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Hand Forged Vessels
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Tuesday, September 30, 2003 |
 Here's a photo of the new listing, an 8x10" painting on canvas called "Begin Now!"
Hmm. This listing didn't take 1,000 hours. Not long at all. This is definitely getting better.
Also, one thing I'm very happy about is that all this time that I've been working on learning how to list paintings on eBay, I've still gone to the studio to make art every morning. Today was day 17. So I'm over half way to my goal of 28 days in a row, to establish this habit.
I've been working in the studio all morning and sometimes into the afternoon. Only then have I started on computer work - for eBay and for computer clients. I got pretty anxious about the eBay project. But I kept going to the studio every morning. When someone suggested I work on it in the morning, I was shocked. That seems like progress.
9:25:00 PM 
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We just watched the first half or so of The Dancer Upstairs. It's an interesting drama about a fictional country in Latin America. Two policemen try to track down and stop a terrorist revolutionary group, not so much because they admire their current government, as to prevent soldiers in the street and to preserve at least a step toward democracy. What made us stop watching was that it seems convoluted and depressing - basically not worth all the scenes of violence.
I guess that's one way I judge a movie with a lot of horrible scenes in it. Is the value of the film worth seeing those? For me, The Pianist was well worth seeing despite the many horrors it portrays. The Dancer Upstairs - at least for the first half - was not. Someone else might judge this differently. I have two friends who said, separately, that The Pianist was absolutely the last World War II movie they were willing to see. Enough already! I didn't have that reaction.
Anyway, since we stopped halfway through, I'll give The Dancer Upstairs only two stars.
2:27:57 PM
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Monday, September 29, 2003 |
Cause for celebration! Tonight I posted my first listing on ebay - a small painting for sale. This means I have a basic format worked out for listing more paintings, so from now on it shouldn't take 1,250 hours to post one. OK, maybe that's a slight exaggeration....
Here's the first painting, a small 8x10" acrylic painting on canvas, called Whoosh! It's sold unframed, but ready to hang because the canvas is "gallery wrapped" (smooth sided, stapled only on the back) with all four edges painted. This is how it might look if the buyer chose to frame it:
 The full description, of course, with more photos and links to large photos, is in the listing at ebay. Your feedback and suggestions on my listing would be most welcome.
My plan is to keep listing a painting or two most days. Now I'll feel free to start painting more canvases. I have lots of ideas to try.
I couldn't have done this without the help I got from the Internet Sales Strategies Forum at Wet Canvas. There are some real experts there, plus lots of beginners like me who asked questions I didn't even know enough to ask. Most of all, the people at Wet Canvas are so encouraging.
10:41:35 PM
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Wednesday, September 24, 2003 |
Yesterday morning I slept through the Autumn Equinox at 6:47 a.m. but woke up aware that this was a special day. When I went to the studio, I seemed to accept naturally that this was the start of a new artmaking year. I picked up Betty Edwards' book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, to take with me. It wasn't a conscious decision. I just noticed that my hand went to the bookshelf and put that book in my studio box to take. So it looks as if I'm going to practice drawing this year.
When I started in the studio, I made a quick list of what I seem to be harvesting this year. There are a lot of "setups" on the list - basic preparations completed. The list was actually pretty long. It's enough.
1:47:59 PM
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Tuesday, September 23, 2003 |
This is the tenth day in a row I've gone straight to the studio after getting up. It's getting easier. Starting to feel normal. Once I get there, I'm glad.
Just sort of checking in. Reporting on something I announced here I was starting. My plan is to go 28 days in a row to really get this habit established.
10:35:47 PM
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Usually I avoid videos based on television series, but this one finally caught my eye. Door to Door is engaging, well acted, and moving. Helen Mirren plays an important role.
It's billed as a drama, but there's some humor here too. And the slogan, while applied to a sales career in the film, applies equally well to every artist. Patience and Perseverance!
There's an unforgettable sack lunch in the film. The hero unwraps his sandwich to find his mother has inscribed in neat red letters on one side: PATIENCE. He turns the sandwich over and laughs. Sure enough, the other side reads PERSEVERANCE.
Now why not pack a sandwich for myself like this? I just can't figure out what she used. Time for some technical experiments....
10:12:04 PM
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If you're looking for a film to teach your kids that cleverness and being kind to other people makes up for honesty, look no further. The Good Thief shows this from start to finish. Lies? Sure. Thieving? Sure. Showing up the equally good hearted but all too honest policeman? Sure.
There's a little bit of moral ambiguity in the film, but not enough to be thought provoking. Somehow I never really got fully engaged with the main characters. In some films, the "bad guys" are completely engaging and I'm quickly on their side against the law. Nick Nolte and his crew just never made it into my heart in this film.
I don't think you'll be glad you saw this one. 2 stars.
10:05:52 PM
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Monday, September 22, 2003 |
Ever since moving to the woods here, I've been fascinated by different concepts of time and different calendars. One year I did a lot of research on when different cultures start their year, and how concepts of time and scheduling have changed over the centuries.
Now, with the Autumn Equinox tomorrow (Tuesday, September 22) morning at 6:47 a.m. here north of Atlanta, Georgia, I'm wondering which calendar to use. Do I want to start my year with the Autumn Equinox? That's the start of the year for many more land-oriented cultures. It's also when I learned from Perelandra to start my year. As I understand it, the Cherokees who lived here before me, begin their year with the full moon closest to the Autumn Equinox - the moon we usually call the Harvest Moon.
Or do I want to adapt more to the realities of my culture, and use a standard calendar? Start my year January 1 like most people? Fit in better?
Here are the characteristics of what I call a "natural" calendar:
- There are 13 moons in the year. Each one starts with the new moon and ends just before the next new moon. The name of the moon depends on the local changes - what's going on with plants, animals, weather at this time usually.
- There are 4 quarters in the year - defined by the Autumn Equinox, Winter Solstice, Spring Equinox, and Summer Solstice.
- The year starts in the autumn when the harvest season winds down or the year's harvest is at least clear. (The actual date might be as early as the Harvest Moon or Autumn Equinox, or as late as the midpoint between Equinox and Winter Solstice, around Halloween or All Hallows Day.
Here are the characteristics of what I call a "social" calendar -
- There are 12 months in the year.
- Most planning and scheduling is by the week and month.
- There are 4 quarters in the year: Jan-March, April-June, July-Sept., Oct.-Dec.
- The year starts January 1. (Actually, this is parallel to the natural calendar in that the "main harvest" of the year happens in the retail markets in December. It's after Christmas that most companies their "harvest" for the year.
After I clarified these differences, I asked myself the crucial question. Which calendar is better for artmaking? Especially, for making my bowls?
That was easy to answer. Living by a natural calendar, a moon calendar, is much more apt to enable me to be in That State of Mind. That State of Mind, or TSOM for short, is my best possible state of being. I feel both deeply relaxed and excited, in discovery mode, following a thread of thought or feeling with a relaxed but one pointed focus. So it's obvious that in the studio, I'll be better off going with the natural calendar.
For business - selling my work - it seems evident that the social calendar will work fine. Nowadays, even requesting a change of tax fiscal year from the IRS is very expensive. It's not really worth it. And it's easier to set up accounting software to use a standard month and quarter. (In the past I've done it by the natural calendar, starting each month on the 21st to be close to the usual Equinox or Solstice dates - but it was a little complciated.)
Ah. So this fits with the shamanic role of going back and forth between two worlds. OK. I can do this. I'll use two kinds of calendar, going back and forth.
2:50:22 PM
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Just remembered a conversation I had last night. Realized it was in a dream. I was discussing the price of chicken backs with another woman, a stranger. This reminded me of something that happened (in waking life) when I was very young. I told the stranger my story.
"I was married when I was still in high school. My husband and I didn't own a TV so we used to walk over the the University of Illinois Student Union to watch in the evening. On this particular evening, I had to leave early so I could study for a French exam.
It was a spring evening, getting dark. As I was walking to our little basement apartment, a man fell into step beside me. He acted friendly and nice. Then he asked me to come home with him.
I'd been raised to be very polite in all circumstances. "No thanks," I replied. "I have to study tonight for a French exam tomorrow."
Mentioning "French" seemed to have the unfortunate effect of making him even more interested. I kept declining. Finally he said, "Well, if you'll come home with me for just a little while, I'll pay you $50 and you'll still have time to study for your French exam."
This talk of paying me got me all huffy. Indignantly, I exploded.
"Listen, I buy three pounds of chicken backs for 19 cents a pound, ten cents when they're on sale. With these chicken backs I can make soup that lasts us a whole week! I don't need your $50 at all!"
He gave up. I think he was so surprised by all the information about the chicken backs that he was overwhelmed. I got home safely, feeling extremely proud of my thrifty culinary skills. I think I did well on the French exam too."
Interpreting this dream:
Recently a major computer client took over most of the work I've been doing, to do inhouse. So I've been anxious about income. This dream seems like an obvious message to relax and remember my skills in living inexpensively.
It's true that I do have these skills. I know a lot of ways to live very pleasurably with very low income. I just need to be reminded of this. The dream did it very well.
Why did the dream choose this form? Maybe the invitation to prostitute myself has some application too. A reminder that I don't need to change or distort the art I'm doing, in order to earn a living as an artist? A reminder that integrity comes first? I'm about to plunge into trying ebay sales for my small paintings. It could be tempting to change the way I paint to suit this market. Many people would not only see nothing wrong with this, but would think it appropriate. I need to go by my own standards here.
2:31:49 PM
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Sunday, September 21, 2003 |
Just for the record, this morning was the eighth day in a row that I went to the studio first thing. So far, so good. Does that sound definite enough? I don't think so. What else can I say? I'm glad I'm doing this and I intend to continue. That's better.
10:02:05 PM
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This is a "coming of age" film about Filipino Americans. It was a shock to realize how little I knew about this culture. I didn't even know the name of the language.
It turns out that this is the first film every made in the United States about Filipino Americans. Not surprisingly, it took many years to fund and make. Then it took great effort to distribute and promote it.
What a mission - to enable Filipino Americans of all ages to look at the big screen and see something of themselves and their culture at last. Hurray for a worthwhile mission and a job well done. The film is engaging, educational, and just plain good. I'd recommend it to everyone. 4 stars.
8:50:44 PM
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Friday, September 19, 2003 |
Just want to note that today was the fifth day in a row of going to the studio right after waking up. So far, so good. It gets a little easier every day. I admit I sometimes give the computer a longing glance, but say a stern "no" and turn toward the door. Once I get to the studio, I'm happy to be there.
Usually 21 to 28 days in a row are enough to establish a new habit. That will be early October. That will be something to celebrate.
9:48:30 PM
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Wednesday, September 17, 2003 |
It interests me, the way time expands and contracts. The same number of hours can seem like enough, or not enough - spacious, or crowded. Here's the best thing. It has dawned on me that when I go to the studio first thing in the morning, the day becomes more spacious.
Here's what it's like. I wake up, push the button to start my cup of coffee brewing, pee, dress, put my hair in a ponytail, wash my face. I pack up a little more food in an insulated lunchbag or lunchbox, grab my box of stuff to take to the studio, pick up coffee in other hand, and go out the door.
The path to the studio is gently downhill, through open woods. The morning air is usually cool and lush. It's light already - about 8:15. Birds sing. Sometimes I see deer. The studio is only about 250 feet from the cabin, so the walk is fast. I go slowly though, savoring the outdoors. If it's raining, I wear a cheap rainjacket with a great hood that shields my face well.
Once I'm in the studio, I feel at home. If I know what to do first, that's best. If not, I drink my coffee and find out.
I work in the studio till I feel satisfied for the day. Usually that's till 2 or 3. I seem to want to work later and later, so it may expand to 6 or later. A big help is taking enough food, and having food stocked in the studio. Otherwise I interrupt myself just out of hunger.
The great thing is that by starting with artmaking first thing, I seem to have enough time for everything else. The truth is, that other things fade in importance once they've ceased to become distractions and obstacles to starting in the studio. But I do other things - work on my website, do computer work for clients, take walks, watch DVDs. I have enough time.
I thought this might be true earlier. But I couldn't get myself to go to the studio first thing. I'd get up, get my coffee and walk over to the computer and turn it on. "I'll just check my email." "I need to find out the dewpoint." (That's relevant to painting or varnishing metal.) "My client needs me to..." Then I'd just stay at the computer till my mind was too dulled to think kindly of working in the studio. Another day gone.
Here I'll confess that I never did get myself to go to the studio first thing. You know, the last time I made this change, it was at the strong urging of my creativity coach. That worked well but eventually I lapsed back into starting at the computer instead. Recently I was getting desperate. Every night I'd resolve that the next morning, I'd go straight to the studio. Every morning I'd go to the computer instead. Finally my partner said "I'll make sure you go, if that's what you want to do." All it took was being shoved out the door that first day. After that I was able to do it on my own. (Yes, I'm so proud of my four mornings in a row.)
Maybe if I lapse again, I'll ask for help sooner. I hope so. I love having enough time.
4:44:22 PM
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Last night I dreamed that I was showing a beautiful little chart to two strangers, a man and a woman. Three days had little magenta ovals under them - glossy like Liquitex Glossie paints, or even a bit like beads. I explained to the two people that this chart showed that I'd gone to the studio first thing in the morning for three days straight. "And I can add a fourth one for today," I said proudly.
Interpreting this dream seems pretty straightforward. Making a beautiful chart looks like a good idea. I have indeed gone first thing to the studio every morning starting last Sunday. Today, Wednesday, was the fourth day so I guess my dream was encouraging me to keep at it.
Why magenta? Not sure. But it's a blue-red, so it combines my two favorite colors. Red is associated with action, blue with introspection and vision. Acting on my Dream? I mean Dream in the sense of "big goal" - how I'd like to live - as a fulltime and very productive artist.
4:31:44 PM
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Tuesday, September 16, 2003 |
Solas ("alone") is in Spanish (with English subtitles.) I could never figure out for sure whether it takes place in Spain or Mexico but I believe it's Spain. It doesn't seem to matter in the story. As the film begins, we see four people who are alone - and lonely. Three of them are adults but in the same pain filled family. The fourth is a neighbor. The neighbor is a charming old man who isn't quite alone. He lives with his equally charming German Shepherd - a dog who can open all the locks on his city apartment door but uses good judgment about when to do so.
Of course, for me the dog adds at least one star for this film's rating. I'm a Bouvier des Flandres fan myself, but in character Bouviers and really well bred German Shepherds are much alike. And the dog in the film, Achilles, is an excellent actor - very expressive.
This film is well worth seeing. I found it very moving. I'm sure I'll remember it and be glad. I'll give it 3 stars. Well, 3 plus 1 for the dog Achilles, makes 4.
9:58:57 PM
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Monday, September 15, 2003 |
This is something that probably happens to lots of people. You dream that you're working - the same kind of work you did the day before. I do this with computer work, especially if it's been intense or if I've done it late in the evening. The dreaming gets quite tedious - entering data over and over, fiddling with a template on and on....
Often in the past I've become aware during the dream that it was only a dream. I'd feel disgusted as I realized that all my work would have vanished in the morning. All for nothing! "I'm not really entering this into anything real," I'd say to myself, watching myself continue to work on my dream computer. But I couldn't seem to stop.
Last night, I stood up for myself. No more unpaid overtime! The same kind of tedious dream started - something about making a template for describing a painting to sell on ebay. But just a few seconds into it, when I realized this was ebay and computer work, I protested. "No! I don't want to dream about ebay! No! No computer work!" And by golly, the computer dream stopped! I was very pleased in the night and again when I woke up and remembered what had happened.
Workers of the dream world, unite! No pay, no work!
9:51:02 PM
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Sunday, September 14, 2003 |
I'm very enthusiastic about this film. Just finished watching it. It's about an 8-year-old Irish Catholic boy and his family, and a 7-year-old Jewish boy and his family. Watch prejudices and misunderstandings surface and explode. The film ends in a great way. This is an engaging, entertaining, and wonderful film. I'd give it more than 4 stars if I had more to give.
8:35:50 PM
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This is a Dickens tale, very well told. I enjoyed it very much. It's lively, aesthetically pleasing, well acted. It's a classic story of good and evil, surprisingly apt for our time too. I'll give it 4 stars.
8:32:09 PM
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Saturday, September 13, 2003 |
Today I was using PhotoShop Elements to resize some scanned images of my paintings, to use for my Ebay template. Suddenly I realized that I was wasting time. I needed to use the final titles of the paintings for the lossless .tiff format of the photos. I don't want to rename photos in .jpeg format. Besides, I'd end up renaming four times as many files.
I felt frustrated. But I ended up finding a good way to view each painting so I could really look at it and find its title. My 8x10' "Nest" clean studio has almost no wall space - mostly windows and storage. I do have a Durer drawing grid about 18" wide that stands nicely vertical on any tabletop. I'd been thinking of cutting some plywood to clamp to the front of it, so I could use this as a "portable wall" for viewing my paintings. Today it dawned on me that some photo gray foamboard would be even better.
Sure enough, it works fine. I just pushed a #6 screw through the foamboard at a height good for hanging a stretched canvas. The gray makes a perfect background for really seeing the colors of the painting. And I can place the whole "wall" at varying distances from where I'm sitting.
I hung a painting up, gazed at it a moment, then made some notes about my eye movements. I played Smoke with it a bit, made some notes. A title evolved.
After two or three paintings, I started to write more boldly. It was great fun. I came away with new respect for the paintings, and a cheerful anticipation of writing their descriptions for the Ebay listings.
Just as for the vessel sculptures, a good viewing area is essential. I was trying to skip a step. Does that ever remind me of my teenage years! I think that film, Raising Victor Vargas, helped me be compassionate with my own teenage past - and with that pesky inner teenager. Still, it's that teenage self who once wrote, "I want to really live!" Still true.
11:18:56 PM
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Thursday, September 11, 2003 |
"Raising Victor Vargas" is about adolescence on the Lower East Side. Being a teenager there, according to the movie, is not much fun. The film is about groping one's way to something beyond surface bluff for the teenagers. And it's about the bitter difficulty of letting teenagers do this, for the adult trying to parent them. It brought back some memories for me, for both roles.
The conclusion is satisying. It's not always an easy film to watch. But I found it worthwhile. I'll give it three stars.
11:01:12 PM
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Wednesday, September 10, 2003 |
Several people have mentioned to me that they thought they'd subscribed to this weblog, but haven't been receiving anything by email. I think what happened is that right around the time I put in the subscription feature, its sponsor, Bloglet, had expansion problems and a lot of downtown.
So if you'd like to get my entries by email shortly after I post them, please subscribe again. I think it's working now. I appreciate every subscriber very much. It helps to know someone is reading what I write.
Of course you can delete the weblog emails if you have an information overload. I'll still think I have readers. We'll both be happy.
10:44:07 PM
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New discovery today. Making websites and sculptures is easy compared with shopping for underpants. Now that's hard work!
I've been trying to buy some new underpants for weeks now, without this getting very high on my errand list. I exhausted the possibilities in the local discount stores, Wal-Mart and KMart. It had dawned on me that cost cutting meant using as little fabric as possible. This made it unlikely that discount panties were going to cover me.
So today I set off to buy them at the one real department store in town, Belk's. It's been a long time since I shopped for panties, so I had no idea what brand or size. I'd had the bright idea of bringing a clean pair of my old ones with me - a pair with only a few holes in it. If I could compare these comfortable oldies with new ones, maybe this would minimize the need to head for the fitting room.
It didn't work at all. It was strange, but new panties that seemed to match my old ones exactly, didn't fit comfortably at all. I'm long waisted, so add that to some extra bulge in front and extra droop in back, and I have a fitting problem.
I ended up finding three - two different brands - that are actually comfortable. That's all the store had, just three. It took me three trips - maybe four - to the fitting room to get that far. I kept thinking, "Making websites and sculptures is a lot easier than shopping for underpants. This is really hard work!"
The good news is that now that I have brands, styles, and sizes, it took less than five minutes to find my new underpants online. The prices are less than at the department store. And I won't have to drive anywhere.
Tomorrow, back to "easy work" - website, database, sculpture.
10:40:09 PM
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Monday, September 08, 2003 |
This is a well done film about a young man caught up in "the life" working as a whore in New Orleans. He was trained from preadolescence on, by his mother - also a "working woman." You can tell already that this film is a bundle of laughs, right?
Indeed, it's pretty sad from start to finish. It's somewhat educational. I didn't know that those "in the life" call the rest of us "squares." Still - if I could have my two hours or so back, and my mind washed clean of "Sonny," would I take it? Yes, I would. I'd rather not have seen it.
So - given that it's a well done film but I'd rather not have seen it, how can I rate it? Well, I wouldn't recommend that a friend see it. So I'll give it two stars.
11:20:56 PM
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Today I called Smith-Victor, asked two questions about lighting equipment, and felt suddenly ready to order more. B&H Photo was out of stock on several things I wanted, so I ordered everything from Adorama. Now I'm excited. I finally gave myself some truly experimental things with which to play. Toward the end of this week I can be playing with all kinds of lighting and light diffusion effects. Suddenly, a dreaded challenge has become fun.
It looks as if I might need to accept my natural way of doing things. It has its ridiculous aspects. I go way overboard on trying a lot of options. I research like crazy. I buy more things than I need in order to try different things till I find what I like best. I experiment and then experiment some more. I see all the drawbacks of this approach.
It does have two advantages, though. One is that it's my natural way of doing things. When I work this way, I'm not fighting with myself. My energy flows well. Second - I have fun. I love to experiment. When I can work with a sense of curiosity and discovery, I get very happy.
So do energy flow and happiness outweigh efficiency and even good sense? Definitely! Why would I even ask?
11:16:03 PM
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Sunday, September 07, 2003 |
Part of making my "real" website means coming to terms again with the need to photograph my sculptures. In the past week I've been warming up for this, looking at where I left off. That turned out to be not as far along as I'd hoped. I have a lot of experiments to do before I can be sure of my lighting arrangement.
After a lot of searching online, I found the Kodak color separation guide I need. This is the strip of colored squares that will tell Modern Postcards and people who make prints from my slides, how to adjust the colors. I had a hard time finding it because I didn't know what it was called. Finally I lucked into it.
It was in stock at Calumet Photo, a store I haven't used before. At their site I ran into a wonderful article on rejection, by photographer Jennifer Bailey. Here's a quote from it that I admire:
I will not create boring art. There is far too much of that already present in the world and I refuse to contribute. Life is a lot more fun out there on the edge where sometimes things work and sometimes they don't, but when they do, fireworks go off. No, I will not make safe photos.
No, I will not make safe sculptures. I hope I remember this tomorrow morning when I grope for my first cup of coffee. Will I feel up to making even a safe, boring sculpture? Probably not for the first hour or two.
11:43:43 PM
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Building a website is beginning to remind me of building a house. It goes on and on. You have the distinct feeling that once you say "done" you'll start changing and adding things right away.
I've been plugging away getting a solid foundation - staying with the building metaphor. First I looked at all the artists' websites I'd collected over the last two or three years - then looked at more. I made notes in a Word document as I looked, sorting my comments into categories so I could make sense of them later. This looking and commenting helped a lot. I began to refine my ideas of what I wanted, what I liked and disliked as a viewer, what felt comfortable and what distracted.
Then I made dozens of layout drafts and looked at them at different screen resolutions, even on webTV (via simulator.) I published them to a test site to do this. I noticed that it was very helpful to look at pages on a friend's 800x600 monitor. That's the way the majority of viewers will see the site, and somehow the different layouts had more distinct impacts at that resolution. When I narrowed the field to just a few choices, I printed out the screenprints at different resolutions (using online viewers) and took them to the studio where I could lay them all out to view.
Now I have my basic layout and color scheme. I've looked at it in a lot of browsers and screen resolutions. I've fixed a lot of things. And I've checked the colors in a color blindness online viewer - that filtered them to show me how people with various kinds of color blindness would see them. (This is about 8% of the male population so it's a significant issue.)
Now for a bit of bragging. My layout is ultra flexible. It looks fine on my 18" LCD monitor at 1280x1024. Yet it shrinks to fit a webTV screen, showing all the essentials there without horizontal scrolling. And it looks good at sizes in between.
I designed it for sleek search engine access. That is, the code is as simple as possible. The most important parts of the page are at the top where the search engine robots can read them first. Usually links are at the top of the code, but in my layout they're at the bottom - tho the links themselves are at the left where users expect them. And the pages load fast - main page under 10 seconds, largest picture pages under 20.
I've accomplished a lot. I'm happy with my design. There's so much more to do! I need to relax and enjoy it. After all, I'll never make my first site for myself again. Yes, I've made sites for other people, just not for myself! Let's make this fun.
Now there's CONTENT to do - photographs and writing. Then there's selecting a host, which is all tangled up with selecting a shopping cart, which is entangled with payment processing....which is all going to work out fine. For a perfectionist, it seems as if I'm doing ok. I'm smiling at least once a day. Just kidding. I'm having a ball.
11:25:27 PM
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This is a Swedish film about a love story between two middle aged musicians - well, maybe a bit older than middle aged. It's quite a story. I do recommend it but there will be parts that are quite sad to watch. It's a good film to watch with someone you love.
It made me realize that much of the time, I may be relating not to the person before me here and now, but to my ideas and memories of how he or she has been in the past. That makes every interaction a near miss - a little late by a day or week or moment. Now that I write this, I guess it's an obvious thing. But the movie brought it home to me in a poignant way so that I really know it now.
I'll give the film 4 stars. Acting, by the way, was superb. There are English subtitles.
11:07:01 PM
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Saturday, September 06, 2003 |
At a party tonight, someone said to me that she thought it must be the need for income that drove artists to produce. I was too surprised to protest. So I'm doing it here, in writing. Making art just for the money? No.
The way I know it's "real" art for me, is that I'd make it whether or not I ever sold it or gained any income from it.
There are reasons for selling it. My goal is to sell art so I can have enough money to do art fulltime without having to do other work part of the time. But if I had an independent income and could do art fulltime anyway, I'd sell my art to get it out into the world. And to find homes for it where it will be valued.
All this seems simple and obvious to me. Now I see that it's not obvious to everyone. Next time I'll be ready to explain.
11:03:38 PM
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