It’s beautiful up here. And I’m feeling like I’m having an actual piece of vacation. Even though there’s work in the morning, I have felt relaxed and happy all afternoon. In fact I feel good enough to rant. Sometimes the New York Art world (which is shorthand here for the Current State of Affairs in… Continue Reading
Tag Archives: notes on practice
Across the great divide…
Some people always know just what to say: yesterday my San Francisco dealer walked out of her office, gazed around at the debris I had strewn across her very nice gallery and exhaled “It’s just like a studio! So much nicer than usual”. That, when she could have just asked me in a worried tone… Continue Reading
What I meant when I said that…
Working on the show all day yesterday. At the end of it I told someone else that I was “exhausted”. That was incorrect and I apologize for using that term. Truth is, when I’m working in this way, trying to tune into the individual wants of each piece, I don’t get exhausted, I get absorbed…. Continue Reading
Mind The Gap…
What with everything else I’ve been doing lately, I find that I have to push myself to shoot the daily photo. I’m still carrying my camera around, but it hasn’t been as natural for me to haul it out. I need to remind myself. But the interesting thing is that forcing myself to look for… Continue Reading
Looking at naked people (and moving your hand…)
First time back at figure drawing in quite a few years, so here’s a couple of observations: 1.I needed to get my gear together to go draw, which meant in part getting a pad. I’ve got a shelf full of sketchbooks of every possible size, because I will use any excuse to buy art supplies,… Continue Reading
Yesterday’s drawing…
…always looks slightly strange to me. Alien. The things I’ve made contain memory, sure, but it’s not released in the way that might seem logical. I can remember certain things about drawing, while I’m drawing, and not otherwise. A memory that resides in the hand, not the eye. So scanning what I’ve done is always… Continue Reading
Slave to the picturesque…
Came in to town and got yet another sketchbook (because it was little and had smooth pages that could take ink and the only one I had that size was a moleskine with rough pages)and a German Donald Duck comic for some additional source material. Evidently he’s huge here, because everywhere you go there are… Continue Reading
In response…
A friend wrote me a letter and after thinking about it for a while I decided that I wanted to respond to it here. He consented graciously to me reprinting it: hi Nayland, I hope you’re enjoying your travels. Can you answer me this? How do I keep the faith when everyone tells me my… Continue Reading
The Void and Why I Need It…
Creativity requires a void. There has to be something missing for us to want to see something new. When life is two replete, where there is no blank wall, no empty space, the urge to make anew flags and ultimately stops. Early on in your career, you’ve made no mark on the world, it all… Continue Reading
A return to answering…
siokaos asks; “for an artist with no entrepreneurial spirit, how does one penetrate and deploy their material, when normal channels such as “art school” seems more of a career steps posing as a legitimate educational experience?” A weighty question, if I parse it correctly. As I read it you are asking “How do I get… Continue Reading