The Gallery Floor

   I have agonized over the gallery floor since I first thought of this project.  Well, I don't actually agonize over much but I have been thinking about it.  My shop on the other side of the gallery wall is a shop and looks like a shop and I am okay with that.  I want the gallery to be nice, clean, clear, warm, inviting, interesting.
For the longest time I was wanting a wooden floor.  My house has all wooden floors, no carpets anywhere except for the occasional throw rug.  They are really Persian Carpets made by the little hands of child labor but I didn't buy them.  They belonged to my mother.  Wooden floors are warm, easy to clean and I like the sound as feet walk on them.

 20 years of History on the floor

   Three things held me back.  1st, wooden floors would have cost me about $600 and I am pretty cheap, I admit that.  The second obstacle is me.  I am just dirty and I admit that too.  I can't imagine me in a clean white smock doing anything.  Paint will happen and I will drop it, I know.  The third is Soozee who suggested concrete stain and a lacquer finish.  So I got to thinking about that.

   I originally built this shop in 1991 as a wood shop.  It was full of planers and sanders and I was making cabinets and furniture and playing with wood stains.

 floor sections for sale, plus
shipping and handling fees.

About 1995 I invented "Stone Posts" and made them in the shop when the weather was cold and rainy. This was the introduction of cements and colored grouting to my concrete floor.  I had a big floor scraper I used to get the big chunks off but the evidence is there, a little always remains.  Then I discovered welding and filled my shop with grinders and cutters and the welder.  This puts a rust patina of fine steel particles deep into the pours of the concrete slab.

I could have scrapped and grounded and sanded this history off and begun this project with a clean slate, sort of speak.  But I didn't.  I bought some greenish acid etching stuff and mopped the floor with it, spilling it a little heavier here and there and adding the necessary drops to make me feel like Jason Pollack reincarnate.
He might have been crazy but he sure had fun!  The real colors won't appear until the floor is lacquered.
That will take some time.  I have to mop the floor about seven times and a couple times with amonia in order to neutralize the acid in the etching process.  The floor needs to be Ph neutral before you can apply the lacquer finish and this will take a couple days and then it has to dry, of course.  Maybe this weekend I can get the finish coat on it.
   It will be "Art History" for sure.  I will remember every stain, each blemish and every drop of blood.  I am sure my DNA is inextricably mixed into this new floor.  Maybe by Christmas I will be painting and add more history to this floor I walk on.

My  Official website is HERE

There Are Only Artists

There is no art, only artists and we change with the times.  I don't think it is the burning desire within us to create that causes "great art", we play to an audience, do what is expected of us, create within a framework of what is allowed.  We are, after all, "for hire".
     It is generally accepted that the first art was the cave man's drawings, maybe a deer on the dirt wall etched with charcoal and its purpose is thought to be magic.  It is possible that these were the missives of an irresponsible teenager, but more likely put there by a powerful medicine man, conjuring up the spirits to create a great hunt.  An offering of sorts, maybe a prayer.
   It is even more likely that this was all story telling before words were invented, an image of a great hunt captured on the cave wall.  Cave man graffiti.  In the deepest regions of the Egyptian tombs, in obscure places away from site of the Pharaoh, you can find, carved in stone to last an eternity, the names of those who carried the stone.
     I think artists have an idea of mortality and a desire to leave something behind.  "Kilroy was here!" This is why we carve our initials in apple trees, save our drawings, put notes in bottles.  We want someone to know that we have been here.
     One theory of the cave man's drawings is that this wasn't the creation of those who inhabited the caves but the work of itinerant, wandering, skilled craftsmen who may have offered an embellishment in return for a meal.  At any rate, at some point the artist discovered that he could get paid for his skills, paid for his desire to be larger than life.  So before art was even established it was manipulated, defined and controlled.
     Can you even imagine the Sistine Chapel done in abstract?  For centuries to create art was to copy.
Because that is what you got paid for.  That was what being an apprentice was all about, learning to paint just like the master.
     So, what causes change?  Sometimes it is a very slow process.  We can go lifetimes and see not much difference.  I think there are three elements to change in art.
     The most powerful element to art is who is buying it, power to the consumer!  For centuries this would be the Church, the only element in society which could afford it.  This dictated art to the spiritual realm with stories from the Bible, the nature of man and his quest for redemption.
    As cities were created and governments established they became buyers of art too.  Statues of Caesar were bought and paid for!  Art is still story telling of the wealthy and powerful, those who could afford it.
Art is found in Churches, government buildings and homes of the wealthy.  They had an idea of what they wanted and patronized artists who would deliver it for them.
    The other thing that has had a tremendous influence on art is the ever changing development of materials that the artist has at his disposal.  For the longest time paints were made of tempura, your breakfast eggs
mixed with plants and minerals to achieve color.  This is a fast drying process that didn't allow for much mixing and shading or allowing much depth to a painting.  Oil paints had a huge influence in how a painting was created and allowing for more brilliant and mixed colors.  Later acrylics were invented, making painting easier, cleaner and less expensive.  Lots of changes between then and the computer age and now we can create "works of art" from the comfort of our desk and get copies with a click of the mouse.
    This all leads to the cheapening of art and allows more people to be able to buy it.  Art is no longer limited to the will of the Church nor the demands of the Government and not the dwellings of the rich.   Art is for "T"
shirts and posters and the faucets of your kitchen sink!  The power has shifted and we have it.
    In a way this is the dumbing down of art.  The standards have changed but the essential power over the artist remains the same:  who is paying for it?
    The third element to this altering of art over the centuries is the artist himself.  This is probably the least powerful of these three elements:  consumer of art, the materials availble and the artist himself.  Remember that most artists achieve their fame after they die!  Artists do make changes, alter their style and make discoveries "that sell".  This is probably more prevelant today than ever before because art has become instantaneous, quickly created, quickly popular and just as quickly forgotten.  We are waiting for the next best thing!
     Corporate Art has replaced Religious Art and Government Art.  But nothing has really changed; the artist produces what he is paid for.
The Art I am Paid to Produce is Here.

Art History

      I don't think that I am making art in any kind of Historical context, and at the same time I know I am not making it in a vacuum.  So far the Great Oil Spill and our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have not entered my work.  Maybe, anyway.  Maybe I am not as free and independent as I think I am?  I found a new Blog that discusses Art in the context of History (Shipwreckstudio.blogspot.com/) and it is getting me to think!  Damn, I hate that!  Not only have I discovered that I have been trying to climb a mountain all my life when I should have been going around it, I also discover that I may not be immune to forces around me!
     My Art is in a response.  I am just a welder, that is all I pretend to be.  I am appalled when I see the mass import of iron work from China and Mexico.  I shudder when I see it in the stores and cringe a bit when I see it in your yard.  It is not well made.  It is poorly welded.  It is feeble at best and won't support itself, as art nor as a support for plants.  I worry about our resources and that these were not worth the diesel it cost to get them to us. I think of 140 million steel panels all identical and scattered all over the world.  Okay, I learned a lot from Miss Shipwreck's essay but it has left me feeling not more educated and smarter.  I am a victim!  I need a phsycotherapist who specializes is metal, understands what it is that I am trying to do.
     I am a one man war in a battle against junk.  When I am long gone and dead and if Art Historians ever find me (I can't really imagine them digging that deep!), I will be thrown into the era of mass importation.  One warrior amongst many who battled it out against this world of importation.  I know I do this that is why most of my Art is big.  If it can fit into those horrible, poorly made brown cardboard boxes from "overseas"
I lose interest it making it.  That is a response to History, isn't it?  Sign of the times and maybe a futile battle at that.
     I like to think my "other art" is different.  I took up painting about a year ago and with great purpose I don't investigate anybody.  I refuse to study any kind of painted art.  I don't want to know what they do or how they do it or what historical markers made an impression on them.  I am a virgin artist when it comes to paint.  I have no clue as to what I am doing, whether it is good or bad or indifferent.  I do it for fun only and it is not for sale.  Most of it isn't even real in the sense that you could touch it or see it in another light.  I paint away, happily, madly, carefree and without thought or obligation.  When it is done I take a photo of it and put it into my computer.  Sleeping maybe, like a virus.  Then I paint over it.  Some of my paintings are seven layers deep, quickly one after another.  The last one standing gets to live.  They are painted for my enjoyment
and maybe, by definition that means they are not art.  Somewhere I read that art must be shared to be art.

Anyway, Shipwreck's blog has made me think, and of course I curse her for that!  It is an interesting read so I am passing her blog on.  I want to fight her so bad.  She has taken my once happy carefree life and reduced it to circumstance.  My Other Blog is Here.