An amazing day for November...

Normally when I go out and bring my camera with me, I am only thinking about documenting the events that unfold around me -- sometimes I see things that I might want to use as reference later in a drawing or a painting. This past Sunday I decided to play bicycle glamor photographer to my new mountain bike as I toured around my municipality on what turned out to be one of the most beautiful days of the Fall...

This is in the lovely Rock Meadow in Belmont/Waltham...

The top of Mackerel Hill in Waltham (part of Rock Meadow?)

 

 

 

 

 

The actual meadow.

 

The elegant Chahlz Rivah.

HOW I never had been on the portion of the Charles River Greenway that had
this bridge before, I will never know.

 

 

All in all, a spectacular ride on a beautiful day .... in November!

...Well, I guess it's later...

A theme that seems pervasive through my life is that I often feel outside of things. This has always been the case with regard to how I view myself as an artist... always throughout my scholastic career (and including college) I have never really fit in with any one clique. This in and of itself is not so bad, as I do value my individuality and belief in personal freedom, but I have found that most of humanity seems to be more of a pack mentality and as a result tend to eschew people after a bit who don't conform to the packs characteristics -- this can lead to general feelings of loneliness or nonacceptance. Yes there are those who pair off like swans, but for the most part people group together.

As I was saying, while in my school years I never quite fit in with any of the cliques; I got a long with many, and floated through many circles, but never seemed to find any ground. This was no different in the "Art Department". As it were... the group who peopled the art departments were a collection of individuals who were either actually interested in art, got into art because they thought it was "cool" or "easy", or could not find another clique to incorporate themselves into. From these people, many sub-divisions were created... I always seemed to fit squarely outside of all of them. I was arty but not an art "freak" as some people called themselves. I was talented but not as much as others. I did not smoke the Pot, as so many did, and which was apparantly a stigma to be ostracized for! ;)

It only became more pronounced when I got to college -- perhaps it was the schools I attended, but it seemed like the majority of kids at "art school" seemed to be there because they either thought it would be an easy soft-option, or because they simply did not know what they wanted to do. Thankfully there were exceptions... but they were the exceptions.

So, as a theme in my life it translates into how I view myself as a cyclist: I am not hardcore enough to be a serious roadie, not crazy enough to freestyle BMX, not cool enough to be a fixed gear hipster, just not interested in being a Dutch bike riding Europhile... hell, I'm not even lame enough to be a fred!

damn... I thought I had a point with all this but it just wound up sounding like me whining.

:/

...oh yeah

I think I kinda sorta totally forgot my point after I uploaded those pics...
I have decided to, for the time being, integrate some of my cycling related musings into this blog. I do this for a number of reasons -- I like art, and I like biking (cycling, riding a bike, rolling) whatever you want to call it.

I would not say that I am passionate about anything in my life anymore (yes, I find this a bit sad, but I am not going to muse about that here... at least not now ;) but there are things that I like a whole hell of a lot, and there ARE things that I feel strongly about. I have pretty strong convictions about things and I am rather opinionated about those things -- all in all, though, I think I am a relatively relaxed person. Oh sure, there are things that set me off (like traffic, dishonesty, public transit, people who have over an inflated and undeserved sense of entitlement, mushrooms, Prius', etc...) but I am a human being, after all... and we all have things... but on the whole, I can say this with some confidence.

That being said...

...I count cycling to be, along with art, one of the few things I feel very strongly about. This can actually be illustrated quite nicely by my oft used pic of my former "studio". In this image you can see 3 basic elements:

• Music (which I am attempting to address here)
  
• Art
• Bikes 

Here are some thoughts:

• I have been riding a bike about as long as I have been drawing! (wow)
• I had a spell lasting several years, (same as with drawing!) where I did not ride a bike at all. 
• I have very similar feelings and conflicts about my "role" as a "cyclist" that I do with regard to my "role" as an "artist".

Should I expand upon that?

later.

yet another re-evaluation!

So the thought occurred to me today at lunch, as I was reading the various blogs I follow, that I have not updated my blog in quite some time other than to rant about why I hadn't been posting.

As I was thinking about this another thought occurred to me -- "Damn, I sure do read a heck of a lot of blogs about cycling." It's true! The number of cycling related blogs I read comes close to, matches, or exceeds the number of art related blogs I read... Of course, some of this is due to the fact that many of the art related blogs I read do not update regularly (sound familiar? ;) and the bike ones do!

So I thought a little more...

I have recently got a new little camera that I am getting in the habit of carrying with me pretty regularly. Since I do consider my photography to be an extension of my art, I decided to, among other things, begin to incorporate my photography into this blog. Once minor caveat... I rarely take pictures for the art of it anymore.

But here is the beauty of it all -- I do, however, take a bunch of blurry, in-motion, pictures of various scenery during my commutes and assorted bike rides. So perhaps this is a bit of a sign?. Perhaps it is nothing and this idea will wind up dead in the water.

Here... have a few pics from my commutes over the past week!

These are the geese that hang out along the Esplanade... watch out for ducks!

along the Charles at dusk!


POV


Rowers are a common sight along the waterway...


Maintenance...


and again!


Over a year in the making...


Woods along Fresh Pond.


Fresh Pond at dusk.


Foliage along the path.


Moon over Cambridge.


A little muddy...


...a day after a rain storm, but that's part of the FUN with a MTB!! :D


Y'all in cars don't know what you miss!


More dusk over the Charles.


I like proper bike lanes...


...ummm....


...oh good. A truck is parked in the lane, and the punchline is also that he is
blocking a sign that says "no stopping, anytime". :/


Parking


Line of geese... lovely!


Foliage and wet leaves on the ground... pretty, but DANGEROUS!

The majestic Chahlz Rivah this very eve...

Are you there, Art? it's me... Luc!

I do not feel like an artist.

I have barely put pencil to paper in almost 2 months.

Yes, there have been a lot of things in my personal life going on lately (and things are finally starting to settle down a little -- at least I HOPE!) but the whole dynamic of my living situation has changed.

As Juliana Hatfield mentioned in a now defunct blog post some months back Most artists need time to be “idle.” ... and though I seem to have some "idle" time; it is rife with distraction in the form of something I have never really experienced before -- roommates.




I cannot spend too much time in my bedroom because I am a firm believer that a bedroom is really only good for 2 or 3 things (Sleeping, Sex, and Getting dressed). If you "live" too much, or spend too much time in a bedroom it ceases to be a bedroom and becomes more of a catch-all sort of "clubhouse" for one. When this happens I cannot sleep. I NEED to have my body understand, as a reflex, that my bedroom is a place of rest...




...so why am I rambling about my bedroom? Because it CAN'T be a studio. It's too small to segment into different spaces; so as a place to work, it's out. I have, however, been able to set up my drafting table in the under-utilized area of the apartment better known as the dining room. The caveat here is that this is a common area, and a major thoroughfare between the kitchen and the rest of the apartment. It's distracting. I miss the space I had.

In addition to lack of space and privacy, my scanner (which works fine) is incompatible with my new computer. to add insult to injury, I can't use it with my old computer b/c it decided to blow up when I tried plugging it in after a month and a half... which is also frustrating because my portfolio is on the HD. I only hope it's just the power source that fried and not the whole thing.




Aside from all those little things; I feel uninspired... tired... a little depressed... a LOT unproductive... a bit lonely... though, a bit hopeful. I need a focus and I am hoping that school in the Winter/Spring will provide a better venue than what I currently have. Unfortunately, studio space is prohibitively expensive... that would be nice to have, though.




There really isn't too much significance to the images I put up in this post; it's just some older work and a few things I consider to be sub-par.

I hate not feeling like an artist. I feel like a fraud when I feel like this..

Drawing on paper... and other futile gestures

Well, here we are again, fair viewer.

Sometimes when I feel like I have not been productive with my work I will meander through an art supply store and occasionally I will buy myself something new; in the hopes of inspiring myself to produce with the dual thoughts of Gee, this is a nice new thing, perhaps it will inspire me to actually use it and Gee, I've spent so much damned money on art-supplies over the years I might as well frickin' use em!

So it was and so it went the other day, a lovely sunny Saturday, that I found myself perusing the aisles of my preferred Magasin d'approvisionnement d'art. Now, usually I have a specific idea of what I am going for, sometimes I am just "window shopping" and perhaps might find something I had not thought of... Saturday, on the other hand, I only had the most vague of ideas, and the item I desired did not exist, at least I had no reason to think that it did since I had previously sought for it to find that it did not exist.

Now, I realize that the last bit there is a bit vague, so let me fill in the gaps. I have a preferred type of sketchbook:



This is Strathmore's "Dry Media" pad. I like these for a few reasons; first off, the paper is much heavier (100lb) than a normal sketchbook, and that can translate to a really successful sketch turning into a finished piece without having to redraw the whole thing! Second; they are only 30 pages in them, which means I can actually fill one and have some sense of accomplishment! (I used to only get about 50-60 pages at most into an old 100 page sketchbook before moving on to a new one... all that blank space...) and Finally; ... I guess I have no 3rd reason at the moment! ;)

These pads came in 2 sizes (so I had thought), 9½"×12" and 11½"×14". I have 4 of the 11/14 ones and one of the smaller... but honestly; it's too small to use normally and not small enough to be something I would carry around with me all the time.

I have recently been thinking that I want to increase the scale of some of my work, so I was lamenting that I had never seen a larger size of these pads... WELL... when I was at the Kunst-Versorgungsmaterial-Speicher I actually came across a 18" × 24½" sized pad! I was thrilled!

(I realize it's pretty sad that I got thrilled over a pad of paper... but whatever; some people go crazy over Nascar, others obsess over memorabilia depicting Prince Charles and Princess Dianna, and still others get all doe-eyed over a new type of cross-stitch. It just goes to show you that they are not all locked up! Seriously though, and perhaps more importantly, it shows that we all have different things that get us going. ;)

Wow... I've said a lot about nothing... oh wait...

SO!! I did actually sit down and do some work in this new large "sketch"book, and here are the results thus-far...



It is, which you may recognize, a portrait of the multi-talented illustrator, Edward Gorey; who was a long time resident (though not native) of the town I grew up in... you might know some of his work, such as, the Gashleycrumb Tinies or the Doubtful Guest.

I have actually wanted to do a portrait of him for a while and have been sitting on the image I used for reference until the mood struck. I guess it struck!

More after the break... but don't ask me how long the break is going to be! ;)

choking in a scratchy throat... more ramblings about new work

Yes Yes... I know that this drawing is in my sketchbook, but I had some thoughts I wanted to express about it and my continued search for my artistic voice...



My first thought is with the expression; I guess I am going for a look of tortured acceptance... perhaps a sublime veneration of the ecstasy of agony? it's not dis-similar the the almost vacant look a lot of Christian artists give to the crucifixion scene. I am not really sure but I think that the passive look she has fits with what I think I want to say, which I am not really sure of ;)

I guess I am exploring ideas and themes rather than concerning myself with producing "finished" work... I am not entirely sure of WHAT my "voice" is (still)... I know that there is a lot of me in the ideas and emotions in this but the last thing I want to do is to try and analyze them too much; it concerns me that if I do I will spend too much time considering the feelings behind something rather than just letting it flow out. Sort of like when you dam a river; you increase the flow but only in limited amounts... the pressure increases and so does the risk of catastrophic failure. If the river can just flow, sometimes wonderfully subtle and unforeseen courses can develop (and no towns get destroyed) ... I actually just came up with that analogy on the fly as I wrote it, but it makes sense to me!

I want to try to balance the horrific and the beautiful (as I have said so many times already). It seems that there are those who can create the horrifying and shocking images but they are not "beautiful". Then there are those who can create gorgeous scenes and images, but often they tend to be boring; and if not boring, then have a rather tame subject. Now, bare in mind I am not talking about old masters... more about people who create contemporary art; peers and the like ;)

I guess that's why I am attracted to scenes such as this one I am currently working on; it is not inherently ugly or gory, but is a bit graphic. It's also not a direct parallel to anything in reality; but it does directly correspond to "inner conflict" (as corny as that sounds) which is why it's metaphorical.

Too often I think of words, ideas, concepts and then forget to write them down. I keep meaning to get a small note-book to keep with me but have not. Not procrastinating, just forgetful! ;)