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There has been a wild streak of synchronicity and coincidence running through the days lately. With a cavalcade of birthdays and anniversaries, ranging from ten years since my college graduation to five years since my final day of steady employment to my arrival in Austin, it seems like I'm lockstep with some larger force that keeps pointing odd things out at odd times.
Of course, all of this is extremely welcome, and part of it may just be that it is April and spring is doing its damndest to fight off the onset of summer, but after the year that was, I think it's pulling everything together in great ways.
Last year I grappled with my identity quite a bit. In all honesty, I really didn't paint too much after April, and for the first time in a long, long time, I was burnt out and taking a break from any work in my studio. Two of my wisest friends pointed out that with my recent birthday, I may have finally gotten out of a late Saturn Return. All of last year, whenever I met somebody new, I couldn't honestly tell them I was a painter, because I really
wasn't painting. I'd hem and haw, trip over my words, and finally answer what I did with an unsure, "well, this or that, nothing really..."
Being an artist is a crazy thing. I think too many people call themselves artists without backing it up, and more importantly, I don't think its a term you can honestly give yourself. It's something you earn through practice and the respect of others, and too often there's a lot of people out there who decide they want to be an artist, so they begin calling themselves one and they start producing some horrible, horrible work. I take my role as a painter very seriously, even more so than I hate the art world itself.
There's a deep, strong connection to the past history of painters, and there's a wealth of great artists doing some amazing stuff throughout Austin. To pick up a brush and call yourself an artist is a horribly offensive thing to do.
One of the most unfortunate things that happened to painters was Vincent Van Gogh. His romanticized life of poverty, insanity, malnutrition and syphilis have been ingrained on modern culture for over 120 years now. As such, Western artists who once were admired and respected, and built the culture of Europe over centuries are now reduced to begging and being poorly treated because, "You're doing what you want to do" and "You'll be rich after you die". Last year all of that weighed heavily on me, but with my work
progressing in the studio once again, it all feels like a distant memory. Here's some of the things keeping me busy:
- While using stencils and spray paint to paint a mural at Austin's new Children's Hospital, I realized that it was ten years to the day that I last used spray paint and stencils in preparation for my senior year painting show with two fellow painters.
- Last month, I was given a discarded black and white Mexican wrestling mask at the end of a party. Little did I know a couple weeks later it would enter into my stream of consciousness once again as a major prop in a new project I've been toying around with for the past few months. If all goes well, the fruits of my labors will make their public debut by the fall in a series of lighthearted mini comic books.
- I've been planning a big group show in a different format the past few months, and once I started to realize just how much extra work raising funds for the project would entail, I ended up putting it on hiatus until I could figure everything out. A few weeks ago, a friend approached me about doing all the fundraising and even going so far as to provide a venue, if I provided the artists and the art.
- I ended up tripping into the possibilities of working on Hollywood projects when I received a call from my friends at Blue Genie to help out with some faux painting for a job they took. I ended up working in the Art Department on a VH1 reality TV show for three weeks, catching a glimpse of the inner workings of life on the set. It was a lot of heavy lifting, running around and chasing props and furniture across town, but there's plenty of stories I'll be able to
tell after the show airs in the Fall.
With all the energy buzzing in the air around me, I started to glow and get excited about life again. There was a certain fearlessness in my steps and an optimism that returned after a long stretch of dark clouds. It's funny then, on the day in late April that dark clouds hung over Austin drenching the city in heavy rain, that I was minding my own business, listening to The Fall by Beat Happening on an old mixed tape I had just dug out of my archives. I was the third car waiting at a stop light when a teal Mustang
swung through his turn, slid on the wet pavement, and fishtailed towards me. I couldn't move forward or back up, and a moment of calming zen came over me as I saw the accident happening and just resigned myself to being hit. Seconds after the impact (there were no injuries) I realized the horror of my predicament: not only would I never be able to replace my car, but I hadn't even paid it off yet.
I swapped information with the kid who hit me, who thankfully was insured. We settled my repairs without having to use his insurance, and all evened out once again, and my car is shiny and looking great again after being hit in the one spot that he could have hit me that did no structural damage or engine damage to the whole thing.
A friend kept telling me to go through insurance and make some money off the deal. I told him that'd be bad karma, and everything worked out just fine without dipping into the dark side. After all, it was just a few months ago I met some folks who recently moved to Austin. They expressed a shock at just how helpful and friendly people are here, and how much some folks go out of their way to help you out here. I told them that its my theory there's a large bit of the population that believes in karma here, and
noone wants to run out anytime soon. To combat this, there's a sizable portion of Austinites that spend their time running around town refilling their karma.
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the end result of my little accident: about a thousand dollars of damage and no car for two weeks.
| And so it goes, with my year long existential crisis over, karma and the amount of dreamy coincidences are flying all around the place. There's plenty of big stuff happening soon - from my three man show to the big 'Radical Nautical' show I'm helping curate at Gallery Lombardi to a healthy overdose of
side projects and outlandish ideas popping up all over the place. |
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