rediscovering painting
You could do anything
“you could do anything
you could do anything
you could do anything
you could do anything”
So goes the lyrics from Nirvana’s “Blew,” a great song from the Bleach album.
And so spot-on.
Forgive me as I pontificate.
I’ve been waxing nostalgic a bit lately. As I come back from a business trip and, once again, play “fix it” guy for a whole host of stuff in the corporate supply chain world, I get stressed out and no time for play makes Stevie a dull boy. Or so it’s said. But the important thing, and there IS an important thing, fucker, is that I haven’t had time to finish cleaning my office and turning it into the studio it needs to be.
For you regular followers. And there are exactly ZERO of you, so I’m speaking to myself here, which is par for the course, I never got to finish cleaning out the office. Which I need to do. I heard that the area rug I wanted to use, one that’s stuffed neatly into the rafters of the garage, was never properly cleansed of dog shit. Yes, you read that right. So I need time to steam-clean that puppy because I don’t need oil paints embedded into the Berber, thank you very fucking much.
And I can’t do that while the kids sleep. And work’s been, well, WORK. I’m earning that motherfucking paycheck, I gotta say. And it kinda sucks. I liked having little to do, knowing the gameplan fully in advance, and executing on what’s easy for me but hard for most chumps. I’m feeling a little arrogant tonight, fuck off if you don’t like it.
But I found this cool site where the blog owner has a geographic area selected and you do Google Street View and you paint a random scene somewhere in that geographic area. Pretty tits, huh? Well, yeah, I thought so, too – glad you’re along for the ride, Skippy.
As I was playing with this thing, I started finding all the old places where I used to live. Very nice stroll down memory lane. I really, haphazardly, lazily realized that I really miss New Hampshire. The yards are big, the streets are narrow. The green is so goddamned green. For reference, I’m literally 20′ from my neighbors. Actually, I’m about 12′ from one neighbor on one side. That’s California for ya. I grew up where I was probably 100′ from the nearest neighbor. I couldn’t even *see* the nearest neighbor through the trees. The people across the street were probably about 1000′ feet away or so.
And here I am, just about sitting my cornhole right atop the neighbors. And I really hate it. I REALLY hate it. My wife says that California is a sinking ship. I’m inclined to agree. Only we’re upside down on the mortgage, thanks to irresponsible lending and irresponsible borrowers. Where’s my motherfucking bailout? Whatever. I don’t really want that. I want my house value to go back up to a reasonable level. 40% drop in value sucks dog nuts. Especially through no fault of my own. The strong Libertarian bent in me really gets fired up about other people fucking me like that. So I’ll shut the yap now.
The POINT of all this rambling, ya see, is that I CAN do anything. I can also find every fucking excuse in the book to rationalize NOT doing anything, too. I’m too smart for my own good, it seems. I’d love to quit my day job and plow full-on into the dark unknown faster ‘n uncle’s day in a whorehouse, but that’s a huge step and scary. And I’m not the kind of person to stop suckling at the corporate teat so readily. Mmm, corpo-milk!
But I know I can do it. I know I can get myself on a painting routine. I know I can get better. I know I can sell enough to live off of it. I know I can leave the cubicle nation. I know I can find a way. I know I can get back to the East Coast and sustain myself. I know I can. because I can do anything. I can do anything. I can do anything. I can do anything.
If you wouldn’t mind I would like it blew
If you wouldn’t mind I would like it loose
If you wouldn’t care I would like to leave
If you wouldn’t mind I would like to breathe
Is there another reason for your stain
Could you believe him when you discussed his stain?
Here is another word that rhymes with shame
You could do anything
(trivia: I sometimes use “stain” as my online identity. Because I think it’s funny. But I heard it here first.)
I guess I”m kind of a follower, but I’m not sure how it really works on wordpress. Blogspot is dorky but its easy follow peoples sites. You are on my list of blogsites on my site, so I am reminded to come look every so often.
Soul sucking jobs are a pain, and the whole mortgage and California issues are damn near life threatening. But being unemployed for 8 months with no end in site has its downside, too. I speak from direct and immediate experience! I do have the astounding luxury of time and space to work in and am doing my best to paint/draw every day, realizing that something miraculous could happen and I’d be back at the daily grind. Financially better, but I’d be loathe to give up the time to make art.
I’m certainly not going to tell you to cheer up, or see the bright side or any such tripe. I will say that I think that there are cracks (or major abysses) in the system that present the possibility of rethinking our personal economies and opportunities. Thinking small, frugal, and meaningful may become the new American way. At least for some of us who want to make some sense of the nonsense around us. Check out the Business Plan at http://ancientartist.typepad.com/ancient_artist_developing/ May not be exactly what you’re looking for, but Sue Smith provides a very insightful and humorous guide to the business of art. Perhaps it will give you a mental shift and expose some workable possibilities.
Hi Steve. I’m not sure if your aware that the cats out of the bag in reference to the Karin Project. I’ve got a comment for you about the project when you get a chance to do write your post.