8 posts tagged “art”
Yes, I'm steeping myself in this, because of my image for the new show:
Karl Pribran and Jeffrey Mishlove on "The Holographic Brain"
This morning heading over to the gallery to meet with my Dad and younger bro to see the work (for the first time hanging in the gallery, and get to check out everyone else's work in the "Art and Science" show, please see my main website "galleries" tab for more info:
I went to check out MOCA yesterday, renewed my artists discount and met David McDonald, who it turns out also is in the collection of Diana Zlotnick and knows a lot of the same people, including Llyn Foulkes. Joseph De Mario, my curator at BAE (Bakery Art Exhibitions) and I went to check out the Richard Tuttle show. Matthew Monahan's work was amazing too, I want to go back to have a better look at his stuff (we mostly focused on Tuttle's work). Thomas Hirschhorn and Roxy Paine also had an amazing piece, a statement on post 911 American life. Although the Tuttle show ends tomorrow 7/30/7, I urge anyone who can make it to go!
Now onto making myself an amazing Sunday breakfast - using lentils, tofu, rice, vegan cheese, and english muffins. Have to leave at noon to have my family gallery visit!!!
TTFN,
Melissa
Just a reminder to everyone in SoCal - my show at the Armory's Mezzanine Gallery in Pasadena is ending May 13th with special multi-media presentations from several of the participating artists!
Please click on my 'home' website "Current/Upcoming Shows" link to get all the info, and email if you can't find it (the link should be on my blog site, to the right.)
Frida is an inspiration to me - I guess it shows in this self-portrait (showing now at the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena!)
Please visit www.MelissaAnnLambert.com (click on current/upcoming shows for the details!)
Although I do traditional media work as well as images that digitally "collage" elements of hand-drawn and photographic work, I'll follow the group rules and only submit traditional media work!
Got a gallery show (my first) going on now in Pasadena, plus another show in Long Beach coming at the end of this month. Please check my main website for details!
Musings & Muses:
I was speaking to my framer Bruce, a friend, this morning; and heard myself whining about how much work it is to try to make it as an artist – the business side can be such a grind.
Yesterday morning I invited Karl Johnson, a sculptor friend, over to see the websites I’m listed on (two French websites, 2 U.K. sites, 2 U.S. sites, plus my own; now I’m working on Flikr and VOX). He doesn’t own a computer and was completely resistant to the idea of doing that. Plus, he’s old enough to have missed the “computer generation.”
In many ways I agree with him, and understand those of my artist friends who seem rather alarmed at the fact that I spend so much time reading books on the business side of art and doing things like posting myself on websites. I see their viewpoints as well.
I feel very conflicted about the whole self-promotion thing. YES…I need to eat and pay for a roof over my head. And YES…I’ve been on disability with a rotator cuff tear, and then cancer, and am living hand to mouth. AND YES, I would be doing the art whether wealthy or poor, I do it because I’m driven to do it.
But the whole “putting myself out there” aspect to this, which is necessary in today’s climate where there is so much competition and where money drives everything, feels strange and insincere. The books I read recommend, probably wisely, that you “need to spend 50% of your time doing art and 50% of the time promoting it.”
AND, I am getting burned out on the latter half.
Are there any other artists/musicians/writers out there who can give their perspectives on this?
HELP!!!
After hanging up with my dear friend Fussboots in Portland last night, I was encouraged that I need to keep up my blog on a more consistent basis! Two-three times a week is the new goal.
So now onto the art reception/opening March 24th (my very first, as the Newtown/Armory show was my very first gallery experience) and how it went!
First off, I was much more relaxed then I thought I would be…I expected to be a nervous wreck. But the work I did imagining myself relaxed and enjoying the evening all week seems to have paid off.
A short list of attendees: My younger bro Jeff and
his girlfriend Kim, Steve, Sheri and Donna of course, Cindy, Keith
& Kira from my old Chouinard Dialogue class (Kira’s interactive
sound piece was amazing), my acupuncturist TJ, his wife and niece, and
Carlos from Fine Art Solutions to say the work looked great (he really
did an excellent job.) Later Joseph De Mario, the curator at the Jazz
Bakery who is giving me a show in late June, graced me with his
presence whilst towing friends. Steve & Jocelyn from Neighbors for
Peace and Justice were also there. So I felt a lot of support. Quite a
few people, especially early on, gave me compliments, which of course I
hated 
An odd experience contrasting reactions ranging from people barely glancing at my work while moving swiftly on to those who studied it closely and hung around. At one point I noticed a rather artsy looking fellow, probably my age, examining the work very closely. He was wearing all black with a cap, so I grabbed my camera to take a pic of him scrutinizing my work.
THIS is when I got, ahem, “Sparked.”
“You take a picture of ME! I’M the ART!” he cried out, facing me and ruining the shot I had planned on taking.
“Um, you see, I just wanted to get pictures of people looking at the art for my website,” I stammered. Could you please go back to looking at it?”
“NO!” He kept insisting, so finally muttering “whatever” under my breath as I took his picture. Boy, was I in for “it” now.
Spark (not his real name) proceeded to monologue diatribe me, so close to my face I felt puffs of hot air on my cheeks.
“The only piece even worth looking at more than once is the one on the right! The middle one is bombastic, garish and too in your face, like ‘NOTICE ME!’ and this one (pointing) is far too static and composed for my taste! Your work is not worthy of the moniker art!” As he bellowed I kept inching backward while he inched forward, keeping about two inches from my face, This seemed to go on forever, as he essentially said the same thing over and over and over.
Finally, looking over his shoulder, I thankfully glimpsed a familiar face, a guy I’ve met previously at Jazz Bakery art openings. He was observing the scene with a Cheshire-worthy grin on his face. I interrupted the tirade saying “you look so familiar! Where do I know you from?”
If looks could kill. Spark stomped off with balled up fists in a complete huff.
I have since found out that he did that to everyone that day, saying none of the art – upstairs or down – was any good. The art downstairs was superb. Christine Nguyen’s work recently hung in the Armand Hammer. All of the artist’s works downstairs are incredible. And if I say so myself, is was the art upstairs! I’ve seen quite a few shows where the work is very uneven; here although of course everyone is going to favor some work a bit over others, overall the quality, in my opinion, is surprisingly consistent.
I learned later (an inside scoop) “Mr. Spark” is a frustrated artist who is having problems getting in local galleries. I’m told his work is good; I just hope a friend of his holds up a mirror and his attitude becomes more accommodating.
I recently saw “Making it in Manhattan,” an Art City DVD which I highly recommend. One of the critics says “many artists of high caliber go completely unnoticed, many mediocre artists become fairly famous and best-sellers. It’s all about how much time the artist spends in her studio vs. networking.”
I would like to add to that (not that I have much experience in this arena) attitude and social skills do count, and we all have something unique to offer. As I told a friend recently who seemed a little too impressed about my being in the gallery “hey, we’re ALL the stuff of the stars!” Or as my dad would say, “we all put our pants on one leg at a time”.
All that said, as I told Fussy, I’ve learned a lesson, though I’m sure there are many more to come. It seems the older we get the more we realize how precious every second is. I will do my best not to get “Sparked” again. My good friend Joel Mark, who is often so wise, said “affirm what you hear him saying, then physically remove yourself.” I like that.
Overall? The evening was a success. My favorite part? Meeting Dr. Julie Korenberg and seeing her astounding work showing the living brain “thinking” with the synapses darting around doing their jobs. Really looking forward to talking with her further about her work – she’s been involved in the genome project and worked for years to get the images demonstrated that night (either from the hippocampus or the amygdula, I’ll have to ask as I my temporal lobes were tired when I finally got around to seeing her stuff.)
Now onto the next project! Blog to be continued soon…
On Synchronicity, Carl Jung, and the power of your mind…
My friend Cynthia Paige Aaron (a friend and exceptional assemblage artist) came over last Saturday, January 6th ‘07. I was extremely tired, but needed good company as I was feeling rather low that day. I knew seeing her would cheer me up!
As it turns out, not only did it cheer me up, it restored my faith as concerns my health. Let me explain…
We were discussing Carl Jung. A book he wrote in 1962 - Memories, Dreams, Reflections - had been sitting facing her on her bedroom shelf unnoticed for over a year. She woke up and was startled she hadn’t seemed to ‘notice’ if before. I had finished reading his work “The Undiscovered Self”, written the year I was born, last year - the book might as well have been written yesterday. I’ve vowed to re-read that book every year for the rest of my days…
I digress. Cindy and I ate lunch, and started discussing photography - she rec’d a camera from her husband for Xmas - and we discovered we both were doing the same thing, creating wild ‘light shows’ with a longer exposure at night. I showed her some of my best ones, right when Keith Ullrich, the artist who recommended me to Chouinard’s Dialogue group, called.
I explained to Keith all these weird coincidences…
1. The group rec’d an email from Vivian Flynn saying her and her husband acquired two new members of their family (I’m assuming cats), named Man Ray and Penumbra (or Penny). I had, just the day before, submitted a poem to the website “Right Hand Pointing”, discovered because I googled my name and “art”, another “Melissa Lambert” is featured on their main page. Cindy also has a cat named Man Ray!
2. After discussing the photography, I went to my ‘art-bookshelf’ to retrieve the book I learned the exposure technique from. I know that shelf like the back of my hand, all the titles and where. “What the heck is this?” I exclaimed, while pulling out a skinny book I totally forgot I had - an exhibition book on Man Ray from LACMA, 1966.
3. During the phone call w/ Keith he stopped talking. I was very concerned for his health, as his voice sounded weird. He finally explained that a loud ‘report’ had happened, an ‘unbelievably loud’ noise when a green onion split in half in his kitchen! I had just finished telling Cindy about Carl’s infamous “loud report” in his argument with Freud. I have taken the liberty to copy the following text from the website
http://www.dhushara.com/book/jung/jung2.htm
“It is interesting to note that Jung had experience of certain ‘phenomena’ even in the presence of the arch-sceptic Freud, and that they presaged the break in his relation with Freud. He describes how, in 1909, he and Freud argued about psychical phenomena, and Freud’s shallow positivism annoyed Jung. He writes: “While Freud was going on this way, I had a curious sensation. It was as if my diaphragm were made of iron and were becoming red-hot, a glowing vault. And at that moment there was such a loud report in the bookcase, which stood right next to us, that we both started up in alarm, fearing that the thing was going to topple over on us. I said to Freud: ‘There, that is an example of a so-called catalytic exteriorisation phenomenon.’ ‘Oh come,) he exclaimed, ‘that is sheer bosh.’ ‘It is not , I replied. ‘You are mistaken, Herr Professor. And to prove my point, I now predict that in a moment there will be another loud report!’ Sure enough, no sooner had I said the words than the same detonation went off in the bookcase. To this day I do not know what gave me this certainty. But I knew beyond all doubt that the report would come again . . .” (Wilson C 478).
“Consider synchronistic phenomena, premonitions, and dreams that come true. I recall one time during the Second World War when I was returning home from Bollingen. I had a book with me, but could not read, for the moment the train started to move I was overpowered by the image of someone drowning. This was a memory of an accident that had happened while I was on military service. During the entire journey I could not rid myself of it. It struck me as uncanny, and I thought, What has happened? Can there have been an accident?” I got out at- Erlenbach and walked home, still troubled by this memory. My second daughter’s children were in the garden. The family was living with us, having returned to Switzerland from Paris because of the war. The children stood looking rather upset, and when I asked, ” Why, what is the matter?” they told me that Adrian, then the youngest of the boys, had fallen into the water in the boathouse. It is quite deep there, and since he could not really swim he had almost drowned. His older brother had fished him out. This had taken place at exactly the time I had been assailed by that memory in the train. The unconscious had given me a hint.” (Jung C 1963 333)”
4. Cindy just emailed and reminded me the following: She had two dreams the previous night that involved stone walls. Later, reading the Jung book, she came across the passage about his experience of building a small city of stone after his wife died. Then later, Cindy noticed the stone wall in my “public works” photo (unfortunately it’s a pic not shown on my website, though I may post it later).
This topic absolutely fascinates me. Lately I’ve been worried sick that I’m getting NHL (cancer) again, as I’ve been itching on my back, a symptom for the cancer. I’ve been secretly worrying about it, not wanting to face it - after all these coincidences happened, I had a sudden strong intuition that the universe was telling me “not to worry, you’ll be around a long time”. When I told Cindy this, she hugged me and said “of course! You have too much to give!”
Anyone else have any thoughts or experiences related to Synchronicity, Dreams, Visions, Science, or Mythology?
