5 (plausible) reasons Vincent Van Gogh was ignored

We all know the name Vincent Van Gogh.  I have never met an artist that has said, "I don't like the paintings of Van Gogh."  Our current generation of artists and patrons of the arts are slightly programed to like him as a result of his lack of patronage during his life.  It's true, and its okay, so just deal with it.  Why couldn't this master oil painter, with more vision than any of his contemporaries, sell his paintings.  I do not believe it was because of his work.  People buy what is good and there are always people willing to buy new ideas.  

Five (plausible) reasons Vincent Can Gogh was ignored in his life time.  

1.  He was crazy, and not in that "cool I'm still kinda hip crazy."  He claimed to have hallucinated often (without drugs).  Some believe he may have had bipolar disorder or manic depression, or possibly even lead poisoning from the oil paint (which can make you very crazy for short periods of time).  So seriously Van Gogh acted crazy often for reasons we can guess at, but honestly can't explain without conjecture.
2.  He drove people away with his fits of madness.
3.  He was born in the wrong place and time, resulting in the unpopularity of his works.
4.  He indulged in drinking, drugs, and absinth often.

And the 5th (possible) reason Vincent Van Gogh was ignored...

5.  He was clearly one of the greatest artists of our time.

Oddly, I have never paid all that much attention to the more popular works of Van Gogh.  I have had the pleasure of being able to truly observe one of his olive tree paintings for the last 20 years.  "Olive Trees" is on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.  This is one of my many favorite works of art at the museum.

Vincent Van Gogh

1853-1890

"Olive Trees" 1889

Oil on canvas

"I dream of painting and then I paint my dream."

-Vincent Van Gogh

2.2.3_Other tools

2.2.3_Other tools

Anything can be used as a tool for oil painting.  As a child I knew a man that painted with sharpened sticks and twigs, and referred to himself as the twig painter.  Each painting tool is a discipline to master. While working solely with the pallet knife, I needed a larger surface to move paint, so I chose to use a toaster for several composition paintings, simply because it was the tool that could get the results I was looking for.  The concept that I was working on at the time dictated what tool I use.  I chose the toaster simply because I could only acquire the results I wanted from its large, flat, smooth surface.  When I wanted a larger size, I used a freezer door as my tool, with the same intended purpose as the toaster and pallet knife.  My personal experiments with unconventional tools did not end there, and eventually led me back to the brush.  These experiences gave me separate voices of dramatic difference within my work that I someday may eventually unite into a single personality with a voice based on multiple techniques. 

I once challenged an artist to paint with a wind up toy bear that’s arms would become animated in opposing directions in a swimming motion, and a small toilet plunger.  Although the physical aesthetic of the work he produced was poor, if the artist would have continued to practice the discipline in oil painting with the toy bear and toilet plunger, he would have eventually found a way to create what his intuitive mind was telling him in an aesthetically pleasing manner.  The toy bear and a toilet plunger were experiments in teaching an understanding of what a tool is to the artist.  The lesson was intended to remove the artist's dependance on a conventional painting tool as the brush, and to teach the artist that all painting tools are simply a discipline within themselves to learn.  My apprentice painted five works with the toy bear and toilet plunger.  It was not until the fourth work that he began to get a handle on the tools themselves, and not until the fifth work did he start to see the lesson of tool as a discipline. 

Prior to this experiment, I attempted the same lesson with this artist, confining him to use one brush type per painting.  The lesson, tool as discipline, is the same here as it was with the unconventional tools, but my apprentice couldn’t separate his mind from the brush as he used it, even though he was only allowed to paint exclusively per brush type.  His unimaginative approach to painting and painting tools pointed me in the direction of removing his habits with the unconventional and witty toy wind-up bear and toilet plunger.  I had to remove the idea of tools as tools, making the action of painting absurd in order for him to see the ideas behind the lesson.  Subsequently this artist should have been able to see this on his own, and as far as I know he no longer paints.  Together we did have a very good time painting, and Stefan was extremely talented in illustration.  I hope that he still works creatively today.

2.2.2_The pallet knife

2.2.2_The pallet knife

The pallet knife is naturally quick and improvisational in its abilities for laying paint on a surface.  There are many varieties as to the edge, shape, and flexibility of a palette knife; most of which mimic the paint brushes various features of each bristle type.  The palette knife has the ability to control the texture of oil paint, manipulating this painting medium into a sculpting medium.  The use of oil paint as a sculpting medium is still painting.  I use the pallet knife to sculpt three-dimensional forms out of oil paint.

     I used a set of 12 palette knives for an entire series of works.  I even found myself using a toaster and a freezer door, for their larger edge, to pull paint.  

Studio #7 - 1915 2nd Avenue South #13

To continue on with the series of posts about my studios, here is where I am working now.  My 7th studio in Minneapolis is a top floor, 800 square-foot, 1 bedroom corner apartment in Stevens Square.  It is pretty nice, so I will kept it nice.  

I have been able to really dig into my series of works titled BitTorent, but no telling how soon I will have them Finished.  

Just finished this, yep its cool.

Its funny

Chris and I looking at my new work, he likes it.

I am talking about the painting... 

...I talk a lot.

I completed one of my major compositions at this studio.  BitTorrent #2 "Marinuis Van der Lubbe as Icarus."  To me this painting was a crowning achievement in what I wanted to paint next.

Laugh all you want, this painting was and is a major accomplishment for me.  I do take it that seriously, and then I tend to giggle about it later.

Thanks for reading...

...I will keep you up to date about my antics in this new studio.

2.2.1_On the paint brush

2.2.1_On the paint brush

Regardless of the tools the oil painter comes to use in his discipline, the oil painter must first learn to control the paint brush. The paint brush is the single most recognized tool used to create works of art,  but the artist must never be limited to its use solely for the application of oil paint.  Although it is the classic tool of the oil painter, it must not be considered the most important.  All tools, as a matter of personal choice, are simply a discipline to learn.  The artist will simply know what tool is best used to achieve each intended concept.  Within compositional oil painting the intended concept of an oil painting supersedes personality and inevitably decides what the tools should be.  Only the indented concept and communication of the work of art dictates what tools to use in its creation.  Through the path of both self and external discovery, the oil painter will use other tools to create works of art.  Afterward, as the oil painter matures, he will return to the use of the brush.

Paint brushes are made up of three basic parts:  the head, the ferrule, and the handle.  The head is the hairs or bristles of the brush.  The head has three parts: the toe, the belly, and the heel.  The shape and bristle quality of the head determines the nature of the stroke that it will make.  The ferrule is the metal cylinder, preferably seamless, that attaches the head to the handle.  The handle is typically made of wood and is self explanatory in its purpose and use.  The professional oil painter should only use a long wooden handle, as the short handled plastic brush is for the hobbyist.  The oil painter has more control over the paint with a long handled brush.

The question of the expense of a paint brush is always in debate.  I tell you now, cheap tools equal cheap results, and the oil painter that can not tell the difference between a cheaply constructed paint brush and an expensive one, is not a professional, and subsequently their opinion                                          on the matter is without merit.

Neither natural hair or synthetic bristle paint brushes are better than the other, as there are benefits to using both bristle types.  The outer casing of natural hair, the cuticle, is covered with tiny scales that help the bristles retain moisture.  Natural hair also has a hollow tube within each filament that allows the hair to absorb moisture called the medulla.  These features make natural hair vastly more absorbent than synthetic hair, therefore natural hair will always hold more color than its man-made counterpart.  Natural hair paint brushes work with any medium and become more attuned to a single medium's use.  Synthetic bristle paint brushes are far more durable, making them longer-lasting, resistant to wearing out, and to being damaged by use with solvents and harsh paint.  Synthetic hair bristles are easier to clean because they lack the ultra-absorbent qualities of natural bristles.  As a result, synthetic brushes are better suited than natural brushes to use with oils due to their resiliency to the paint's caustic effects.

As a preference to which bristle type is best to use, I say natural hair brushes.  The professional oil painter should use the finest grade of natural hair paint brushes.  Keep them clean and care for them, and the will outlast a synthetic brush.  Also natural hair is simply better because it is natural.  There is a physical and metaphysical connection between the painter and his materials and tools.  That connection is somehow stronger if the materials and tools are natural rather than synthetic.

There are a number of paint brush types varying from size, shape, and body for various purposes in working with oil paints.  The most common brush types are: flat, bright, fan, filbert, egbert, liner, round, flat wash, mop, and the angular.  They are named for both their appearance and use with paints.

The flat brush, with its flat rectangular body and square chisel edge, is the perfect brush for applying large amounts of color both quickly and evenly.  It holds plenty of paint for applying thick amounts, as it creates long straight brush strokes.  The flat is excellent for softly defining compositional elements that have a straight edge to them.  I find the flat most useful in applying the underpainting when clarity and precision are not too important, but applying a large amount of paint is.

The bright brush has the same chisel edge as a flat, but with shorter bristle length.  It comes to a fine chisel edge when loaded with paint.  The short square head of the bright makes it ideally suited for straight lines, applying broad strokes with a controlled edge, and well-defined brush strokes.  The bright's capabilities of finely detailed forms makes it perfect for overpainting and finial editing.  I use the bright for all geometric forms and the overpainting of large areas of negative space to redefine positive spaces.

The fan brush is shaped into a flat profile with a curved edge spread as a hand-held fan.  The fan is designed for delicately blending color and softening edges, creating dusty-like strokes when painting objects such as clouds, and distant foliage.  I consider the fan brush a gimmick, and it should not be used by the professional oil painter who can reproduce the brushstrokes that it creates with a filbert.

The filbert brush has the body of a flat brush with a slightly rounded edge point.  The filbert is extremely versatile and is used to create as a flat to make broad strokes or as a round for more delicate and tapered strokes.  I use the filbert for softening the edges of forms and fading small areas of change in color value.  The filbert is the macro lense of oil painting with its dual ability to focus a finely detailed stroke and fade oil color, softly blurring its appearance. 

The Egbert brush is similar to a filbert in that it has the same rounded edge, only with much longer bristles.  Its flat ferrule and long bristles can carry more color than a filbert.  It is as long as the liner brush and it is most commonly used for thick long tapered lines, and blending value changes.  I have no personal use for the Egbert, and I find it lacking in self control as a result of its length.

The liner brush has a slender round head with very long bristles that comes to a thin tip that is ideal for working with tiny details.  The length of its body holds a lot of oil color allowing it to deliver color continuously in a single stroke when painting long lines.  The thin tip creates fine lines like no other brush type.  This brush is commonly called a "rigger" for its use in painting the rigging on ships.  I used the liner previously with well worked oil color to achieve the immediate effects of small detail.

The round brush has a thick round head with bristles that taper to a fine point at the end.  It is used for precise strokes of fine detail work.  Like the liner brush, the round hold a great deal of paint and is best used with slightly thinned paints; albeit, thinned oil paints fade away, crack, and slowly become transparent with time.  I do not recommend its use.  Simply work the oil color on the pallet until it is soft enough to achieve the desired effect.

The flat wash brush is an extra-large flat.  It is primarily used for  painting with watercolors, but is useful to the oil painter as a dry brush to remove all trace of brushstroke.  I use the flat wash with oils as a dry-brush for soft surface color blending and smoothing.  It is ideal for blending surface area to a smooth transition between color and value changes, without disturbing the underpainting.  

The mop brush has a large flappy fat body and is shaped into an oval or rounded thick edge.  The mop is used for delicately glazing so as to not disturb the underpainting.  It is useful as a dry-brush for blending large amounts of surface color.  I personally find the mop brush a useless gimmick.

The angular brush is similar to the build and body of the flat, with the edge angled at a tapered slant.  The angular brush has a flat edge and a pointed tip, allowing for both wide and thin strokes.  The tip is its most valued feature, as it can easily reach areas within a painting that are between sections you do not wish to disturb.  The tight details the angular can reach are virtually impossible to work with a larger brush.  I use the angular for precise details in color forms where a mistake, i.e. coloring outside the lines, would be nearly irreversible.

Taking care of paint brushes to keep them supple, resilient, and like new, is essential to increase their longevity and to extend their usefulness.  Simply use soap and water to get them clean.  I prefer using liquid dish-soap.  Do not leave a paint brush sitting bristle-side down in a solvent for days on end.  This will cause the brush to lose its original shape as the bristles will splay out from time spent soaking and softening, making them weaker and more susceptible to the weight of the handle.  Ideally the oil painter will want to clean paint and solvent residue off his brushes immediately after each use.  Do not use the same paint brush for different mediums or colors.  Each kind of paint, and the solvents used to clean it, affect the bristles differently.  Using the same paint brush with different kinds of paint will rapidly destroy it.

Furthermore, the oil painter should have six classifications of each brush type and size based on color usage.  Separating brush use by blues, reds, greens, yellows, whites and blacks.  Even though the painter will always mix and blend colors of different hues together, each brush he uses should almost exclusively be used with one color hue.  There will always be a small amount of paint left inside the ferrel of the brush, and using a freshly cleaned brush that was first used with one color for another, causes unintentional mixing and color changes within a painting.  Sometimes the result is disastrous, when the paints color turns to a grey green mud as a result of poor cleaning.  In this way the oil painter extends the lasting usefulness of his paint brushes.  I have six brushes of each type and size. So if I own a bright #4, I own at least six of them. 

2.1_The fundamentals of oil painting

2.1  The fundamentals of oil painting

There is only one rule to being an oil painter:  use oil paint anyway you can, as all other variables are irrelevant and inconsequential.  There are tried techniques to the application of oil paint, but those also are a variable.  That is not to say don't learn what has worked before you, simply do not be confined by another's personal preferences.  I say that the single most important fundamental is that the student of painting, the artist, and the master painter, use oil pigments and only oil pigments.  

In chapter 2, I will discuss the fundamentals of oil painting as I see and have practiced them.  It is my hope that an artist reading this in the future will find value within a disciplined study of oil painting, just as this future will generate new and innovative ideas in said artists generation.  

1.4_ A brief on the nature of subjectivity

1.4  A brief on the nature of subjectivity

Freedom of expression, to hold any opinion, and act on those opinions, is an invaluable liberty for an artist.  The idea of being an artist became an American pop fashion, like the clothing style an individual chooses to wear.  It is not a mystery as to how this happened.  Subjectivity without discipline fueled within a materialistic mass marketed society of vanity, naturally and quietly created this era.  The fifth intellectual dark-age; where our current generation are all aspiring artists, and all of these emerging somethings keep trying and keep failing to have their big moment.  They were showed fame, and it was kept from them, creating this untalented generation of dreamers.  Do not take my words for that of a fool.  There are countless known and unknown master artists in every corner of the States; for every master there are thousands of fools living lies.

Minneapolis is the city of the arts.  Living here, it seems as if everyone is an emerging something, where by removing the validity of the term emerging as a result of its commonality.  We live in the era of the American artist, the creative class, a group of dreamers in perpetual poverty.  As a result of this generation, subjectivity, diversity, and individuality has become the norm.  Being different, unique, and standing out, has become more important than the honesty in knowing ones’ self and what one is capable of.  For the artist all of this just happens and s/he becomes himself/herself with ease.  For the pretender, the mask they adorn creates a similar emotional crisis just as that of schizophrenia.  In order to understand this disease of individuality driven materialism we live with, we must first understand free will, and with that we start with the idea, causes, needs, inaction, and action of the subjectivity of making decisions.

Subjectivity is the unjustified personal opinions commonly based on perspective, particularly feelings, beliefs, and desires in direct conflict of proofs and justified belief.  Subjectivity addresses a unique view of experiencing reality available to individuals where the causes of experience are objective and without ownership, but the perspective of these experiences are subjective and commonly owned, i.e. my feelings about my events are my idea and my identity.

Subjectivity in conjunction with the arts is a practical necessity.  Subjectivity is essential to the world of art, albeit, the ideas of those that value individualism without a sense of being or a personally defined idea of what one is truly capable of fall prey to the modern materialistic cycle of individualism.  Thereby forgetting the ideas of self-cultivation, that at first inspired their subjective world view, we are thereby ceasing to know truth in their personal behavior; and with it the momentary ability to judge and know right from wrong.  There is no true subjective but through culture, tradition, and generation.  The ideas of good and bad are presented for us.  The enemies of the subjective can not understand the desire to be different, is not to be different.

The artist that is simply not honest with one's being uses the idea of subjective to mask their inadequacies in originality and talent.  That artist creating works of art to be recognized as an individual of importance by their work, as a result they invent an icon of themselves as a character style, each trying to out-do the other artist pop renditions of the human melodrama.  This individual invents their identity, continually recreating themselves to become what they wish to be, regardless of past and present truth.  This is the result of any subjective competitive media.  As the competitive nature of the arts use their identifying mark and projected sense of being, becomes anarchy at first, and then a universal that the individual believes all must adhere to.   

This critique is without an honest look at these shared opinions.  As a result of this indecisive subjectivity this artist becomes the intellectual opinion on their current state as an ism or school of art simply by an established majority.  Without an isolated voice, this generation of artists has thereby become speechless, developing into art for the sake of art- without purpose outside of a waning child's ego or adults neurosis.  Hence, todays subjective established materialistic artistic philosophies granted this generations artist's identities.  It can be likened to the death of cubism as Picasso’s innovations were copied by hundreds of artists and are still mimicked today as people intellectually catch up to Picasso. 

There are pioneers within this generation of artists, and like Picasso, multitudes of the unimaginative follow their wake mimicking only the basic level of rendered aesthetic.  This artist is full of egotistical fantasy and momentary self discovery, and poisons himself and the arts with every stone wheel they claim to invent. The death of expressionism is a direct result of the copy cat, which for some reason people continue to figure out for the first time and keep regurgitating its emotional fever on the canvas over and over again.  

Each generation has its voice as that voice can be considered a purely subjective viewpoint where the previous generation can not relate to the new.  Conclusively, I can state that only the honesty of the artist's works truly maters.  For if the artist creates works that are true to their thoughts, honest with their own tastes and internal dialogue, and although a subjective voice, it is their own to identify with.  

Studios #4 & #5 - Milwaukee/Ft. Lauderdale

I moved to Milwaukee to study the collection at the Milwaukee Art Museum.  I lived across the street from the building for seven months.  I spent almost every day there learning as much as I could about their collection in the short time that I had.  It was not a vacation, and money was tight, but I feel I left with a good memory of the collection at MAM.

Studio #4 was in the second bedroom of the two bedroom apartment I rented across from MAM.  I painted four complete works there.  I have no photos of the actual studios, so just enjoy some pics of what I created while I was there.

Bowling Alley 16 "Saint G b" 

oil on canvas

60" x 36"

Bowling Alley 21 "The People a" 

oil on canvas

60" x 36"

 Bowling Alley 22 "The People b"
oil on canvas
60" x 36"

Bowling Alley 23 "The People c" 

60" x 36"

Studio #5 was in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.  I had completed my study of The Milwaukee Art Museum, so I needed a change and I did not want to return to Minneapolis just yet.  I moved there for personal reasons that did not work out, so I promptly moved back to Minneapolis after just 5 months.

Alas I have no pictures of the studio, it was gorgeous.  I created some good work in Florida, as living there changed me artistically and set me on the direction that still I find myself going.

Bowling Alley 20 "I" 

oil on canvas

60" x 30"

Bowling Alley 24 "Sounds a" 

oil on canvas 

30" x 15"

Bowling Alley 25 "Sounds b" 

oil on canvas

30" x 15"

Bowling Alley 26 "Sounds c" 

oil on canvas

30" x 15"

Bowling Alley 27 "Improvisation" 

oil on canvas

70" x 50"

Bowling Alley 28 "Stained Glass a" 

oil on linen

40" x 20"

Bowling Alley 29 "Stained Glass b"

oil on linen 

40" x 20"

Bowling Alley 30 "Stained Glass c" 

oil on linen

40" x 20"

Thanks for checking out my blog...

...no doubt, there is more to come soon.

1.3 Abstract Art

1.3_Abstract Art

Until about the mid 1800’s, western art has aspired to the rational work of the observation and reproduction of our visible reality.  The scientific and philosophical changes of the time directly effected western art, where the theoretical abstract became concrete enough in the minds of artists to visually represent their philosophical views of the changing world.  Rather than discuss the history of art and the evolution of and realization of abstraction, I will tell you that Abstract Art is a logical conclusion for the moment.

Abstraction is a language of composition without the dependance of the visual world.  The abstract work of art is an idea related to our visual world through the personal interpretation of experience and retrospection.  Abstract art has allowed modern man to contemplate on our world views, our philosophies, and ourselves in an era where we not only have the opportunity to contemplate these things, we concentrate on it.  Abstract art is a logical conclusion for the moment.

Each artist’s ideas are their own, and the concepts and results of their abstract works of art are only subject to the variables of their generation.  Method and style are irrelevant, both being products of the period each artist lives in, and as such, are a representation of the intuitive state and personal interpretation of their generation.  You cannot place boundaries on or judge the aesthetics of a generation, you can however judge their philosophy in a general observation of the collective behavior of a generation.

The further the artist progresses into abstraction, the more it will become apparent that he is actually ascending into representation; not that of a photographic nature, but that of an intuitive kind.  With brief being at the nature of abstraction, we find that abstract art is only the sketch of a concept, and has yet to have grown into the maturity of pure compositional works.  The intended concept of the artist must live in every portion of a work of art for abstract oil painting to grow out of its infancy, and into the maturity of the aesthetics of compositional oil painting.

Lastly, regardless of a work of art’s appearance, if honest, it is beautiful.

Artwork of the month by Piet Mondrian

There are two artists that I look toward for their mastery of the philosophy of abstract oil painting. Wassily Kandinsky, and Piet Mondrian; both masters of their craft and shaman philosophers of modern art.

There are four Mondrian paintings at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts that I have spent years meditating on.  I have read everything Mondrian has written, and rarely disagreed with his thesis.   His work has inspired me and pushed me to be honest with my work, helping me see my visual language as my own.

Piet Mondrian

Dutch, 1872-1944

"Composition with Blue, Red, Yellow, and Black"

1922, oil on canvas

"Red Gladioli"

1906, Oil on canvas

"Irises"

1910, oil on canvas

"Composition with Blue and Red"

1932, oil on canvas

The MIA hardly ever puts this painting out on display.  I have only seen it twice.

"All painting – the painting of the past as well as of the present – shows us that its essential plastic means we are only line and color."

-Piet Mondrian.

1.2 The abstract oil painter

1.2_The abstract oil painter

The defining attribute of an oil painter is that he use oil paint, anything beyond that one simple canon closes the door of inventiveness on the oil painter forever.  The discipline of oil painting is less limited than the other forms of art.  Nevertheless, do not be fooled by undefined intolerance, all art is of significant importance to its creators and audience.  To become an abstract oil painter is, in part, a choice; and to continue in life as an oil painter is a dedication made from the artist's passion.  It is a self-disciplined, obsessive, selfish path in its very nature, that cannot be obtained in a year or in ten.  The path of the abstract oil painter is a professional trade that becomes the disciplined pursuit of a lifetime.  I say that it is a choice because the artist will naturally develop toward abstraction the longer he creates works of art.

The abstract oil painter paints by way of his intuition, allowing it to guide him.  The intuitive artist sees the world through the perception of his own philosophy, without social influence.  He is free, liberated from the physical world but bound to its social cooperation.  The intuitive mind of the abstract oil painter is concerned only with his life's work of painting, and does not create works of art for effortless decoration.  For him, works of art are a means to reconcile all ideas, inner thoughts, and philosophical questions, as the oil painter examines every inch of every painting he dedicates himself to that insight he witnesses within his work.  He cannot be distracted from the path that chose him, having such passion for his work that everything, even the mundane acts of daily existence, are obsessively calculated movements toward competing his work.  The oil painter, led by his intuition, is unaffected by critique and all public intrusion.  He envisions praise and disdain as one, external and therefore irrelevant to his path.  High ideals intrinsically predetermine the method and vision of each artist.

The other type of artist is an ornate artist.  Following the trends of his time aesthetically as to be seen within what is popular, and what is socially gratifying.  The ornate fame and fortune driven artist will adorn his socially satisfactory aesthetic in soulless self-gratification and vague personal jokes as pointless works of art created without purpose or passion.  The ornate artist is painting merely for the sake of painting.  

You can never judge the skill and ineptitude of the artist without looking at the artist's life choices.  The intuitive artist is simply doing what drives him, and creating works of art for tomorrow to admire, as he attempts to rationalize and communicate his understanding of the nature of his ideas; and if honest within his work, is at first and at best, misunderstood.  It does not matter what quality the work is, only that the oil painter continue to work, and by continuing, if the artist is true to his nature, the quality of work will progress.  Eventually and inevitably the intuitive artist will become a master at his chosen discipline. 

0.2 Preface

0.2_Preface

I have written this for others in an attempt to illustrate how to understand what it is I do as an oil painter.  Over the course of fifteen years, the discipline of oil painting has matured into my chosen form of communication.  Within oil painting I can speak in a way that the audience is aware of my intended concepts clearly and unwittingly, regardless of my chosen subject matter or aesthetic.  I will paint for a period, and then I will write about what I painted.  This essay is a collection of my thoughts over the last decade.  This is for me and not for you, if you do not agree with my thoughts on creating works of art and humanities use for the arts, then that is fine.  My ideas are sure to evolve through time as I learn to understand myself, broadening the relationship I have with my medium.

I oil paint with two distinctive styles or methods of aesthetic.  In one, I work with compositions purely based on the texture of oil paint, and in the other, I work with the architecture involved in the poetic or rhythmic use of the composition of color-forms to entice direct responses from a viewer.  In both establishments, I attempt to characterize mental-states of being using abstract pictographs associated with the intended narrative of my subject matter.

I place myself into the mental-state that I am trying to represent, and I stay in character for however long it takes to come to a full understanding of the concept I am working with.  I will stay in character until the work is finished.  I use my total environment to alter my own mental state to that of my intended concept with media such as music, film, and literature as source material to reach and maintain a specific mental-state.  Just as the actor must take on the totality of the character they play in movies and theater, I need to be my ideas before and I paint them.  A mental-state is not simply an indication of emotion, but an intellectual stage of being or consciousness where thinking and feeling beings process information during the moment.  The mental-state of an individual effects their behavior and understanding in all aspects of life.  There are many states of being that an individual will go through in life, and whether rational or irrational, a mental state is how people deal with cause and effect.  Action A causes us to feel happy, and action B cases us to feel sad, but that effect must not be classified as emotion,  Emotion is simply an external aftermath of behavior as a result of a mental state.  We each go through several mental states throughout the course of one day.

All human situations can be represented in a mental-state.  All mental-states can be represented with sound, and all sound can be represented with color-forms.  Compositional oil painting is capable of altering the mental state of the individual, just as directly and immediately as music does.  Although it may not be recognized immediately, or even at all, the outside influence of sound changes how mankind thinks, feels, and reacts to situations.  Sound alters our mental state of being, and speaks to us without the complications of personal experience as the interpreter.

During my studies, I select the subject matter in the majority of my work before I establish the composition for each oil painting.  The subject matter I use varies depending on the metaphors I am creating.  I speak about our world indirectly through contextual metaphors and direct word association.

There is always a portion of personal life in my works of art, and although I try to erase that identity from my work, it remains to a small degree.  As time goes on, my personality becomes my philosophy, which has evolved by the constant study of my work.   The creative process is an act of necessity, and is partially an unwitting passage.  I simply have known when and what to paint one step at a time.  Moreover, like the character Frankenstein, my creations are a reflection of the era in which I live and not that of the author, myself.  There is a chance that I am completely unstable and indeed insane, to a point where I can no longer understand what is an honest idea within oil painting, and what are the over-persistent ramblings of a sick man. Since I no longer wish to make the clear distinction between the two, I leave that up to you, the reader, to decide for yourself.

The following sections are an attempt to illustrate the benefits an artist receives from a dogmatic and disciplined study of his chosen medium.  Secondly to expose the amateur, the consumerist, hobbyist, and scenester artist for what they are, and are not.

Studio #1 - 116 Oak Grove - studio apartment

My first oil painting space in Minneapolis was in the basement of a house in North East, where I lived with people I did not like, and they did not like me.  That was probably why they had me paint next to the washer and dryer in a crappy low ceiling basement.  So lets call that Studio #0 and just leave it at that.

Studio #1, my first real art studio in Minneapolis, was a studio apartment in Loring Park, that I converted into an art studio.  It was a stimulating and productive time in my life.  I was examining abstraction, working on short stories and poetry, and learning how to make it without a day job.  I was relatively new to Minneapolis, and I had only met a handful of people I would consider friends.  

I converted the bathroom into my bedroom.  I had a board cut to fit the bath tub, attached with hinges to the top of the tub.  I would flip the board up, take a shower, flip it back down then roll out a mattress to sleep on.  The rest of the bathroom was a makeshift closet.  It was crazy cramped and messy, but it worked.  Seriously, have you ever tried to live in a bathroom?  We all do what we must to have what we want, and living in the bathroom was what I had to do.

The rest of the apartment was all art studio.  I ruined it in less than a year, getting paint on everything, and paid a high price for my youthful sense of creativity.  I used the freezer door to paint with at one point, as the toaster I was painting with at the time did not have a large enough edge to pull the oil paint how I needed it.  It was worth every dollar.

I probably completed 200 or so works of art in this studio, and it was crazy.

Here are some pics of the studio.

I was so proud of this painting, and its okay, but not nearly as good as I thought it was at the time.  I created many works that I am still happy with today.  It does not mater if my work then was good or bad, junk or masterworks; I was building the skills I would need later as a professional artist.  Besides, in our art world its all relative to the individual, so as an artist I could (and can) get away with anything I wanted to.  

At any given point there were 30+ oil paintings stacked up everywhere.

During this time I met an oil painter named Philip Hoffman.  I became his apprentice shortly after we met (mostly because I kept bugging him to teach me what he knew), and we continued to work together for the next 4+ years.

Philip working on "The infamous Purple lake"

 Philip Hoffman worked with me in the studio until its inevitable end.  We created an entire series of works together in there, and became good friends in the process.

It became crowded fast, no room for anything other than oil paintings.
I still have that green shirt, it is seriously my favorite shirt ever.

Even the tiny kitchen was used for some type of artwork creation.

The tape on the floor was set for where I was to stand while I looked at the stage of my still-life.  It was part of my self imposed training/study as an artist.

Catherine A. Palmer and I worked together for years.

We will work and exhibit together again.

I had a very good time in this studio, and I was a ham (excessively theatrical) so we took tons of photos.

Stefan Johnson worked in the studio with me at times.  Here he is painting with a bathtub toy wind up bear and a toilet plunger.  Look for 2.2.3_Other tools for a detailed account of that day.

The downfall of this studio was the parties, or as I liked to call them, the art openings.  We threw gallery-like openings with our paintings in the hallways of the apartment building.  We actually sold some work doing this, and it was fun.  I had screwed large lug bolts into the apartment hallway walls and painted white over them so they were not very noticeable, but easy to just hang a bunch of oil paintings for a weekend art show.  The neighbors didn't care, they thought it as fun.

Eventually the apartment managers caught on and came to one of the openings.  I saw a group of suits come in, thought that it was odd, but maybe they saw the flyer and wanted to look at the art so I invited them into the studio.  We small talked and then I suggested that they take some time and look at the paintings, they told me that they had seen enough and handed me eviction papers.  That was the abrupt end of my first studio.  Worth every penny.

  I have hundreds of photos from this studio, so I will just leave you with just these.

Thanks for reading my blog...

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