Shut Up and Dance

The Something Ain't Rights (a Mike Vasquez brainchild) were on fire last night at the 29th Street Ballroom.  It was short and bittersweet.  I wanted ten more songs; I didn't want it to end.  There is nothing like a lightening fast groove to move the body and heal the heart.

Sun Tea

Gerhard Richter Painting

"One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting. But if one lacks passionate commitment, there is nothing left to do. Then it is best to leave it alone. For basically painting is total idiocy."   

                                                                                                              - Gerhard Richter, Notes, 1973

I remember the first time I saw a Richter painting, and as a young art student, I was rather astonished.  I bought a postcard of the painting and had it tacked to my wall for quite a long time. The quality of light and space, skin and paper, in Lesende (Reader), did something to me.  And, to this day, I can't quite name it.  I saw it in a group show of German painters at the Hayward Gallery in London in 1994, the same year Richter made the painting.  Tonight I saw the new documentary film, Gerhard Richter Painting, and it did something to me too.  And, as I sit here and try to write a sentence about what it did to me, I realize that it may be as unnameable as the experience of making a painting.  Or, at least, it seems best tonight to listen to Richter and leave it that way.

Lesende (Reader), 1994

Abstract Painting, 1990

"Talk about painting: there's no point. By conveying a thing through the medium of language, you change it. You construct qualities that can be said, and you leave out the ones that can't be said but are always the most important."  

                                                   - Gerhard Richter, Notes, 1964-65

En Plein Air

Uglier Than You

Mary Streepy of the Bumpin Uglies thinks that her calling is that of a studio painter, but I think there is a performance artist inside of her dying to get out.  Totally ridiculous show, in the best way possible, last weekend at The Highball on a perfect triple bill with Pong and Foot Patrol!

The Human Touch

Carrie Mae Weems

from The Kitchen Table Series, 1990

I have only ever seen Carrie Mae Weems' photographs from this series in books, and they have always deeply resonated with me.  So, I was surprised and happy to see these three on view in the Blanton's exhibition, The Human Touch.  Throughout the series we glimpse a woman's life through intimate kitchen table scenes with her partner, friends, kids and alone. The photographs from this exhibition shine a light on the friendship of women and the ways they share in each other's pain through comfort, quiet strength, and a philosophy that life will keep on moving with love and humor.

Herb and Dorothy and Richard

Richard Tuttle

Dallas (9 pencil lines)

"Most of us go through the world never seeing anything.  Then you meet somebody like Herb and Dorothy, who have eyes that see.  Something goes from the eye to the soul without going through the brain."
                - Richard Tuttle

Looking at Tuttle's drawings in the Blanton's exhibition of a small portion of Herb and Dorothy Vogel's collection this past weekend, I instantly felt both relief and envy, or perhaps more accurately, admiration, in imagining my own work in dialogue with his.  Relief that he is the one with the lightest touch.  And envy, or admiration, that he is the one with the lightest touch.

If you haven't seen the documentary about Herb and Dorothy yet, make a movie date.  Their story is one about two regular people with regular jobs and a regular life, who just really love art.

Light and Ground

Another World at Lovejoys

Last shot.

Last call.

Lovejoys, the beloved bar that closed its doors in downtown Austin this past weekend, was a portal to another world in my younger days, as I clumsily opened up to the strangeness that I had been yearning for, but missing, as a child of rural middle America.  My upbringing did not really have space for, or awareness even, of the kind of grittiness and beauty found at Lovejoys, circa 1995.  In retrospect, it probably wasn't that gritty then.  But, I loved its dark and smoky coolness for exactly the reason that it was not a place I could have found at home.

In what was perhaps my first week in Austin, I spent an entire afternoon there, alone (that was new), drinking coffee (also new for me at the time), looking through want ads in the Chronicle with a folder full of résumés by my side.  The creamy sweetness of that coffee was so good, I had three cups, not realizing that I could get freaky high on caffeine.  My mom had been telling me that I had to go out and "hit the pavement" to find a job.  And, that was a very literal directive in my post-college experience.  So, with the boost of confidence from the coffee buzz, I set out from Lovejoys to deliver résumés and my innocent Midwestern smile to every $7 an hour job in the downtown area.  And, I'm quite sure I was back later that night to wash down all that pavement pounding with a pint.

Sweatbox Wrap Up

Something I thought I would never do in this lifetime: sing on a record.  I have often daydreamed that I might be blessed with a killer singing voice in my next life.  In this life, however, let's just say that I sound really amazing, when I'm all alone.  But, a few days ago, I had the honor of singing alongside (and a self-consious step back so I wouldn't be too loud) the vocal virtuosity of Colin, Tammy and John; and I have to say, it rocked.  Our back up chorus was one of the eleventh hour additions to Archive War's debut album, a project that has been long in the making and much anticipated by its makers and friends alike.  Mike Vasquez of Sweatbox is the wizard behind the curtain twisting and turning knobs on Mason's songs until it all sounds just right.  And, it's almost all just right now.  Oh, the tweaking!    

Gang vocal guest stars.

Our lines.

The process of mixing (sound, that is) feels like a Richter painting.  All a blur.

Summertime Soliloquy

The linen and the stretcher bars had no idea how or when they would meet the paint, but they knew they would, eventually.  I had no idea how or when the paint would be applied, but I knew it would, because I could see the painting as object long before I could see color or imagery.

I am fully aware of how lucky I am to have time to make things (art, work, stuff... cocktails), in this glorious space between the exhaustion of summer school and the anticipation of the fall semester.  My problem is not time, or lack of, in this most expansive of seasons.  My problem is trust.  Or, it can be.  Trust in the process.  But, I'm working on that.

I was talking with a friend the other day, who is also an artist, and she was telling me what it is like to spend time with her mom who struggles with an early onset and severe form of dementia.  She said that it demands presence, that everything else, responsibilities and anxieties, just fall away.  And, then she said, it's like making art.

The cynic in me has long wondered what this making business is all about and whether it is even worth my time, energy and money.  But, the artist in me, who is much bigger and stronger than the cynic, knows that my very life might depend on it.  (I know, rather dramatic, but this is a soliloquy.)  So, I have been coming back again and again to this idea, this beautiful observation by my friend that intimately ties together presence and making and relationships, in the days since we talked about it.  And, I try to remember it in those moments of doubt.

So, now, when I see something in my brain, and know that that something might be good, I try to trust and follow through, and enjoy the process of that becoming.