I am in the midst of a serious reorganization-upheaval of my art studio. Somehow the studio has become a dumping ground for a lot of shit I don't want to deal with.
I've been going through boxes and piles of artwork that I've been avoiding for over twenty years. Drawings, photographs, journal entries, scraps of paper with scrawled notes and sketches from age 18 until now.
IT IS SO MUCH!
And most of it is clearly like my worst depictions of teenage (and twenties' and thirties') angst and depression. Not to mention postcards, receipts, and tax papers from every failed business and art gallery I've owned or managed. All neatly piled in boxes that I've hauled from one studio to the next, over and over throughout the years.
So, here I am happy to report that I have not only mustered the courage to look at all of this head on, but I've been able to purge most of it once and for all.
Can you say Catharsis?
The memories are there, and of course I'm still the same person, but I don't need the baggage anymore. I have saved a few gems, and tossed the rest.
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Tossed
This is a drawing I made when I was 18. Pastel on newsprint, 18x24". My eyes have never been that big btw and my hair has never been that straight, but there it is! It was part of an application for something and I remember the person reviewing it saying to me, what did you get bored by the time you got to the hair? Obviously I didn't get accepted into whatever it was.
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Tossed
This was a school assignment from I think St. John's University, ca. 1992. copied from a photograph. Pencil on Bristol paper 16x16". I was damn cute as a four year old wasn't I?! The brown dots are moldy bits from being stored in a basement for too long.
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Saved
This doesn't actually look like me either but I do like this little painting. Oil on canvas, 1999, 10x11"
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... self portraits
My mother has often referred to me as stubborn. I used to agree with her but mostly because I liked thinking of myself that way. It implied that I had my own opinion, which gave me a personality, which I desperately craved when I was younger because all evidence pointed elsewhere.
But it has more to do with something else I think. It's not that I refuse to believe certain things, it's just that I need to see it for myself first. I can't believe in anything until I've made up my own mind about it. My daughter is the same way. She won't take my word for it. Maybe it's not the worst thing, except that it does end up taking an awfully l o o o o o o n g time to process things.