wrecking ball
While looking up images of my new obsession, Herakut's, art I came across the art of Barron Story, the man who, 6 years ago, single handedly changed the way I sketchbook.
While I was in school out east, he came from LA to talk about his art, give us and assignment (flipping the way I though I thought completely upside down), and then returned two weeks later to talk about what we had made. He was the person who suggested to me, "Maybe you should just keep making stuff and let it find it's own home." Music to my ears as a young 'illustrator' trying to figure out what I wanted to make art about.
One of my most specific memories I have of risd is sitting at a cafe table watching a building being torn down across the street. They spray the whole wall with a fire hose while swinging the wrecking ball at it and attempting to make everything fall inwards. I had never just stopped and watched before. It was great. It was the coffee break in the middle of Barron's lecture and I remember sitting quietly observing and wanting to record the moment but not knowing where to begin.
It's funny running into his work now, while struggling to settle back into the life I left 14 months ago, trying to not pick up on old habits, while resuming everything I missed, and attempting to keep the stillness and excitement I found in other parts of the world.
Within two weeks of being back in Chicago I signed a lease on a beautiful little studio and with the only materials I had (crayons that had survived a flood, ew, an old can of white paint, and a board that used to be my 'try not to ruin the floor, use this' board). I began a self portrait. It felt good. It looked horrible. I don't know why I was surprised. When drawing/painting big again I drew/painted just like I did before I left. I was thinking maybe I had surpassed some barrier and would now make art in a completely new way I had never thought of before. Nope. It's still hard, requires focus I don't always have, and I still suck at painting the human body. Which led me to Herakut...
Herakut is a girl/guy, German, street art duo, Hera and Akut. She's the scribbley one, while he has an amazing sense of anatomy and realism. One of them will work on a piece and then leave it for the other. They just accept the direction that the work takes while the other is working.
Unbelievable. I wonder if I could ever let go that much.
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