Shells.

Happy Autumn equinox <3

I hope you are as excited about the weather cooling down as I am, because things in this blog post are about to get toasty! First, I will begin with the mindset and set dressing necessary to put you in the headspace of your neighborhood human artist Remlin this week. Also; I got Covid for the third time! I’ve had way too much time to think and not enough time making things!! I was bored!

There is a weird air about self-promotion- I know I’m not the only one that feels it. Being asked about what I do creates a certain tension, an embarrassment, a pressure as not to sound pretentious and full of myself. It invites questions on the art I create and a certain desire to play down my work, or embarrassment when for some reason I don’t feel my work is sophisticated enough. What is this pressure about? How can I alleviate myself of it? Well, I don’t know. It’s something I have to work on myself. Being confident in what you make is important, as well as making a living. Why does it always feel as though I make excuses for myself when I truly feel enjoyment in the things I make? Is there some invalidity to being inspired? Maybe I have some pressures from outside voices telling me to do certain things, not to do others. What matters is we stay true to our desires while making them work to our advantage. I want to make cool things inspired by works of others alongside my personal work. And that is okay. There is no shame in that. So why do I feel shame? Where does this duality come from? Well, most likely myself. I am my own worst critic, after all, and artists tend to be harsher on themselves than anyone else. I say tend, but we’ve all encountered an artist that thinks way too highly of the work they produce and has a hard time keeping their nose from pointing at the sky. But how do we find the balance of confidence and humility in our work? By remembering we are human, and not perfect. We are all trying our best and there is no way to make art that isn’t valid.

(AI generated images are not photos, photos are taken with cameras. They are not paintings, paintings are made my humans with brush strokes, one at a time. AI images are not art, art is life, and life is art. Whenever I feel the need to say this I feel I am preaching to the choir, but there is always someone looking to glean their own meaning from things people say online to fill there own agenda and I will not have my words twisted to mean something I do not intend. Go make your own art, you don’t need a robot to do it for you.)

Here’s where I have opinions, feel free to disagree with me, but this is my blog and I am allowed to have them.

The thing on my mind this week, as an extension of this thought, is pretentiousness. I often have art restoration videos playing on my main monitor while I work on my paintings, and this week I was going through a build up of videos from Baumgartner Restoration on YouTube. And there are MANY wonderful videos on his channel, might I recommend this video, to get started. However, the main reason I bring up this lovely channel is This video where Julian restores a painting done by Gertrude Abercrombie in 1951 of some god damn shells, in no particularly interesting orientation or lighting, where Abercrombie is quoted as to describe her motives for the painting, to which she says “I only ever paint myself.” And THIS is where I get heated, and opinionated. No wonder the art world is seen as pretentious, money grubbing, and conceited. No wonder I feel so shy about wanting to pitch myself and my work to people. It’s THIS kind of attitude that sets me off. I cannot even blame this woman for getting that bag, she manipulated the public in a way I never could or would.

Art is subjective, and Abercrombie is by no means a bad painter. My problem lies inherently within the absolute glazing in this video about how strange and weird and special her work was, particularly in regard to this painting on its own. The painting is a very mild gray blue in tone, and the shells merely sit upon a table, with one suspended from a nail with wire on the wall. It is a rather plan, average still life, and yet it is being treated as if God himself descended from heaven and bestowed it upon the land. By all means, paint whatever the fuck your heart desires, I want that for you. Abercrombie’s colours are lovely, and it is a nice painting. Looks great in the frame and on the wall. Even next to her other works, it is rather plain.

My fury for the “high-brow” art world cannot be understated. Artists are just people, making things. That’s it. We are not some gods in human skin. We might pretend to be for fun, and make our characters kill and eat each other, but by no means do I have any form of divinity or divine vision and creative skill because the boobs I draw have nice lighting and look squishy. I love surrealism. I love weird art. There is something to be said about making a fun collection of little shell paintings. But!! To pretend there is some strange hidden meaning to them is just… plain hot air. Artists use still-life paintings all the time to practice depth and make something pretty, and potentially say something about the world we live in. Shit I try to with my personal paintings but I swear to you a lot of the time I think something sounds cool, I paint it, and people assign meaning to it that I hadn’t even considered, but goes perfectly well.

The painting from last week’s post- I sent it to a friend while it was in progress for some feedback. My friend had said, “-it looks as though she is grieving herself, and that she was privately mourning the loss of her dignity when she was discovered. A light is being shown on her shame.” I said “Damn, that sounds a lot cooler and well thought out than: ‘I thought Fae holding her own head was cool and the lighting was a happy accident.’” I think in this world of absurd things, we should not take ourselves so seriously as to pretend we are making some grand gesture by bequeathing our works onto the world. That is not to say you cannot plan and painting to have deeper meanings, and that is not to say no one has done this, I simply mean to say some shells on a table with no rhyme or reason do not have meaning to glean. Just appreciate the art for it’s simplicity and artist’s skill. Wall-banana was a tax exemption scheme, nothing more. You want some real art to look at? Go to a local art show and talk to the artists. Go to an art and wine festival, a craft fair. Avoid the 3D printed dragons and dragon eggs. God, the world is getting so full of fast cash garbage, just go make something. Paint your own wall art. Sew a pair of paints and paint some flowers down the leg, or make a flower crown from dandelions- it doesn’t have to be good to be art. Making your own things is cool. I’m gonna go for a walk and draw some dogs. Art is best when it comforts the disturbed, and disturbs the comfortable. Look up Zdzislaw Beksiski and his work.

I ask this week you take some time, and just think. Don’t crochet, don’t doodle, don’t write or type. 15-30 minutes of sitting outside in the cooling Autumn air, and just thinking. Enjoying, sorting thoughts, meditating, emptying your mind, whatever. Just sit. Be a little bored. Do not touch your phone. Do not compulsively check the time. Just sit. As always if you’d like to discuss anything I said and share your opinion, send me an email, I’d love to read your take.

Have a good week, random outside voices

Rem