Silly old bear

"The first of my father's illusions was 

that bears could survive the life lived by human beings ..."

-- John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire

Miniature wood mannequin in a bear mask 12-26-13

"We invent what we love, and what we fear."

-- John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire

A quick pick-me-up

"No one is useless in this world 

who lightens the burdens of another."

-- Charles Dickens

Wood mannequins 11-27-13

"There is no exercise better for the heart 

than reaching down and lifting people up."

-- John Holmes

Wood mannequin 11-27-13

Death mask

"We all must die. 

There is no better way to do so 

than in the pursuit of something you love."

-- Jim Butcher, Death Masks

Wood mannequin with a skull mask 9-21-13

"I'm dealing with a lot of scary things. 

I think you have to react to them. 

And you either laugh at them or you go insane."

-- Jim Butcher, Death Masks

Nobody puts Baby in a corner

 "We put limitations on the way that we think about things, on ourselves, 

think about all the boxes we live in, male or female, 

you're this age, that age, this is your job, this is not your job, 

everything is about getting boxed in."

-- Brit Marling

Wood mannequin with cutout face and hair 5-19-13

 
 "The way they boxed us in here. 

Bricks and windows, windows and bricks."

-- Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

Wood mannequin with cutout face 5-19-13

 

"Nobody puts Baby in a corner."

-- Johnny, Dirty Dancing  

You raise me up

“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.”

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wooden mannequins 4-24-13

“For the rest of his life, Oliver Twist remembers
a single word of blessing spoken to him by another child
because this word stood out so strikingly
from the consistent discouragement around him.”

                                                                                          -- Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

I took my first art class in middle school. It's where I first tasted the sour bitterness of artistic discouragement. We were making still life charcoal drawings of a pile of fruit and a couple of vases on a burlap cloth. I was drawing away, painstakingly penciling the criss-cross textured weave of the burlap, when I felt our teacher, Ms. Anderson, looking over my shoulder.

"You are paying way too much attention to detail, Erin. We don't have time for that."

Crushed. By an artist.

I shut down.

I didn't take another art class until my senior year of college. I couldn't stomach the possibility of another comment like that.

Fortunately I did get my nerve back, and my subsequent art classes, whether in theater, dance, ceramics or drawing, have been much more encouraging experiences. Still, as much as I like to think that I don't need praise and wear an armor of "other people's opinions of my art don't really matter to me," I must admit that sometimes, a genuine "atta-girl" from someone who I admire and respect, feels pretty damn good. Especially if that someone is another artist.

I don't invite comments on my blog, simply because there are just too many haters out there, and life in the arts can be criticism-riddled enough without opening the floodgates to the naysayers who like to pick apart and point out all that they think is wrong with what other people make and do. I don't want to be poisoned by that kind of toxic energy, and I don't want to even tempt the possibility of making art to satisfy some critic's idea of what I should do. If I want to spend time drawing the details of the burlap, I will draw the fucking details of the fucking burlap, thank you very much.

But that doesn't mean I don't like feedback. And it definitely doesn't mean I don't like encouragement.

A little drop of encouragement goes a long, long way. And I guess I don't always realize how hungry I am for encouragement until I get some and taste how satisfying and nourishing and soul-fillingly rich it is. I received that kind of encouragement yesterday when fellow 365-days artist Noah Scalin featured me on his Make Something 365 & Get Unstuck blog. http://makesomething365.blogspot.com/2013/04/erins-face-day.html

Noah is all about encouragement. He is a busy artist himself (check out his amazing Skull-A-Day project  http://skulladay.blogspot.com/p/about.html) but he also an extremely generous artist. Noah spends ample time pouring energy and encouragement into other artists. He even wrote a book to help blocked or "stuck" artists to get moving, to get creating, to get living, again. When he asked to feature my project on his blog, it felt like he was hanging my work up on his refrigerator, and I felt so happy and proud to be magnet-ed up there with all of the other artists like me who are going hard after a 365 days goal.

As artists, we can become conditioned to survive on precious little. We make and create and give from ourselves every day, but we don't always get the nutrition we need. I truly believe that the term "starving artist" has less to do with physical, not-enough-food starvation, and everything to do with an artist's failure to thrive due to an encouragement deficiency. We could starve to death waiting for the right kind of specific encouragement to drop on us, or we artists can cultivate our own flourishing, fertile, flavorful encouragement garden and make sure we are feeding one another.

We can lift each other up, like Noah Scalin does.

I love this quote from Kevin Smith, a screenwriter/director/comic book author/actor who wrote a book called Tough Shit: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good:

 “Remember: It costs nothing to encourage an artist, and the potential benefits are staggering. 

A pat on the back to an artist now could one day result in your favorite film, 

or the cartoon you love to get stoned watching, or the song that saves your life. 

Discourage an artist, you get absolutely nothing in return, ever.”

Take that, Ms. Anderson.

Selfie!

“A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away.” 

                                                                                                               -- Eudora Welty

Wood mannequins with a camera 4-2-13

Sometimes I struggle.

As a self-portrait photographer, I struggle with where, or if, my images fit in among the over-abundance of self-portraits, or "selfies," flooding the Internet.

We've all seen them: camera or cell phone held at arm's length or aimed into the spit-spattered bathroom mirror, at girls playing at sultry by making a pouty duck face, or a peace sign, or both. At dudes lifting the lower edges of their t-shirts to flash their abs. Or making that aloof model face supposed to make us believe you aren't really aiming the camera at yourself.

I am not on Facebook or MySpace or Instagram. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am on Twitter). But from what I hear tell, there are people who take hundreds and hundreds of pictures of themselves to post on their social media sites for their so-called "friends" to oooh and aaah (or not) over.

Therein lies my struggle.

Because if you power up my laptop and scroll through the folders marked "Self Portraits", or "No Day Without Art," or "A Face A Day," you will find hundreds and hundreds of pictures, taken by me, of me.
My face.
My self.
I even have a blog (and you are reading it) of daily self portraits. And yes, "others," but still.  
Are they "selfies?"
Am I that shallow?
That vain?
That narcissistic?
That insecure?
That common?
That lonely, that I can't find a real friend to take my picture, so I have to do it myself?
I'm not sure.

One difference between what I do, and what most selfie "photographers" do, is in the motive. Like I said, I don't do Facebook. I am not forcing my self-portraits on my friends, real or otherwise. Anyone who watns to  is invited to look, but my self-portraits began (and remain) as a hugely personal art-therapy vehicle to shuttle me through some difficult life terrain. Yes, I have a blog, and my self-portraits are now out there in the ether along with everybody else's, but I don't force anyone to look at them.
I don't ask anyone to "like" them.
I don't invite comments on my blog, and that's for the plain and simple reason that I don't do it for anyone else.
I do it for me.
If nobody looked at my blog, I'd still do it. The only reason I opened my project up to an Internet audience in the first place was as a self-challenge to exercise some other creative muscles.

I am not trying to defend myself.
At least I don't think I am.

Maybe I am trying to reassure myself.
Not that I'm better than anyone else. God forbid. But trying to reassure myself that self-portraiture, even though it has become so diluted and tainted in our Facebook-frenzied world, might still exist as a valid genre. Maybe I am trying to reassure myself that I do this for a meatier reason.

I am not pretentious enough to claim that I am a "serious artist" or that my self-portraiture "work" has some deep meaning or redemptive purpose. Well, for me it has deep meaning and a redemptive purpose, which is why I started doing it in the first place. But everyone else can take it or leave it. Love it or hate it. That's not up to me.

Have I had moments of conflict where I wonder if what I do, if what I have committed myself to, if what I deem necessary enough to pursue on a daily basis, is an utterly futile and wasteful abuse of the valuable and limited time I have on Earth?
Yup.
I'm having one of those moments right now.
And the best way I know to traverse those moments, to navigate the tangled inner paths of conflict and struggle, is to take pictures of them.

So that is exactly what I'm going to do.

Face yourself

"God has given you one face and you make yourselves another." 

-- William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1

Wood mannequin with polymer clay face 3-5-13

Primal scream

I am having trouble finding words today. So I'll just scream this.

Wood mannequin 1-26-13

Hello Gorgeous

A few scraps cutout from magazine photos animated this blank wooden mannequin's face with a surprisingly interesting expression. Something tells me we'll be seeing more of her. Or maybe him. Hmmm.

Wood mannequin 1-7-13