Artistic Vision

Some of the heaviest comments made in a critique are the ones that are not said.  I remember experiencing such a critique my first year in graduate school.  I had been feeling pretty confident about the work I was showing, since I had spent dozens of hours cloistered in my studio, boiling all the elements down to their essential state. In fact, I couldn’t imagine any other work that I should be making.  But the instructor I had made an appointment with was not so much looking at my work as he was looking past it.  To the blank wall.  Behind it.  He was being very quiet, and he had a slight twist in his facial expression, like he was experiencing a small stomach cramp.  He seemed like he needed help getting the conversational ball rolling, so I started to list some of the decisions that had lead me to making the paintings that were hanging right in front of the blank wall. I told him about my choice of media, how the colors came together, and why I felt that this imagery fit me so well.  He interrupted my laundry list, and asked, “Have you ever had an artistic vision?”  The hanging, implied comment, of course, was “…Cause this sure ain’t one!”  I meekly responded, “Well, what do you mean?” But I was knocked off guard, and my ears were buzzing, so I have no memory of the rest of the conversation.  Consequently, I have had to come up with my own answers about this business of artistic vision:

·        I cannot make or plan an artistic vision.  There is no magic combination of media, concept, and motivation that will lead to revelation.  Not even when you are in grad school.   And you have a critique deadline.

·        Though I have had many high school students ask, I have never relied on illicit substances to tap into my creative subconscious.  Drugs do not make you see the world more creatively.  They just make you dumb enough to perceive some things as art; Pink Floyd laser light shows, Jim Morrison’s lyrics, tattoos designed by your buddy…

·        Though not as exciting as drugs, there are certain alchemical ingredients that, when properly combined, can create the conditions under which brain waves are generated.  They include (but are not limited to):

o       slow meals in large groups

o       road trips

o       relaxed and rambley conversations with my wife

o       playing with my three year old son

o       long walks with my ten year old daughter

o       making almost anything with my seven year old daughter

o       competing fiercely at any sport with my twelve year old son

o       giving open-ended instructions to a classroom full of teenagers and standing back to watch what happens

o       washing a warm and sudsy sink load of dirty dishes by hand at the end of a long day

In other words, artistic visions are not made in the studio.  Objects are made in the studio.

·        Not only is inspiration more difficult to predict than the weather, it is often difficult for me to recognize at first.  Great art does not begin with lightening bolts.  It is more like a fog that slowly envelops me, clouding my thoughts with a haze that just will not lift.

·        A sure sign that I am in the throws of a meaningful creative problem is insomnia. I am not content to just “put it away” for the night, but will continue entertaining possibilities, like trying to fit puzzle pieces into places that they almost fit.

·        Eventually, artistic vision builds to compulsion.  Just like the nervous tick that will not let some people leave a room without flipping a light switch repeatedly, my twitching fingers can develop a phantom-ache as I imagine the physical manipulation of materials.  And then when I do get my hands busy with studio work, a lot of time might pass before I even consider how strange it is to be, say, wrapping cinder blocks in packing tape…and scabs of dried paint…two hours past bedtime…

So, in the end, an abstract vision leads to concrete objects.  And those objects will be critiqued.  The best measure of any artwork is not just whether it catches your attention on the blank wall.  The best work somehow transcends itself and makes you start dreaming about more that must be made.

 See my work at kevinpkellyart.artspan.com

Leverage

It is tax time, and budget balancing time, and as a public school teacher, I’m also thinking about contract negotiation time.  This all coincides with the dreary months of January and February. So, in Kansas, I can wake up in the cold dawn, grab the newspaper out of my wet gutter, and read about how very little our elected state officials value my career as an artist or my career as an educator.  I can turn the page, and in my pre-caffeinated fog, I can read about how the school board will need to stop action on voter approved fine arts facilities that were promised to my school after they canceled the last voter approved fine arts facilities that were promised to my school just a few years before.  In the frosty and bleak morning, I can also read about how the district is forecasting salaries for next year that are still frozen from three years ago, even as the national and world pages predict soaring fuel and food prices.  I'll admit that sometimes, as I sit in my dimly lit breakfast nook, rubbing my face and trying to make sense of it all, I'll wonder aloud "How did I get here?"

My life has evolved from decisions that, at the time, felt like natural choices based on my world view.  But, “natural” is a funny word. In Darwinian terms, it can bring to mind images of a society that preys upon my existence, clawing and chewing on my benign efforts.  For example, I pursue an art career because I believe in dialoguing creatively with my surroundings.  CHOMP! Creative dialogue is abolished; it is a luxury we cannot afford.  I teach in order to bring opportunities into the lives of young people. SLASH! I have to provide more and more to my students with fewer and fewer resources.  I am married and have a family because I met my soul mate and because we knew we could be great parents.  CRUNCH!  What if I do not earn enough money to bring opportunities into the lives of my own children?  In the natural world, the friendly little altruistic fish is always swallowed by the larger, more market driven fish.

In desperate times like these, idealist such as myself are left with very few beams of light to warm ourselves in, so we turn to the only source of artificial light and heat that we can find: Inspirational quotes! Tom Brokaw has been bouncing around in my mind a lot lately.  Well, okay, I’ll admit it, I do not watch televised news, and I have not read any of his books.  But I did once read this quote from Mr. Brokaw: “It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference.”  This is the magic of an inspirational quote.  Even removed from the context of his life and work, I can bask in the light of this little proverb and draw some strength from it’s relevance to the here and now.

And it is relevant, here and now.  Why struggle with making a difference, and not just focus on making a buck?  My best answer is not a witty quote, but another analogy.  You see, when I think about making shallow, short term changes to the world, it reminds me of trying to move against a great force with a short lever.  You may feel like you are in closer proximity to the problems at hand, but your efforts are pretty much futile, and you can effect very little change.  But if you work against large forces with greater leverage, like intelligence, and compassion, and creativity, real movement can happen, even when you feel as though you are operating far out in the periphery.  And, at least, the view from the periphery is more interesting than the shallow view.

 Please visit my work at kevinpkellyart.artspan.com

Winning the Time Lottery

Few things panic me more than thinking about how my time is being used.  I am sure that I have mentioned before that I am a husband, father, homeowner, full time teacher, and –oh yeah- I try to maintain this little project called an art career.  Each of these roles is a significant source of fulfillment, and I care deeply about the relationships involved with every one of them.  But, somehow, the label of artist carries with it a vague and persistent pressure that can raise my level of antsyness about being substandard faster than almost anything else that I care about.  You see, I have this intuitive, built-in meter, clamped securely to my guts, that measures whether I am spending “enough” time in the studio.  I imagine it to look like a game show pie graph with a pivoting arrow, and with different colored wedges, each labeled with descriptive phrases like, “real artist”, and “hobbyist”, and “give it up looser!” At the end of each week, it is my goal to keep this meter happily buzzing in a safe zone that will make me feel that the world is still full of possibility, and that my day-to-day busyness really can add up to something significant.   

But, apparently, thinking about how my time is being used is different than analyzing how my time is being used.  Recently, I was lamenting to my very supportive wife about my obligations, and I stated that if I just had about 30 hours of studio time available every week, then I would finally be able to move forward with my work the way I needed to.  She responded with a patient nod. So, to drive home my dilemma, I turned to a tool I rarely use: actual math.  First, I started calculating amounts to explain how my time disappears; teaching= about 45 hours per week, sleep= 56 hours per week, family time/making dinner/cleaning up on weekdays= about 20 hours, hanging out with the in-laws on Sunday= about 8 hours, getting ready for work on weekdays= about 5 hours, getting everyone ready for church and attending church every week= about 3 hours, and random home maintenance projects= about 3 hours per week.  Then, with self pity, I subtracted these amounts from the 168 hours that make up a week.  So, I felt a little sheepish to see that I was left with 28 hours per week (also known as about 30 hours per week).

I shared this story with a fellow artist a few days later, and he told me that it reminded him of buying a lottery ticket.  “You know, for a few minutes I can fantasize about what I would do with the money if I won.  But then, when I really think about it, I would probably just spend the money on the same things I always spend money on.  Those are the things I care about.”  I then had to admit to him that when I am given extra time- during the summer months, or during our recent snow days for example- that I really struggle to get even a little studio time in. Those are the days when it feels less urgent to wake up early and get out of bed (10 hours= sleep + “make up” sleep).  Free time also creates a vacuum that sucks in unexpected projects (take apart the dishwasher+ discovering I am not an appliance technician= 2 hours).  Without the perspective of a demanding schedule, I become overly ambitious, and maybe a tiny bit too obsessed, with rather meaningless tasks (defeat the boss man on old super Nintendo Street Fighter game= 2 hours).  Strangely, this reminds me of the lottery too.  It reminds me of every horrible story you have ever head about some poor chump who wins millions of dollars, only to squander it pointlessly on junk they never really needed. 

So, in a more positive equation, here is my current math problem; less whining+ more work+ a little bit of accounting+ giving myself some credit+ being grateful for what I have> being a loser.

Please view my work at kevinpkellyart.artspan.com

Polishing the...You Know

So, I have had quite a few comments and questions about the name of this blog.  My “polite” short answer is that the name incorporates the major themes of my art endeavors, traditional ideas about making art and beauty mixed with the mundane details of life (in this case, the earthiest of mundane details).  But, as is the case so many times, the answer is really less straightforward, more of a “pile” of related thoughts and experiences about the intersections of daily life and art.  I could say:

• Well, there was this time when I was taking an undergrad ceramics class.  I was sitting in the clay studio after hours, rubbing a thick-walled wheel thrown pot with slip, and trying in vain to burnish its surface to sheen with the back of a spoon.  A grad student walked in, watched me struggle for a few minutes, and sadly shook his head, then spoke, “My dad always said, ‘you just can’t polish a turd.’”  Then he turned and walked out.
• My studio is in the basement of our house, the “bowels” of our home, and I work around the heating ducts and plumbing.  Once a year, our sewer will back up, and yes, the main sewer clean-out is also there in the basement.  This means that I get to host an annual studio visit with a Roto-Rooter technician.  I get to explain what is going on in my studio, discuss the merits of making art, and, if I am lucky, have an impromptu critique.
• Any beginning painting student will tell you that it is pretty easy to make brown.  Mix a bunch of colors together, and you will get some variation.  Add the texture of paint to that observation, and before long the associations with bodily functions will come.  My work explores those colors that pollute our every day environments.  It is fitting that processing and digesting these colors yields the “specimens” that populate my paintings.
• Do you remember Homestar Runner?  If you missed out on this surreal bit of internet pop culture, look it up.  As an artist I have always felt some kinship with the Poopsmith.  He is a quiet character, a little mysterious, always in the background, nobody is quite sure what his work actually is, but they are sure that they do not want to stand too close to him.
• Just in case you think that it is juvenile to dwell on such a subject, I would argue that adults, not kids, are actually much more likely to initiate conversation about this taboo topic.  Sure, I grew up with four brothers, but at least we were polite enough to use creative euphemisms when needed (my favorite was, “I’m going to take the kids to the pool.”).  As parents, my wife and I have developed specialized vocabulary to discuss the contents of diapers.  “Honey, it was just a Milk Dud, nothing to get excited about,” verses “Wow! What a crack-packer!”, for instance.  I did think that this was just an “us” thing, but I have had the same types of conversations with professional peers, say, in the hallways at work.  “Yep, my kid was at home with a case of hot lava all day yesterday.”  Speaking of maturity, this sense of shared experience does carry into later years.  My 75 year old father-in-law, who is not normally known for his intimacy (I can only remember hugging him once in our 17 year relationship), feels perfectly comfortable discussing the state of his bowels with me.  Recently he volunteered, “They make a really good chocolate wafer that takes care of me when I’m feeling a little blocked.”
• I was listening to a radio call-in show not long ago, and a doctor was answering general health questions for listeners.  One caller wanted to know if it was possible to purify your diet to the point that your body would no longer produce solid waste.  The doctor seemed a little taken a back.  “You know, like if you just ate like pure vitamins and stuff,” the caller clarified.  The doctor tentatively ventured a few scientific explanations, but then conceded; we will never be able to fully eliminate the crap from our lives.
• On my birthday last month, my family was eating out to celebrate, and my mom called my cell phone to wish me a happy birthday.  I thanked her, and she continued, “Did you know that it is also A.A. Milne’s birthday?”  I said I didn’t, and she continued, “So they call today Pooh day!”  She continued again, “It fits you perfectly, since you were born all covered with meconium!”

And, on that last note, I could just say that making art is a means of “polishing” myself, and that, of course, makes me the…you know.

See my artwork at kevinpkellyart.artspan.com

SAP Not Sappy

One of my strongest sources of joy and heartache in teaching high school art is a class called Special Art Production.  It sounds like art for special needs students mixed with factory work, but it is actually just an independent study class for art students who have already taken several art classes and are ready to try their hand at developing their own art projects.  Of course I tell my special art production students- or SAP students as I usually call them- that their job is to work me out of a job.  “Mr. Kelly will not be your art teacher after this class, so you will need to know how to make these choices for yourself, and I want to see you feel confident about making art in the future.”  I tell them this, then I hover around them to make knowing glances at “good” decisions, or to furrow my brow and nod slowly at their work, or, when I can’t help myself, to jab questions at them.  This was my mode of operation the other day when I was working with a student that I will call Mary.  Mary is eighteen, a senior, and she would be a 4.0 student, if not for the interruptions in her education.  When I worked with Mary last year as a drawing and painting teacher, I noticed her talent, smarts, and great work ethic right away.  And then days would go by where she would not show for class.  She finally shared with me that her older brother had been battling cancer off and on for sometime.  When she was absent, she was staying home to get him to appointments and to care for him.  She eventually dropped out of school for a semester to work full time to pay for Chemo treatments- her family had lost health insurance- and returned when her brother had died.  So now, Mary is just starting this process of planning and making “independent” high school art.  She has started with a photo composite project that is heavily influenced by David Hockney.  This is okay with me, really.  Copying the process of an established artist is a great way for young art students to get their feet wet.  They may not be swimming yet, but whatever.  Mary started by laying a full sheet of mat board on the table, opened a photo envelope from Wal-Mart, and without any gluing yet, she started to piece together a composition.  Before too long, I was hovering enough to notice her holding two photos with a frustrated expression on her face.  Her very horizontal composition was running up against the edges of the mat board, and she could not fit these two photos in that she really wanted to use.  I could hold it in no longer.  “Mary, what are you doing?!”  I caught my breath and continued, “First, you laid out this mat board.  Right away you are letting the company who made this mat board this size decide how your project will look.  Second, you let Wal-Mart decide that all of your pictures would be 4”X6” rectangles.  Did you make a rule for yourself that you could not cut the photos?  Did you make the conscience decision that they had to stay rectangles?  Why not lay everything out on the table the way you want and then figure out how to mount them.”  I was a little worried by the shocked expression on Mary’s face, but then a look of recognition came to her.  How long had it been since she felt in charge of her decisions?  How long had she been in survival mode, just doing what it takes to get by?  Sure, she has been told for quite a while that she is artistically talented, but how far has that gotten her with life pushing her around so much.  Has she ever really pushed back?

I do not really know how much Mary has thought about this day in class, but I have been thinking about it a lot.  As artists we hear that art is about expression, or that art is about beauty, or that art is about some spiritual connection.  No wonder artist statements can sound so loopy, flowery, or foggy.  In the end, art is about making decisions.  It is about controlling some part of a chaotic or oppressive world.  We need projects that physically remind us that we have a will, that we can exercise it.  I thought about that episode in SAP class this morning as I was convincing myself that it was worth rolling out of bed early.  I had to get to my studio and get to work.

Please visit my work at kevinpkellyart.artspan.com

Excellent Adventure?

Do you remember the movie Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure?  One online critic summarizes the complex plot of this 1989 gem like this:

“Two seemingly dumb teens struggle to prepare a historical presentation with the help of a time machine.”

Okay, so you might think that the film probably did not do much to strengthen our cultural fiber, aside from giving us the phone booth as time machine (which makes sense; hot tub, DeLorean, phone booth-check).  But Bill and Ted does contain an intriguing idea; bringing iconic, historical figures into our present time and watching their reaction to our unremarkable world.  For instance, in the movie, Bill and Ted kidnap Napoleon and bring him to a suburb in Southern California.  Left with no foreign powers or grand geographical features to dominate, Napoleon begins other conquests; he overtakes a mountain of ice cream sundae (earning a badge), he becomes a tyrant at a waterslide, he does battle, and loses, at a bowling alley.  Remembering these scenes from the movie (Thanks, Youtube!), I’ve started wondering how I would use my own telephone booth-time machine.  Who would I bring from the past into my present?  While the possibilities are endless, my favorite answer to this scenario would be introducing members of the surrealist movement to contemporary Midwestern American culture.  I imagine giving a tour of my home base, South Wichita, to someone like the artist Max Ernst.  Ernst, who celebrated the incongruity of life, would surely have a blast.  Inspired by the writer Comte de Lautréamont, he explained that his approach to making art was encapsulated by the author’s phrase “Beautiful as the chance meeting upon a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella.” Ernst elaborated:

A complete, real thing, with a simple function apparently fixed once and for all (an umbrella), coming suddenly into the presence of another real thing, very different and no less incongruous (a sewing machine) in surroundings where both must feel out of place (on a dissecting table), escapes by this very fact from its simple function and its own identity; through a new relationship its false absolute will be transformed into a different absolute, at once true and poetic: the umbrella and the sewing machine will make love.

Well, as I was saying, anybody that can reflect so deeply into the incongruities of life and find morbid beauty (Really? An umbrella and sewing machine making love?) would appreciate a tour of South Wichita.  Consider, at the local Quick Trip, the chance meeting of:

·        fountain pumped cheese and Mexican peppers on a roll-tisserie German sausage knock-off

·        carbonated corn syrup and fried pastry on a breakfast menu

Or, at payday loan center, the chance meeting of:

·        a kangaroo mascot and a t-shirt on a electronic flashing sign

At a Wal-Mart Super Store, the chance meeting of:

·        pajama pants and a leather jacket with a Glamour magazine

·        a hoody with skeleton motif and body toning shoes on a grandmother

·        a “have a nice day” vest and a sad, empty, stare on a semi-retired senior citizen

And on my block, the chance meeting of:

·        a shopping cart and a plastic Big Wheel in front of an illuminated American flag

Oh, the possibilities are endless.  The question is, as Max Ernst stepped back into the phone booth- time machine, would he go home inspired?  Depressed?  Would he be hopeful for the future, or would he just feel shown up?    

Please visit my work at kevinpkellyart.artspan.com

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