, I recently mentioned that I have done 2 jugglers in the past 3 years which, I am guessing, is no coincidence. Add a 3rd, which happens to be my favorite, and I think we not only have a pattern in my art making, but also in my psychological state.
This is also the third in my new ( small) circus series. I have actually done four, but am rethinking the woman on the bike.. Woman on a Wire. I am thinking that the woman on the bike has to go. I am hoping to keep the background and just replace the rider.
Just to clarify, by small circus series, I mean that I am only doing 4-6 pieces
Circus Series, also 48″ x 72″.
After two days of working on this, I literally had my finger on the delete button when I got a new idea. Woman’s dress from photo I took of mannequin, vintage circus cannon in Wisconsin when I was driving through, signs in background from Texas truck stop, crowd from Louvre…looking at Mona Lisa and dozens of other photos used that I have taken from almost everywhere.
I usually have to live with a piece for a while to see if it makes the final cut and this still unfinished image is no exception.
I have been experimenting with new ideas, new colors and new collage techniques. Funny how some of the pieces I think I have been experimenting with still look just like my old work.
So what do I do if I have four series that I want to work on? Which one do I start with?
Well if you are me, you have an idea that is completely unrelated to these things and do that.
Unlike most of my pieces, this one did not begin with a clear idea. So the experiment that I felt moved to do, lead to this. I am calling it Nurses in a Boat. I still have some work to do, but it is almost finished.
Since this idea came to me, I have had several related ideas that seem to be speaking to me louder than anything I had planned to do. So it looks like some surreal times ahead.
47″ x 66″, inkjet on aluminum
I recently found this old newspaper clipping of me, taken at age 9, after the Gibson County Fair in Humboldt, TN. I am not sure, but Iooking back from an adult’s perspective, I may have been the only person in my age group.
The rabbit and terrible cars were my idea and the flowers were my painting teacher’s idea.
The really interesting story is that I took oil painting lessons from Sally Huffles. She played Jane years earlier in a Tarzan movie and still had all of the press clippings. Sadly, I have reviewed all of the Janes and can not figure out which one she was. I am assuming that she had a stage name for her acting career.
The madness and fun has begun as I am well into my reading list, finishing Banksy : The Man Behind the Wall by Will Ellsworth-Jones, True Meditations by Adyashanti ( his best is The End of Your World ), Eating on the Wild Side by Jo Robinson, with Twyla Tharp’s book The Creative Habit and Gompertz’s What Are You Looking At? already underway.
Combine this with my pull in different directions in art making, which currently include a Landscape series, a continuation of my Graffiti and Evolution of Man series, and two sets of “religious” series, one light and one dark, and you can see why I have created 3 Jugglers in the last 2 years.
I was telling Dana, my wife who by the way is a writer, artist and life coach http://www.danashavin.com/ that I go back and forth between excitement and being freaked out with all of the different projects. Usually, the overwhelmed times just last a few moments and I am back on course.
I used to think that I wanted to have one focus and would get frustrated at my journeys into other projects before the one I was working on was complete. And, as much as I still think that I need to do a series with headless chickens to complement the jugglers, I find that I actually do need to have the diversity and the multiple voices to keep me centered.
I do not take many commissions from individuals for a number of reasons, but a family I met this summer convinced me that doing a portrait of each of their family members could be an interesting project. Everything in this one, which is 94% finished, is from personal letters, work, school, personal and meaningful maps and numbers, etc
Back in May of 2011, I did this one-off as a tribute and commemorative poster for the end of the world. I had just heard about our love of end of the world stories on NPR and then came across an article in the Wall Street Journal, which is where I got the title. I do not often bring pieces back out, but somehow it seemed fitting for Halloween. Maybe it is the scariest piece I have… not that everyone would agree with that, for reasons I would not want to know.
As a footnote, I seldom use photos as my base that I do not personally take, but in this case, the person pictured is my father at 21. Those are my arms and Andy Warhol’s eyes. The people in the crowd were looking at and photographing the Mona Lisa when I photographed them
I took this photograph somewhere between Denver and Des Moines this year. I used it as a template for my new landscape series, which, if you do not know me, is a real stretch. I have combined multiple photos of weathered paint and paper, graffiti, etc
This piece is 66″ x 44″ and will be printed on aluminum in an edition of 5.
After beginning with modest goals starting with the idea that I would just see the Kruger exhibit at the Hirshhorn, today, things quickly got out of control as I dropped by the Freer Gallery to see Asian art ,including Buddhas from everywhere and every time period. I knew how my day would go from here. Despite Eckhart, Pema and all other forms of Zen masters telling me that I am not my thoughts, I know and my thoughts know who is in control.
It was almost lunch, and with my thoughts/injunctions in place, I knew that i would need food in order to keep up the pace! preferably food and espresso. While there was no easy Espresso to come by, I did find one of the best chicken Philly Cheese sandwiches I have ever had from the New York Express truck in front of the National Gallery.
After this, I had no choice but to go into the National Gallery to see the Yes, No and Maybe exhibit; the religious icons exhibit and the Kerry James Marshall exhibit.
While the Marshall exhibit was the star of the show today, Yes, No and Maybe, subtitled “Artists Working at Crown Point Press” is also a must see if you have interest in printmaking or just the creative process.
I had never seen Marshall’s work in person. I had seen it in books and online and like a lot of art, especially art that is 12’+ wide and 8’tall, one has to see it in person to fully appreciate the quality and power of the work and the artist’s voice.
I can not believe it has been 10 years since I have been to Washington. It is apparent that I need to come back sooner next time
Every year from October to the end of March, I make as much art as possible. Sometimes I do a few pieces during the year, but I am aware that this is the time for the big ideas or new series, experimentation and reinvention.
This year is no exception. My first image, seen above, is already well outside my normal color palette. I may keep it or I may not, but for now, it is my beginning.
The lofty goals, which I can never fully meet, are to finish my Evolution Series and begin 3 new series. These include a very abstracted series on symbols and religion taken, in part from the classic book, The Sacred and The Profane and a reading list as long as my arm; a Circus Series reflecting the psychological aspects of our daily lives; and a Landscape series, which is a real stretch for me.
Even though I call these goals, I have realized the impossibility of doing it all. In past years I actually believed that I could meet all of my obsessive mind’s demands, creating amazing amounts of stress. I now know that these goals really serve as a starting point. I will likely finish the Evolution of Man Before the End of Time series, start and finish one of the other series and do a few pieces on the others in order to find a direction for future pieces.
Public Art Chattanooga, in collaboration with Glass House Collective and CARTA has chosen 4 artists’ work to use in wrapping bus shelters as part of a public art project in Chattanooga. I am delighted that they have chosen my image, “Man Reaching” to be a part of the program. More later when it has been installed.
I placed this 67″ x 48 piece earlier this year, along with Thoughts of a Better Day ( see in a post below ) at the DMACC Urban Campus with the assistance of Mary Capobianco of Designing Women in West Des Moines and Provost, Dr Laura Douglas as part of their campus renovation.
I knew that it was that time of year, when I looked at my bedside table and living room table and studio table and my kindle and all that I could see was books that I have been accumulating all summer and fall in preparation for winter reading season. It is not that I do not read all year, but the winter is the true reading season where I binge on everything good and bad.
I am assuming that I am not alone based on two e-mails that came in this morning from Brain Pickings and ArtSpace, both of which had new books and book lists featured this month. I especially like Brain Pickings which consistently recommends books for artists and others in creative fields. http://www.brainpickings.org/
The stack I can currently see and which I began reading last night includes, in part:
1) Beyond the PostModern Mind : The Place of Meaning in a Global Civilization by Huston Smith ( recently heard an old interview with Huston Smith where this book was mentioned. I had not heard of this book of his )
2) Banksy : The Man Behind the Wall by Ellsworth-Jones ( bought this on sale at Shakespeare and Co. in NY )
3) Concerning The Spiritual in Art by Kandinsky ( referenced in Jewish Museum Beyond the Spiritual Exhibit in San Francisco when I was there in September )
4) Salvador Dali’s Tarot ( saw a print from this book in a antique store and looked it up )
5) The Sacred and The Profane : The Nature of Religion by Eliade ( already owned this, but decided I had to read it when we saw Donna Freitas at The Gathering Conference at Keystone College last year and she repeatedly referred to it.
6) 100 Chinese Two Part Allegorical Sayings
7) What Are You Looking At? : The Surprising, Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 Years of Modern Art by Will Gompertz
8) Glittering Images by Camille Paglia
9) True Meditation by Adyashanti ( just finished The End of Your World by same author which was fantastic )
Something does not seem quite right when I notice that I am excited and daunted and maybe even intimidated by my own list… and this is just the beginning of the list. That always seems to be the case for my winter reading,- a little heavier, a little more thoughtful, when not coincidentally is when I began the months of art making which will consist of the majority of my work for the year.
I am becoming aware that I am talking more about food than art recently, so after this post, back to my other obsessions of art and books which need at least equal time.
After leaving the very lovely Mystic, CT where we spent the previous evening we headed north to Providence, RI. for the day. After going to the Rhode Island School of Design Museum and of course their shop, we headed to the only logical place that we could for someone allergic to seafood ( me ) and someone who is a partial vegetarian and who does not eat any meat and dairy combination – my Kosher wife…and yes she does eat shellfish, but you will have to take that up with her,
When we saw a restaurant billed as vegan asian in a beautiful place downtown, we knew we had found the perfect stop. The waitress did not have to go through our regular interrogation about EXACTLY what is in the soup, the sauce, etc We had similar dishes which consisted of Korean-style coconut-rice bowl topped with veggie beef, avocado, seaweed, chick peas, spinach, mango salsa and kimchee, served with sesame and hot sauce
Everything about this restaurant, other than the name ( Veggie Fun ) was good. The food was excellent, the setting was beautiful and the service very attentive.
After this is was back to buying more books in my build up for the winter reading season. More on that soon.
After a few days in NY, my wife, Dana met me for a quick trip up the East coast. As opposed to NY, where it seemed that I was on an art tour, we drove through beautiful small towns in New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island, stopping at every place that looked like it had good food, good coffee or good dessert. Along the way, we found several stars.
Columbus Park Trattoria was our last stop last night in White Plains and we had high expectations from the moment we saw it. Fortunately for us and the crowd that never seemed to stop coming in the door, it did not disappoint. I am allergic to seafood, but the CALAMARETTI FRITTI O ALLA GRIGLIA, billed as an appetizer, that Dana had was one of the most amazing dishes we have ever seen and I am told, amazing to eat. My homemade pasta dish – FETTUCCINE AL TARTUFO CON CARCIOFI was also fantastic. I had two very nice italian meals in NYC, but neither could compare to this place.
Despite the place being packed, we were pampered with constant attention by the staff and as the photo that I took shows, the place has wonderful atmosphere.
We so appreciate being worked in. Apparently we were early enough that it worked out, but I would highly recommend reservations. http://www.columbusparktrattoria.com/
Chagall’s Love, War and Exile in the Upper East Side
Last night I dragged tired and somewhat reluctant friends and artists Genne Grushovenko and Beverly Hayden to catch the the train to go to the Whitney. The crowd ( we did not realize it was name your own admission price night ) was energetic and large. This combined with a couple of great exhibits and a couple of double espressos perked us right up
If you have seen my work you know I am a fan of color and graphics which meant that the newly opened Robert Indiana exhibit was a perfect way to spend a Friday night. The Hopper exhibit was the one that had us shoulder to shoulder with everyone in NY however. Hopper’s sketches gave us a great peek into some of his thoughts and process behind his paintings.
We topped this off with dinner and dessert at one of Genna and his wife Signe’s favorite places, Petite Abeille, a Belgian place on 17th street in Chelsea. The restaurant was intimate and attractive and the service was attentive and helpful taking time to offer thoughts and suggestions on everything from their extensive beer selection to dessert. I am no food critic, but everything we had from the appetizers to entree to dessert were excellent. One final note. At no point did we feel hurried by the staff, despite the limited seating and our leisurely pace, something I can not say for some places in the same neighborhood.
Man and Media and Man Alone from ongoing series. The man in the Man Alone piece was standing on a subway platform on morning last fall waiting on the commuter train to Grand Central Terminal when I took the shot that became the template for this final version. I served as my own model for Man and Media. More on this series later.
This is one of the few images that I have created using a photograph that was not mine. The original face template came from a late 1800s photo that I found in an antique store in southern Illinois
My wife’s article out today in the Chattanooga Times Free Press about the creation of OUR BLOGS.
I posted this on Facebook when I took it in July, but I think it deserves a second look. somewhere around 24th street