secondseraph

so today i went insane.
this happens on quite a few many occasions when i am painting and i break down a wall, or find a new technique, and realize i've stumbled into a completely new world of imagery and complex problems to solve. it's very nerve-racking. especially when i've got my earphones on and i'm scooting around on the floor, splashing paint about while my classmates are sitting quietly at the tables with easels and fine-tipped brushes. now, i'm not jealous, nor do i think i'm better than them. i just get a little self-concious sometimes. very self-concious actually, and yet they all seem to like my canvases. and this is always encouraging.

you have to understand though, i pump out paintings like they're poems. it's not unusual for me to finish a wall-sized painting in the space of a few days. classmates will one day see me cutting up an amorphous-shaped, massive sized canvas, start to make a few lines—the bell rings, they leave for the next class, and i stay behind (i have four periods of art every day). the next morning the canvas is on the wall, filled from edge to edge and dry. one time, when working on a particular banner piece, Christine (who also recently got into MICA) yelled at me: "Daniel! Stop working!"

indeed, i get "in the zone" very often when i paint. it is similar to when i'm writing and the page just starts getting filled up with images (meaning words), but with paint it feels like i'm bordering on the edge of insanity because everything is running at me so fast, so strong, and i can barely keep up with it. this is the difference between painting constantly and painter's block (and its the same writing): in inspiration, you paint everything. even if it is realistic. even if you are painting a single image, you are actually a conduit for everything around you, and whether you focus that influence into the tight beam of a realist, which is like a burning laser, or work as a fast abstract expressionist, like a Solarizing burst of light in a darkroom, you are influenced by the surroundings. and more than that, but you paint what is around you. the artist does not work in a vaccuum, and i know this all too well.

when i work, music plays a massive part in the paint. in this case, let me use the lens metaphor again: music is like my focusing lens—abstract is simply the context i work in. i stare at the canvas, it hovers against the wall and spins, and i put the brush on the canvas. where does the brush go? whereever. whereever the soul deems fit, whereever the music seems to guide. i don't paint the music, and that's a crucial difference. my work is original. i'm not simply regurgitating the songs i hear, even if a painting done to Robert Rich (surreal drone music master) or Marylin Manson (don't ask) are completely different. again, it is like a lens—if you use a fisheye, the picture looks a different way, and same if you used a flat lens, filters, or any other combination of "eyes". the way you veiw the subject is separate from the subject itself. the picture of the tree done with a fisheye looks different, but it changed your perspective, not the tree. this is the same thing for me. when i paint to Marylin Manson, the painting will probably be darker, complex, and maybe fairly angry or angsty. doesn't matter if i'm painting God (which is an idea for a total blog entry itself) or, again, a tree, or a martial artist's Ki—the subject is still there, but our perception of it changes, just like the way the moon never changes, but looks differently every single night. my painting of God or Ki will look different if done with Robert Rich—it'll be subtler, deeper, and maybe less shallow if i painted to Manson.

i'll explain why i listen to Manson at all in another blog post. i suppose this can be misunderstood, as Mr. Manson is quite the unpopular figure in many circles, all perhaps except certain sectors of teenage and young adult culture, but it's not just because i'm steeped in that and "all my friends listen to him". i truly believe that there is a value in exposing yourself to the music you think you should avoid because others told you so, and though i'm not sure if i respect him as an artist and thought-filled person as i do Eminem (who, aside from any uncouth lyrics may hail from, is amazingly talented in his craft, and wants to get across a certain message), Marylin Manson is on a mission. he's the kind of guy that is very reactionary, and is looking for a reaction from listeners. this may be a good or bad thing—i'm not sure whether i've decided on that yet. there are times when listening to his music, however, that this deeper emotion comes out that speaks about and to both the human soul and condition. maybe more condition than soul, or it's his personal condition, or the condition for many angst-ridden teenagers across the country, but even so, if he's a problem like so many conservative folks might say, boycotting him and not listening to him will not make him go away, nor the problems in the young-adult psyche that he speaks to. deciphering his message is hard for me sometimes, indeed, if there is a message at all beyond "life sucks and i'd like to kill you right now". but i think there is. just like i said above about artist not living in vacuums, Manson grew up in the same conservative sections of South Florida that I did a mere four years ago. he even went to Bibletown, a mega-church in Fort Lauderdale. some of my readers might be surprised at this (they even might ask why i'm writing about this at all), but an important note on understanding this artist is that he is, largely, a product of the conservative christian culture. shocking? probably. but what's worse is that most christians probably don't know that, and they're not paying attention to a spritual being that had a certain reaction to the sermons he heard as a young adult. what did he hear? what was his reaction? was there a difference from what he heard the preacher to what he saw "on the ground" so to speak? if anything, if christians don't realize that their education of young people in hopes of creating a pure, perfect generation will not work by indoctrination, the labelling and unexplaining of sex and romance, and a lack of attendance to current social issues, then they will not have advanced from the 1950's when America envisioned itself as a picture-perfect populace, giving rise to the sexual revolution that sometimes did as much harm (or more?) as it did good. Manson is more than a product of western conservative christian culture, however, and this should be noticed so people don't interpret me as saying "he belongs solely to them" or whatever; he's also the product of modern America. what questions does this raise about our nation, then? what kind of things do young people face on a day-to-day basis? alienation? confusion? hypocrisy? a seemingly nihilistic life due to the oppression of a determined hierarchy and curriculum that does not ask for questioning, exploration, and meaning beyond what is visible? there is a trouble going on behind the pattern—when we're riding on the bus to our house and neither parents are home, when the pressure of college seems like an unecessary burden, and where there are many "educators" but no mentors. i think it is funny. what do they expect to happen? a determined individual with just a tinge more energy and drive than the others will take what he or she sees and reproduce it as expression for the world stage, whether the world likes it or not.

read: i am not affirming Marilyn Manson as good or bad. all i can affirm right now is that he's there, and his face isn't going to get erased from history. and equally, the problems and virtues he may represent will not go away either simply by shunning him. if you want to truly understand someone, you have to understand them from as many sides as possible—listening to one song, or seeing one video, and saying "bad!" doesn't cut it. the effective mind needs more.

whew, quite a post. quite sure i shocked a few people here, and for that my apologies. you have to put yourself out there after all though—that's the whole point. if we don't do that, no discussion about the important things in life will happen, and we certainly won't get anywhere with that.

-DAA