I'm an artist!

I'm an artist, I make visual work and show it regularly in museums and galleries in NYC and all around the world. It's a real job and I love it.

I work in many different styles and mediums, I've had 7 solo shows in NYC and they often look like group shows. The one consistent thing in my work is that it's often a record of an ethereal experience, there's usually a story behind everything I make. Wether it's my high school girlfriend's love of Judy Garland or the first time I heard The Pixies, there's a lot of myself in my work and my life, I try to be as authentic as possible and I like the fact that I'm unique.

I don't
live in an Ivory tower though, I grew up in Minnesota solidly middle class and luckily I was exposed to art, music and dance all throughout my childhood, so I believe art is really for everyone.

I used to keep my art and my "day job" separate, then, a few years ago I was asked to come help out at the New Museum on Bowery, the were overwhelmed with visitors for the Carsten Holler "Experience" Exhibition. The museum basically just needed bodies to control the crowds. I learned that I liked interacting with the public in this kind of environment.

From there I went to "Fete Paradiso" a carnival of Antique French Carousels on Governor's Island. I did all the things that one does at a carnival from cleaning up baby vomit to helping an 8 year old find the carousel horse of their dreams. I also read and learned some of the history of the carousels and willingly shared that with  the visitors who asked, I was pretty good at that and people liked me.

Then, I was asked to come speak at the Museum of The City of NY about what motivates creative people to move to NYC....for me  it was a postcard of beatniks in Washington sq. park that my 3rd grade teacher gave me back in Minnesota, that prompted me to tell my parents "When I grow up I'm going to move to NYC and be an artist".

My life is a dream come true, and I'm loving it...

Getting Through....

A lot has happened in the past few years, my artwork has become my primary source of income and I'm busy writing my memoirs, maybe I'll post them here?...

Keith Haring @ LGBT Center

Paul Rand @ The Museum of The City of New York

Do it

   I was thinking recently about a pattern that sometimes emerges  of people resenting me when I'm rewarded for my talents....

   I'm not unique in this regard, it happens to everyone....and for a short while it made me fear success....it was like anytime something good happened to me a friend would voice their resentments.

   When I first made the push to get my artwork seen and I was befriending curators and even started dating one. This curator who I was seeing decided to have an after party at a neighborhood gay bar that I frequented and they happened to be showing some small paintings of mine at the time. Someone came up to me at the party and said to me "It must be so great to be dating this curator and having shows like this...." I was speechless....It's pretty easy to have a show of your artworks in a bar you frequent....you really only have to be mildly talented and just ask.....so to think that this person assumed that the only way I could have a show in a bar was by dating a famous curator sowed a little seed of doubt in me.

   Then there was the time I was awarded a residency at Cite des Arts in Paris, it was a gift that fell into my lap. The French government was giving me a place to live and work in Paris for my choice of 3 or 6 months. All of my friends were thrilled for me, congratulatory and I was ecstatic....my boyfriend though felt differently......so I chose the shorter option to appease him.....it didn't work and he never got over his resentments. I learned a lot from this experience and other ones like it which caused me to be a little fearful when on the verge of success or when ever anything good happened to me.....

   I've learned to just own it, accept and be glad for my talents....these are Luxury Problems  and part of growing up and being who I am....thank god for lessons like this...

   My talents aren't really "Mine" to own....they're just kind of on loan from my creator and I'm the vessel.....I'd really be doing my creator a disservice to not use them to my fullest potential......thank you

Valentine's Days of Yore....

   I'm reminded of a time a few years ago when I had a f**k buddy in the neighborhood, he came over around valentine's day and brought me a chocolate heart. So we ate some candy and then he wanted me to piss on him......it could have been romantic, but it wasn't.

   Then there was the year when a friend invited me to his post opening dinner on Feb 14. This was his first solo show with a great gallery he had just joined and that gallery had a custom of renting out a restaurant and feting the artist with a nice dinner filled with collectors and friends, I was really happy for my friend and glad he invited me. My boyfriend at the time was none too happy with me but a few years later he broke up with me in Paris, on Valentine's day.

   In high school, my algebra/pe teacher, Arnie Femrite, had a Valentine's Day tradition involving a bag of those little heart candies that had slogans on them. He would stand up in front of the class and say things like "Erik says to Amanda.....(and then he'd pull out a candy and read from it....) Be Mine" etc etc......

Ports in a Storm....Snowpocalypes 2015

I woke up this morning and took a walk through the neighborhood to see what effects last night's snowfall had on the city, it made the city more beautiful......

Last night the predictions were dire, comparisons made to superstorm Sandy, I watched "Inside Llewyn Davis" and went to bed. When I got up this morning I thought about what I had done during Sandy, a couple of years ago, I went out for a walk around 8 PM shortly after it had passed. I passed by a local gay bar "Urge" where there was a handwritten sign taped to the door saying "WE ARE OPEN!! 2 for 1! So I went in, ordered a drink and fuzztttt!! ....the lights went out, the bartender shouted to the barback "Lock The Door"! and everyone lit up a cigarette.....

   I considered bumming a cigarette, I remembered how much I used to like sitting at a bar smoking a cigarette, feeling my senses numb as I smoked and sipped my cocktail, I used to like that a lot. It had been 7 months since I quit smoking and this would have been a great excuse to light up, but then I would have had that monkey on my back again. I remembered how I hated having to hide from my Friends, family and boyfriend that I was still smoking a couple of years after I had professed to have quit in 2008, it wasn't really until February of 2011 that I had my last cigarette.....I went months without smoking in 2008, 2009 and 2010 but there was always some reason to pick up again.

   I was traveling a lot in 2008, 9 and 10, I went to  Brazil, Hungary and China to visit friends and lovers, where cigarettes were cheap and everyone was smoking, I couldn't resist rubbing the balm of Nicotine on my feelings as these close relationships were changing in ways that I didn't understand and making me uncomfortable.

   I heard a lot about addiction and there's a statement often made that cigarettes  are more addictive than heroin, it's often explained that the reason is that if you're a cigarette smoker you can be lighting up 20 or more times a day like me .....while even the most committed heroin user can only shoot up maybe 5 times a day. So the cigarette smoker is constantly nurturing that addiction.....

   Thank god I didn't bum a cigarette that night, I did enjoy the camaraderie of the bar though. I remembered how during another emergency here in NYC, the blackout of 2003 I also went out for a walk and ended up in a gay bar, "The Bar" on 2nd ave and 2nd street, it was a lot of fun, lit by candlelight and one of the bartenders who lived upstairs had brought down his wind up victrola and was playing 78 rpm records on it....good times!

Funny how I felt the  need to go somewhere safe and known during those emergencies. This time however, I wasn't that concerned....I figured I'd get through this just like I had gotten through all the others. I didn't feel the need to be around people where I could let down my guard as I'm not really feeling so guarded these days.

It's a nice feeling and I thank god for that....