The portfolio section is slowly getting updated with some new work. It’s about time, huh? Ba-by steps…

Click on that portfolio link above to go there – the one in the menu bar — next to that shop link that’s been coming soon for a year…

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General Info, Italy, just a picture, My Art by Courtney

One of the many present reading materials is the Yellow House, a book about the nine weeks Van Gogh and Gaugin spent living in the south of France, painting together, collaborating, drinking, philosophizing (I’m sure that’s not a word, but you get the idea). And, oh yes, let’s not forget frequenting the cat houses of Arles.

It’s an amusing book, and very insightful if you are interested at all in Van Gogh. He seems to be more the primary focus of the book. Though I do like the system Gaugin introduced for budgeting their money. It was like something I had read as a child on how to budget your money. You have a little box for each fund: one for paint and canvas (the most important), one for food, one for drink, one for tobacco, and one for the whore house. It was funny to see the priorities – I believe food was actually further toward the bottom. Those weren’t actually the categories I read about as a child, but you get the idea.

One thing that really struck me was Van Gogh’s work style. It gives me hope for my own. His more successful pieces were done in very short time periods. Whereas Gaugin would take days or even weeks to complete a painting, Van Gogh would turn one out in an hour or so. He would attack the canvas, painting with a fury, then be done, very rarely going back to correct or edit. It’s not to say all of his paintings were done in this manner. Just many — the good ones 🙂

Why does this give me hope? Because occasionally people think I’m not doing anything, or, gasp, I am procrastinating – when really, I am (doing, not procrastinating). I’m thinking, and planning, and plotting, and then, in the moment, when it feels right, I execute. Lightning fast. Whether it’s a trigger finger on the camera, or my fingers typing furiously at the keyboard which sounds and feels like 1000 wpm. And then it’s done. Just like that. Bam! There might be a correction or two, but for the most part, I’ve captured it, whatever it is (and there’s your eBay plug for the day). And if there was a deadline there, I met it (I’ve never understood the idea of an extension).

So the book gives me hope. It makes me realize everyone has their own style, and my style just happens to be similar to one of the most famous painters of all time who was crazier than a redneck saying, “Hay guys! Watch’is!” (hmm, maybe that’s just stupidity over crazy — you can insert your own “crazier than…” statement). Just because I don’t obsess and toil over the minutia doesn’t mean I’m not giving something my all. Truth be told that planning and plotting has the minutia already embedded in my brain.

Filed under:
Books, Influences, My Art by Courtney

Man Ray was and is by far one of my favorite influences. While enjoying a glass of wine and a good book on the porch the other day, I stumbled upon something I’d been looking for… a more abstract way to show spirits. What I was doing previously is quite boring to me. I guess that’s why I haven’t done a whole lot with it and just drank my wine instead of playing with it.

When I viewed the picture above, one of the first things that came to mind was “reverse rayograph”. I’ve loved creating photograms since I was a child and was always amused that Man Ray took this technique, tweaked it, and put his own name on it.

For shits-n-giggles I inverted the piece so it would look like a regular photogram. Not nearly as spectacular. I love the brilliant shine of the red pinot in the first photograph. Luckily, summer is lurking and there’ll be plenty more sunny days to experiment with this new idea.

Filed under:
Influences, My Art by Courtney

I wish I had the original story for this set of images. Devaney was an art history professor that I loathed. She taught a freshman class that was a survey of “modern” art. Devaney fancied herself a formalist, and therefore, didn’t have to tell us anything interesting about the meaning or concept behind the art.

For the first month, I really tried to listen to this woman’s drivel — I tried to absorb what she was saying about perspective, lines, circles, etc. It was more like middle school art class than a college course on art history.

So at this point, I checked out. I made sure to bring a copy of the most recent Pitch to class so I would have something interesting to read. She didn’t care for that, though, so I turned to writing stories. The original story was a good three pages long, front and back. However, I have since lost the original and just remember the highlights.

Devaney is sucked into a Miro painting — at least I think it was a Miro. I haven’t been able to find the painting since, though I remember it vividly in my mind. However, given the fact I wasn’t paying attention in class at this point, I could have just dreamt it. It may have been Ernst, or some other artist she didn’t care for. Anyways…

Devaney is in a Miro painting. Along comes the bird, and more birds follow. She is tied to a stake at this point, and the birds peck at her, eating her flesh, all the while chriping “Blah-de-Blah! Blah-de-Blah!”. This is a long process, and it takes her a while to die.

When she enters her personal Hell, she watches the de Chirico train run over her father over and over again.

She didn’t enjoy de Chirico either. I really wish I could remember the rest of the story, because it cracked most of us up — well, those of us with a sick, sick sense of humor.

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My Art by Courtney

Many times people ask me where the interest in voodoo came from. It was born from a period much like the one I’m in now. My creative mind was stale — I had no thoughts, no originality, no will to produce or create anything. For 4 or 5 weeks I had done nothing, which was a long time for one semester at college. I had produced no work, shown nothing in class. I was barrelling toward crits with nothing to show.

And, as much as I hate to admit it, and try not to be this way, I’m a hater. No, that’s not street slang for anything. I just let hatred build up inside of me. I’ve done it recently with my job, and I need to do something to purge the hatred from my body. This is how the original voodoo series was born in 1999.

I decided making voodoo dolls of people I didn’t like would be fun. I always had a knack for creating stories of the perfect death or ultimate punishment for those people — creative stories. Nothing simple, like, “I wish they would die.” No, these stories went far beyond.

So I set about collecting what I would need. Barbie dolls, sculpty, paint, props. I decided to create diptychs and triptychs showing what happened to the doll, and what happened to the person as a result. I figured I would get grilled in crits on voodoo, and there would be some know-it-all there who would shred my series to pieces, so I set my sights on the library to get all of the answers I would need.

The library didn’t have what I needed. Turns out voodoo doesn’t have much to do with cursing people — it was an actual religion/way of life, and it was about the same thing all “religions” are about — the golden rule. Do unto others…

This was all well and good; it actually piqued my curiosity and made me want to learn more about voodoo, which is how the voodoo series you see today on my site came to be. But, it really didn’t help my present situation.

Long story short, there was no voodoo know-it-all in crits. Ironically, this series was one of the most well-received I produced in my time at KCAI. The most controversial piece in the entire series was a picture of me, the curser, having my spells turned back on me: I was in a YoYo Courtney box (which is one of Skipper’s friends from the Barbie empire). It sparked a fierce debate that ended with one of the professors leaving the room in tears.

More to come soon on the original voodoo doll series. Pictures, stories, FUN!

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My Art by Courtney