OCCUPY THE ART WORLD!

       I've tried hard to get away from what for me can only be described as the pain of being an artist. Once again, I am sucked back into it all, with what I can only describe as all the ugliness attending what by all rights should only be a beautiful thing, a consolation. For me art is a kind of slavery. That is what it is for all of those who give themselves over to her, spirit courageous and raw...only to be slammed one way and another, no matter the intrinsic worth of us as people, as artists.

 Well...someones gotta say it.

      Yes,  and I thank you all again for all the help that you,  fellow artists, and others who care have given me, especially as I was doing the painful process of pulling away from it. Abandoning something one has sacrificed everything to over a lifetime is painful. 

      Sometimes the downright honor of being invited back into that realm and then my own natural feeling of wanting once again to involve myself...that can be  painful. But I shall do the very worthy task at hand, and then I will slip quietly back into retirement...film and photo notwithstanding.

Somewhere Between Collage and Sculpture

The paintings "fall somewhere between collage and sculpture," as has been pointed out by a critic or two. So many artists, critics, and historians have described the painting as object. In my work the three-dimensional qualities inherent in collage and sculpture (in the round and on the wall), grow out of the textural qualities in the paint, as well as out of the metal plates I used to create Intaglio (Italian for gem, seal, piece of jewelry, or metal plate having an incised, sunken design) prints. Ink is then transferred from the grooves to paper, via a printing press. It is the historic (many would say authentic) way to make a print, as opposed to a reproduction, examples are Drypoint, Photo Etching, Monoprint, Lithograghy, Silkscreen, Engraving, and other centuries old print-making processes. All are labor intensive, highly technical, and involve the multiple uses of metal, ink, acids, various resins, grounds, tar, solvents, feathers, and many toxic substances. It is the main reason I quit making prints; the toxic substances and the delayed gratification of having to carry a work through so many processes before I could get anywhere near the finished product. I made prints using these methods a total of six years, beginning in High School. It was excellent discipline, it led to sculptural qualities in my painting, mixed-media and sculpture. There is something to be said for hard work beginning in high school. Sadly, I doubt that Printmaking is still offered to High School students. One can only hope for a return of the arts to education, I have always looked forward to a world of people who know and love the arts. It begins with education.