.progress.

Art and Fear

Yesterday I finished rereading Art and Fear.
This book.....essential - to any and every Maker. Visual Artist, Writer, Dancer, Musician....Essential.

It's an almost impossible book to write about - read the reviews on Amazon. They say it all better than I could... If you were to pick up my copy - it's battered and splattered with paint, and written in all over.
But essential.

From the first chapter, which you can read free on Amazon if you have a Kindle:

• Artmaking involves skills that can be learned. ...In large measure becoming an artist consists of learning to accept yourself, which makes your work personal, and in following your own voice, which makes your work distinct.
• Art is made by ordinary people. ...our flaws and weaknesses, while often obstacles to our getting work done, are a source of strength as well.
• Making art and viewing art are different at their core. ...To all viewers but yourself, what matters is the product: the finished artwork. To you, and you alone, what matters is the process: the experience of shaping that artwork.
• Artmaking has been around longer than the art establishment. ...the current view equating art with "self-expression" reveals more a contemporary bias in our thinking than an underlying trait of the medium. Even the separation of art from craft is largely a post-Renaissance concept, and more recent still is the notion that art transcends what you do, and represents what you are.

  Now go - pick up your copy. It's worth the money and the time.

.4x6.

I'm mailing my piece for the 4x6 Exchange 2 today.
I can't wait to see what I get in return!

Signups are full, but Art House Coop has a few other open projects you can sign up for still. I highly recommend it!

.tots.of.doom.

Last Saturday Dharma and I went to the Foundry before her gig. We both love the Foundry - excellent food which they serve until 1am, and they have a fairly decent glutard-friendly menu (to borrow Nanda's term) although they do not have a dedicated kitchen.
Because nobody has a dedicated kitchen.
It's a risk I take every time I eat out. Sometimes it works out; other times, not so much. Especially when it comes to fried food. I know better. I do. But we were out and I wasn't even hungry, but Dharma was eating and I thought it'd be nice to have something to snack on, and I was craving salt, and I ordered a side of tots.
A side.
A small plate.
Tiny.
If I could have ordered 5 tots I would have.

But I guess the waiter, bless him, thought I was starving or something, and he brought me the giant plate of tots.
Tots.
The comfort food of my generation.

So of course I ate almost all of them.
Not because I was hungry. Because they were sitting there right in front of me.

 This is a giant plate. It was covered with a mountain of tots. And they went to live in my belly.

 

And of course Dharma and I had to make tot-art from the leftovers. Meet Totter McDoom-instein - so named for the reaction my system had to his gluten contaminated deliciousness. 

Will I go back to the Foundry?

Yes, of course I will. They have what is probably the best gluten free pizza in Kansas City. 

But in the future I probably ought to avoid the tots.

.on.video.

Saturday night I was engaged by my good friend Dharma to accompany her to a party she was dancing at. It's a system we have, mostly for safety, where we partner up if we're free just in case. Nothing has ever happened, but better to be slightly paranoid in our opinion, than regret it later.
Before we headed to the party we stopped for a bite to eat - the adventures of which will be related later.
But at the party...

It was one of those fortunate situations where I got to watch a fellow dancer and professional perform, completely removed from the situation. I was back and out of the way, attempting to watch the party guests rather than Dharma's dancing and one thing hit me really hard during her sets.
We are no longer in an age where you can goof up a performance without consequences.

By the second set, almost everyone at the party had their iPhone out, taking pictures and video of what she was doing, and posting said images here and there in real time. Fortunately Dharma is a beautiful dancer, and there were no costume malfunctions or floor obstacles to trip her up, but had anything happened it would have been immediately available for public consumption to her detriment.
This is something to think about very carefully, especially for novice dancers trying to get out there and get experience. What you do is very likely going to end up on the interwebs, and will be viewed not just by your local dance community but potentially internationally. Most seasoned dancers who spent any amount of time on tribe.net when it was a popular networking site are familiar with the Armoire Awards - a now defunct group inspired by a particular YouTube video in which a girl manages to topple an armoire on top of herself. These kinds of videos are common - someone is trying to do something cool, has a horrible accident, and it inevitably ends up online. And if you're really unlucky it ends up on Tosh.0

Something about our voyeuristic culture is just obsessed with these hilarious accidents....and cute cat videos. And hamsters.

So just a small word of caution to dancers out there, especially you newbies...be prepared. And if you're new to performing really think before you accept a dance job.  It's going to end up online.
Especially if you fall off the stage.

.beez.

Last month I cheated horribly to win the Draw Things thing. Then I got to pick the topic for this months Draw Things. I went with:

Bees: Masters of Time and Space

Today was the submission day. I diverged from my usual inkwork and went 100% digital. Here's what I came up with...

¡march!

I've got two paintings to work on and finish in the next two weeks, 7 different dance pieces to drill, two separate workshops to refine...

March is going to be interesting.

 

And in the meantime, I'm drinking rum from a teacup.

 

Painting the First - for Middle of the Map Fest.

 

Painting the Second - for "Through the Looking Glass" in St. Louis.

Meanwhile, I'm also working on a blog post about how awesome Kansas City is. Stay tuned...

[EDITEDtoADD]: ...and I have to finish my 4x6 project, and start and finish my Draw Things challenge by noon today (Friday), and the Mister has informed me we have to have a "Getting Married" meeting, which I've been desperately avoiding...