TRUE COLORS

Since the pandemic I’ve been seeing a therapist. I’m not completely sure how these things connect, but, something about the extra uncertainty of the future, mixed in with the extra delving into my past, has got me listening to a lot of music I grew up with, like The Go-Go’s, and Cyndi Lauper. I just submitted a grant application and titled the proposed exhibition True Colors. I’ve now decided to do a whole series of new works based around the titles of the songs:

Girls Just Want To Have Fun

She Bop

Time After Time

I Drove All Night

All Through The Night

True Colors

I thought Cyndi Lauper was like a prime example of eighties cheesy pop, but now that I listen again, I don’t think there’s anything cheesy about her music at all. Some of the lyrics are quite beautiful actually. 

I’ve been uncertain about my work lately, and am having a hard time figuring out what I want, and why I’m making the things I’m making. The pandemic is still a driving concern. I live alone in a live-work space, so essentially I’m living in my studio. I’m unemployed until further notice, and both the exhibition and residency I was supposed to have are also postponed until further notice. 

So, that is to say, ..… nobody’s watching, I can do whatever I like!

However, that is proving way more difficult than it might seem.

I already wrote about all the stripes I’ve been drawing to curb my anxiety, but I want to take it even further. I’ve been disgruntled about certain shows I didn’t get into, and have been spending way too much time on social media comparing myself to every single artist out there. I want to be able to focus on making work that pleases me, without so much concern for fitting into someone else’s theme or category. Who am I making the work for after all?

detail of 3 drawings:
My Neighbor's Blinds, art marker on paper, each 11x14"

I just got feedback from a 2018 grant proposal I submitted, and the comments were totally split in half. Four of the eight judges thought the work was evocative, and four of the eight judges thought it didn't have enough depth.

I feel stuck in the middle of, not deep enough and not superficial enough. I’m neither overtly controversial nor overtly commercial. Why does that feel like a problem? I used to think that not being easily defined was a good thing in art.

Anyway, back to Cyndi Lauper. True Colors seems the most appropriate title for an artist trying to be true to herself. And that’s all I can possibly do at the moment. 

Well, besides get off of freakin’ Instagram.