Eureka!

I’ve got it! The thing that I’ve been groping towards. It’s been percolating in the back of my mind for a while. I’ve been struggling with it for years: what buyers and viewers see as valuable as opposed to what I as the artist think is valuable. It come to light suddenly during an assignment for sculpture class. We were assigned to make multiples of objects. I was thinking about (for her assignment in 2019) how my multiples of plaster castings spray-painted metallic did end up looking like metal to some people. I was thinking also about my family, and the story of the gold bracelets: how my grandmother sold them to buy our family rice during war time. My grandmother traded gold bracelets for rice. What does that mean about value? Is rice worth more than gold? How are objects perceived as valuable simply based on their surroundings? I remember the time when Banksy sold one of his paintings on the streets of NYC for a laughable amount ($20?) as a street artist and no one bought it. He was already famous. He did it as a prank. How do people assign value? Is bitcoin valuable? Is gold valuable? Or is it the art behind the gold? The sculpture behind the material? The story behind the sculpture? The person behind the story?

What is real and what is fake and how do we assign value because of it?

Gold artifact.

Halloween: Tearing the Veil. Or, Patterns in Art and Life-Cycles.

October 31, 2021

It’s Halloween today. Summer ends, Winter begins. For me, anyways, a time of thinking about change. I’ve thought about all the “careers” I’ve had and how they’re related to each other. What does making art have to do with studying history, trying for a doctorate in literature, and trading stock options? For me, they’re all a series of pattern recognition and manipulation. Recognizing and categorizing the patterns of historical events, linking patterns between literary texts and their social milieu, manipulating and recombining visual patterns in art, and perceiving the web of patterns in the options and equities markets. 

I recognize and manipulate patterns. I’m not really changing what I’m doing for work; rather, I’m changing the material that I work with. Some of these materials pay much better than others. So, now I spend most of my time manipulating patterns in the stock market. I am grateful for this opportunity.

Pattern recognition is satisfying in itself. But art lets me have something more than pure puzzles to solve. There is something in making art that is a transformative and mystical process. It’s satisfying to the soul. It’s a connection with the nature spirit, the one soul of the universe, the divine. 

I still make art, but I don’t make it for sale anymore. I still make art, but I make it for myself. I hope the pictures of my art can help contribute to humanity’s cultures.

My body is breaking down. I have many old injuries. Repetitive stress injuries in my fingers, wrists, elbows, and shoulders. I know the resources of my body are not infinite. I have to save my body’s resources for the art that really matters to me, the art that pushes me forward and through the veil.

New Direction: Art for Art's Sake

Life is short, so the saying goes. Somehow, I've gotten stuck in a rut where my work is no longer creative to me. I have a lot of ideas for new, one-of-a-kind, and experimental projects, but I don't have enough time to make them.

When I first started, I wanted to practice certain techniques over and over again. Now that I've mastered these techniques, I want to move on. I've decided to retire most of my old collections, and focus on producing art for art's sake. I'll make all the pieces that I have ideas for, but didn't have time to make. While I may decide at some point that it would be fun to go back to making my old designs, I'd like to try something new right now.

Art for Art's Sake. 22k Vine Ring.