DC, DMV and Cotton Candy
It’s supposed to be icy this afternoon. I haven’t been able to get even a tiny bit of painting in. Just been exhausted, and full of errands. I got my home residency permit, from the DC govt. $66. And I think I have registered myself as a business, and gotten an EIN # from the feds. All this, so that I can have a separate bank account for my business…
The unkindest cut of all is that they have made our street a permit parking situation. The deadline is the 19th. Which means I have to Schlep myself down to the DMV and get us some permits…
That’s been taking up most of my time. I have had Xmas shopping and the Trixie little thing too…Noises off, MFA search, Art fair applications, Artromp, Jay Rees’ gallery, you know, the normal hectic schedule…. This has been preventing me from getting any painting done. I have, maybe 8 new pieces that I have been itching to get to. They are not all as conceptually grouped together as I would like. There are some straight-up flowers, two vanitas, one large rollercoaster woman, and a monkey (on a skull). These paintings (they are only in cut form right now, so they hardly have become paintings…I will start painting when I get away from this letter) don’t have the cohesion that I would like in the work. They feel like the scraps left over after a successful painting. They are all valid, but they don’t belong to anything bigger than themselves. How important is it for me to have an overarching concept, or theme, in my work? I have been working in modes, Tiki, vanitas, and coaster. But what is the overall theme? Once I have an overall theme, I guess I will be making serious work. (I might take issue with that last sentence. Elizabeth Murray is able to make fun and, perhaps, frivolous work, but it is taken seriously) I want my work to have fun and whimsy. But that whimsy tempered by a slight sinister edge. This edge should be a reflection of trouble in paradise. If serious critique of the world has to be stodgy then I don’t want any part of that. I would prefer to have my work be like a cotton candy. Pretty in presentation. Sweet. When you take a bite, it dissolves in your mouth, leaving a sweet crystalline grit. Sure, its got little nutritional value, but you didn’t come to the fair to get your recommended daily dose of vitamins…you came to be entertained. Perhaps I should look up that Baktin guy, the one who wrote about “carnival theory”…
I like the cotton candy metaphor, perhaps I can expand on it….
I got an email from a gal who bought an Elvis painting last year, and it sounds like she wants me to be in some show…More Elvis stuff on the horizon?
We’re off to NYC to see the Murray show this weekend. We will be going back to Detroit for Xmas since Ellen broke her leg. Perhaps I can scam a ride with Joel…
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