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The topic of censorship has come up for me recently. Let's just say that a nude I did combined with "inappropriate" and the phrase, "families read this publication" happened, and although I knew this would happen I thought, maybe, just maybe they'd be cool. Guess not.
The first time I got one of my nude paintings censored, so to speak, was at Laguna Beach High School when my teacher hung it in the art room. I came back the next day to find a string of toilet paper across the area where the lone nipple was visible. I guess the principle said he didn't want the 9th grade boys to get too "excited". At my high school back in Ann Arbor, they showed my nude pieces quite often, as well as the Ann Arbor Art Association, so this was a new thing for me. After all, the mascot for Laguna Beach HS was the "Artists". Later, I was told it could not be published in the high school year book -- even though my teacher pushed for it -- again it was deemed inappropriate. We had a major meth epidemic at the school, but you can't be showing students a nipple. Totally makes sense, right?
When I moved to Dana Point for my senior year, same problems, different school. My nude works were banned from being shown in the common areas of the school in display cases. They were inappropriate. I found this hilarious, when you consider we had at least 3 teen parents at our school; two girls who were currently knocked up, and the fact I took one of the cheerleaders to buy a pregnency test so she could take it my house without her parents finding out. So yes, representations of titties in oil were to be censored, despite the fact many students CLEARLY knew how bang some genetalia together to make a baby. A gallery in Dana Point also asked me not to show my nudes because "it wasn't Christian", so you know, all those nude works by Renaissance artists must be smut, and that's why religious leaders commissioned their smutty porno peddling asses to decorate their homes and churches. She must have thought I was a real perv then; a 17 year old girl, doing these paintings of naked women? Shocking.
The final straw was when I tried to curate a group show at Artcore in downtown Los Angeles. It was to be me, Tara McPherson, Louie Metz, Staci Lande, and a few others. The woman who ran the gallery didn't want nudity. A downtown Los Angeles gallery, not wanting nudity? The board members tried to reason with her, but it was no use. This was on top of many other conditions she decided to set. That show didn't happen, obviously.
So it was weird to me, all these galleries in Laguna Beach and even Los Angeles refusing to show nudes, because they were inappropriate and indecent; and yet the people who set out these rules loved works by Botticelli and Micelangelo. I started drawing nudes when I was eleven years old! So what does that mean? I grew up with nude artwork in our home, and no, it didn't turn me into a deviant or make me full of love for Satan.
I know the MySpace police take down any artwork with nipples showing. That's insane. I'm curious to know how other people have had their work censored? Was it a gallery, print publication, or something else?
I would totally drive to Chicago for the Bravo casting call, as "The Untitled Art Project" seems like it will be the perfect blend of trash and pseudo-intellectualism. I'm sure they're looking for various versions of characters you would find in Art School Confidential, but I already have my "character" worked out -- being that this is reality TV after all.
I'm going to be the drunk and combative chick, who steals everyone's ideas, and has a dark past! I will call everyone a punk ass bitch, talk about how the judges and challenges are stupid and beneath me, and maybe I'll faint -- or have a panic attack of some sort. There's always an ambulance scene in all these shows. I will also throw out the, "I'm not here to make friends" line, as well as cry to my husband on the phone about how I, "want to go home". And yes, I'll hug everyone and cry when I'm eliminated too; ain't no way the abrasive bitch character gonna win an art related prize.
Dude, seriously. Isn't going on a reality show based around in the field you work in, or are passionate about, a death kiss to your career? I can't wait to see how many performance artists try out for this show and claim being on the show in itself is their art. Come on America, let's get stupid together.
18x24 inches, oil on panel. Kinda hard to photograph stuff that is larger and have it be "exactly" as you see in real life, but this is close enough I think...
again, the compression on blogs sucks, so click for better views.
Saturday, July 11, 2009 7pm-10pm
Knitgrrl
Studio / Arabella Proffer Studio
Lake Erie Screw Factory 13000 Athens Ave. Lakewood,
OH 44107
Phone (216) 712-POOP
Come out to our official launch party for my new space with Shannon Okey. I needed a painting studio without cat hair and the distractions of watching daytime court TV. Shannon needed a new space to teach felting, spinning, dyeing and messy stuff. We're both going to be selling things, and you’ll be able to see the stuff I’m working on for my upcoming show "Innocence and Arrogance". In short, it's going to be fun with drinks and all, so come check it out.
Note for the uninitiated: getting in to the Screw Factory building can be
puzzling. Park anywhere you like by Loading Dock 1, and we’ll have
signs leading up to the second floor. We are suite C288.
Feel free to bring friends. Except that one guy who gets drunk at all the Cleveland art openings and pees on stuff and passes out and/or winds up on gallery roofs! Yeah this guy is not allowed since he has now caused a scene at TWO of my shows.
What do you get your wife for her birthday to show you care? A custom beer order, duh! Our friend Chris wins awards with his brewing skills and we decided to go over and see the process of making an "Arabella Imperial Red". Click images for descriptions. I really didn't follow what was going on other than it smelled great...
So we did this same trip again. Only this time we reversed it and got hammered at Founders rather than a lost night of weirdness starting at Bell's. I wish I had taken more photos at Hop Cat because that place is amazing, even the bathrooms are gorgeous for a brew pub (yes I always have to comment on facilities you know). For most of the trip it was pretty mellow, the only scary part were the tween and child cheerleaders staying at our motel who had on gobs of whore make up, and hair extensions. Most were rather fat too; I thought in that line of activity a chunky physique would be frowned upon -- hello, pyramid cheer? It was just really creepy, it was like Jon Benet Ramsey meets Little Miss Sunshine meets Rock of Love. Ew! I also keep forgetting how fast people in Michigan like to drive, like desert speeds, where 95 is considered slow. No wonder I counted 22 dead deer on the roadside. It gave me sad face.
Anyways, again I am too lazy to do commentary, but you can click images and see the descriptions....
- The portrait Herbert Ascherman Jr. took of me appeared in the paper yesterday in a story about the Cleveland Society of Alternative Printers.
- There's a little Q&A I did over at the blog She Wants To Find Frankenstein
- And then I conducted a Q&A with Casey Weldon over at Kotori Magazine
Got all that? Also, I will be having a launch party at my new studio once I get my crap all moved in. More info TBA but keep July 11th open if you are interested. I just got back from a trip to Michigan and came home to a slew of emails and phones calls all urgent and crap (why did everyone decide they needed everything from me on Saturday for everything?) so I will have a recap and photos involving lots, and lots of beer shortly. Is it bad that I totally forgot my birthday was this week too? Like Thursday or something? I haven't looked at a calendar so I have no idea what today is even. My only reminder were a few gifts I got in the mail today. Maybe I'm ignoring the fact I'm now going to be over 30 (eeep!), but presents are nice and make it slightly less painful, gimmeh more presents! Or not, whatever is good for you.
Just finished reading this piece of poo from Phil Desind via Steve Doherty's blog about 8 ways to sell art. Okay, I do agree with 6 - 8, but come on now, if people want your work they will buy it. Just because one person doesn't like it, won't mean another won't dig it. If they don't like what you do, then they aren't the right person for your work and you shouldn't feel bad about that at all. If you need to follow any of the steps in 1- 5 then you obviously don't know who your audience is and you are sticking in shiny objects for the mere fact that you are a whore with technical skill. Seriously, the shiny objects bit in number 2 kills me. Oh and number 3 kills me all over again. Heck, 1 - 5 all kill me, go read it, seriously you'll die laughing!
You shouldn't make work a certain way just for the intention of trying to sell it to some idiot who wants it to match their couch! If you do, you aren't an artist, you are making a product. A product for someone who doesn't like to think too hard or is buying art because it makes them feel cultured; these are the people who buy a Thomas Kinkade painting in hopes of being able to sell it on Ebay in 15 years for a profit. Making a piece of art while following a guideline like this is so wrong to me on so many levels. Why constrict yourself like that? That is no different than following a fad or a genre of art that happens to be doing well at the moment, "gee I sure think Tiki themed art is lame, but it is what's hot right now, so maybe I'll go paint some tiki themed crap and hope it sells". Yeah, have fun with that.
I should also point out that number 4 is a big lie as well. I grew up with some really fun heavy subject matter in the art collection of my parents. Angels and devils and surrealist craziness, I used to stare at them and marvel. “People don’t want to hang those kinds of paintings in their homes or offices. The pictures would depress them all day long,” says the article. Um, more like those pictures would freak people out and be full of awesome all day long! You know what depresses me? Pictures of fruit in a shiny bowl!
Again, just because one person doesn like it, doesn't mean all people on the planet will hate it too. I hate Julian Schnabel, I also hate Keith Haring, and I'm pretty sure my dislike of those two artists hasn't effected their sales. By the way, do you know how many people ask me if I have any work laying around with skulls in the subject matter? A LOT. And yes I promise I will get around to finally painting some of skecthes I've made of my fabulous Sabertooth Tiger skull.
Artists make what they make; people like what they like. They find each other in an honest way, not by the artist impressing what they think people will like upon them.
And yes, skulls do sell, just like chicks dig scars.
So the big news this week is I finally got a studio! I will be sharing a studio with Shannon Okey at the Lake Erie Screw Factory...hehe, screw. I figure that this will keep me from bumming around when I need to do actual work, as well as provide me with a cat hair free environment. Larger work to come? Quite possibly since space is no longer an issue. I will also have my studio open to the public, especially for the Open Studio events that my friend, and Screw Factory neighbor, Gina puts on. The building itself is an active warehouse and factory, but at night resembles the movie Mute Witness. At least I conquered the ancient freight elevator, and if I get really drunk, maybe I'll take some of the forklifts for a spin! Hoping to have moved in by late June, still need some dry wall and my "day job" work schedule is going to be crazy the next few weeks or so.
On a totally unrelated topic, did you know the singer from Glass Tiger wrote a motivational book? I'm glad I don't have cable, because yesterday I got sucked into some VH1 Classic and got this damn song stuck in my head. The video is a perfect example of what happens when Canadian musicians do too much cocaine at the peak of bad 80s fashion.
The open studios shindig this weekend turned out so-so. I think many of the artists and galleries are really miffed at the organizers, as they should be, for the fact the hours were not even posted until a week and a half before the event -- nor was the website updated with the dates. Hence why no one really knew about it as much as we tried. In fact, many artists didn't know about the event until they saw a stack of postcards with typos in their building lobby a week or less before. Didn't this exact problem happen last year? If I had paid money to the organization that puts City Artists at Work on, I'd be super pissed. Planning ahead can be handy because that way people know about stuff before it happens. Crazy I know.
Anyways, thanks to Kotori Magazine for this little write up of the recent show.
There are also a a few new prints in my shop.
Other than that, I finished a new painting for the upcoming exhibit at Art Whino in D.C. this August. She gave me a lot of trouble at first, she looked like Brooke Shields at one point which had to be corrected obviously. Boobies! I like painting boobies...
"Carlotta" 11x14 inches
