Finding Value, Belief, and Morality Through Art

These are the beliefs I’ve developed about my reality:

• People are basically good and want to do the “right thing.”

• Self-reflection is crucial to self-improvement.

• Determination and motivation are the deciding factors for success.

• Doing the “right” thing is motivation.

• Change will happen so adaptability is necessary.

• Solutions to a community problem rest inside of the community.

My beliefs, values, and ethics stay at the forefront of my consciousness.  I cling to them as life rafts when the rising sun ushers in a storm front churning up rough waters in my life.  I wish I could say that I always had this saving grace in my thirty-eight years of life, but I have not.  I realized I needed to define my B, V, E’s (beliefs, values, and ethics) only seven years ago when searching out curriculum to teach leadership students.  Stumbling across this material was an epiphany for me.  Defining my own B, V, E’s  made me a better teacher, improved my own leadership skills, gave me direction for my own decision-making processes, helped carve out my career path, and clarified who I am in my own mind. 

Knowing your B, V, E’s is empowering!  Not just because of what it can do for you, but even more so because of what it can help you do for others.  Since my B, V, E’s act as a compass for me, I can share that same compass with friends and family when they are struggling to find their path forward. Rather than sitting with my hurting loved ones wringing my hands and feeling helpless, I can actually help!  Through an understanding of my B, V, E’s, I can be proactive about my life rather than drifting from day to day reactively.  My B, V, E’s led me to my artwork.

My values include:

• Hope

• Respect

• Compassion

• Personal Growth

• Education

• Happiness

• Leadership

• Free, democratic society

Beliefs are statements held true about the world.  They are the statements which help define reality and shape interpretation and reaction to the people in the world. 

Values are concepts which are held dear.  Typically, values are abstract nouns. 

Ethics are the rules of conduct or morals which guide decisions and behavior.  They are usually connections points between beliefs and values. 

While my B, V, E’s make me who I am and guide the decisions I make, the identity crisis I have experienced over the past three years of my life has left me staring at them blankly feeling their emptiness and inadequacy.  I have experienced situations during this time period, which I cannot place in the paradigms of my B, V, E’s and therefore struggle to gain perspective on those situations. 

After a particularly bad day last week, I was left reflecting on how self-centered some people in my life were and how completely they disregarded the needs of others.  It made me think back to times over the past few years when people seemed to go out of their way to be hurtful to others.  This sort of thinking was antithetical to my B, V, E’s.  I didn’t have a mental framework to put around the situation to contextualize it.  Last week, I was just angry about the situation.  Today, I needed to move forward.

These are my guiding principles:

• Aspire to see others as they wish to be seen.

• Be nice.

• Do as much good by as many people as possible.

• Live your life with little regret.

• People must contribute to the society in which they live.

• When you feel the most emotional, that is when you need to be the most logical.

• Educate.

• The most liberating thing is doing what you love because you love it—not for the approval of others.

Today, I realized that seven years ago when I first wrote down my B, V, E’s, I was surrounded by people who were generous and routinely acted in the best interests of others.  I realized that seven years ago, the professional leadership in my life actively advocated for and rewarded self-less behavior.  The vast majority of people I had contact with worked under the same leader.  My B, V, E’s were shaped by that leader’s influence.  The actions of others around me were shaped by that leader’s influence.  Three years ago, that leader accepted a new job.  I have been struggling to keep my hands on my B, V, E’s since that time.

I have tried to stay the same, but my context has changed dramatically.  I always felt that one particular belief, “Change will happen so adaptability is necessary,” was a reactionary, external condition.  However, I think it is something I need to do internally as well.  I lived in a world of self-less people and suddenly that was no longer my reality.  I needed to change my B, V, E’s to adapt to my new world.  I made these changes to my mental paradigm:

• People are basically good and want to do the “right thing;” however, understand that people will ensure their own well-being before reaching out into the world to help others.

• Doing the “right” thing can be motivation for some people.

• People are generally too busy to think outside of themselves to be considerate or helpful of others.  This isn’t necessarily selfishness; it is self-preservation.

I keep reviewing my Values and my Ethics.  If I must adapt my Beliefs, shouldn’t the Values and Ethics change too?  But I don’t believe so.  I refuse to allow a situational change in my world to change my interactions with that world.  While I may see people differently and may choose to be more careful of people, I refuse to change who I am and how I interact with others.

But this is an art blog.  What does any of this have to do with art? 

Just me. Flying high at the end of my rope.  Tiffany Stained Glass Gallery in Orlando, FL.

My growth as an artist has happened almost completely during this time frame.  Much of my artwork right now is about my struggle to contextualize, cope, and find peace with these changes in my social world.  My artwork reflects my frustration, heartbreak, loneliness, and hope with my changing world.  My artwork itself is a coping mechanism (my reminder to have hope) born out of that discontent and loneliness.  My art shows people my emotions with a hope that it will inspire people to wonder about the emotions of others.  Each piece strives to create a shared reality in a time when few people share an “irl” existence.  My artwork invites a shared conversation about an individual yet collective consciousness.

In putting together my recent Exhibition Proposal for “Flying High At The End Of My Rope,” I forced myself to think about the exhibit as a chapter in my life as an artist—one that paralleled the lives of people who may visit the exhibit.  Culturally and personally, I have felt the quick pendulum swing of a circus trapeze throughout the creation of this collection of works.  I know that many parts of my life are coming to an end—I feel the pains of being “at the end of my rope.”  Yet other parts of my life seem to be soaring through those hardship—I feel the exhilaration of “flying high.”  I have learned that all things in life come back to hope and that is the driving creative force in my life right now.

Abstract Emotionalism

When I painted Pulsing, I almost destroyed the canvas.  Nothing about the work was as I saw it in my head.  I ignored the work on a patio table for weeks.  When I returned to gather up the mess, I realized that the work was exactly as my subconscious meant for it to be--my consciousness had just not yet caught up with underlying emotions being expressed in the work.

I believe part of my growth process as an artist is reflecting on my process and my work.  At least, this is what I tell myself on the days when I can’t find the motivation or insight to paint.  If I am internalizing the process and reflecting on my work, then at least I am still dedicating time to art even if I am not actively creating work at that moment. 

Internalizing my process up to this point is really trying to understand my own work and what I am driven to create.  I have been at peace thus far to say, “I paint my memories.”  I have asserted previously that my memory seems to work differently than other people’s memories.  When I return to memories, I am returning to washes of color layered on textures with swirls of paint bubbling up from my emotional recollections and spreading over the contextual landscapes of my history with varying degrees of opacity shading the present translucent perception of my reality.  When people view a piece of abstract art and seek to attach meaning to it, often they turn to the artist to ask about the process, influence, or inspiration of a piece.  An artist can speak to the meaning of a work in the title to clarify the message they wish to convey.  In their artist statement an artist can address their recursive process, list their artistic influences, or cite ideology they find fascinating which bears a presence in their work.  As I am evolving as an artist, I have arrived at a point of wanting to pin my artwork into a specific artistic space.  The English teacher in me is driven to classify, define, and expound on thoughts and experiences.  The artist in me wants to know where my work falls in the context of other artists, not to be comparative but to belong to a community upon which I can draw wisdom to continue to evolve as an artist.

I have learned to name the specific techniques and mediums I use to create my art.  I know that my work lays somewhere among the heap of abstract art; however, I feel that is so wide a population that I still find myself alone in a crowded room.  As I have sought to narrow the funnel for myself, I keep coming back to Abstract Expressionism.  I embrace and find inspiration in the likes of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko.  However, when I pick up a brush I don’t feel driven by the same chaotic voices present in Pollock’s or de Kooning’s Abstract Expressionism nor am I boxed in like Rothko’s color fields. The term Abstract Expressionism feels like a small rough pebble in the toe of my shoe. My hands seem to be guided by the voices of my emotional subconsciousness allowing me to paint so that I can process my own emotions—true art therapy—a way of expressing my soul without the need to be representational.  At times those voices are chaotic chants, but they are more than that too: violent screams, nagging fears, gentle whispers, and others.

When I began painting, I believed I created from similar place as others and if I grounded myself in that artistic community I would enter a world of shared experiences. However, the more I have studied in the past few months about other artists, the more alone I have felt.  In reading the works and words of other artists and in seeking out their feedback on my own work, I am learning how vastly different I am in my experience.  The past few weeks I have been reaching for a term for myself.  If I were a Google search, what would I be?  Turning words over in my head, at times even turning to Google.  Thumbing through my thesaurus.  I get further and further away from Abstract Expressionism and feel I am wandering into a land of Abstract Emotionalism.  I’ve been on that one for nearly a week now.

In the tiny hours of morning dark, I chanced Googling “Abstract Emotionalism” and guess what I found!  A kindred spirit! Richard Grieco of all people.  As written on his site:

“Richard Grieco, first began his passion in the art world close to 20 years ago. At the start of his career he began painting to capture underlining emotions he couldn’t quite express throughout his other talents. 

As time progressed he started painting from the subtext of the subconscious, which is the purest form of emotion instead of the literal, which can become contrived. And over the last four years he has kept a very low profile to aggressively concentrate on his work.

Although his work most often categorized as abstract, you will also see forms of expressionism, surrealism, and cubism just to name a few. Combining the greatest art qualities of many art styles has resulted in a cultivating style of art in its own right that he has coined ‘Abstract Emotionalism’.”

— https://www.griecoart.com/

The description seems to fit me better than anything else I have managed to put my finger on or is that only because it is a description written by the artist himself?  Am I projecting my own psychological needs on the writings of another artist and only “hearing” what I want to “hear” so that I can feel like I belong somewhere?

But is this “Abstract Emotionalism” just a misnomer for “Lyrical Abstraction?”  What is the implied relationship between “Emotionalism” of the early 1900’s and “Abstract Emotionalism?”  Is “Abstract Impressionism” something I should be grappling with?  With such a hazy and cluttered field of abstract art, Abstract Expressionism, Abstract Impressionism, Lyrical Abstraction, Abstract Emotionalism, and seemingly countless others do such distinctions even matter beyond the artists themselves splitting hairs about what predecessors with whom they want to be associated?

I don’t know.

I do know that at the end of all these blogs, I end up having more questions than when I started.  I started this particular entry excited because after months of searching, I felt like I had an answer.  But having that answer and beginning to conjecture at the meaning of that answer has just led me in a circle of, “Do you really have the answer?” and “Does the answer even matter?”  Frankly, I need a mentor!

Brushes and Bourbon and Blues

“I’d like to be a fly on the wall for that…”

This has been a rough week.  Nothing extraordinarily bad happened in my world, but all of the yucky stuff that routinely happens seemed to comingle into a long string of, “Really?! This is what we are doing?!” this week and there were few highlight moments to balance out the crap.  When I encounter a single day like this, I get life back on level by soaking in a warm bath for an hour or so and that always seems to make it better.

As I was contemplating taking my fourth extended soak in the tub for the week and venting about my week to a friend, I made the comment that this particular string of bad days warranted a “Brushes, Bourbon, and Blues” night.  He responded, “I’d like to be a fly on the wall for that.”  And I immediately thought about this blog post that has been sitting on my draft board for nearly seven months now.  It was originally titled, “Paint With A Friend.”  I think it finally fermented itself a better title.

Aside from the need to get my head right, “Brushes, Bourbon, and Blues” nights produce some of my best work.  So when my friend Codi reached out a little more than a year ago saying he was going to be in town visiting family and wanted to stop by to paint with me, I knew the sort of painting occasion I needed to throw together.

Ok, let’s back up a little bit.  I’m getting ahead of myself.

Remember, I have zero artistic ability, or so I thought for the first thirty years of my life.  My friend Codi was under the same impression about himself and had just recently discovered otherwise.  As he was working to develop his process, he decided he wanted to see me work through my process.  Up until he asked if he could join me, painting was a solitary process for me.  I always isolated myself from other people in my house while I painted.  If someone intruded upon my work, I would stop to chat with them, but I waited until they left before I began painting again.  I found Codi’s request to paint with me intimidating.  I didn’t have a process…I paint the emotions I’m working through.  I mean, I guess I have a process—but I imagine it to be something like the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.  It goes something like this:

• Emotions are bothering me and I can’t process them or talk about them with people.

• I let them irritate me for days.

• I finally breakdown (sometimes a literal emotional breakdown) and go to an art supply store.  (Art supply stores are Zen shrines in my world.)

• I pick out a canvas—the more the emotions are bothering me, the bigger canvas I select.

• I let the emotions ferment in my brain for another few days while I stare at the huge white block in my living room.

• I set up an area to do the painting.  These emotional things are messy, and paint gets everywhere.  Occasionally tarps are involved.  (One day, I’ll have a proper studio and it won’t matter where the paint ends up…)

• Eventually, I browse through my paint to pick colors/textures/mediums that seem to correspond to what has been rolling around in my head.

• Then, maybe, I go to work…

It isn’t really a process.  I stop and start several times throughout these events.  I change my mind about colors and canvases.  I set up paint areas and then take them down to clean house or entertain guests.  Sometimes the process stalls and the unfinished canvas will lay around for months before I can go back to it.  Sometimes I start on something, think I’m ready to process those emotions, only to find out I hate it and paint over it later.

I didn’t want to drag my friend through this emotional eco-disaster.  He was more of a see something, paint something sort of artist.  I was sure Codi did not want to spend his Saturday evening strolling through my toxic emotional waste dump.  So, I dropped back and punted.  It was going to have to be a Bourbon, Brushes, and Blues night; if the painting failed, at least the drinks and music would be good.  At the time, I was not trying to navigate any emotional wastelands, so I didn’t have canvas on hand being worked, but I had old pieces I didn’t like.  I grabbed a stacked triptych, fell in love with some metallics to mix up for a pour, lined up some bourbons for tasting, and put the playlist on shuffle.  I did my best to act like I knew what I was doing.  Acting like I know what I’m doing has NEVER produced any art worth claiming…

Spirit, The piece from that particular Bourbon, Brushes, and Blues night.

But like any Brushes, Bourbon, and Blues night, the bourbon started working out my mental blocks and the painting started to take shape for me.  All in all, one of my favorite works came out of that painting experience.  I wasn’t sure about it at the time, but I love the work now.  As with any experience in paint, I hope to grow as an artist.  This particular painting experience taught me that I did have the talent and artistic aptitude to paint at will.  Considering what motivates me to paint, this was an important realization for me: I could call upon myself to paint when I needed to rather than only being able to paint on an emotional whim.  This realization helped me take myself more seriously as an artist.

I also learned the power of collaboration.  While Codi and I worked on two separate canvases, talking through my work, answering his questions, and deliberately considering what my next steps would be made for a better piece that evening.  Because of this experience, I now reach out to other artists for input on works when I find myself stuck.  I do not always take the advice given to me, but opening myself up to consider other opinions has made me a stronger, more diverse artist, with more tricks in my artistic bag.

I believe strongly in my method, but I acknowledge it is my method and wouldn’t work for everyone.  When I’m mired down on a work, mired down in my emotional process, or mired down at my 9 to 5, I trust a Brushes, Bourbon, and Blues night to help me work through the turmoil in my brain with benefit of a piece of art as a result. 

In case you are curious, I usually let Pandora pick the Blues music for me or I turn to my B.B. King collection.  Blues doesn't always end up being Blues.  I am a fan of painting with (in no particular order) the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sublime, Bosstones, Tupac-era West Coast Rap, Beck, Aerosmith, Creedance Clearwater Revival, Nirvana, and The Beatles.

As far as bourbon goes, I recommend:  Elmer T. Lee (I’m jealous if you can get your hands on a bottle—PLEASE, hook me up if you do!), Angel’s Envy, Woodford Double Oak, Booker’s, Blanton’s, or Basil Hayden (but only as a last resort).

This is not a sponsored post

My best Bro-friend, Codi.

I Turned Down My First Show

Well…it finally happened.  I turned down my first offer for a gallery show.  Not as in, “Oh, I’ve done tons of gallery shows and this one didn’t fit in my schedule, so I had to turn it down…” but this was my first offer to have my first gallery show and that was the offer I turned down.  And yes, I am sick to my stomach, to my soul, about my decision, here is how this went down…

My website traffic is mediocre, I know I need to work on ways to drive people to my site.  My Pinterest following is non-existent.  This is my fault, I am still using my personal Pinterest page rather than trying to build up my Pinterest following as an artist—I am just not ready to give up the guilty pleasures of wedding dresses I will never wear and vacations I will never be brave enough to take.  I publish my work on Facebook, but I am looking for more than friends and family to be on my site.  I am not a big Instagram user, so I thought that might give me a new social media outlet to build a following of people I’m not personally connected to.  Turns out I was right. 

Instagram is paying off for me.  People I would not normally connect with are seeing my work—even my artistic superhero is one of my followers! (I’ll save that for another blog post though.)  My website traffic is increasing.  My blog posts are more widely read.  I have views on my site from Canada, Russia, Sweden, India, and the United Kingdom. 

*Happy Dance*  

On New Year’s Eve, I received a message on Instagram from a Canadian gallery—yes! I took this a great sign for an amazing upcoming year!  We discussed back and forth the process for having a show at their gallery.  I was so excited!  Thank you, Instagram!

The next day I discussed the opportunity with my family and a few friends.  It was going to be an expensive endeavor for me, but it was a real step into the art world.  I kept hesitating though at the venture when everyone else in the conversation was still staring at me with wide eyes and open mouths.  It was going to be in Canada.  Canada is cold.  Canada is far away.  The more I considered the show, the less I excited I was.  Within 18 hours of the offer, I turned it down.

In my rejection, I cited the show would be more of a financial burden now than I could manage.  But really that was just my excuse.  I know that the cost of the show would be an investment.  I am confident in my art work and I know that I would get more than an adequate return on the money I spent for the show.  Honestly, I made an emotional decision.  The gallery wasn’t the right place for my first show.  The gallery itself was fantastic.  I loved their reviews.  I was inspired by the work they do in their community.  Their previous shows were diverse and highlighted serious artists.  I would have fit in well at the gallery.  The one problem was the problem I kept coming back to: the gallery was in Canada.

My family and friends are extremely supportive of my work.  For the most part, few in my inner circle are in the “art gallery crowd”.  They would all want to go see my work in a gallery and it would be the first time (and probably the last time) most of them had ever set foot in an art gallery.  They would take that step out of their comfort zone for me, but they would not be able to fund travel to Canada to go to an art gallery.  By having my first show so far away, I would have excluded the very people who believed in me and supported my growth to a point of having the show in the first place.  Excluding them from that moment in my life when I know how much they believed in me felt ungrateful to me, so I turned down the show.

No, I don’t know if I made a good decision or not.  I started my year off with an amazing opportunity as a developing artist and I closed a door in my own face.  This is something I tell other people not to do.  When I think of the situation like that, I get sick on my stomach.  I know that perspective though is important.  As the days go by and I get further and further from the conversation, I am trying to look at this different.

I have decided to see this situation in this context: my current professional, personal, and financial situations have given me the power to pick and choose among the opportunities which come my way.  I believe that at thirty-eight years old, I don’t have to jump on every bandwagon driving past my house to navigate my way to success.  I think, at this point in my life, I can take advantage of professional opportunities that include time and space for my friends and family because for so long my personal life has been sacrificed to my professional responsibilities.

Few situations in your life are inherently good or bad.  Instead it is how you choose to see those situations.  This is a lesson I am still learning.  But, for this situation, I have decided I made the best decision I could make.  I have successfully negotiated a gallery contract on my terms.  I have remained honest in my work and I have been faithful to the people who have helped me get here.  Any time you can say those things as a professional, you have done good work.