THEN i need a hero

there is a lot of dialogue about my idealization of a person in my portraits of them. this is a conversation that i have been having my entire life. in my very first sketchbooks i would pay tribute to the frineds surrounding me by drawing pictures of them as they either wanted to be seen or how i saw themthrough my feelings for them. Added into that the fact thet i was an avid comic book collector for starting in second grade till my late thirties. i have no interest in dwelling on their flaws but rather i would glorify them in what i understood as them at their best. for nearly a decade a polaroid camera was my constant companion. many times i would take a picture of someone and stand there with them as the picture developed. When the picture had come into view i would flatly say "look how beautiful you are." it was their responce to that sentence that would give me an insight into how a portrait would be developed. shy, or flustered or bold and dismissing it was great insite into how the interior of the person. it also reassured them that i could be trusted with their likeness. they were not going to end up the but of a visual joke or as some sort or ironic commentary. The evidence of peoples inner like always radiates from their faces. this humanity is the glory that i want to portray.

THEN Andrew Beautiful

In the fall of 07 i met a man who has come to epitomize what i mean by "Little Bird" Andrew sat down next to me in a bar one night and dominate my thoughts for the next two months. So i would be able to distinguish him in the contacts folder of my phone i labeled him Andrew Beautiful. he was the sort of beautiful that made me catch my breath. and that was a beautiful that was inside and out which he was largely unaware of. it wasn't when he wa acting all hard-core and bad ass that he was at his best it was when he strapped on his giant bike helmet and complained about his flat feet. he was also very encouraging of both the little bird line of though and the indulging of my looking and drawing/painting him. he was in Boston for two months and then flew away. it was then that i realized that the little birds do not like or belong in cages and the impermanence is part of their allure. i also began an awareness of my relation to the models i paint greatly influence the final product. like the drawing class with the nude model that no one likes and at the end there are all this scarey ugly drawing of him/her. my affection plays a role. this semester as i have been collecting various models that i am not personally involved with i find that i still have an affection, softening, a generousity of spirit that comes through in varying degrees. its strange when i find someone i want to draw i start to act all weird and nervous around them. i'm afraid that they are going to realize that i am looking at them a little too long or too often and get the wrong idea. then when i get the am able to take pictures of them the excitment transfers from the actual person to their likeness that i have captured. then its all over for them by the time that i produce a drawing or painting of them. by that time i have taken everything that i am responding to in them and tweeked it and stretched it and transformed them into my ideal version of them. then i move on. if i get a chance to do live drawings of them or in the instance of Andrew develop a relationship with them the drawings evolve to a more nuanced version of my idealized version and the delightful surprise of whop they actually are.

NOW too much thinking

i dont really want to think about my artwork any more. i am just kinda following what feels right. last semester Lisa talked about how you should always be around five steps behind your artwork. too much thinking and trying to vocalize has put my artwork in the back seat.

began and nearly finished "Hardcore Zen" absolutely love it! i have moved from "i dont agree" to "i dont understand" thats huge!

ALWAYS a little edge

Thursday night was the opening of the big gay show. i had an ex boyfriend, Georg, come to the show as my date. i really do enjoy him and respect his opinions a great deal . but his comments where the same as all of the other comments i get. My art work is pretty. sometimes decorative sometimes beautiful. but never ugly. Georg echoed my own fears by saying that i need to give them an edge. i have been afraid that they are dismissible because they are just blandly pretty. they models i choose especially those that i call little birds inspire me for a number of reasons but one of those is reasons is nearly always courage, strength, cunning, or flat out bravery these are all rather cliche in traits when depicting of men. I end up depicting a more emotionally vulnerable side to these men. a glance or a moment of reflection reveals an interior life that is highly developed and protected. Many time when i am taking pictures of them i tell them that they are beautiful and that is why i would like to paint them. i'm pretty much guaranteed to catch most men off guard with being considered beautiful. i dont say that to all of them i'm realizing as i write this because that phrase takes the model artist relationship to a more intimate level that i dont want to attain with all of the models i paint.
most of these individuals stand on the edge of manhood. Under the threat of draft in a country that has been at war for 7(?) years in a country that has in highest incarceration rate in the world. the increase in communication has also meant an increase in the awareness of brutal crimes, ghastly acts, catastrophic diseases,and disasters on a global, neighborhood and personal level. We also live in a culture that does not have any ritualized rite of passage. young men are not take from their mothers and boyhood and guided by the older brothers, fathers, respected elders and shown the values and qualities that are valuable in a man. Women have a change in medical status that necessitates that they stop regarding themselves as girls and step into the world of womanhood. With men there is nothing that universal. sometimes a facts of life talk, sometimes there is learning to shave, many times there is nothing. that is why i find these small glimpses into false bravado, shyness, lust, fear, and open trust so intoxicating.

THEN it all started with a beautiful smile

last semester i would run into this beautiful boy every couple of days. when we would notice one another i would get this "OH HI!" feeling and then realize that i in fact did not know him. eventually the "OH HI!" started slipping out. soon he was comfortible enough to introduce himself to me. Billy. one of the sweetest young men i have had the pleasure to meet. there was definately an air of tension between us, a flirtation of sorts. I knew i had to paint him. i had done portraits for ever and my first semester i did a series of ex-boyfriends for a portfolio class and i knew i had to insert myself in my imagery. doing painting from beefcake photos is too pre-digested here was the boy that would launch me. i also found it somewhat fulfilling that i would be able to assume this intimacy with him and revel in how beautiful he is and see how flushed he got from my staring at him. the age differnce between the two of us had/has me wary but now i could have something else that was in a way even better.

NOW whole foods luke

this is what i have hanging on my bedroom wall right now. i think i want to go multi media on his ass!

NOW not sure what i expected.

thursday mornings i have my intro to print class. i was very excited to get into this class but i cant seem to get excited about anything we do. at the beginning of the semester i started off with doing bird imagery but i quickly got bored with each image. now i am working on the same mages of men that i am doing my paintings and drawings from but i still can seem to generate excitement. as i write this i am realizing that i am approaching this images the same way as i do my drawings and of course they leave me flat. they are not my drawings that i am able to produced a much more nuanced final image. i need to start approaching them with more of a graphic mindset. maybe more complicated compositions.

NOW my relationship with the model

I am beginning to realize that my relationship with the model is at the core of the final image of them. The two pictures that i am working on at the moment totally drive that home. "Little Bird Joe" and "Leo" i know both leo and joe from school. Leo is the security guard on during saturday studios. Joe is in The Gay / Straight Alliance with me. I was particularly interested in Leo because of david hockneys portraits of the security gaurds using the camera lucida. Although i am not a huge fan of hockney's i do recognize him as the reigning queer figurative painter and feel a connection should be established between his work and my own. but the whole relationship fucked that up. Leo is a great guy but i do not have the emotional reserves to draw upon in shaping his face. Joe i not only have a familiarity of his emotional repertoire but i have an emotion portrait of him already established from our conversations. the fact that he is younger and gay makes me both sympathetic and protective. Could that be a variation of the Identification versus objectification? leo has a very linear feel to it bordering on coloring book and i find my interest in his back ground.

NOW & THEN

My intention was to work up to my current work through posts that touch on the major themes and conversations and directions that have come to influence my work. i wanted to keep things in chronological order but that means not posting about the themes, conversations, and directions that are coming to the forefront NOW. so there will be two categories THEN and NOW and of course they will both constantly over lap.

little birds

When i was coming of age in the 1990's claiming language was very hot. As a member of Queer Nation i was well versed in the restorative power of reclaiming slurs. I began a hunt for a way to reclaim Fag. At the age of 7, i was called fag for the first time. i heard it nearly everytime i left the house for the next 8 years. in order to move into an adult sexual role i needed to be able to hear and say this word without flinching. Most of the historical traces i could find linked it with british slang for cigarettes which in turn comes from the small bundle of sticks used to set the blaze aflame when someone was burned at the stake. hardly the tool for empowerment that i wanted it to be. then at a party one night i introduced my search as a topic of conversation within a group of 5 or 6 gay men. one self proclaimed "language nerd" offered that it can be traced to an old italian slang term fagella meaning "little bird". instantly years of abuse and hurt was released as a flock of sparrows. sweet and seemingly delicate these little creatures are surprisingly resilient, durable and resourceful with the perpetual possibility of flight!

i have no idea if what this man said to me was true or not. i stopped all research. if it is incorrect then i simply do not care. 15 years later i continue to self-identify as a little bird.

i have begun to collect portraits of boys that i consider to be little birds.
this collection expand into other topics and different connotations with a central concept of depictions of masculinity.

i wanted a place that i can catalogue the various conversations, comments, distractions, inspirations, trains of thought, whatever... here we go.