Well, well, well . . . . Wednesday . . . (and still working!)

   

I received a request from a friend  to help her come up with an artist statement for an upcoming show, and while I gladly agreed (because I think going to lunch was implied) I really want to refer her to my daughters with the art degrees.  I have not mastered art-speak, and if I were to write an honest statement about my own work, it would go something like this:

"I stitch pictures.  By hand, because it's the only way I can make them look any good.  And my naive style is naturally occurring because I am naive.  And I try to keep a lid on my neuroses, but you can see I'm quirky.  And since I sort of forgot to have a real career, I really hope someone will buy my art. Because I'm afraid to write books and submit them to publishers. And writing is the only other thing I'm good at . . . except writing about art, and there I have no clue.  But I guess you could see that."

That's about my speed on an artist statement.  Luckily, my Creative Writing BA has enabled me to dress it up a bit -- at least the BS is usually grammatically correct.  But I'm not fooling anyone with an MFA.

And I'm being honest.  So my advice to my friend is, let's have lunch anyway.  Because you also like to make pictures with millions of tiny stitches, and it's comforting to be with similar fellow-neurotics.

Now here's a Small Works re-run 

that can hopefully help us both,

and provide YOU, Dear Reader, 

with a little mid-week fun as well:

 "An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one."

A man named Charles Horton Cooley said that.

I have no idea what Charles Horton Cooley looked like, 

so New Neighbor No. 8 will have to stand in. I hope Charles won't mind.

My mother once said:

"You're famous to me!"

Although it was a sweet, mother-like thing to say, somehow it didn't necessarily make me feel more successful.

F Minus, Tony Carrillo

Occasionally I'm forced to do something as an artist that makes me really nervous. This week it was submit a sketch with a proposal. Drawing is my artistic Achilles' Heel, and nothing makes me more afraid that someday I'll be kicked out of the club.

Well, drawing AND talking about art. I think because I don't have an art degree, I haven't learned to converse with the proper amount of artsy B.S.

But take heart, would-be and wannabe artists everywhere, because today I have some

Friday (well . . . Wednesday) Fun for Everyone!

It's PIXMAVEN, a little gem that will generate all manner of artistic baloney for you to say when you need to sound educated in the art criticism arena.

All you do is submit a 5 digit number, and the site strings together some phrases from a bunch of numbered nonsense that can be applied in any art situation to virtually guarantee success.

By inserting my childhood zip code, for instance, I was able to come up with this:

"It's difficult to enter into this work because of how the reductive quality of the sexual signifier verges on codifying the remarkable handling of light."

How many times have I wished I'd said that?

And my old Seattle zip code yielded this:

"As an advocate of the Big Mac Aesthetic, I feel that the mechanical mark-making of the biomorphic forms brings within the realm of discourse the eloquence of these pieces."

When's my next gallery opening?
Or is it time for a new artist statement?

Or maybe I should have generated a smart-sounding explanation of my dumb-looking sketch before I sent it in . . .

All I know is,
success may finally be
within my grasp!

 
Pearls Before Swine, Stephan Pastis

Happy Wednesday!  

(Hope you're further along 

your week's to-do list than I am . . .)