The view from my front door. Hazier and less blue than when it caught my eye.
Sending William off on his walk to school this morning I was struck, as I often am, by the contrast of shadowed trees against the morning sky. Something about the near-black of the leaves against the bright hammered blue always makes me think of painting. There's a reason I really like Magritte's "Empire of Light".
As William wandered off I realized I might still have usable paint from yesterday. In particular some ultramarine left on the palette. Ultramarine plus white equals sky!
Thus it was the morning found me standing in my sleepwear, barely able to focus my eyes with the sleep still in them, mixing colors and trying to capture what I'd seen.
My Plein Air Painting Kit
I'm entirely uncertain of what I'm doing here. What's been happening in my head, since shortly before I shut down my studio in Brooklyn, is I've been thinking of plants and landscapes more. I'm not sure why except maybe the way the figure drawing sessions finally failed to work out left a bad taste in my mouth. Or maybe I'm just tired of naked people. Whatever it is, I've found myself looking at vegetation and things out in the world. Trees and vines and flowers. I've found myself turning over in my head how I'd paint these things. And I've been thinking of getting outside and painting out there.
To that end I took some things I had lying around the house and put them together with the remains of my studio to make my Plein Air Painting Kit. The box I got from my Uncle Louis from his artistic phase. He gave it to me years ago along with a bunch of elderly tubes of Grumbacher paint and some sad brushes. I retubed the paint last year or so figuring on giving it my father for his artistic phase, but the phase ended before I got them to him, so I decided to use them myself. So I put those old paints and my current Gamblin paints in the box. I cut down a piece of paneling to fit the slots in the box lid and taped a sheet of Canson Canva-Paper to it. Theoretically I could transport the still-wet oil painting in the box, held in place by the slots so it doesn't touch anything else. The box also has a nasty wooden palette -- Uncle Louis never cleaned it -- so I attached a pad of Canson palette paper to that and set it so that could lie over the paints in the box.
I worked out that I could clamp the box to a portable steel easel I've had forever and use it as a painting easel. Medium is in an old medicine bottle and OMS is in a Nalgene squirt bottle I had lying around. All this I set up outside my house with my quarter-ton chair, a folding chair capable of holding my great weight (most of those cheap portable chairs are a hundred pounds short of holding me safely).
The results were...well, I'm not too thrilled. But this was more a proof of concept, a test run. To see how well it works.
The biggest problem I had was composing the painting. I'd had an idea but somehow when I started blocking things in it didn't work out. Instead of being a sketch of "Retaining Wall with Hostas" (which are on top of the wall) it ended up as "Retaining Wall with Budding Chrysanthemums" (which are at the bottom of the wall). I'm going to need some practice, obviously, composing in plein air.
The second biggest problem was discovering that an enormous number of diesel vehicles, to say nothing of all the noisy muffler-free cars and motorcycles, goes down my street. I thought it was pretty quiet here, but clearly that's because I was never paying close attention.
Third biggest problem: Pedestrians, including people I know from the neighborhood. I need to paint some place far away next time.
More seriously: I found the whole thing very challenging. Color: How the heck do I get that shade of pinky russet? Paint: How did I get it on my elbow? Sitting: quarter-ton chair not so good for sitting forward and working. Legs fell asleep. I should maybe try standing but I wanted a different angle.
And finally, I need to make up my mind about what kind of painting I want to do. I keep pushing more towards realism, which I'm not really capable of, but for some reason when I try to be more like Van Gogh, more Neo-Impressionist, I feel as if I'm faking and my painting pulls back towards realism.
I guess we'll see how it goes next time.
I'd been avoiding seeing anyone else from any other studios in the building because I'd been feeling, not so much anti-social as, well, as if I was being a jerk when I spoke to people, so I decided I'd rather not talk to anyone. But one of my rare days in the studio, Sam, one of our newer studiomates, brought in a dozen donuts. By the end of the day I was the only one left and there were extra donuts. Well, you can't just leave donuts. For one thing old donuts aren't very good. For another thing, who knows what vermin lurks in the heart of the building? So, sighing, on my way out I brought the remaining donuts to Deep 6. I ended up talking to Dean and, as usual, complaining, which for some reason is what I do. This is why I'd been avoiding seeing anyone else. One of my complaints was how much trouble I'd had dragging my sorry ass into the studio on any kind of regular basis.
"What you need," Dean opined -- one of the things that makes it hard to complain to Dean is he always wants to help -- "what you need is something that will motivate you to come into the studio more often. What if you put together a figure drawing session?"
What if I did? I'd met Reilly at a figure drawing group, but in late 2008 I'd had a falling out with the organizer so I'd stopped going. Since then I missed figure drawing and wanted to do it again -- and tried one other group which didn't go too well -- so setting up my own seemed like a good idea. On the other hand, my follow-through is usually terrible. And I don't know too many art models, either.
But you know what? That's all whining. I can organize things. I'm a Boy Scout. I know how to do this stuff. Onward and upward!
Well, last Thursday night was the 2nd Avenue Figure Drawing Group's third session. Amazing. I held it together for three sessions in a row! We'll see how things continue.
I haven't posted my drawings from the first two sessions because, wow, they were bad. The second session was especially egregious. I'd found Mia, who I'd drawn before and totally loved, and I couldn't wait to draw her again, and then I showed up without any of my usual drawing implements. I ended up finding some really soft charcoal sticks I'd bought for some unknown purpose and trying to use those. By the time I was done I looked like Bert from Mary Poppins I'd smeared so much black crud all over my face and hands and pants.
Our most recent session featured a new model found by Joan, a lovely woman named Cara. Finally I have some drawings I can share.
I think the last two are kind of interesting because they're the same pose, but one is in Conté and one is using my brushpen.
And then, just because I'm here already, let me throw in a drawing I did of my daughter Corinne last night at her dance competition.
Chris Rywalt, Cara Drawing #1, 2010, Conté on paper, 9x12 inches
Chris Rywalt, Cara Drawing #2, 2010, Conté on paper, 9x12 inches
Chris Rywalt, Cara Drawing #3, 2010, Conté on paper, 9x12 inches
Chris Rywalt, Cara Drawing #4, 2010, Conté on paper, 9x12 inches
Chris Rywalt, Cara Drawing #5, 2010, pencil on paper, 8.5x5.5 inches
Chris Rywalt, Cara Drawing #6, 2010, Conté on paper, 9x12 inches
Chris Rywalt, Cara Drawing #7, 2010, ink on paper, 8.5x5.5 inches
Chris Rywalt, Portrait of Corinne at Dance, 2010, pencil on paper, 8.5x5.5 inches
Chris Rywalt, Untitled Oil #10, 2010, oil on canvas, 18x24 inches
First up, the final version of the painting I posted a little while ago. I added lines in. Reilly says he likes the colors, which aren't coming through as well as I'd like in the photo, but it doesn't matter since your monitor isn't calibrated either. Close enough.
Chris Rywalt, Hilary on Simon's Sofa (in progress), 2010, oil on canvas, 18x24 inches
Chris Rywalt, Hilary on Simon's Sofa (in progress), 2010, oil on canvas, 18x24 inches
Chris Rywalt, Hilary on Simon's Sofa (in progress), 2010, oil on canvas, 18x24 inches
I put together a figure drawing session at our studio. There have been two so far, actually, but I haven't scanned in any drawings from either of them yet. For our first session I got back in touch with the first model I worked with at Dorian's, Hilary Schmidt. She's as wonderful as I remembered her, lovely and full of good poses, and I got some nice drawings out of the session despite being rusty as all hell. I based my next painting on one of them, a very brief sketch. But I decided to try and do the background that was actually there, which is this awesome red fuzzy leopard print sofa Simon brought over which he originally bought in Austria. I'm thrilled with how the painting is going. I'm waiting for the spots to dry so I can fill in the whole sofa color.
I'd also like to note I looked forward for almost a whole year to having a studio with a window and now that I do I find it creates an insurmountable glare problem with all my photos, and occasionally while I'm painting, too.
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Chris Rywalt, Untitled Oil #9, 2010, oil on canvas, 18x24 inches
It's been a long time since I painted on canvas. But I've been thinking of switching back because I can prepare canvas in my studio, whereas making panels -- which involves sawdust and sanding -- I can only do at home in my basement. But I'm not a big fan of the textured surface and I'm not very good at stretching my own canvas, which is of course the right way to do it.
When I went to the art store I planned on buying canvas and stretchers but couldn't quite bring myself to do it -- courage! -- and anyway these pre-made canvases were on sale. So I bought four. Never mind the results on two of them. But these two came out quite well.
The second one turned out a little like a Tom Wesselmann. Not sure why, since it's based on one of the first (if not the first) ink drawings I started back in 2002.
Chris Rywalt, Untitled Oil #10, 2010, oil on canvas, 18x24 inches
The plan was to outline the colors (reproducing the ink lines from my original drawing) but I'm not sure I will. I kind of like it like this.
]]>There's no reason why the two couldn't have met, I suppose, aside from the fact that they lived a few thousand miles away from each other. I don't think Henri ever visited America and of course Georgia spent most of her life in New Mexico. But they could have met, maybe.
The dream reminded me -- along with my having made it to the studio twice since last week -- that I haven't posted my latest paintings. I guess I'm just not thrilled with them. In fact, at the end of September, when I returned to my studio after having been absent since early July, I wrote the following message to my studio mates:
Subject: Sorry About Ugliness
I haven't been in, as you both know, in a couple of months. Upon arriving in my studio I was faced with the last two paintings I completed way back when. I'd forgotten I'd painted them.
I'd like to take this moment to apologize for making you look at those ugly-ass pieces of crap for the past two months. Wow, those were a couple of sucky paintings. Really, no one should have had to see them once, let alone for weeks.
One of the two paintings to which I referred I've already begun to paint over, although that's going pretty badly, too, so I may end up sanding down the whole shebang. I hate wasting paint like that, but there you go. The other one I've decided to keep for now. I'm not sure why. I guess there are some things I like about it, although there are some things that are pretty terrible, too. What I was trying to do was -- well, I'd been looking over a large, well-printed book of Van Gogh reproductions I have here, and I decided to try a more impasto, wildly colored kind of thing, and...well, see for yourself.
Chris Rywalt, Undressing, 2009, oil on panel, 24x24 inches
I like the figure, she's so sweet and vulnerable, or anyway seems so to me. I don't like the dresser behind her which appears to be molded out of dogshit. Then again our dresser really is that color. For some reason in real life it doesn't look like dogshit. Not that it looks, you know, good or anything, but it doesn't look that bad.
The next three paintings I've done since my return in September. I'm out of panels again. I'm not really thrilled with these, either, although She's Tired has really grown on me as I've seen it a few more times. I like the colors.
Chris Rywalt, She's Tired, 2009, oil on panel, 24x24 inches
Chris Rywalt, By the Bed, 2009, oil on panel, 24x24 inches
Chris Rywalt, Dawn Brushing Her Hair, 2009, oil on panel, 24x48 inches
This year the West Prize site allows star ratings. Visitors can rate any or all of the artists applying. Everyone starts out with the default three stars (very generous, I think). You can see I've got only one star.
This upsets me less than I expected. I thought I'd be crushed but it turns out I don't care that much. I mean, I care enough to check back every day, but not so much that I'm devastated by my low rating. Turns out it's easy for me to rationalize it. I figure most people are only giving high ratings to their friends and relatives and low ratings to anyone making work they hate for ideological reasons. I further figure that the kind of work I do is the kind a lot of artists would hate for ideological reasons. It goes without saying that I consider those people jealous, incompetent nincompoops. So clearly the poor rating of my work indicates that it's actually fantastic.
Or something like that. When my mind works that way, it worries me a bit.
Incidentally, do not consider this a plea for anyone to go and give me a higher rating. Don't worry about it. It's not important.
]]>Desperate for surfaces on which to apply paint, I stopped at Soho Art Materials on my way in last week. Soho Art has the benefit of being close to the A train stop on Canal Street. There I picked up four Mona Lisa pre-gessoed panels from Speedball. They have the benefit of being really, really cheap.
I've used Ampersand's Gessobord. One of things I liked about it is the surface, which allows me to wipe off the paint, leaving a really lovely texture. Good for skin, for what I'm doing. The Speedball panels completely lack this texture. In fact they have virtually no tooth at all. It's like painting on smooth plastic. Which is actually what you're doing, I guess.
The important thing about the panels, though, was that they were something I could slap paint on. So the texture wasn't a big deal. Because I really am out of panels. It's so bad, I broke down and painted over a partially finished painting that wasn't going well -- and if you've ever read this blog before, you know how bad it has to be before I'll paint over it. It has to be really bad.
This was really bad. Because I have no shame -- not between us, you and I, you know me too well -- I'm going to reproduce my lousy painting here. It doesn't happen often, but every now and then I'll bring home a photo of what I'm working on and show it to my supportive, loving wife Dawn, and she'll say, "Oh my god that's awful." And when she says that, usually she's right. Sometimes there are things I like about it -- there are things I liked about this -- but, really, when she says that, she's right, it's a horrible painting with no redeeming qualities.
Chris Rywalt, Subway Tiles (in progress), 2009, oil on panel
Chris Rywalt, Subway Tiles (in progress), 2009, oil on panel
I had an idea for this, something using techniques I'd seen in Greek icons, sort of, and after these two photos and some drying time, I started and.... Let's just say plan failed. Miserably. If these look bad, believe me when I say it got much, much worse.
Chris Rywalt, Night in the Bedroom, 2009, oil on panel
So I wiped off as much as I could using OMS and started over entirely, and got Night in the Bedroom. The whole painting uses Gamblin's Torrit Grey, tubes of which are given away with every Gamblin purchase when the salespeople remember. The paint is made from the air filters in the Gamblin factory, so it contains every pigment all at once and is different each year. I have a bunch of tubes. Theoretically you can use Torrit Grey, white, and black and make a value painting for the Gamblin Torrit Grey contest. I blew it by using a small amount of non-white-or-black paint in the skin tone and hair color. But mostly I'm playing with value here.
The rest of these are on the Speedball panels. At a certain point you can't add paint, only push it around, and if you use a stiff bristle brush half the time you're scraping paint off the panel instead of putting it on. But the effect can be kind of interesting.
Chris Rywalt, A Lock of Hair, 2009, oil on panel
Chris Rywalt, Femme Nus (yes, I know it's bad French), 2009, oil on panel
Chris Rywalt, On the Sofa, 2009, oil on panel
Chris Rywalt, The Cinnamon Peeler, 2009, oil on panel
I'm deeply uncertain about the last one, The Cinnamon Peeler. I was thinking of the reading by Tom O'Bedlam of Michael Ondaatje's poem of the same name. But I don't think I managed to get across what I wanted; as I finished the painting and stepped back Reilly was mid-sentence and turned, stopped dead, and then finally said, "That is one disturbing painting." Disturbing wasn't at all what I was aiming for.
On the other, um, hand, Dawn said they were some of the best hands I'd ever painted. She always picks on me for how I paint hands, which I do the way I do because I'm sort of purposely trying not to give a crap about them, not to be too precious, and I'm really good at hands when I want to be. So I'm kind of trying not to be good at them, which sounds stupid now that I wrote it out like that.
Anyway. There it is.
Incidentally, I figured out that the hideous glare on all my paintings in my latest photos is from the sun streaming in the windows of my nice new studio. Damned windows. Damned sunlight.
]]>But before we get into the studio, we have to walk from the subway over the Ninth Street Drawbridge. It's not the most scenic route over the Gowanus Canal -- I'm no Gowanus expert but I'd have to vote for the "boardwalk" crossing up at Carroll Street -- but it's got a lovely view of the expressway and the surface of the canal itself. Some days the water is coated with a scum of oil and other scary stuff which is, in one way, absolutely horrifying; and yet it's also visually beautiful. When the water is calm it looks almost like colored glass has shattered on the surface.
Gowanus Canal, 2009.
Gowanus Canal, 2009.
Gowanus Canal, 2009.
You can also see the giant Lowe's sign that brings this fair city light. It's okay if it clutters up the view: They put in that little promenade down on the left in the photo. Over on the right you can see a barge waiting to be filled up with construction debris, or maybe some kind of recyclable stuff. A lot of people talk about cleaning up the Gowanus Canal, and it's a great idea, but it's going to be really hard, because unlike other industrial waterways which have fallen into disuse on a large scale -- like the Hudson or the Passaic -- it's a working body of water.
Gowanus Canal, 2009.
Okay, so we've walked over the canal, we've passed Tonky's sign, we're in my studio. And what do we see? Why, my latest paintings, of course.
I apologize for the unimaginative titles. I mean, "Reclining Nude"? Really? But I'm not feeling creatively titular at the moment. And, as usual, I forgot the sizes.
Chris Rywalt, Blue and Red Nude, 2009, oil on panel
Chris Rywalt, Black and Blue, 2009, oil on panel
Chris Rywalt, Tiny Yellow and Green Nude, 2009, oil on panel
Chris Rywalt, Spanish Teacher, 2009, oil on panel
I'm most happy with "Reclining Nude" despite the lousy generic title. If I get around to writing it up, the e-mail lesson I received will make it clear, but the short version is, I learned that some of my more successful paintings have a range of values; and similar, but unsuccessful, ones, are made up of paints very close in value. I decided to make use of this in mixing my colors, and this is the best result so far. (Also note use of the Golden Section.)
Chris Rywalt, Reclining Nude (in progress), 2009, oil on panel, 48x24 inches
Chris Rywalt, Reclining Nude (in progress), 2009, oil on panel, 48x24 inches
Chris Rywalt, Reclining Nude, 2009, oil on panel, 48x24 inches
So I've taken it upon myself to visit every gallery I can, starting with Chelsea and then moving on to the Lower East Side and maybe Williamsburg. And I'm only limiting myself to those areas because I have to draw the line somewhere. I went to Chelsea Art Galleries Dot Com where you can helpfully find a list of every art gallery in New York City, just about, and get the list by street address.
It's a very long list. There are over three hundred listed galleries in Chelsea alone.
I started going down the list last Tuesday. It is with a heavy heart and very weary feet (to say nothing of calves, knees, thighs, ass and back) that I type this on a rainy Thursday. (I was supposed to go back out today but I'm really too tired. Also, it's raining. Did I mention that?)
My heart is heavy because I visited somewhere around forty galleries in one day and I realized something: There are a lot of galleries showing a lot of art.
When I said this to my long-suffering wife Dawn, she said, "But isn't that a good thing? Doesn't that mean there are plenty of places to show your art?"
Maybe. But what it means to me is this: The art world is enormous. Absolutely burgeoning with artists being shown by galleries. And in all of that I'm supposed to think I can find a dealer who can somehow convince enough buyers to purchase my art so I can make a living. How is that even possible? There simply cannot be enough art customers to make a dent in the market. There's simply too much supply and it's impossible there's enough demand. Impossible.
Even if I were confident that I'm the world's greatest artist, I'd have to be daunted by the numbers. And I'm not confident in that. There's no way for me to be confident in that. In fact I'm fairly sure now that I will never be confident in that. Because how can one tell if one's a good artist?
How do you determine if an artist is any good? Over at Franklin's Art Blog the commenters all seem pretty clear on this, but to me they're all ultimately dancing around the final analysis. Because they talk about humbling yourself to the demands of your medium, they talk about work and discipline. Work hard and you will be rewarded.
But what's working hard in art, in painting? What's it look like? When I was a computer programmer, I knew what working hard was like in my profession. You tried to take what my professor Derek Morris called the customer's "mumble mumble" and turn it into logical structures. You guessed at how long it would take you to figure out what the customer wanted and make it for them. You wrote code and designed data structures and you made sure you had it done by the date you promised it. If your programs didn't work, if you were late, if your work was unsatisfactory, you tried harder next time.
Likewise, when my father was an auto mechanic, I saw what hard work was. You figured out what was wrong with something and you fixed it. In a way, that was a lot like computer programming. But you also pulled wrenches and lifted heavy things and stretched and squeezed and banged your knuckles a lot. You finished jobs by the date you'd promised. You stayed late if you had to and you went in early to get the work done. Working hard had a pretty clear definition.
But what's working hard in painting? Everyone agrees you can go to the studio every day and paint a painting and spend months and months on just one and still end up with a crappy painting. You can practice and gain skills, maybe, but even those are questionable: What's skill in painting? Color matching? Representation? Grasp of the Munsell value scale? Composition?
My old Glee Club director, Professor William F. Ondrick, always liked to say to us during practice, "There's no substitute for the work, not even genius." The work there was clear, too: Come in on time, follow the director, get the notes right. Practice pracitce practice. We'd spend hours plugging, going over tricky phrases to make sure we had the timing and inflection just right.
I won't dispute the value of practice. Of work in that sense. But it doesn't lead inexorably to goodness, does it? To quality? No, it doesn't. You can get better but are you really good? If you're a computer programmer or an auto mechanic, you can answer that question. If you're a singer in a Glee Club, well, it's harder but there's still not much wiggle room (I was never very good myself). But if you're an artist?
The only real way to tell if you're any good as an artist is to have lots of people see your work and decide, for themselves, if it's any good. If enough people think you're good, then you are. How many is enough? My thinking: More than will see it in your lifetime. The culture decides what's valuable, what isn't, and it takes a long time for those decisions to be made. In the meantime, though, you can get an idea, maybe. Maybe enough of an idea to sustain you while you're alive. Maybe not. But it's all there is.
So the main thing, for an artist, is to find an audience. To get people to look at your work and decide for themselves if you're any good. That's what it's all about, then: Finding that audience. Getting the work out there. Getting it seen. Communication.
And how is that possible today?
It works for some artists. What makes them different? Which is like asking, what's success? Just a few quick names off the top of my head, living artists who are well known: Chuck Close, Elizabeth Peyton, Eric Fischl. Why them and not anyone else?
Do they work harder than other artists?
Are they better than other artists?
Is it luck? Is it persistence? Is it consistency? Happenstance? Magic?
Out of the masses they emerge. They've been chosen. By whom? In what way? Is there something to be done here? Is it all just arbitrary?
With all that's going on how could I possibly get noticed?
I've been going to galleries in Chelsea for three years and I haven't even set foot in a third of them. My journey on Tuesday made it clear to me it's going to be extremely difficult for one person even briefly to visit every single gallery. And that's just one neighborhood in one city on the planet. There are only about 2 million households in the United States with an annual income over $250,000. That's approximately the fine art market right there. You do the math.
]]>I got it into my head for some reason that I could physically overcome Steve and his friends. I don't know why. They never bullied me or pushed me around or, as far as I remember, had much to do with me at all. I was a little kid. But I'd decided I could beat them in a fight. Nothing violent or angry about it -- just a competition. I don't know where I got this idea, but it seemed to me that if I could meditate, do a mind-meld, like Spock -- only mind-meld on myself -- then I'd become great fighter.
So I went over to Steve's front yard where he was fooling around with a couple of his friends and I challenged them. I don't remember that they were angry or mocking or anything. They went along with it. I went to the side of Steve's house, performed my self-mind-meld, came out, and promptly found myself on the ground looking up at Steve. He helped me up laughing, not at me, but with me. Like I said, he was a great kid. I demanded to try again and got flipped onto the lawn again. I asked for one last try and got it -- and landed flat on my back. Of course. Steve was a lot bigger than I was. I was a little kid.
There's no shame or humiliation associated with this memory of mine; I don't think any of the boys ever made fun of me or picked on me for it. Certainly Steve didn't. There's no anger or need for revenge here. I don't think I was very upset by my defeat, just confused. I'd done the self-mind-meld! So it's not a bad memory of mine, just a very clear one.
I'm thinking of that memory now because the series of events is wonderfully focused: I thought I could do something and I was unequivocally shown that I could, in fact, not do that thing. It wasn't a question of wanting it badly enough, or exercising my will, or practicing my technique. It was, quite simply, not possible. And this was made abundantly clear to me.
Now I'm over thirty years past that moment and I miss it. I miss the clarity of it. Because here I am and I don't know if I'm any good at anything. Every moment of my life I feel I'm forfeiting the game because I don't even know how to show up. Where's the field? What are the rules? How can I tell if I'm winning or losing? Am I on my back or not?
I have no idea.
Three years ago I decided to attempt the Mark Kostabi Method of becoming an artist. It seemed simple enough: Go to galleries and meet people there. Eventually you'll meet people with whom you have things in common. You'll make some friends or at least acquaintances. Talk with them. Bit by bit you'll find the gallerists interested in your kind of work. Once you've got something of a relationship established, you can offer to show them your work.
Three years later and I find I've gotten to know exactly three dealers well enough to ask them to visit my studio. These aren't strangers; these are people who'd stop to talk to me on the street. We know each other. We're not best friends, but we're more than casual acquaintances. I sent e-mail to two of them asking if they'd make a studio visit to see my work; and they both completely ignored me. They didn't make excuses; they didn't say they were very busy, or not taking on new artists; they didn't say anything at all. They simply pretended I'd never sent them a message.
Eventually I spoke to one of them in person. And they told me that they were, in fact, very busy, but maybe if I asked them during the summer....
The gallerist's manner, however, was one of...maybe mild annoyance. That I'd had the temerity to bring up the topic instead of pretending, as they had, that I had never asked. Although I could be imagining that; the signals were subtle enough, and my understanding of human behavior poor enough, that I'm willing to consider that the gallerist genuinely was too busy to take eight seconds out of their busy schedule to reply to my e-mail message, and that they sincerely wouldn't mind dropping by my studio if only I mentioned it during a less stressful time in their business cycle.
Is there a game going on? Am I playing it? Am I losing? I really don't know.
I've never known.
Is it possible to wake up one day and realize that you're the bad guy? To find that you're not FDR or Winston Churchill; to find that you're not even Hitler, but that you're just some jerk turning in your neighbors because you know they complained to the town council that you don't mow your lawn often enough. Some little loser making people's lives just that little bit worse and grumbling about how they got what they deserved.
Is it possible to realize one day that you're just an asshole?
That's what I'm thinking. That for years I've thought I was an okay guy, intelligent and talented and decent, and now I'm coming to realize that I am, in fact, a stupid, worthless asshole. Not totally stupid: Smarter than average, maybe. But a lot dumber than I thought I was. And not completely untalented: Capable of minor mediocrity at best. Not even Salieri, because he, at least, put in the work.
But a grade A asshole? Oh yes, that I am.
The true test of any theory is when you find it explains things which were previously inexplicable. Why, for example, I haven't made any useful friends in art galleries I've visited.
I can't say it's a total surprise, this finding out that I'm an asshole. But I always thought there were compensations. That my intelligence, my talents, my sense of humor, my loyalty, my willingness to help and support my friends, that my general Boy Scoutness balanced out my assholery.
But now I've had a good look around at my life and I've realized: No. There are no compensations. I'm just an asshole, plain and simple. A stupid, no-talent jerk of no consequence, going nowhere, doing nothing.
Good old Tim wrote to me not too long ago. He had this to say about my drawings:
such simple sketches.
they don't really say anything to me beyond simple and lyrical - the kind of thing I think most anyone could do.
Like plucking three strings on a guitar and calling it a song. Anyone can do it.
I mean, when only dealing with a few lines, how can one drawing be all that much better than the other?
(I'm kind of perplexed as to how or why Chris the art critic finds these to be significant in any way.)
You want me, anyone, to take an interest in your art, this art....why?
I want to hear your argument as to why you think these little doodles of yours are anything more than rather common doodles.
I don't have an argument. Are my drawings and paintings worthy of a show? Of any kind of show? I have no idea. I used to think I did know. Three years ago I thought, hell, even if my work isn't great or even that good, it's certainly at least as good, if not better, than a lot of what does get shown. Because what gets shown is a lot of crap.
Three years of seeing crap and good stuff, though, and now I'm thinking: What the fuck do I know? Back when I first went to the Armory Show I came away thinking one of two things: Either I'm the greatest artist of all time or I have no idea what makes good art. Up until very recently I still kept alive deep inside the feeling that, okay, I'm not the greatest artist of all time or anything, but I'm still pretty good. Clearly it couldn't be that I have no idea what makes good art. Right?
Yeah, right.
Tim says, "Convince me, motherfucker." I can't. Maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe that's me, on my back on the lawn. But if it is why can't I be sure? Why this ambivalence? Why can't I look at my work and be sure it sucks? Why don't I know if I'm even playing the game, let alone losing?
Why is it whenever I try to dig down deep everything gets more and more elusive? What's success? How does one achieve it? Why one person and not another? How does this happen? What does it take? How much is work and how much is talent and how much is luck? At what point do you take the blame or the credit?
What does it mean? What does it matter?
I'm a writer and an artist. I have no idea how to even begin to go about getting paid for either. Clearly people are being paid to do both. How does that happen? What does it take? I have no idea. Have I failed in both fields because I'm not good enough? Because I haven't applied myself? Because I haven't tried? Did I lose on the field or did I not make it to the field? Am I playing the game now? What's the score?
I really thought, once upon a time, that I was destined to do good things. Maybe not great things, but good things.
Am I just fooling myself, standing on the side of Steve's house playing at the stupid fucking Spock self-mind-meld I made up?
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Chris Rywalt, Give or Take a Penny, 2009, oil on panel, 48x24 inches
I promised last time I'd get a better photo of Give or Take a Penny. Here it be in all its glory. And here are some detail photos, too.
Chris Rywalt, Give or Take a Penny (detail), 2009, oil on panel, 48x24 inches
Chris Rywalt, Give or Take a Penny (detail), 2009, oil on panel, 48x24 inches
I keep trying to make it to the studio more than two days a week, but things keep coming up. This Wednesday I could only stop in for a few minutes to drop off the new panels I'd made; after that I had to go down to the wake for Ray Ashley. I didn't know Ray very well -- he was more of an acquaintance, really -- but his good friend Joe D'Andrea is my good friend, and I used to go down to see them play in the various incarnations of their bands over the years, including Three Hour Detour. That last band -- Ray, Joe, and Helene Zisook -- put together a CD, and one of the songs on there, "Nhema Musasa", is really great and has been in my permanent MP3 rotation since, well, I've had an MP3 rotation to put it in.
It's really lousy that Ray is gone. He was a great guy, very smart, very talented, and I'm sad to see him go.
Anyway, he said, drying his eyes, and moving on. I did finally make it to the studio today. I need to get done whatever I can while I can, right? Make the most of our time together? So I got a painting and a half done. I'm uncertain about them. Not sure if they're done. The second one certainly not, but the first...we'll see.
Chris Rywalt, Serene, 2009, oil on panel
Chris Rywalt, Spanish Teacher (in progress), 2009, oil on panel
A couple of things happened that never happen: To start with, I was the first one in the studio. This virtually never occurs, because the others I share the space with are actually getting paid for their work. I'm the only one fucking around. So I was in very early for me. Second, I saw Ulises Farinas. I've been sharing the studio with him for the past six or eight months -- I'm not sure how long because this was the first time I'd met him. As far as I knew, he was an invisible presence leaving cups filled with inky water around the place. Our studio time had never overlapped because he only comes in at night and I'm only around during the day -- kind of like the lovers in Ladyhawke. Only much, much less attractive.
What those things mean is that yesterday I was in the studio earlier and I stayed later than I always do. Which means things must have been going well. And they were.
I did something I haven't tried before. I'd underpainted the pennies for this painting I've been working on and I'd reached the point where they needed the final layer, the detail work. The trouble is I'm not very good at detail painting on an easel. It's really hard for me to work upright like that.
The good news, however, was that our studio has a really big old drafting table in it. And the usual denizen of that table, the talkative comic historian, inker, and model painter (among other things) Chris Irving, was away in Virginia delivering models and visiting people. Which meant I could lay my painting flat -- also now that the background paint had dried -- and do the detail work in the way I'm most comfortable.
I also took an idea from Mike Cavallaro -- an idea I'm sure isn't original with him, but of which I'd never thought or seen. Last week I'd watched him doing some detailed background inking while resting his hand on a wooden ruler to which he'd glued some rubber washers or erasers or something, so the ruler wouldn't touch the paper and smear the ink. A painter's bridge, he called it. So I borrowed some rubber bands and a couple of gum erasers from Chris and a piece of scrap wood and made my own bridge and it worked wonderfully.
The final result: An aching back after ten hours of painting but some lovely pennies. I can't wait until I can varnish this baby. (These photos were taken with my crappy mobile phone camera, so the colors are off -- trust me, they look better in person.)
Chris Rywalt, Give or Take a Penny (detail), 2009, oil on panel, 48x24 inches
Chris Rywalt, Give or Take a Penny (detail), 2009, oil on panel, 48x24 inches
Chris Rywalt, Give or Take a Penny (detail), 2009, oil on panel, 48x24 inches
Chris Rywalt, Give or Take a Penny (studio view), 2009, oil on panel, 48x24 inches
My studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn.
Reilly at work.
Chris Rywalt, Undercover Nude, 2009, oil on panel
Chris Rywalt, Cover Up, 2009, oil on panel
Chris Rywalt, Knife Work, 2009, oil on panel
Chris Rywalt, Couple #1, 2009, ink on paper
Chris Rywalt, Untitled Large #20, 2009, ink on paper
Chris Rywalt, Give or Take a Penny (in progress), 2009, oil on paper