"Inside the Painters Studio" Installment 9 and Last of this series.

Do you have a motto or creed that as an artist you live by? What advice would you
give a young artist that is just starting out?

Its hard to say if I have a motto or a creed.  It seems strangely definitive to announce such a thing. I have always carried with me the what John Cage said about inspiration: "I think people who are not artists often feel that artists are inspired. But if you work at your art you don't have time to be inspired. Out of the work comes the work."  I will sometimes say this to others as "work comes from work".

Joe Molinaro has this picture of John Cage in his office.  It has been there for as long as I have known him, 1995 maybe.  Here you go Joe.

This is related to the advice I would give young artists as well.  I had a professor in Grad School, Marty Tucker, who in looking for a image of his work for this post, I just found out recently died.  Very recently in fact, March 18th.  Marty once said to us, that if you stop working because a particular tube of red paint you ordered hadn't come in yet, you probably weren't going to make it.

My first show in graduate school in the student gallery, I had maybe 8 paintings of cows on roofing tar paper.  These were my first finished pieces at the University of Cincinnati. Here are a few of the paintings.

  I started thinking about Marty during this process and I remembered that he wrote something in the registry book for the this show.  It says "Brandon -  Super show. Thought your work refreshing, expressive and even amusing.  Very strong.  Martin Tucker"

 
 I started this post thinking about one thing, I was going to say to young artists that they should remember what Cage said- that out of the work comes the work and that you can't let things like waiting on a tube of red paint slow down your progress.  But as this post has evolved into a bit more of my remembrance of Marty, who was extraordinary, and who was a huge encouragement to me in the beginning of my career, I want to say this instead to young artists:  Know and lean on the people who get what you are trying to do.  Marty always said to "know who's shoulders you stand on" and what he was talking about was to realize who, past or present influences your work and who's work you are trying to extend the language of.  This is incredibly important.  I think in addition to that you have to know that the audience for what you are trying to do isn't everyone.  It isn't even necessarily others who you respect or who's work you love.  Make the work that you make and connect with the people who find truth and resonance with that.  Everyone else is in a different conversation.  Marty's early encouragement gave me the focus to mine deeper into my language, while many other people were trying to get me to make work that was more like the work they were interested in.  As an artist this is one of the worst detours you can make.  I don't encourage stagnation or not being in a conversation, but say what you want to say.

Next week the Blogwatchers start answering questions that we have been asked by others or we think others would be interested to know the answer to.  The first one is: "Who are the last 3 artists that you seriously looked at whether they influence your work or not?" April 5th 

 I would like to end this post with Martin Tuckers obituary and to say that the people who influence our lives and careers are with us to greater or lesser degrees throughout.  I haven't thought about Marty in a while but I quote him every semester, so in a sense Marty's ideas are part of the way I think about everything I do in art and teaching and that is pretty profound and I think Marty would think so too.  Thanks Marty.

 

Martin Tucker was born Sept. 7, 1932 in the Bronx, NYC. He was drafted into the army during the Korean War, where for the first time he didn't have to share a bed with his two younger brothers. Through the GI Bill, he enrolled in the State University of New York at New Paltz, to pursue his early childhood passion for the visual arts. He was first in his family to attend college. In graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, Marty met his wife Ruth, and began his teaching career at Western Washington State University in Bellingham, WA. The family moved to Cincinnati in 1967, where he became professor of painting and drawing at UC for 37 years. He had a true enthusiasm for teaching and gave his students wide exposure to the art world. He was very proud to initiate an exchange program with the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Marty's own work has been exhibited in numerous cities. One of his favorite quotes was by the artist Paul Klee: "Art for me is serious play."

"Inside the Painters Studio" Installment 8

Next week: Do you have assistants? Did you ever work for another artist, and if so, did that have any effect on the way you work? DUE: MARCH 22nd

Unfortunately for this weeks post, I don't actually have a very interesting answer.  The answer to both questions is no.

I would like to have an assistant and the biggest reason I don't is that I am so used to doing everything and can be somewhat unorganized.  I firmly believe I wouldn't have my materials together, my instructions together and myself together enough to utilize an assistant.

I do think it is interesting to imagine for this question what I need an assistant to do.  There are (at least) two categories of activities to the professional artists practice: studio and office.  On the studio side, I need someone to gesso.  I hate to gesso and I don't say that lightly.  Three coats of white gesso, one left to right, the second from top to bottom and the last from left to right again.  It is monotonous.  When you are finished you have a canvas painted white, three times.  I can't imagine that I could keep an assistant employed gesso-ing canvasses though.

8 year old gesso brush. I actually do clean this after I use it.

On the other side, the office/paperwork side of things, I could really use an assistant.  The tasks for an artist range from constantly updating resume, artist statements and cover letters to taking images of new work, resizing, cropping and cataloging work.  Each exhibition application requires different file sizes and slide sheet configurations.  Websites and blogs need updated.  Often, show cards need to be made (even if only digital).  I have found that many places make poor show cards so it is advisable to do much of your own promotion.  There are appropriate galleries to contact, shows to apply for once you find the shows to apply for.  It is a never ending list.  This is to say nothing of the many activities required to ship a show somewhere.  Wrapping each painting, printing mailing labels, making boxes, loading and and unloading for shipping.  The rolls and rolls of tape.

Cards from previous shows.

But alas, I do not have an assistant.  Interesting parties apply within.
Check out Peggy's answer.

Last questions from "Inside the Painters Studio" by Joe Figg will be posted Friday March 29th:
Do you have a motto or creed that as an artist you live by? What advice would you
give a young artist that is just starting out? DUE: MARCH 28TH

"Inside the Painters Studio" 7th Installment

When you are contemplating your work, where and how do you sit or stand? How often do you clean your studio, and does that affect your work? DUE: MARCH 14T

When I am contemplating my work I sit in this brown chair (for the most part).   I am a big fan of this chair for a few reasons.  I should pause here for a moment to say, I can't believe that I am talking about this old and completely unremarkable chair, but here we go.  I bought this chair from a buddy for 25 dollars about 14 years ago.  It is very comfortable and leans way back.  Actually almost everyone who sits in the chair starts to lean back and does that thing you do when you think you are about to fall backwards where you literally  defy gravity for a moment and sort of kick your legs and go straight up in the air.  I have to reassure anyone wishing to sit that the chair will actually stay on the ground, I mean I have been sitting in this thing for over a decade and I'm no little butterfly.  I only mention this particular quality, because I find it very useful in contemplating my work.  I lean way back in the chair and look at my paintings for a long time.

There is this story of deKooning that he would sit in his chair looking at his painting for an impossibly long period of time and then would suddenly stand up, go to the painting and make a mark or a couple of marks, not much, and come back to his chair to sit and contemplate, (he may have stood).  It went on like this until the painting was complete, I am sure that if this is true, there was plenty of frantic painting in the beginning but at the end there was progress by degrees - by marks.

Beginning work on "Meat Pod #1"

How often do you clean your studio, and does that affect your work?

I don't clean up my studio as much as I should.  I tend to clean up my studio at two main times.  The first is anytime I am about to start a new group of paintings, I will clean my studio as a way to get a feel for the space again, or to just get moving and separated from regular life.  This usually has the effect of really getting me started.  It isn't about cleaning the space, I actually don't need a clean space to paint.  I am not sure that I could have painted in Bacon's studio but pretty close. (Incidentally there is a fantastic book about Bacon's studio titled "7 Reece Mews: Francis Bacon's Studio" by Perry Ogden if you are interested to see something shocking.)

"Meat Pod #1" in progress.

The other times that I clean my studio is when I get to the point that all of my brushes are dirty, I can't find anything and every time I move, I knock over a tuna can with a slurry of paint in it and there are bits of t-shirt rags all over the floor.  These are the times that I reluctantly start putting things away and feel like it is a total wast of time.  My wife says I should just throw things away as I go but honestly, I don't remember creating all of that debris.  Stopping my thoughts to clean constantly would be awful. 

"Meat Pod #1"

 
I can't really say that cleaning my studio has an effect on my work at all.  I don't need the space to be a certain way or a certain size or to even have a certain kind of supplies.  I would definitely say, more than anything else, the process of cleaning the studio acts as an activity generating exercise. 

Next week: Do you have assistants? Did you ever work for another artist, and if so, did that have any effect on the way you work? DUE: MARCH 22nd

"Inside the Painters Studio" 6th installment

 Do you work on one project at a time or several? How do you come up with titles?


I like to work on several paintings at a time.  Sometimes I am limited by space and sometimes I am limited by uncertainty about my current project.  Either way, the only time I am working on just one project, is when I have just started painting again after a hiatus.  I usually work on two paintings at a time and sometimes three.  In my studio, I have two painting walls and an easel (check here for a longer description).  This allows me the space to work on three medium-large paintings at a time.

From a concept point of view, I have a couple of different approaches depending on what I am working on.  If I am preparing for a show, working on multiple paintings at one time gives me the opportunity to think larger about the body of work.  I can start to build visual bridges between ideas and really layer within the overall theme (even if I am the only one who can read it).  I find that working in this way allows me to take more chances as decisions about one work is emboldened by the decisions I made on the other one.  And of course there is the connectivity of color and physical paint application that builds like a rhythm through a body of work.

     
In the two paintings above, I worked on them at the same time, for the same show and there are some real benefits of this in both the way the paintings relate and how there are distinctions.  For example both paintings have bubbles (circles) in relatively the same place and in the same relationship to the figure.  The cows have some real similarity in color but the birds have a different quality from each other.  For me this is an important aspect of building a body of work or a show.

  How do you come up with titles?

Coming up with titles is an area where I am of two minds.  I have two distinct systems for naming work.  There is the straight forward describing/numbering system.  As in Cow #23, Meat Pod #1, or

Man with a Tower.  Sometimes I combine this with a title that is somewhat suggestive as in "Cow Traveling under a Drippy Sky."  Which both invites the viewer to relate ideas of travel to progress, locomotion, the act of monotonously moving from one location to another and so on.  But on the other hand, here is a cow that seems to be walking and there is a big blue drip above him - like a sky.

 

The other approach that I have to titles is the more literary approach.  I am more ambivalent about this method as it can be quite corny and I flip flop on having the work tied to a specific idea.  I had a show at the Heike Pickett Gallery a couple of years ago, the show was title "The Chase." Almost all of the paintings were titled after phrases from the same named chapter in Moby Dick.  As in The Chase Day 1: Bright Bubbles Arose, or Chase Day 1: Flagstaff and The Chase Day1: Malicious Intelligence.  These being the names of the two paintings above, Malicious Intelligence on the left and Bright Bubbles on the right.

Titles have often been a contentious issue with me.  In one of my first reviews the art critic zinged me for my use of titles: "if he didn't give away the game with titles like "Cow Mythos" We get the point." - Frederic Koeppel, Conjuring with Cows - Sept.23 2005, Commercial Appeal, Memphis TN.  I think I agreed with him.  I tend to be more subdued with titles now, not because of the review (sorry Frederic) but as I have developed in the way I think about my work, I tend to rely more often than not on a brief description and a number.  

If I am not mistaken, this is the painting from the show.  The painting did sell from the show and I don't know who bought it so if you have this painting in your living room, give us a shout and let me know if you still like "Cow Mythos."

For next week: (Sorry I was late this week!) When you are contemplating your work, where and how do you sit or stand? How often do you clean your studio, and does that affect your work? DUE: MARCH 14TH

Don't forget about Joe and Peggy!

"Inside the Painters Studio" 5th Installment

Do you have any special devices or tools that are unique to your creative process?
Are there specific items here that have significant meaning to you? DUE: FEB 28TH 

Obscure Sticky Vinyl

For the past few months I have been using a material that is a bit unique to my painting process and it is a material called - "I'm currently not giving that name out."  I know, I know and I fully intend for Peggy (and everyone else) to chuckle and perhaps roll her/their eyes when she/they read this but....    I will describe it though.  It is an adhesive vinyl that I paint on and then cut into particular shapes, most recently "Meat Pods" or large bulbous forms, but I have made a few more recognizable shapes with this material.  Below is a pic of what it looks like in raw form.  It comes in a variety of sizes and sticks to many types of surfaces.

 

 "Super Me"

 This is a self portrait created on sticky decal vinyl and exhibited most recently at Murray State University.  

I find this material to be a fantastic departure in the way that I think about my paintings.  It is not a new idea by any stretch of the imagination to use shaped canvases or decals.  I have made shaped images in the past that have had something to do with Elizabeth Murray or even Frank Stella.  The way I am using this new material though, I think, has more to do with the way street artists use paste and paper.  It doesn't just simulate a wall drawing because there is a new surface, and the new surface is at once textured with brush strokes but also has the slick texture of the vinyl.  I have just recently started merging these decals with wall drawn elements and I am sure I will be posting some of those images relatively soon.  

When the edge of the canvas is gone and the rectangle or square extends to the entire wall or in some cases the entire room, the viewer experiences the painting in a very different way.  As in "Super Me", the painting is about the same size as the viewer and in that way, there is a sense that you are occupying the same metaphorical space.  Whatever this pathetic and ill equipped super hero is about to engage with, you are too. 

Sketchbooks

 

 When it comes to sketchbooks, I fully realize they are not unique to my process but they are exceedingly important to my process so I will take a minute to talk about them.  Sketchbooks seem to be very important to most of the 2-D artists I know and also important to a fair amount of 3-D artists.  I think it has something to do with ideas in real time, not labored over (necessarily) but fresh and raw.  Like a drawn version of not just and idea but actual visual thinking.  I encourage my students to include everything they are working on.  I include the scratch math from my home refinance.  There is a great page from one of Andrew Wyeth's sketchbook of a drawing on a page where he had added a column of numbers.  You can't help but wonder where are those numbers coming from or did he do the drawing first and then the math or the other way around?  

I use my sketchbooks primarily for thumbnail planning, (examples).  But they also become a stand in for ideas that haven't matured yet or a way of creating a visual outline of all of the complexity of thought.  I constantly go back through my sketchbooks and I don't judge.  It is important with a sketchbook (for me) to not think of them as "drawings."  They do not have a preciousness of any kind.  In this way I can make them without analyzing them - and get my ideas down.

My Bob Ross official palette knife.

I would have to say that the studio item that I have had the longest is my Bob Ross palette knife.  I have had this thing since I started painting.  I bought it from a guy who sold paint out of his house and he had this sitting on a shelf on clearance.  I bought it because it looked study and and had a nice round handle.  When I originally bought it, in mid 90's, it had the Bob Ross logo on the handle.

 

It looked something like this.  Though it might have been a bit different, I don't recall exactly but after a few years it started to rub off.  Over the years and many layers of scraped on and off paint, palettes cleaned and knife not washed, Bob's face has long since gone the way of the dodo.  I still use this knife more than any other though the edge is like a razor now from constant use,  I'm sure I will keep using this knife as long as it holds together and when it finally craps out, I will probably try to find another Official Bob Ross palette knife. 


Don't forget to check in with Peggy and Joe!
Next week: Do you work on one project at a time or several? How do you come up with titles?
DUE: MARCH 7TH

"Inside the Painters Studio" 4th installment

What kind of paints do you use? How long have you had your painting table, and
how did you decide to set it up?


When it comes to paint, I have a very equal opportunity approach. There are a few things I don't use like "craft paint". Those are the ones that come in little snap top bottles. There are many types of paint that I do use including various brands of acrylic and oil. Many of my paintings start out as acrylic paintings and finish as oil paintings. Some begin as oil paintings and stay that way. I start some of my paintings with oil bars and others with paint pens.

In Acrylic, I use Golden, Old Holland, Liquitex and Utrecht. I use paint pens and some house paint (with additives for canvas painting). I also use house paint to pour out sheets of latex for sculptural applications. I am not brand loyal but Golden is clearly the best acrylic in my opinion. It has a good paint body and color saturation.




In oil paint I use Winsor and Newton, Gamblin and a few tubes of Georgian. There is a pink color that Georgian makes that is in almost all of my paintings and it is specific to that brand. Though it wouldn't be overly difficult to mix, I always have a tube on my painting table. I like Gamblin mediums and I do use Liquin but it yellows whites over time.

In general, I use a wide variety of paints, and I do from time to time use Polyurethane, sand or grit of some kind. I often scrape my palette and mix the skin back into the paint. Sometimes I will leave the lid off a jar or can of paint so that I can use the skin for surface and texture.

My painting table isn't very impressive. It's an old university AV cart. It has a built in surge protector and power chord that I never use. I'm sure there is something better out there but as I said in a previous post, everything with me needs to be modular and able to roll. The cart works well because it is three tiers and holds quite a lot of stuff. I keep my brushes on the bottom shelf in metal coffee cans which are then set inside a stainless steel bathroom caddy ( white elephant Christmas gift). On the second shelf I keep all of my oil paints. About once every year or so, I go through and color group the tubes of paint around the shelf like the way any decent "learn to paint" sales rack book would tell you to set up your palette. Last I checked, I had no less than four large tubes of Burnt Umber in various stages of squeezed out, no caps but all with pronounced hardened mushroom scabs at the opening. I run a tight ship. There are many brands and more than one decade represented in my community of flaking, busted and double ended tubes of paint. The top shelf is reserved for miscellaneous stuff and at any given time will have a spray bottle, carpet knife, xacto knife, a cup of pencils, loose sharpies, paint pens, tuna cans with slurries of paint (usually Burnt Umber), small disposable palettes of a variety of origins, brushes that should have been cleaned yet were not, baby food jars, spoons and several cups of old coffee at various stages of biological growth and one currently in use cup.

As much as it seems as though there is nothing but chaos enveloping this relatively small three tier av cart, in all actuality, it has taken me years to get my system down.

Check out the other Blogwatchers response to this question.  Peggy Coots, Joe Molinaro and soon to join us - Matthew Litteken! 

Next Week: Do you have any special devices or tools that are unique to your creative process?
Are there specific items here that have significant meaning to you? DUE: FEB 28TH

"Inside the Painters Studio" 2nd installment

2. How long have you been in this studio? Did you have a plan for the layout of your studio or did it develop organically? Has the studio location influenced your work?

I have been in my current studio for going on 10 years.  In the beginning it was my weekend/ "summer break" studio while I finished graduate school. During academic year 03-04 I spent the bulk of my time in my studio in Cincinnati.  Since 04, it has been my primary and only studio for most of that time although currently I have some work space at the University of Kentucky that I share with artist/lecturer Jim Wade.

Primary and secondary painting wall in my current studio.

My studio layout has changed a bit from time to time.  I would definitely say the layout was organic as I use a room connected to my house as well as a two car garage that were both built (and not by me) for other uses.  I have never needed a specific or particularly nice space.  I started out in a two tiny room apt where if I was working on a painting larger than three feet in width it touched both the wall and the edge of my bed.  It was like painting in a closet.

I have two areas where I work.  The main painting area was, I think, a patio that someone closed in at some point to make a bedroom or the ever undefinable "extra room." Image above.  I have two walls that I work on and an easel that will hold a painting up to about 60" wide without needing to move it, but a painting that large blocks the door to the outside from being opened.  I can work relatively large on my primary painting wall but getting back to see the painting requires going outside, tilting your head to the left and leaning some.  I have good light in the room with a mostly all glass door, a window, a bank of track lighting and a clamp light with a 105W 5000K full spectrum bulb.  All and all, pretty functional.

Easel and chair.

 Entry into the larger workshop.

The second work area, is my general workshop, wood shop, stretcher, sculpture, planning and some painting - area.  This is essentially a longer than usual two car garage that you couldn't get a car into if you cleared an afternoon in a single minded attempt.  Just on the other side of the garage door is where my table saw lives.  My philosophy to studio functionality has always been modular and whenever possible, on casters.  My table saw is even on casters.  I have a 4 x 8 foot work table that I build most everything on and a drawing table where I keep my bug collection.

 Workshop table, bug collection barely visible in the back to the right.

My "wood shop" is separated by sheets of overlapping clear plastic hung by grommets that I can open when I am cutting to keep dust out the the rest of the studio.  I tend to be a bit of a pack rat so, I have to be constantly vigilant to cut down on clutter as often as possible.  I try to sort my painting racks a couple times a year.


I think the studio location has influenced my work some.  I find that a studio connected to my house has both pros and cons.  The pro is that I can go out and just get started.  I don't need to commute and I can work for small chunks of time here and there even when I don't have an entire day to commit to the studio.  The cons are obviously the regular household demands that constantly seek my time.  As a great for instance, this post is late.  It is late because the small greenhouse that we have was picked up in the wind last week and turned into a twisted pile of aluminum that was then carried into my studio for reconstruction.  I had to rebuild the greenhouse first in order to remove it from the studio in order to get some photographs taken.  A studio away from the house would likely not be the momentary holding cell for a broken greenhouse.

Stay tuned for a link to Peggy's response here as well as Joe Molinaro may be joining our little group!

Next week: Valentines Day Post
Please describe a typical day, being as specific as possible. For example: what time
do you get up? when do you come to the studio? Do you have specific clothing you
change into? Do you listen to music, radio, TV when you work? If so what, and does
it affect your work? DUE: FEB 14TH

"Inside the Painters Studio" 1st installment

1. When did you consider yourself a professional artist, and when were you able to dedicate yourself full-time to that pursuit?

The idea of a professional artist is something I thought a lot about when I was an undergrad.  It seemed so nebulous and I remember having conversations about the definition of "professional" as perhaps the ability to make a certain yearly income. I could never decide if that was a reasonable way to begin an understanding of this or not.  Later, when I was in graduate school, the idea seemed less important for several reasons.  I think mostly because graduate school was so competitive I felt like I had achieved something by just getting in. Graduate school was such a small shark tank that being a professional artist out in the world was somehow momentarily irrelevant.  Toward the end of my graduate experience, I made a painting titled Cow #23, this was the first painting that I really felt had a professional quality.  It was a serious painting that was skillfully made, conceptually interesting and had a significant presence.  I wouldn't say that I felt like a professional artist at that moment exactly but there was a level of achievement that I had not previously understood. It was a significant moment because of the relationship the painting had to my own standards and not an arbitrary idea I had been carrying around about when someone would grant me professional status.

Finally at my MFA thesis show, my painting mentor, Frank Herman said to me something like: "You are now competition."  Which was his way of saying we are colleagues and it was clearly meant to mark a major transition. In some ways he had granted me professional status.

As far as dedicating myself full time to the pursuit of being a professional artist, it's a bit complicated and depends on how the question is meant. In 2004 I graduated with my MFA and started showing quite regularly. About 6 years ago, I was doing reasonably well in a few commercial galleries. I was teaching part time as well and after a particularly great year of selling paintings, I decided it was time to take the studio artist plunge. I quit teaching and for two years I painted full time. The interesting thing for me was that after two years I realized that I have a very specific amount of time each day that I am productive in the studio. After that I putz around without direction, go to lunch and generally wonder about.   I'm more productive and satisfied when I work in conjunction with regular creative conversation and exchange. Teaching works well in this regard. So in some ways the answer is either 2004 when I started showing regularly, or 2007 when I decided to paint full time, or it's not likely I ever will as I'm quite happy to keep up my current pace.

Don't forget to check out Peggy's response to this question for a different perspective. Next week we will be answering questions related to our studios complete with studio images. Lastly, if you are interested in these questions check out "Inside the Painters Studio" by Joe Figg where we found our inspiration for this project.