The Origin of Insanity

We all know that our culture is not right.  I mean “not right”, like ill, the kind of not right you feel when someone laughs too quickly, then looks around and notices that others are upset. It’s that kind of empty feeling that you get when you listen to a passionate argument about a world view, then realize that the scripts to these arguments have already been written, predigested, by that strange hybrid of entertainment and journalism. (What do we call this magic combination?  Journalment?  Enterporting?) There has been quite a bit of talk this last week about the source of our mental instability.  It is good that we are nervous about this.  When you are sick in America, things do not go well for you.  And there is this sense that we all own some part of this mental illness.  As we all know, blaming others, or trying to deflect blame, or making you tube videos about blame is a sure sign of guilt. 

For me, it is helpful to start with some clarifying terms.  Albert Einstein might still hold the gold standard for diagnosing insanity, but when I try to think about someone repeatedly approaching a problem with the same failed perspective, my warped brain imagines cartoon characters, like Wile E Coyote.  This is the problem with iconic quotes.  They may be full of wisdom, but you may not personalize them.  My own definition for mental illness surely would include something about not allowing for new possibilities to exist, and something about balancing the critical brain with the creative brain. This reminds me of a university lecture I attended a few years ago, delivered by the art critic and painter Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe. He was talking about why he felt the need to both write about art and make paintings, and he explained that, from his perspective, criticism was the act of removing things from the world and making art was the act of bringing new things into the world.  He felt the need to balance one with the other, knowing that both the critique and the creation had to answer to each other. When they do, a positive momentum builds.  This idea, I think, is relevant as we reflect on the rhetoric that may be ailing us. We can be fooled, with the magic alchemy of Enterporting (with high definition polish, ever expanding formats, up-to-the-minute nowness), into thinking that something new is being produced- new ideas, new movements, new energies and new solutions (think about Wile E Coyote’s Acme products catalogue that always seemed so promising, while keeping him squarely focused on the same problems). But when was the last time that a biased rant made you feel like the world was a bigger place, full of possibilities?  Doesn't limiting our perspective always lead to us falling off the cliff again?

Please visit my artwork at kevinpkellyart.artspan.com

Renting Space in Painting

Growing up as a mostly poor kid has some advantages.  With eight kids, my family could not keep up with the latest fashion trends, going for the Sears store brand shoes instead of the Nike's.  We were always two or three video game systems behind the current higher resolution system. My parents drove cars that were old, not so old they were cool but more like "what kind of car is that?" kind of old.  Okay, so we were that peculiar kind of American poor where we still had clothes, video games, and cars.  But still, we were continually forced to consider how we could fix up what was broken (like the time my dad used a metal baking pan to replace the housing around our damaged AMC Gremlin's headlight- genius!), fake our way into being stylish (like sharing the few cool outfits that  my older brother and I had between us when we started attending separate schools, so nobody would notice), and in general to just make do with what we had.  I remember countless times getting home from school to find that our living room had been completely reconfigured.  This was always my mom's doing.  Something about living with nine other people always lead her to daydream about a larger, smarter, and more custom built house, one with coordinating, contemporary furnishings.  What we had were cramped "eclectic" rooms furnished with the odd pieces that had been salvaged from the neighbors curb or hauled from a garage sale.  My mom did battle with this state of function over form by constantly reconfiguring the layout of a room, believing that a smart, diagonal interaction between the 1960's hardwood futon couch with recovered blue denim cushions and the 1970's grass green prototype Lazyboy recliner would distract from the large wooden TV (with good speakers) that served as the TV stand.  Or maybe the hunter green Naugahyde-upholstered wooden chest could serve multiple functions in front of the fireplace: accentuate the rust-red carpet, store extra blankets, make another sitting surface, and block sight of the non-usable fireplace.  At the time, we just humored my mom every time she solemnly moved the brass floor lamp to the other side of the living room, but I have grown to appreciate this environment where elements stay in flux and where faith in the saving grace of good design  thrives, despite the tragic circumstances in which it must operate. 

Fast forward from the early nineties to 2007.  I was trying to finish my MFA in painting, even though I had only managed to create a very large mountain of crap in two years of grad school, and I couldn't seem to pull my thoughts together into a coherent and unified artist statement.  Up to this point, I had managed to teach art in a low-income high school for 6 years, but I had taken far more education classes as an undergrad than actual art classes.  I mean, at one point in grad school I had to teach myself how to stretch a canvas, because I had been wrapped up in the history and philosophy of education instead of  foundations in acrylics and oils in my first go round of college.  I was feeling pretty defeated, feeling like an outsider to the world of painting, feeling like I couldn't keep up or fit in with my peers. But then I realized that this was very familiar territory.  It was then that I stopped talking about making paintings in my artist statement, and started using the phrase "using the space of painting."  I knew that I was never going to be a technical aficionado with paint, and that I was never going to discover the next "ism" or movement.  Instead I was going to be a renter in the space of painting, and move in with all of my second-hand, uncoordinated furnishings.  I would fake style. I would survive by being open to new configurations, and not committing to a fixed plan.

This has played out pretty well.  And, as the last few years have taught us about finding a home, ownership is not always superior to renting space.

Please visit my work at kevinpkellyart.artspan.com

A Foreigner in a Strange Land

Let's play a psychic guessing game.  Think of all rock bands.  Now, think about the greatest rock band of all time.  Now think about yourself in middle school, wishing you could be in a rock band.  Now, blend all of this together, the highs and the lows, and come up with the most average rock band of all time.  This is a band that you have definitely heard of, you know they have had hits, in fact you hear them on the radio. Then you turn the station. You have never been motivated to buy an album by this band or see them in concert, nor do you know anyone who has.  You wonder who really likes/liked this band.  Concentrate on the name of this band.  Concentrate...okay!

You are thinking of Foreigner, aren't you.  Yes, you are.

Now, this exercise is not meant to be disrespectful to this English American rock group, formed in New York in 1976 (thanks wikipedia!).  Far from it.  Instead, I bring this up because Foreigner is a great example, I think, of the sad relationship between fame and the artist, or artists as it were.  Bear with me here. 

Not long ago, I was listening to the radio as I drove across town, and a Foreigner song came on.  A reflex brought my hand up to change the dial, because this band is on "the list".  I do not mean an actual written list.  I mean my wife and I, living in a town that has horrible choices on commercial radio ("Everything that rocks!", or "The rock you grew up with!", or "The biggest rock library in town!", or "The newest rock station in town!") have formed an informal mental list of artists that we agree not to listen to while we drive in the car.  Making it to "the list" could mean that an artist or band has stupid lyrics, has very sexist lyrics, has unimaginative musical arrangements,  or only has fans with confederate flags on their pickup trucks.  Now, "the list" can  have subtle rules that make interesting exceptions.  Sometimes being so far out of style and oblivious to your uncoolness can make you cool, like Poison.  And sometimes being too cheesy and earnest can make you great, like Journey. Anyway, as I sat there that day with my hand poised to flip the dial, it occurred to me that Foreigner was undoubtedly on "the list", but it was kind of sad that they were.  For a minute or so, I thought about the group as real guys with a real history. I considered the years of practicing, jamming, networking, auditioning, failing, soul searching, and finally recording and touring that each member had been through.  They were lucky, I guess, because they actually made it.  And then I thought about the phrase, "making it."  What does that mean for these artists, really?  I mean, all that work, all that persistence over all those years, and how many Foreigner songs can I name without checking wikipedia? Four, maybe five?  You could argue that the band was simply popular before my time since I was born in 1978, but that just makes it even sadder as it points out how short lived and fickle fame is.  Maybe it is precisely their pursuit of fame that has relegated this group of artists to such dullness, to such averageness, such blahness that they belong on "the list."  Maybe the pursuit of fame and the pursuit of art are necessarily very different things.  Maybe art should be a Foreigner to fame.  Maybe this why I had to change the station.

Please visit my work at: kevinpkellyart.artspan.com

Time to Paint

The other night at dinner I was sneezing and sniffling, and I made an offhand comment like,"I hope I am not getting sick.  That's the last thing that I need right now."  This week was the week before finals, the most grueling week of the semester.  This year it has been mixed with an art exhibit for teachers, an art competition for my students, along with the normal end-of-term public school drama and a flurry of holiday activities. My sister-in-law was with us, and she suggested a medicine that would nip a cold in the bud if taken as soon as symptoms started to show.  My wife looked at me unsympathetically and said flatly, "he doesn't need medicine.  He just needs to paint."  As the mother of four kids, my wife is great at feeling out fevers, assessing digestive issues, and layering medicines to cover any number of maladies.  But my wife has also become an expert at my psychosis.  She knows that when I do not spend a certain number of hours per week in my studio, that I "get a certain way." Here are the symptoms:

• Clumsiness.  This is always an issue, but I manage to loose any portion of grace that I posses.  Plus, I also spontaneously invent swearing phrases that are embarrassing and do not make sense, like "Shit cakes!", or "Frick-riken!" This reminds me of my dad ("Dag-nabbit!")
• Irritability.  Like, to the point that I am scolding inanimate objects for not cooperating with some every day task, or saying things like, "why does gravity always have to work against me!"
• Distractabilty.  The details of things seem to evade me.  Also, I start to care less about putting small pieces together.  This is a surefire way to create hell in a high school classroom.  "Sure, you can go work out in the hallway with your friends.  Whatever."
• Self-centeredness.  Like talking back to the radio when Robert Siegel is interviewing a politician with an annoying point of view.  Like becoming very possessive of every minute of alone time.    Like paying  attention to every sneeze or sniffle.

This is the paradox of the art studio- if I spend a couple of hours per day steeped in my own mental space, caring only about those things that only I care about, I become so much more empathetic toward others.  If I zone out, wearing my ipod, and listen to loud, vulgar music like the Pixies, I am transformed into a calm and more lucid speaker.  If I hyper-concentrate on small, isolated tasks such as masking off a complicated shape or making just the right unpracticed-looking brushstroke, I can dance through a complicated day.  And even if  I am facing a very busy schedule, spending a couple of hours in my studio always means that I will get more school work, house work and relationship building done than if I gave those hours to more tasks. 

Isn't that a shit cake?

Please visit my work at kevinpkellyart.artspan.com

The Sublime of the Mundane

When I was a teenager, I used to collect and memorize Pink Floyd albums.  Yes, this is the third British rock group to be mentioned in this space, so far.  Pink Floyd, with their bluesy guitar licks and over-the-top-sad-white-boy lyrics, was probably my first real taste of that hard to define sublime feeling that is accessible for angsty, hormone filled teenagers that are sad about something, though they are not quite sure what, and can see depth and purity in anything deeper than themselves.   At that age, I could swell up to bursting by feeding on the emotional sap of albums like Dark Side of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, and of course, that magnum opus of self absorbed sadness The Wall.  It was as though I could take my own ill-defined senses of anger, longing, and tragedy, and hang them on every song, lyric, and note- even though my life was pretty stable, I was cared for, provided for, and had never been, say, a lunatic, or a crazy diamond, or the victim of abusive teachers.

As I have gotten older, my sense of the sublime has...changed.  "The real world" has a way of introducing you to a range of grand emotions and experiences that you never paid attention to as a teenager.  These days, I am moved by a profound sense of tragedy by simply taking in the sights and sounds of a Wal-Mart checkout line.  If I want to see the fragile relationship between beauty and revulsion I can study the color schemes of Taco Bell food.  If feelings of deep emptiness had a color palette, they would not just be black, like the wardrobe of black t-shirts I wore in middle and high school, but would be closer to the colors created by fluorescent light on acoustic tile.  Seriously, study these sickly, unnatural colors the next time you are sitting in an office or a hospital.  They are all the better/worse if they are in close proximity to a beige or mauve colored wall, maybe with faded floral prints framed on the wall.  Now, that is what I call comfortably numb.

Please visit my work at kevinpkellyart.artspan.com

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An Artist in Wichita

You know you are an artist in Wichita when:

• You find yourself wrapping a chair with masking tape at 3:30 am...on a Saturday.
• Your family wants to know when breakfast is, and you think "at 11:00 am I'll be ready to eat..."  You are still wrapping a chair in masking tape.
• That evening your family wants to hang out, eat some holiday chocolate, and watch your favorite TV show together.  You are busy filling old yogurt containers with sand, and wrapping a chair in masking tape.
• Your family wants to eat lunch with your in-laws on Sunday.  You have to now explain to your in-laws that you are wrapping a chair in masking tape, so you cannot come.  They are sweet people, so they send lunch over to you.  You now get to show them that you are wrapping a chair in masking tape.
• Your family is making christmas candy with your in-laws on Sunday afternoon, and entertaining a family friend.  He asks where you are.  Your wife has to explain that you are at home...wrapping a chair in masking tape.
• You take a break from the masking tape to attend a holiday concert with your family.  When you get home at 9:00 pm you say goodnight to your family so you can pack up two boxes of yogurt containers filled with sand and finish wrapping a chair in masking tape.
• Your low point for the weekend: your son asks when this weekend's weekend will come...
• Your lower point for the weekend: picking up the Arts section of your local paper to see front page coverage of a middle school student who invented a new hamburger for Red Robin...really...front page coverage...in the Arts section...
• Your high point for the weekend: wrapping a chair with masking tape.

Please visit my work at kevinpkellyart.artspan.com

From the Middle- Part 2

So, as I have previously stated, middle children are obviously the best children.  Unlike oldest children, who always feel entitled, we middle children understand that the only way to make something happen is with real effort.  And youngest children, always generating drama and pulling the spotlight to themselves, only generate work.  And only children, Aye!  Don't even get me started about only children!  But middle children, we are the peace makers, the unifiers, the harmonizers, the volunteers...really we are like  Mother Teresa, Jimmy Carter, and barbershop quartet singers all rolled into one.  Sure, we may not be glamorous or cool, but we keep the world from falling apart!  Grad school brought all of my understanding about these things to a sharp point, as I realized how much I relied on my central  position when, say, reaching for art imagery (from daily life- nothing to risky or controversial), or selected media ("how about wood scraps, high-school-grade acrylics and hot glue- I've got plenty of that already laying around"), or composed paintings ("I know it's pretty, I tried not to make it pretty, but it always comes out pretty!").  This was not good.  Art school is about turning your self loose to make waves.  I mean, Pablo Picasso was an oldest child, maybe the ultimate oldest child, the take-charge, because-I said-so-and-I-am-in-charge kind of oldest child.  And Jackson Pollock was a youngest child, the moody, dramatic, pour-your-soul-out-for-everyone-else-to-soak-up kind of youngest child.  I knew that I had to either accept that I would never make it as an artist, because I was programed to not make waves, or find a way to make waves from the center, from the middle, positioned in between, as it were.

And there was my answer.  I was not meant to make paintings of "real" things, and I was not meant to make "abstract paintings."  I was supposed to make paintings that were a little bit of both. I was not supposed to make the beautiful ugly or the ugly beautiful.  I was meant to take disparate items and to try to make them get along, to harmonize the situation, like Jimmy Carter.

And this all leads to today, painting a picture of chewing gum and a Beatles album, trying to make them get along.

P.S.-  So, I want to apologize and just try to smooth things over with my oldest son, my youngest son, my wife, who is a youngest child, her sister, who is an oldest child, my oldest sister, my youngest sister, my mom who is a youngest child, my dad who is an only child and my in laws, both oldest children.

Please visit my work at kevinpkellyart.artspan.com