Mediocrity

I keep thinking about the best things I've ever made.

There is nothing essentially to them besides their newness. I've grown to resent them.

In my table of contents I hope they mean so little. 

Here is where the conflict rests, of course, nobody is forcing anybody to paint. 

But I love it, I NEED IT.

I just don't need it this way.

"Lucy" 12" x 12" oil on canvas, 2014. C. Fralic

I don't like your dog.

Wait until you see what I love.

You'll fall off the page and I hope you'll scrape your knees.

Two marks you can't forget. Twin scabs.

Every time they itch I'll get a new idea.

Here's to letting go of the creature comfort which nurtures me: 

mediocrity.

Raccoon Day

Today I took my dog for a walk. He's an odd shaped, chihuahua-daschund mix with massive ears and a long, skinny body. His name is Frisco, but I call him more human names when I walk with him, just to make myself feel better about talking to a dog in public. We have long, drawn out, one-sided conversations in the bleached autumn sun. He rarely disagrees with me, but will occasionally interrupt me with paranoid barking. Usually it's only source is the raving of a confused rescue dog who doesn't understand things like 'cold wind' and 'fat people' because he's from California, where those things don't exist.

On this day, he bristled in terror and hurled himself towards a gully on my left, where I saw nothing but empty space and tree-tops. I thought perhaps he was astounded at the crinkly noise the leaves made as they emptied from the branches, but instead I saw two furry polyps moving steadily right beside me, the tree-top hunching under the overly-comfortable weight of their round fat bellies.

It was two massive raccoons, just maybe two feet from my face so suddenly despite their clumsy nature. I was more drawn to their impossibly frail humanlike hands than their signifying masks and luxuriously striped tails. They stared at us quite intelligently, but then I realized that this was perhaps their calculating a dinner of my tiny canine friend, so I pulled him up into his arms and he cocked his head, pinging radar off their faces.

I will say that raccoons, when they aren't furious, are probably the cutest animal I have ever seen. They have lovely dished faces and this appearance of being excessively stuffed like living marshmallow lemurs. I'm surprised nobody has domesticated a raccoon and taught it to do silly cute things like play dead or wear a large bow and jump out of gifts. (I considered momentarily how Frisco could barely be taught to sit down when told and how I might trade if nobody would notice, but then he licked me and I remembered that raccoons are terrible.)

I stared for awhile, as most artists do, a little too long at some points where other pedestrians might glance while they continue their jaunt. I desperately longed to pull them against me like down-filled pillows and snuggle into their plush tails, but I knew they'd much rather choose to piss on my arms and give me rabies. With that thought, I let Frisco touch the ground and we went on with our crisp morning walk.

Moments later- well perhaps, an hour- I saw a pile of course grey flecked with white. It looked like a sheet, parts of it gelatinous, and it had no real shape. I thought it some type of discarded fabric, but then I realized in its centre was a flash of glowing white- the glint of bone. It was a skull.

I had seen things like this many times before in varying states of decay, and if you know me, you know I am inexplicably inspired by these states of metamorphosis, the transformation of a thing into the undercurrents of its being- the gestural sketch in which skin and flesh hangs loosely. I always wander by without gloves, or on a jog, I might still see eyes and a face but in this case it was just bones. I gathered my bravery and I dislodged the head of the creature. There was nothing gory about it, not a noise as there was no longer any attachment to its once living body. It was as clean as if it had been neatly polished, which was a marvel in itself.

When I got home I began to clean the dead leaves and dirt from it, and wondered at what it was. I called my cat over to investigate, and though it seemed a similar size to his own head, I wondered if his fearless meant anything. If it was a cat, would he not sense it and fear it, or is that a process of purely human intellect? I knew it was no squirrel as the weight set neatly into my hand, more than a palm, and its molars were nearly as large as those I'd seen in my own mouth.

As if in some process of anatomical teachings, I had learned of both the living and the dead closely in a way only I could be satisfied with: the skull belonged to a raccoon. The animal I longed to reach out and touch only feet before me, suddenly I could touch its very realest structure, smoothed and bleached by the transformation of living and then dying. It makes me thankful to realize that these ideas exist, and that mortality is a concept I rarely get to see, let alone, touch.

Word

I don't feel like writing anything.

Stuff

So we have the mural sketched out- next week on Tuesday, the paint will show up, and then week after- it'll be done. I'll be documenting the process and will post a time lapse on my youtube... I forgot to record us projecting and sketching but it wasn't the cool part anyways. All the freehand junk will be recorded as long as I'm around to record it. I enjoy blogging but I also enjoy watching Youtube so I figured, YOU PROBABLY DO TOO :) I'll link it here, and all of my other accounts when I get there. 

ONWARDS.

This portrait has been supremely challenging and lengthy, but dos skin tones doe.

Been hacking away at some other stuff. Tried out a brunaille and a Verdaille, now I need to try grisaille. 

Cute dog progress. (Brunaille, starting to add colour)

New portrait commission base coat- trying out Verdaille.

I really want to start varnishing my work, but it's almost all commission and I don't have time. I mean that's a good thing because I'm being a grown woman making money and stuff, so there's that.

Ciao!

-C.

"Artspeak"

In a recent Instagram post by the lovely Jessica Joslin, she featured an image containing a wonderfully highbrow artist statement. Following this admirable act of word smithery, was this text:

"Artspeak (aka International Art English) and the way that it is typically used to obscure meaning and intent, rather than communicate ideas, really puts a bee in my bonnet. However...this automatic artist statement generator really is a thing of beauty... 😃 http://500letters.org/form_15.php" @jessica_joslin

 How this thing may ease my mind in future endeavours, in proposals, shows, reviews, features and any kind of sales, is unmistakeable. But the fact that this translator so successfully creates this 'Artspeak', a language unto itself, in a way not so unlike Google Translate, is a bit troubling... and it says a lot about the contemporary art world. In fact, the way it loves to leave some people out has perhaps a purpose that can be read into further.

Artspeak is an exclusive language, and most people like to be part of the 'in' crowd. Beyond the art school students who pour thousands of dollars into an education with a requirement of this knowledge as a basic, who really knows how to speak it? Intellectuals, maybe linguists, and probably wealthy collectors. I struggle to see where the 'average' person fits in, and I see it often on a more visual basis, with the contemporary ideal of fine arts (in Vancouver) appearing to be highly conceptual.

I will never forget the day when my grandparents, parents and I visited the National Gallery of Canada. There had been some recent news of a painting bought for $1.76 million, and I remember, in my awkwardness as child-artist, feeling ostracized by its simplicity. At the time I only really understood art of realness, as I had spent most of my time understanding that the renaissance was a good time for painters, and Robert Bateman was my mother's grail.

This basis of understanding wasn't so different as a child, as it was as a parent. My family felt significantly less pressured to like it, in that I felt I SHOULD like it, or get it, as I really, really wanted to grow up and be an artist.

The painting was called 'Voice of Fire' and it was by a painter called Barnett Newman (I'd post it for you, but I'm not sure licensing, so I'll just link to it HERE).

As an adult, I understand its importance as the type of art it exemplifies, and after reading further I have understood that this piece was intentioned as an investment- it was a good idea, not in aesthetic or even in artistic sensibility, but for a wallet. The idea of art like this is to generate funds, an item symbolizing commerce instead of a coin. This work was essentially worth the cost of supplies, when it was made, but when it was purchased by a national gallery they gladly put a cost of over a million dollars because- guess what?

Art prices snowball. This piece has likely multiplied in value, just like anything you might put in a gallery space, in front of a highbrow crowd. This is why we constantly have this discussion about what art means to us, because there is something deeper, and if the average crowd had a more transparent idea of where their tax dollars were spent, they would understand why it was done. Newspapers didn't get it, it wasn't explicitly placed in the galleries for people who didn't attend art school to read about, they didn't get the memo because they weren't part of the 'in' crowd- but hopefully, one day they'll hear that this piece is loaned out to some other rich schmaltz and they pay us an extortionist amount of money that will pay for our subsidized health care, get more special needs assistants in schools and maybe even give us a nicer tax return because we invested in art!

Artspeak is separating our investments from a casual art-viewing culture. It's the barrier that stands between 'us' and 'them', and the verbal embodiment of the white-walled, high-ceilinged gallery that makes us all feel like we're looking at something important. I suppose, what I've been missing, is the understanding that pure visual art can speak for itself: when in fact, throughout art history it has been the propaganda of the art, the divination of it, that has made it so important.

-C.

Secret Murals- SHHHH!

I Can't say too much, but I have some exciting events coming up. In terms of the information I can give you, I can tell you it's part of the Beautification of Surrey project, and I'll be planning and making it with my fellow artists Hailey Logan, Shandis Harrison, Andres Salaz and Jess Orrin. I'll be keeping a play-by-play of the progress and when it's finished, perhaps I can show you how we went through the proposal process. 

I'm very excited for this opportunity and wish I could show everyone our preliminary sketches- they came together so quickly, and I would say as a team we work incredibly well!

As for images, I can show you NOTHING, haha. But here's some updates on old things, moving slow but getting close (ahhh, glazing...)

I will be featuring summaries of art events I've attended or interesting pieces I've encountered... Tried out the video thing but I suck. You may get a review of the ECU grad show at some point, when I learn this stuff.

Ciao,

C.

Short Blurb

I really like how this looks in black and white.... I've done so many layers on this thing and yet for some reason in colour it looks unfinished. So here's the edited version, which I prefer because it's harder to tell that there are so many muddy colours; only contrasted by the chalky blue background. But without colour, I would pass it as near finished.

Here's to crossed eyes.

-C