Chagall Y'all (An' Ya Don't Stop)

This one came out more whimsical than I had intended. I immediately thought of Chagall and his people flying/ floating off into the sky, suns and moons. I'm pretty sure Chagall was the first show I ever saw in a museum. I remember being moved by it and thinking about for weeks after. Amazingly it still took me more than a year afterwards to realize that I liked art and perhaps making it would be a good way to spend my time. Gotta do it the hard way.

Anyway, I may be the only one who sees some Chagall in this but it was worth it just for the title of this post.

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By the way, short opinion poll: I (almost) never title my work but when I do think of a title it's usually something goofy or taken from song lyrics or a bad joke. I don't often keep the titles because I don't want the work to seem too humorous ( although there is humor in most of my work) and most of all, I don't want to answer questions about them. What do you think about funny titles? For example, calling this one "Chagall Y'all". Takes away from the work? Adds to it? It's a wash?

Degenerated

As I have written about before, I wear a mouth guard to keep me from asphyxiating myself in my sleep. It worked great and I felt like I was actually benefitting from sleep for the first time in my adult life. But the left side of my jaw started hurting and causing nonstop headaches about a month ago. We adjusted the positioning of lower jaw vis a vis upper jaw and the pain went away.

After a few days I felt tired but I didn't think too much about it because I've been busy, drinking a bit more beer than usual and going to sleep a little late. By the end of the week I was a mess. My body ached, I couldn't keep my eyes open and had a hell of a time dragging myself to the studio. I realized that this is how I used to feel most of the time. I recorded myself sleeping and the snoring was back along with the telltale sounds of my breathing stopping and starting again with a grunt/ gasp. The mouth guard wasn't doing the job anymore. It's amazing how quickly I returned to my former condition and how (now that I can compare it to a much better state) shit it was!

I went back and we tweaked things again. Oh great god of dental devices, please let this work.

I got some small paintings done this week. They are much more thickly painted and more limited in colour range then what I've been doing but it's nice to do something different just to keep things fresh. I started another batch of 6 also and have done the first pass. Sunday I will entertain some friends on my balcony so I won't be able to work on them til Tuesday ("He said shut up! He said shut up!"). That's ok. I think I need to come back with fresh eyes.

I'm going to two art openings today. My first ones here. One is at CAP and the other at a gallery whose owner I've met. Familiar grounds and a good chance to practice my art opening small talk in Japanese. As I mentioned above, though, I'm not exactly in top form. I'm not really in the mood to be alive, let alone socialize and talk art in Japanese. Exhausting.

Call Me Rabbit Fighter

I spent the day priming three large canvases with rabbit skin glue. It has a distinct odor as you can imagine and after eight hours it gets to be a bit much. One more coat tomorrow and it's all systems go. I'll make sure those brave bunnies did not die in vain.

I had a painting, a straggler, left over from the last batch that was not resolving itself easily. I mounted one more attack on it today and I'm pleased with the results. I seem to be developing the ability to fight through rough times and bring a painting to a satisfactory end without either stubbornly sticking with what's wrong with it, or scrapping the whole thing and throwing my entire existence on this planet into question. Maturity? Who me? Couldn't be.

I think I've finally reached the point in my Japanese speaking journey where I don't give a shit about making mistakes. Could be a turning point, springboard and awakening all wrapped into one. As I'm walking away from a conversation I often realize, "Oh! That's what he meant!". Before, that would have been so embarrassing as to put me off speaking for days. Not now. If someone thinks I'm an idiot, I'll live with it. He's probably the one who's an idiot anyway, right guys?

I can't stop listening to Led Zeppelin. Mostly Houses of The Holy, Physical Graffiti, and In Through The Out Door. Jimmy Page's production skills are often taken for granted but he is a complete genius when it comes to recording. Listen to how many different guitar sounds he uses; often within the same song. On the other hand it's surprising that the heaviest songs often have little or no guitar overdubs. Just pure excellence.

In My Time of Dying

I've fallen into the old trap of waiting for something "brilliant" to write when I should just keep up the pace and the good stuff will come. This is a problem I've avoided for the last year or so in my visual art, never going too long without doing work, and I hope I can get over it when it comes to writing as well. Well thought out ides are great but, at least for me, everything good comes from doing. It's never what you plan from the start and it's always better than that anyway. Even for music; I remember having a cheap tape machine with a cheap blank tape and a few times a day I would press record and pound out the first 4 or 5 things that my fingers played. I filled a few tapes full of awful crap but also wrote most of my best songs during that time.

So, you think I would have learned my lesson by now.

Last week was the peak of my allergies as well as severe jaw pain and headaches brought on by the mouthpiece I use to sleep (what is he talking about? ), but both problems seem to be solved now and I'm back in business again . I finished 6 more paintings the week before last but for the first time in two months I went 7 days without doing 6 paintings. I spent most of my time (the little that I could) in my studio building several new canvases. Some small, but 3, 5'X4' ones that I hope to start work on late this week or early next.

I've had a few visitors to my studio and I've been making a big effort to be welcoming and to answer questions in a non-defensive, pleasant tone. The switching of my brain from work mode to social mode is never a smooth nor quick one, but I'm trying. And it's all in Japanese.

The most interest has been in my paper constructions that I've built over the last few months. I should run with it instead of my usual reaction which would be to do the exact opposite of that. But I like them a lot too and for whatever reason people seem drawn to them. We'll see.

Coming up, on November 2nd, I will have a party here at CAP. The party will include an artist's talk given by good ol' me. I will try to do most of the simple introduction and general background stuff in Japanese but I will switch to English when it comes time to talk more deeply about art. It's hard enough to do in English. I'm looking for someone to translate for me so keep your fingers crossed. I really don't want to have to sacrifice what I want to say for the sake of either speaking in Japanese or making my English simple enough to be understood by most. That would be a shame.

More to come.