Obsession

"It's three o'clock in the morning, your back hurts, your arm hurts, you've been in there for ten hours, and there are no sounds except for the occasional fire truck. Finally, you put the brush down and ask yourself,
Man, what am I doing here?"
-John Alexander

My hiatus was necessary. Now that one of my dear friends has recently started an every-day blog project, I see her posts and am reminded that it's time for an entry. (Check out Jexi's Project: O.365.M here - for all things object manipulation.) Time for one with substance. And pictures.

Unfortunately (or fortunately for the future owners) I have only really been working on one painting for the past month or so - The Honeycomb Merkaba. It's taken me over, in a good way - it is a natural, normal thing to become obsessed with what one is painting. At least you know you will never let it be "done" until your obsessive self decides that it is, finally, finished.

I might have to force myself to work on something else soon. I'm getting deeply engrossed in this painting. I stare at it whenever I'm in the room, and sometimes for long periods when I'm "working" on it. Some of it is still instinctual - a bit - and I trust myself occasionally and go with the flow, let my unconscious fill the spaces, pick the color, it can always be adjusted. Happy accidents. Otherwise I stare and think, and don't make a move till I contemplate the results; the how (will this look next to this other thing?), the why (is there a reason it needs to be green, or yellow?) the what (will this change everything?), and on and on. I'm letting myself become deeply immersed in this piece. I don't know if I've ever been this ... careful.

I've also begun working on it upside down, occasionally, which are what these pictures are of. Thought it would be interesting to have everyone else check it out from another viewpoint as well. Here are some upside down detail shots of some of the more complex areas of the painting so far:

Getting smaller, and smaller, and microcosms of microcosms of the same shape,
repeated over and over again, like the infinity of fractals.

I let myself stumble over to Charmaine Olivia's website and blog again. I love her work, and I can't believe she's so young and so fucking famous (as famous as a thousand people following her facebook and twitter and blog, and oh right, getting jobs, and having shows, being published and that sort of thing) and it fascinates me, inspires me, and pisses me off all at the same time.
How does this happen? How does one get invited to do interviews, and photoshoots, and be published in all these fancy hipster magazines? I've been "concentrating on my art" for almost a year now, and it's had it's ups and downs, hard times and good times. Still haven't sold but one painting, and I sure don't feel any more recognized in the Philadelphia Art World, whatever that is. It makes me feel like I should take a break from this here monster, and do some silly little drawings, or something I can mass produce, something I can start and finish quickly, something that someone will BUYYYYY.... $$$. Right? It's my goal today to start a few other smaller things to distract myself with. (Oh, and apparently I should also be taking a whole bunch of narcissistic photos of myself and posting them here, because that seems to work for Miss Charmaine.)

It's worth a try:

At work on my upside down painting, blown out pic of me standing in front of my painting,
and then more working on my upside down painting. With wine.

Here are some detail shots of my studio area and the cool junk I've been arranging on it's walls for several years. This is what inspires me, I suppose. I'll leave you with that, and promise to write again without waiting a full month next time.

<3