Not art. Just work.

Ceylon Caddie, 1903. oil on canvas. 5x7'

And in case anyone might come back and read this blog again, you might be wondering where i've been. Well, i been busy. After deciding to take some time off after being crowned person of the year by Time Magazine (for reals), I have been spending more and more time in the studio.

The job that was going to take me into the new year as a magazine editor fell through, sadly. Well, sadly and not so sadly. It has been the final kick in the ass i needed to really make a go at painting for a living. (Let it be known that this scares the crap out of me.)

It's a two pronged assault at this point. One prong being my own work, personal/political reflections etc. And the other prong for the time being, is a bit of golf painting to make some cash. This is what you see above (in a terribly lit photo, sorry).

Now, before anyone writes this off as a way of selling out, allow me a few words... First off, i come from a long line of golfers. Golfers who don't look at golf the way most do, but see it more as a practice or a "martial art", perhaps something in the same vein as yoga. All of the same principles are there, they just don't get much attention. And i feel that this work fits well into the themes of most of my work that deals with masculinity, patriarchy, and the current state of the world. How? Golf is the pastime of CEOs and rich white men. In a way, i feel that by reconnecting these men to the soul of the game, i can work to reconnect them to something deeper, and perhaps change some perspectives out there. It is something i have seen work time and time again already. And yeah, there is potentially a lot of money to be made from it. Which brings me to my next point...

I choose to fill my links to the right with people i know are actual, real, working, sometimes struggling, artists. They aren't stars and don't intend to be. These artist share their recent reflections and connections and carry on a dialogue, while working through their own process. Most other art blogs i read are filled with attention paid to critiquing the state of the art world, galleries, and openings. And that's fine, but it is about the same to me as reading celebrity blogs, and i'm usually left feeling even more disconnected. Left wondering if it is possible as an artist to live in the grey? To be the same as my friends and neighbors who go to work and raise their kids and enjoy their time without concern for "making it". Is their room for the community artist? The blue collar artist? (with a few smudges of titanium white...)

If i gotta paint some golf to get by, well then so it goes... To quote my teachers, if you are gonna mop floors, then mop them beautifully.