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Like a sock in the gut
Dec. 6th, 2005 08:32 amFriend and fellow Karetao collaborator Wolf asked that the next time I get to the Art Institute, I try to get a good digital image of an Ivan Albright piece, or even a print, if they have it in the gift shop. I said I would, and of course I've been sort of exploring Albright's work online. He wants "That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (The Door)", which was near Albright's Dorian Gray at the Institute, fascinating visually but a little hard to look at for too long.
I was interested to find that Albright lived in Chicago for much of his life, and actually attended the Art Institute with his twin brother - they studied painting and sculpture, respectively, but each were good at both. His style is hyperreal, harshly-lit, and visceral.
There Were No Flowers Tonight (Midnight) is a painting that just sort of punched me with a dull, early-morning thud when I disovered it on some message board. Sigh. In a way, it's actually sort of exciting for things like paintings or songs or poems to have an emotional impact on me. I spent too many years feeling dulled by things, feeling dull towards things.
I worry that I sometimes do not know whether I am overreacting to something that hits me. I had an ex would sometimes accuse me of being very cold. My family often thinks that I am stoic and shielded. Most of the time, I feel like a scraped knee with the scab picked off, the pink flesh underneath twinging at the smallest breath of air. It astounds me when people do not pick up on that, or pick and choose which aspects of this that they will tolerate or consider charming or likeable.
As I was walking the galleries with thunderclap, I felt that itch again to paint. I'm so uneducated, so unversed. I am not sure my hand would be steady, would have the right connection to what I've got in my heart, to translate. The lines of communication are open and sparking madly, but I am ever unsure of my context, in pretty much every way. Perhaps that is a starting point.
At any rate, I don't want to be sitting in that chair any longer, looking off to the side to see if anyone's come to see me. Midnight is no place to be with no flowers.
I was interested to find that Albright lived in Chicago for much of his life, and actually attended the Art Institute with his twin brother - they studied painting and sculpture, respectively, but each were good at both. His style is hyperreal, harshly-lit, and visceral.
There Were No Flowers Tonight (Midnight) is a painting that just sort of punched me with a dull, early-morning thud when I disovered it on some message board. Sigh. In a way, it's actually sort of exciting for things like paintings or songs or poems to have an emotional impact on me. I spent too many years feeling dulled by things, feeling dull towards things.
I worry that I sometimes do not know whether I am overreacting to something that hits me. I had an ex would sometimes accuse me of being very cold. My family often thinks that I am stoic and shielded. Most of the time, I feel like a scraped knee with the scab picked off, the pink flesh underneath twinging at the smallest breath of air. It astounds me when people do not pick up on that, or pick and choose which aspects of this that they will tolerate or consider charming or likeable.
As I was walking the galleries with thunderclap, I felt that itch again to paint. I'm so uneducated, so unversed. I am not sure my hand would be steady, would have the right connection to what I've got in my heart, to translate. The lines of communication are open and sparking madly, but I am ever unsure of my context, in pretty much every way. Perhaps that is a starting point.
At any rate, I don't want to be sitting in that chair any longer, looking off to the side to see if anyone's come to see me. Midnight is no place to be with no flowers.
