I’m off to Ireland this Fall, which is wonderful, and it looks like there may be a moment of respite, with a house to stay in for a little while, not far from water. If all goes well, it may be possible to get some work done on a book, some drawings, and perhaps even an hour of reflection here and there. I’ve learned not to cling too tightly to the thoughtful, productive time that’s just around the corner, though. I’ve seen it coming, just a few weeks or months away, for several years now.

Like much of my life these days, though, it’s largely beyond my control. My wife’s sabbatical is an opportunity to go to her home country for a while, and I’ll see a lot of people I care a lot about. My parents will come over as well, later in the Fall, for a week or two, and over the course of those several months, a lot of fun will be had with them and the rest of our Irish family and friends. That much is certain. As far as time to work and think and make, experience tells me I’ll just have to see.

If work time, astonishingly, comes, as it well might, I’m not sure I’ll know where to start. Lately, even with a free day now and then, I often no longer really know what to do, because large projects have largely been abandoned. With a free afternoon or two every few weeks, it’s just not realistic to aim real high. When more ambitious threads are broken again and again, after enormous effort, one learns not to aim beyond the next few hours.   I putter around, and work on skills and tools that will hopefully make it possible to use what time I have, when it eventually comes, one of these days. As far as artwork goes, there’s a sense of trying not to let the spark fade out. The things that keep me sane and stable are not currently possible, most of the time. Yes, that means I’m less sane, less stable, also less articulate, less amusing, less sociable. My creative and social energy goes into helping my daughter to figure out the world and learn to talk and interact. It is time well spent, but I do miss myself.

In years to come, as our daughter starts spending more time away, at school and with friends, I know I’ll miss these current days of sun, wonder, animals and the alphabet, the smell of pee, and the delight of discovering cattails. Lots of fun, chasing, giggling, exploration. Very little of my life is about me, though, and I’m not sure what will be left of my identity in another year. I’ll figure something out then, and I’ll try to keep pausing to breathe occasionally in the meantime. Figuring that loss of self will turn out to be a gift in the long run, a door to transformative growth, etc. In the short run, though, it gets hard at times.

I made the poster for Rian Kerrane and the UCD College of Arts & Media last week in a rush, using a photograph by Denver artist John Davenport. Seems like it came out ok, for a few hours work.

If you click the image, you should get a larger version that’s relatively readable. In a nutshell: Thursday, March 10th, beside the flagpoles behind the Tivoli. 2-7PM.  Toby Flores will be speaking on the evening of Monday the 7th, at the King Center.  See you there.

What is this thing? The minimum standard: is the paper improved by being marked? I think so, yes, I’m sure of it, but I can’t really say why. This kind of nonsense is indefensible, but is no less valuable for all that. The work matters, however modest, and whatever it takes to persuade oneself step in again and again is fine, makes sense, enough.

I’m drawn to the elephant in the image, but elephants are currently a big topic in my life, and it may just be that I’m seeing them everywhere. Oonagh and I spotted one recently under my parents’ couch (a pink one) By ruling out other possibilities, we had previously figured out that the elephant we keep hearing at home resides in the oven. It keeps waking me up. Pffffft!

Everyone says they hate to judge other people, but for many people, that’s obviously untrue. I really can’t stand it, though. I’ve been grading almost continuously for weeks, for five different university classes, only one of which I’m actually teaching. What hurts is that I’m obliged to judge people’s ideas in a way that discourages insight and rewards obedience more than engagement. 

Last semester, many already large class sizes were doubled, and many adjuncts like myself were laid off. I was given the opportunity not to teach, but to grade papers for the Art History class that I’d been teaching and developing for several years (to often rave reviews). (An adjunct is not fired or laid off, merely not renewed, a crucial distinction when presenting staff cuts to the public and the press. Formally, no positions were eliminated.) In lean times, I felt I had to accept what was offered, enthusiastically, you bet, love to, yep. In any case, I obviously already know the material inside out, so I might as well do it, despite the indignity and the pay cut.

These “restructured” Art History courses are now massive (one class has 125 students), and when I introduce myself to the class as the “grader,” I have to let them know that, if the course they’re in seems dehumanizing, that’s because it is, by design, and they need to keep it in mind when they write essays. When a course is expanded to this astonishing size, it’s impossible to do much more than see whether students have “checked the boxes” and followed instructions carefully.

Genius can’t be rewarded in this situation. A brilliant, sensitive, publishable response may very well fail on the assignment, because in a situation like this one, all evaluation has to be strict. literal, and clear. There is little room for subtlety when one is spending 3 days straight, morning to night, grading 500-or-so short papers with strictly defined specs.

The shrewdest students, even if they’re capable of insight and subtle thought in other contexts, will write something that fills in each of the necessary blanks, obviously and immediately, knowing that I will very likely come across their particular paper after spending 8 hours working my way through a stack of material, on day 3 of grading. Don’t be too clever, please. I will miss your point if it’s not stripped down to something simple. Brilliant insights can only hurt your grade, because they might distract me as I numbly scan the page to see if you’ve “checked all the boxes.”

I didn’t decide to put this many people in the class, but I feel like I have some obligation to tell it like it is, so they know how to do well if they want to. If you forget the dehumanizing reality that’s built into the structure of the course, you may do poorly, even though you’re deeply engaged in the material. For this class, write prose like you’re filling out a form. I may try to dress it up a little when talking to the actual crowd, but that’s what it amounts to, honestly.

Don’t misunderstand – the current instructor does a great job, but with this many people, a separate grader is essential, and my personal attention has to be mechanized. I thought the classes I’d been teaching, with 65 people in the room, were large, but this is a giant step beyond. For an excellent art department, it seems problematic to have shockingly large lecture courses be most students’ first experience of the university’s art program. (Faculty had no part in the decision.) The department’s studio courses and Art History program are excellent, but if one wants to recruit possible arts majors from the introductory courses, one has to first reassure them that the rest of the courses will be smaller, more intimate, and that their unique point of view will be celebrated and developed. Despite their first impressions.

When an ink-filled brush touches paper, it might or might not lead to something thrilling, but there’s no turning back. One pauses, settles the mind, limbers the fingers, and then the process begins. It can go wrong, and a lot of the time it does. That first mark redefines the situation on the paper, and the next mark responds to the first, in a process that combines intention and intuition at every moment. Too long a pause, or too controlling an intention, and the poor thing dies on the page. Begin again. In any case, the moment comes when one has to either touch the brush to paper or put it away. In an instant, it comes to life, or the paper is spoiled.

I can sum up the main difference between physical media like ink drawing and digital tools like Photoshop in one word: “Undo.” (In other words, Ctrl/Cmd-Z”.) With black ink, there is no undo, no trying it 10 ways and then deciding which one works best. One has to actually take a chance, and act with the possibility of failing.

As for the image: “Less Than Three, 3, More Than Three.” Someone has to finally tell the truth about what the number three  really is, what it means, and it’s not going to be me. I merely mean to draw attention to the question. Oh, come on.  Really. It’s a trace of a passing moment with brush in hand, spinning out some little chain of rhythm and un-named form. Nothing more, but I like it enough that I’ve kept it around for a long time. The title is silly, comes later, and mostly serves to amuse me (and act as a mnemonic device – oh, yes, that drawing.)

Let’s not get carried away with mystifying the process of art-making, but on the other hand, let’s not forget that when it works, it’s like something fell out of the sky. An inky brush touching paper defines commitment and captures spirit in the moment. If every gesture can be undone with a click, a magic process becomes a merely graphic one. Sometimes. Take this rant with a grain of salt, from someone who uses a wide range of tools, physical and digital.

Addendum: Then, a few hours later, Mubarak finally resigned. Inevitably, this is the day that political life in a whole region of the planet takes a turn, hopefully for the better.

Governments (including the US) that build policy on the “stability” of dictatorship are nervous, and embarrassed at the light that’s been shined on their pragmatic hypocrisy. Governments’ foreign policies have to deal with the realities of power and coercion, and behind-the-scenes influence can sometimes do more good than public shaming. Possibly, US ties with Egypt’s military helped nudge things toward a peaceful solution. Possibly.

An embarrassing moment all the same, as Obama tried to cover both sides of the bet, reassuring the Mubarak regime of his goodwill while working behind the scenes to bring it down. Not a good moment for charisma politics. Waiting to see who wins the game before betting on it looks pretty slimy, however one might have good intentions. On the other hand, looking good is not the point.

Arranging things in a space, sorting the continual rush of image into a snatch of rhythm, one trusts one’s tools and impulses, and when things go well, it’s one wonder after another. So much thought and practice goes into it, years and years, but when the shift happens for a little while, one is sometimes a little distant, a little dumb. Whatever sophistication one has, seeps in anyway, and the work improves when the judge stops watching.

Adding Levity (Hawthorne)- Shawn Demarest

Just looking at a post on Shawn Demarest’s blog, from Portland, OR. An old friend from Boulder that I haven’t seen in many years, and she’s still making paintings and prints, heading out on a bike with a trailer for plein-aire painting of her urban environs. If I recall events correctly, I’m remembering now that it was partly seeing Shawn’s prints and talking that made me want to dive into etching, which I eventually did, after many fruitful diversions (I first met Stan Brakhage because I couldn’t get into an etching class, and was then immediately immersed in cinema and much else. It took several years before I finally made my first etching.) Anyway, I like Shawn’s pictures, and her brief tales of spending days out looking at the world make me want to pack up some paints and get out there on these unseasonably balmy days we’re having in January.