art in the sun

it's hard to believe it's december. i'm kind of in shock. the last month of the year? already? how? this week/weekend is the BIG cheese art fair extravaganza in miami. the above piece doily trees by a doily lake of mine went off to art- miami with richard levy gallery

wish i was going too - some sun sounds nice. i've never been to the fairs at miami, although i have been to and worked at art fairs in san francisco, LA, and new york. i'm conflicted about the whole art fair thing. on the one hand it doesn't claim to be anything other than a shameless commerce event. there are lots of people, and parties, and it's nice to see people excited about art. you get to see a TON of art all at once by some of the best artists making work in the world. on the other hand i think it's hard for artists to create work just for fairs - when you create work for a whole show you get to develop an idea [hopefully to its fullest potential]. when you are creating work just to fit into a booth or hotel room it's hard to keep the idea of making something saleable out of your head [not that making art for sale is necessarily a bad thing. i have just found that it can interfere with the overall process]. space is usually limited so you tend to need to make smaller work. blue chip artists always get primo spaces, and sometimes it's a little hard to stare the commerce aspect of art making so square in the face.



on a whole other note. i had a critique in my studio last night. most of the work was in progress so it's a nice time to get feedback. as i went about my very long and sometimes rather stupid day today [in a nutshell i spent over 2 1/2 hours at the permit office only to find my application wasn't complete... and then made a subsequent run to kinkos to make enough copies for my app where they were out of giant paper. so i waited for the roll to arrive and then they couldn't get the register to work. over an hour later i then missed the closing time of the permit office. sigh] i had a lot of time to mull over what was said.



so what was in my head? nostalgia - how much is too much? subtle subervisity : do i care if it's too subtle for some people? being a bit tired of overthinking/worrying about the potential political nature of some of what i make. why do we sometimes cringe when people use the word "decorative" with art? am i purposefully turning away from inserting "high" conceptual content in my work at the moment? do i want the conceptual content to be the search for beauty and space, using furniture as stand ins for relationships, and honoring historic domestic activities? is that enough for me? or am i running from something that i should be facing? and piles. i was thinking about piles again. i think i need to bring back more piles.

i am almost finished teaching for the quarter. just big mounds of grading to tackle. i think i can i think i can. i'm kind of feeling like there won't be much holiday magic around here... but you never know.

thanks for reading my art rant.