Channel Changer.

"The great advantage of being in a rut is that when one is in a rut, one knows exactly where one is."

-Arnold Bennett

Ghost on a Screen.
Acrylic on masonite 19x22"

  About a week ago, the piece I was working on stopped going my way. My brushes just weren't cooperating, no matter how strict I was with them, so I banished the painting to the dark side of my studio and walked home anxious and frustrated. 

  The best remedy, I knew, was to start a new piece and return to the disobedient one later. So early the next day I went hunting in the antique market near chiesa di Sant Ambrogio for some old photos to paint from. But Instead of finding motivation, all I found was a feeling of shame. Looking through the personal moments of someone I had never met, with the intention to make them my own, felt surprisingly perverse. I honestly thought I would find inspiration at the expense of the aesthetic oddities people in the past seem to hold for us, but the thought of painting a stranger's wedding portrait seemed like really bad karma. Still, I didn't want to leave empty handed and consider the trip a failure, so I purchased four small, black and white portraits to study respectfully.

  Now, I don't want to claim that one of them is haunted, but it totally is (although maybe in a good way). After scanning the four photos onto my computer, I threw one on a flash drive and took it to the print shop around the corner to get it blown up to paint from (I hope the lady there has gathered by now that I might be a painter in view of the absurd things I have her print for me on a regular basis). My intention was simply to paint this centred portrait of a young man as it was, maybe with a bit of colour, as a break for my mind from the piece I was working on before. Only, something beyond my control hated that idea and took my successfully copied image and split it in three, offering an adequate alternative to the redundancy in a painting of a centred face. Two things had me accept this eerie change: 

1. I was out of money.

2. It seemed like something knew what it was doing.

  So I painted it as it was, in spite of its hauntedness and the apparent discomfort of my studio mate. Something had reminded me that these "accidents" are important in making art that feels honest; art that isn't over thought. Art that is plainly a reaction to the illogical shit that happens in a lifetime.

In Need of Lampshades.

"The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need."

-Napoleon Bonaparte

Influential People.
Acrylic on masonite 19x22"

  As an artist or designer, it's quite common to be asked to define who in your field has influenced your work to date. Yet in doing so, your work can immediately lose some of the glory it gained by your hand. It may seem easy from that point to find the obvious parallels between the work you do and the work of your named "influences" which, by means of creative paranoia, will leave you to think of your work as unidentifiable, or even worse, in breach of copyright law. This is why many young artists I know have invented their own formulaic responses to these questions, many of whom find it easier to employ an ignorant shrug than commit artistic suicide with a straight answer when it comes to being seen as an original thinker.

  The first few times I had been asked one of these questions, I swiftly but gently shovelled bits of shit into the ears of my supplicants. I have never thought of an influence as something that could be named in the first place. Isn't the point of successful influence to go unnoticed? 

  For a long time I had been drawing and painting in the dark, deprived of illumination from the shining heroes in the art world, and I was blissful in ignorance. The only art that existed was what I could see by candlelight in the distant Renaissance. But artistic illumination was inevitable, and it became harder each year to dim the lights; to muzzle the people outside screaming PLAGIARISM!

  Influence should be a looming shadow. If you can name your influences, you are either unintentionally appropriating, or over-thinking why you do what you do. You will put yourself in danger of developing the need to justify your work to everyone who may see your work and relate it out loud to something they saw on television. If you let your work be what it is and develop your own visual language, then anything that sneaks in by accident can be considered a welcomed guest.

The Potato is a Root Vegetable.

"Nothing is so soothing to our self-esteem as to find our bad traits in our forebears. It seems to absolve us."

-Van Wyck Brooks

  It's humbling to finally accept that you are the result of something much older and much grander than you originally anticipated. I suppose the curse of immigration is the loss of genetic discourse. It can be almost as confusing for children to be the first in an immigrant family to grow up in a country where they have very little direct genealogy, as it must have been for the immigrant parents themselves. When all you have to stand on is a shrub in a forest of giant redwoods, it's hard not to feel unsupported, ignorant, that all the pressure to grow your leafy green sapling is on you and your siblings. The answers to questions about your appearance and talents were fragmented or lost when your branch was severed from it's ancestor tree.

  Such were the answers I expected to simply absorb and piece together when I set foot in Ireland on December 14th. As if by walking where the rest of my bloodline had walked, a door would open in the back of my head and reassuring stories about a distant relative that also liked to paint, or had lips far too big for their face would spill out and pat me on the shoulder. Of course the idea was ambitiously romantic, but so are the rest of my ideas, so it's justified.

  In Ireland, I didn't find a painter in the family, or any direct relation to Steven Tyler. What I found was undoubtedly positive, but completely indefinable (and I really did try to get that damn door to burst open). The morning I arrived in Ireland, sitting on a bus on its way into Dublin city, I was a little disturbed. I hadn't prepared myself to bare witness to so many....Irish people. I remember actually laughing a little out loud as I imagined my face on the heads of my fellow passengers and it not looking entirely abnormal. It was as if Ireland was my personal ending to "Being John Malkovich" and it made me a little uncomfortable.

  It wasn't until my second week that things began to change. I found a piece of a family I had always known about, but had never met. For the rest of the trip I was able to spend one on one time with men, women and children that belong to the trees that my mother and father left behind. I had never experienced similar unconditional welcome. All they needed to know was that I was the child of their brother, sister or aunt and I was immediately a member of their family. I dug a little into the past, visited childhood homes and looked for evidence of relation in the way my family looked and acted. Let's not call it creepy, just curious.

  It was something close to pride that I felt as I sifted through boxes of old photography with my father's sister and her daughter and as I walked along the shores of Blackrock where my mother grew up. I had no idea what my grandfather looked like until I was given an old photo from one of these boxes, and was embarrassed to ask for certain how many siblings my father had. But all aside, that's the charm of the family.

  I think after all this, I've started a mission. I've always loved meeting the siblings and parents of good friends for the first time, just to look at their faces and find family features. I love the idea of being an aesthetic product of genetic information and even more so when that information extends beyond parents and into distant ancestry. I expected to look at an old photo of a great grandfather of mine and maybe see my face, but I left uncertain. I need to find what part of the tree I stem from beyond that of my parents. I can see what my parents have given me, but is there an individual I relate to the most in my family's past as well? It's either that or I start looking for mailmen. 

The Patron Saint of What no.

"First you will hate Peter. Then you will hate the day you were born."

-Peter Porcal

Passing it on.

  I was thinking the other day about how Maestro Porcal could very well be one of the last remaining scholars on earth. At least one of the last that has devoted his life to sharing wisdom with the peasants rather than lining up in the patent office. Peter says often, to the immediate discomfort of his students, "Peter will die soon. But you, beautiful children, will never die." 
  This is a ruse. I wouldn't be surprised if he had lived through the renaissance itself, conversed with Michelangelo ("Mike" as he calls him), or lectured in greek to a group of budding philosophers. We all love the posh way he dresses but I think he's more suited to a toga when he stands proud in front of his bright-eyed pupils.
  Peter Porcal has been a part of the Florence program since it began about 36 years ago. My high school art teacher was taught by this man in Florence the year I was born, yet she still finds every opportunity to speak highly of him. There's something to be said about a man who chooses to remain in the company of individuals that have such an interesting and sometimes volatile relationship with their emotions. I just don't know what that thing to be said happens to be.
  I do know that he cares for people. Not just the people he's being paid to care for, because I don't think that he gives a flying fart about how much he's being paid, but anybody that could appreciate what he has to offer. 
  We were in Venice for a weekend in October to absorb the history of a sinking city. Peter took us on quite the hike from cathedral to cathedral with barely a seat in between. Most of us are in our early to mid twenties and were exhausted, but Peter kept his composure in spite of the limp he was walking with.
  I remember I was  leaning against the railing on a ferry heading across the canal on the way back to our hostel when he baffled me. He was closer to the middle of the "standing room only" and there were about three passengers between him and myself. One of the passengers was a young blind man of about 25. He seemed to be handling the sway of the boat but you could tell it strained him more than was comfortable. I'm not going to lie and tell you I would've helped him. If he had fallen I would have caught him of course but I must've assumed he was used to being troubled with balance on the ferry and stood aside, cautiously watching, making sure not to stare. This was all in a few moments. Peter reacted so quickly. He was somewhat unstable himself yet in a blur of greyish hair and polite requests, he stabilized the man with a friendly arm. This should have made us all look bad but that's not Peter's style. In fact, I may have been the only one to notice (purely by chance) his subtle act of kindness. I watched as Peter's presence and conversation put a smile on the man's face. My little understanding of Italian told me they were strangers to each other, engaging only in small talk. But I think Peter knows that for some people, small talk can do big things. 
  I hope I don't betray his modesty in writing this but I thought that those who know him would enjoy that simple, character reinforcing story of Peter. And for those that don't know him, it might be nice to know that there are a few people out there that don't abuse their influence. There are people who respect the power they have as a mentor to young people in transition. Even after 36 years of being worshipped.

Everyday on our Knees.

"We have met the enemy and he is us"

-Pogo

Reconsidering rosaries.

  Mass is in service in the congregation of creative people. A church that gives certain sects of christianity a run for their money in number of tears shed and minds lost. There is no priest. There are no pews. Not even a confession booth or delicious little wafers. Only desperate newcomers and somewhat less desperate veterans searching for that sweet moment when inspiration hits. Their bodies convulse and they fall to the ground with hands stretched out, scraping along a canvas or notebook. They may speak in tongues but that's usually a result of a bit too much sacramental wine (A popular ritual). This moment is so fleeting. It's cruelty incarnate. 

  But have you heard the good news? Two men, in the early 1990s wrote a book. It has been my bible as of September 2010, passed on to our Florence community by another David Bayles and Ted Orland witness. The name of the book is "Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking" and it is good. 

  If your art is an obsession and a lover like it is to most of us, then it would be safe to say that your process doesn't follow reason. Your art is an abusive spouse but it's way too good in bed for you to leave it. Fortunately though, Human rights do not yet apply to your art (however sentient it may seem sometimes) and it is generally accepted to gag and bind it until it meets only your needs. This book is a supportive friend with a knack for tying knots. 

An excerpt from the introduction:

  "THIS BOOK IS ABOUT MAKING ART. Ordinary art. Ordinary art means something like: all art not made by Mozart. After all, art is rarely made by Mozart-like people--essentially (statistically speaking) there aren't any people like that. But while geniuses may get made once-a-century or so, good art gets made all the time." 

-Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland