Let's give it a shot

So Lisa tells me I should start blogging. We have real great conversations about my work, and talking about it helps me sort out what I'm really trying to do. Sitting down and typing this helps me focus even more. I can use this as a good starting point for future artist's statements as I'll surely be presenting my work to various galleries. I hate the idea of marketing myself, selling my personality, since so much of the art scene is about hacks selling their personality to those who'll pay for worthless shit because it has a Koons or Hirst name signed on it. Anyway, its too early to begin ranting. I know my conceptual ideas are far more sophisticated than anything Jeff Koons could come up for his fucking monkeys, I however can express these ideas in the act of painting, through narrative and symbolic elements within the paintings. I shouldn't compare my work with what Donald Kuspit calls "postart." But the fact that I'm here counting pennies while these fuckers are out there playing the art game with a budget that makes my $405 spent on oil primed linen look like $4 spent on toilette paper makes me a little upset. Just a little bit annoyed. Here I am ranting again, but it feels good I guess.

The good side of the decadent state of Art today is that anyone can do it. With the threshold for what the establishment calls an artist is so lowered, if lil' ol' me has a truly original vision with the *skill* to follow through without needing all the bullshit, I should stand that much higher than the riff raff. The "marketing" of my vision is done by my work alone and all I need is confidence in what I'm doing. Marketing is a bad word, but its the only word a businessman that runs a gallery would understand. Ultimately a lot of the imagery I'm working on undermines compulsive commercialism and consumerism.

I ought to write a summary of my story from graduation till now, maybe I should call it something catchy like the "Stoner Years" or "Debauchery Years" but all kidding aside, I really shed my old baggage these years with the help of Irv and Lisa. Its important that I write about it.

I also need to finish reading Kuspit's End of Art and form my thoughts on it. So far I learned much, but I feel like I'm in the position to harness technology or even entertainment sources to make them work for High Art, not High Art lowering itself to it. By "working for" I mean referencing or using it as a departure point in order to connect with the masses, only to then elevate them higher than anything outside of High Art could ever attempt. I had to get this thought down for the time being, because I think its important, I'll revisit and elaborate more on it later.

Well this felt good for a first blog entry.