The older I get, the more convinced I become that the greatest mistake one can make as an artist is the belief that integrity will count for something.
Dennis used to tell me a cautionary tale of someone local who had been an artist-'the real fockin' deal'-here in San Diego, who became so disenchanted and 'broken arted' with his artistic travails, that he just woke up one day and called it quits. Of course he got his own back later by becoming an art critic, but he never picked up a brush again right up until the day he died.
Perhaps that's all an art scene is - a periphery of disappointed cynics.
Being a glass is half empty, unless the other half is topped with spirits kind of artist, I realize it's all relative since I teeter on the cliff of jacking it all in and calling it quits weekly. It's been that way for as long as I remember-swings and roundabouts, artistic highs and post daubing lows are like a balancing act of mercurial equation. Plus my Mother said I'm a miserable bugger.
Except I've been feeling broken arted for a while now. Broken arted as in one too many unrealized dreams, one too many bullshit promises and checks never arriving, one too many lesser artists grabbing the wall space and headline's, one too many canvases unsold....you get the picture, or rather you don't unless it's for a fraction of the asking price.
If it all sounds pretty navel gazing and self pitying,then I suppose it is,so then... why do artist's like myself continue, why paint another stroke and keep climbing walls year in year out?
You know, I couldn't tell you the whys, it's just what I was born to do.
I don't paint splatter or big cats or bigger eyed girls-I wish I could find a pavilion of myself that could, I'd happily spend my days giving the Ryden's or Chueh's a run for their money, but I can't nor do I want to,call it what you like...integrity,stubbornness or plain stupidity. It means I'll never be a darling of the hip inkies, It means I'll likely never see recognition or a healthy stipend in my lifetime and so I guess there's not a lot of whinging to be going on until I do paint spatter, big cats or bigger eyed girls.
Like a martyrs folly, I'll endure until the fucking Van Gogh curse fulfills its promise, that or I warm myself by a pyre of my own making and become an art critic.
Perhaps this is as good as an artist can hope for, perhaps it's just the realization of the work itself that matters, nothing more. If Art is the provenance of a luxury,then food for the artistic soul is the struggle,even if it doesn't bring food to the artists table.
Above: Los Angeles Mausoleum. 3/17/2 6:37 PM
