So I’ve decided that I actually am really enjoying making these doodles or drawings or whatever they are- it’s sort of meditative and calming to just start moving the pen and see what happens and I want to do more of it. I think I’ve harbored a lot of bad ideas about drawing- that it should look like something and not just be random marks. And that’s why I’ve tended to think that I hate drawing and am not good at it- it is simultaneously boring and frustrating for me to do realistic drawings; because I already know what it’s supposed to look like I don’t even want to bother because there’s no surprise or evolution in it, and also I’m not very good at making things look realistic and the less it looks like what it’s supposed to look like the more annoying it is, even if I’m not even all that interested in making something that looks like something. What a mess. So I bought myself this gorgeous book and I’m just going to start drawing or doodling or making marks or whatever and see what happens. No collaging, no painting, no cutting pages up. I’ll post photos as I go.

Starting point for this was last night’s collage. I added a bunch of maps. Now we’re getting somewhere.

(Last night’s version):

This one is made of a bunch of photos of broken glass. Definitely not “finished” but it has some things that I like starting to happen…

I ended up making a bunch of canvas cuff bracelets out of the canvas strips. At first I thought I was going to use snap closures, but the canvas was too thick for the snaps I got, and anyway it’ll be easier to adjust for different wrist sizes with toggle clasps. I was going to post more photos but most of them turned out really bad because apparently the fact that tripods exist for a reason just falls out of my mind whenever I go to shoot photos. So here are just a couple samples of the bracelets:

I’m pretty happy with the idea, although some of these early ones are a little on the rough/experimental side. Definitely something I’m going to continue exploring.

And for August, I think I’m going to focus on digital collages. I haven’t made anything new since April, and I’m starting to miss it. Even though I stopped for a while because I was also bored with that. I think just like every other medium I work in, and maybe especially the digital stuff, it’s really easy to just fall into a rut and start cranking out the same stuff over and over and over. I’ve developed a certain process for making digital collages, certain things and effects and brushes and whatnot that I almost always use. So this month is going to be about trying new techniques and not letting myself fall into the same old habits.

It’s a nice 20″x16″ gallery-wrapped canvas, which has literally been in progress for more than three years. In 2008 I sent it off to Charlotte, NC to be part of a group exhibition even though I was totally unhappy with it and thought it was a murky mess. It’s been tinkered with off and on since then, and then I hung it over the cage where my pet chinchillas Ford and Arthur live and it acquired an impressive coating of dust and fur along the edges.

Tonight I added some gold ink to the lower left corner, and some gold and green paint to the upper left, and was still just not feeling it. I just literally could. not. care. less. if I ever finished this damn thing. It had become just completely utterly boring to me, and if I’m not excited about it, why should I expect anyone else do give a damn?

Last night as I was trying to get to sleep, a strange idea popped into my mind about what to do with this painting, which I tried to ignore because it’s a little out there and totally irreversible. But after realizing tonight I’m at a total dead end with this thing I decided to just go for it. After all, every thing I’ve ever made that was really good or interesting has come from hitting a wall and then finding some unexpected way to push past it. So…

Off those stretchers with you, canvas! And then…

Snip, snip, snip! Lots of little canvas strips! They’re nice and flexible, and I took care to try to keep interesting pieces of the imagery together. I finally felt like I was doing something interesting with this painting instead of continuing to keep exploring the same dead end paths in the labyrinth.

Here’s my idea: some sort of wrap/cuff bracelet thing. Not sure yet if it’ll work but I’m looking forward to experimenting with it. Which is much better than the kind of bored “I’m going to slog through finishing this damn painting if it kills me!” thing I was doing before. I’m thinking maybe some sort of stitching or beading or wire along the edges, painting the inside, possibly a thin coat of resin on the outside to seal everything up really well. Some kind of metal clasp thing perhaps…

I remembered the semester I spent in Rome during art school. I was a painting major but ended up spending most of my time working on collage books.  I had a conversation with a painting grad student one day, who was very surprised when I said I was a painting major. He said he always thought I was a jewelry person because I was so fashionable. Which I thought was funny since that’s the last thing I am, but I guess he meant that I didn’t wear baggy paint-covered pants or something. And maybe he was right, maybe I am a jewelry person after all. This is very interesting…an artistic identity crisis? I’m thinking of ways to combine collage/digital collage and jewelry…I still want to finish these damn paintings though. Even though I’m really thinking I might be kind of really over making paintings…

Here are the main pieces I’m hoping to finish (crappy photos, sorry!)

From the ever-wonderful The Improvised Life.