500 Bad Paintings

Ok, explanation. So I was having this awful crisis where I didn't know what to do with my life (much less my art) and I didn't know what to work on. I couldn't narrow anything down, realism? abstract? figures? animals? landscapes? lines? blending? blah blah, everything sounded fun, how could I possibly narrow it down? You may have followed it on my field studies blog which has received all the attention this semester.
We were listening to Brian Kershisnik giving a lecture and he said, "If you want to be a great painter, hurry up and make your first 500 bad paintings". And I thought, "That's it!"

So my project is going to be called "500 Bad Paintings". Before I decided to do this, I was being too careful with my paintings, everything was extremely calculated and painting stopped being fun because I was afraid of making bad art. So I decided to embrace it and to be completely ok with making bad art.
<---Read this thing. So yeah, 500 paintings is a lot of paintings. It is a volume of work and lots of it is going to be bad. But in there will be some good stuff, and I can't find that good stuff without making a lot of the bad stuff. Right? So I am going to share that process with people. This is a different idea than doing a clean perfected exhibition of 15 large complete finished culminating pieces, yes? Yes it is, they will be exhibited without hierarchy and I will be sharing my journey.

What I am working on now...

500 Bad Paintings. I'll explain later :)

Old water color

1st real commission

Commissioned by Nate & Justin Haslam

for their father, Jeff Haslam

Happy Belated Father's Day!

Oil on 18x57 1/2" wood panel

We we we so excited

Europa! I am going to Europa this winter to study the old arts! Yuuuuuussss!!!! Click on that button-------->
Pretty soon, it will have stuff I learn from my prep class, assignments for my professors to see including lots of paintings, pictures, and progress for my BFA final project.

Wee!

Flight

Daniele gave me a bunch of old canvases. Underneath was a green and yellow stenciled pattern that she spray painted and I painted this on top of it.
Oil on canvas, sharpie, spray paint

New project

I am part of a large collaboration that involves 11 different artists and is being put together by Daniele Vickers. She purchased some websites and over the next few months, we each have one week to upload a piece responding to the artist before us. The connecting medium for this project is the internet. The primary means of communicating, showing, presenting the piece etc. must be digital. In essence, these are installations that site specific to a computer screen. I think this is a fascinating idea and it will be interesting to see each artist respond to it and to each other.

Daniele started it and can be viewed here. I am the next artist, I am excited to start working on my piece.

Ok but speaking of the internet, I am jealous of Daniele's clean, nice, new blog. Go look at it. Click on her name. I have only had my blog look the way it does for a couple months now. But hers looks so darn proFESSional! It means that she is a real artist now. IIIII want to be a real artist too! Everyone around me is getting pretty fresh blogs and websites for their arts and I want one too. It is kind of like when you buy an awesome new dress and you go to school and someone else got an awesome new dress and you are like

wait...



how is that girls dress way better than mine...



Man... well at least I didn't spend any money like if this were actually about dresses. But I was hoping on holding out a little bit so I could think of a better option. I felt like it would be kind of a sell out because I only really want one because everyone who IS anyone has one. I mean, there has to be something better than a fresh, white website for your art right? ...like...a GOLD one! Or like one made of gummy bears? Yeah? Or like one with wings? Maybe if my website was a giant kite with real cake and with a birthday present attached to it, it would be better than a clean white one!

Ok melissa

Get. off. the. internet.

Expressionism

Being birthed

I did this performance time-based piece I did for Daniel Everett's New Genre class last semester. It has some obvious visual links to some installations I did for the same class. The title "Being birthed" came after I had done the video and watched myself being ejected from the protective cocoon. There is a duality that comes from being wrapped up- I feel both stifled and safe. Once I am ejected, I feel liberated and vulnerable. I like that there are 2 complimentary emotions in the before state (being wrapped up), and 2 emotions in the after state (being ejected), which makes 4. And I like the number 4 because it is a strong number. 

The "Mary" painting!

The Mary and the bee hives are shiny because they are covered in honey. This is also a time piece because the drips have formed over the space of a month and  half. 

Title: Mom

6 x 3 1/2' oil, honey on panel