Art Kills

Silly effing picture.  Selavy.  I like the colors.  Besides. . . I'm an artist, damnit.  I am.  I have "artistic" thoughts.  

Whatever.  

I printed the photos I cooked up for T on really good 4x6 matte paper.  I put them in an envelope and gave them to him yesterday.  I got a call last night.  His wife loved them.  They are going to send the digital files to the clothing company that asked for them.  

Wheeee. 

They are just silly pictures, of course.  

I took a mat matt matte back to the art supply store yesterday because when I took it out of the plastic, there was a pencil mark on it.  They simply cut a new one.  But while they were doing that, I went a-shopping.  Oh, my imagination runs wild in an art supply store if I let it.  And I did.  And I walked out of the store with a whole bunch of stuff.  I had ideas.  

I bought some big sheets of Japanese Sumi-e paper.  When I tried running it through the printer, though, it wouldn't feed right and kept crinkling.  O.K.  A $30 mistake.  What to do?  I had an idea.  I made a small laser print of a black and white photo and used a blender pen to transfer it onto the Sumi-e paper.  I just wanted to see how it worked.  A blender pen is basically a magic marker without any color.  It has Xylene which is why the image will transfer from one piece of paper to another.  But here's the thing--Xylene is a known carcinogen.  The blender pen smells up a room to high heaven.  If I use them in a closed space for very long, my lips start to tingle and go numb.  I used to make very large laser print transfers using Xylene when I had my studio, but I did it outside.  I'd have headaches when I went home.  I started wearing a mask that was supposed to filter out all the bad shit, the one that looks like a gas mask--which it is, I guess--but I didn't trust it and quit making them altogether.  Now, sometimes, though, I get the bug and make a small one with the blender pen.  

Well--it worked.  Not just "worked," but it made a superior image to anything I'd tried before.  That Sumi-e paper is supper absorbent.  Oh, my. . . now I am in trouble.  My laser printer crapped out long ago and prints unwanted dark lines through the image.  I've done everything I can to clean it, but I've only made it worse.  Now I want a new one.  They aren't SUPER expensive, but they aren't cheap, either, and I only use one occasionally.  What to do?  I can always go to FedEx or Office Depot or similar places and make Xerox copies, but I am too spontaneous, and when I get an idea, if I don't act on it right away, it just gets lost.  So. . . I'm perusing color laser printers on the internet.  And if I buy one, I'll barely use it, I am pretty sure.  

I bought many other things at the art supply store, too.  All I need is a dedicated work space where I can leave everything out and come back to take up the work again when I am able.  It needs to be a room where I don't have to worry about spilling things.  You know. . . what they call a "studio."  

So much of art is toxic chemicals.  The first transfers were done using gasoline.  Leaded.  That led to some pretty bad health problems.  Xylene.  Bad ju-ju.  People moved away from oil to acrylics for health reasons, but the results are not the same.  Even working with beeswax has health hazards.  I've tried using acrylic products to make encaustic blends, but again. . . not the same.  The fellow out in New Mexico who taught me many printing processes lost his kidneys to the solvents involved in traditional printmaking.  That is why he is a major player in the Making Art Safely movement.  

"They" have taken art classes out of the schools.  Sure, pinheads think art is a waste of time, but that is only part of the reason.  Many art processes were toxic, and once they knew, they couldn't expose the kids to it.  

I learned wet plate photography.  It, too, is a killer.  

One wonders how Picasso managed to live so long.  His entire art career was toxic.  Maybe that is why he had such strange visions, though.  Maybe all the solvents got to his brain.  

Warhol was smart.  He let other people do all the work while he played creative overlord.  It took a bullet to fuck him up.  

The woman who taught me the transfer process had serious health issues.  

Etc.  

I guess there ought to be something saying "Art Kills."  

I watched two Youtube docs on the photographer Daido Moriyama last night (link) (link).  Quite something.  I am familiar with his work, of course, but I didn't realize the outrage his photography incited and how the reaction effected him personally.  He got so depressed, he quit making pictures for ten years.  That made me feel better.  I often feel the need to sell my cameras and quit.  The pictures I make are often not so very "acceptable," or so it seems, and though one tries to bolster one's courage with bromides like "all art comes from the libido" or "art is intrusive" and "art is invasive," and even "art is transgressive," doubt creeps in and takes over.  

After getting the "I love these" from T's wife, I felt the need to send him links to the videos.  You can tell people you don't like commercial photography, but I don't think it registers because that is all they know.  I wanted T to understand there is another way of seeing "things."  I like pretty things.  I love the images of Saul Leiter.  But I like gritty things, too.  And I like making images that can get you into trouble all the way up until they get you in trouble.  And that is why I travel under the radar in the cloak of darkness and mystery and anonymity.  

Batman!

Whatever.  All art is personal.  If I like photos of goofy colored trucks, it is o.k.  I'm going to make a laser copy of it today and transfer it, "to see how it looks transferred."  I'll do this before deciding to buy a new color laser printer.  

But I want to make the "other things," too.  I am thinking of printing up posters and putting them up in certain places around town saying, "If you have any ideas for making weird or strange or otherwise unacceptable photographs, give me a call."  I wonder what would happen?  Or, for the Cafe Strange: "If you put time into your costume and the way you present yourself to the world, don't let it disappear--give me a call."  

Surely there is potential trouble there.  

Today is going to be another cool, gray, humid day.  I might as well be living in Ohio or some other Sinus Capital.  I'll be looking for a crack/meth/heroin/fentanyl fix soon.  

Bullshit.  It is Dry January.  I'm not even drinking.