Pour Some Art

What have you done for your art today?

They say use it or lose it and that is terribly true for almost anything, but especially skilled gifts like art.

If you aren’t working, thinking, viewing, dreaming art every day you’ve already started to lose your skills.

James Van Der Zee, black photographer documentarian of the Harlem Renaissance said, “Happiness is perfume, you can’t pour it on somebody else without getting a few drops on yourself.”

That’s true and so is creativity. If you are pouring your creativity on someone else it is impossible not to splash a few drops on yourself.

Just take a look at some of the most active artists in our community, Stephanie Donaldson, boss babe of BAAA, artist, mom, entrepreneur and community cheerleader and in her spare time she does a little bit of art. She is out there every day plugging her work, your work, the art community and the Arts and just about everything else including world peace, no wait, that’s Miss America, but excluding world peace, S. L. does it all and still finds time to create fantastic works of art.

Celebrity Chef, musician, artist, and one of the most genuine people you will ever get to meet Jardin Kazaar does it all too. Oh he has that little side business, The Black market Gourmet, he caters, he paints, he plays, no silly he’s a musician, he produces, records, writes and promotes music, his own and many others and when he is finished with the first twenty-four hours he manages to squeeze into every day, he does a little television show.

Monte Rogers, artist emeritus, still manages to enter shows around the area, he shows up for the opening and takes time to talk to folks just beginning their careers, folks who have been working at art for years and even folks who don’t know a thing about art. At a time when the vast majority of folks have hung up their brushes, Monte is still out in the community doing the active thing and for an artist of such manifest gifts and wide acclaim, he is one of the nicest, most soft-spoken generous people you’ll ever get to meet and Estelle ain’t so bad either.

There are a lot more who should be named and given credit, but they are too busy to light long enough to get a mention in a silly blog, they are out working to make being an artist a thing of wonder and great joy. So why aren’t you one of them?

The Bandon Mob, Ava Richey, Victoria Tierney, Susan Lehman, Ann Sobotta, Kelle Herrick when she isn’t knee deep in some nasty, wet, miserable swamp waiting out an exotic bird, all manage to keep the wheels turning at a fantastic pace and still get their art done. And I’ve left out Susan D’Amico and Angela Haseltine Pozzi not because they don’t do enough, but because they are so busy they just never come in for a landing, but when they do they get the community fired up. There’s a leopard shark I heard something about…

All this and they still get art work done.

Now if you think I am pouring sunshine of folks just because they contribute to the blog, you are right, but they do it by making news, not because they know the wordy writer.

I’m lucky; I have an original S.L. Donaldson, Susan Lehman, Kim Wurster and Carol Hanlyn in my house. Nope I couldn’t afford them either, but I’ve been fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time and their mine now!

And the gift of receiving such quality art makes me very careful about what I chose to show. There are people I know who really do create fine art and they are watching me and knowing that those gimlet–eyed, aesthetic, dedicated artists are looking over my shoulder makes me extra careful about what I call art and put my name on.

Okay, everyone is tired.

It is just the truth. You get up in the morning and there is a lot more work than there is day. The dog needs to be fed and the cat wants out, but you being a really good person will not let the cat out because they can pickup diseases, get run over by cars, yowl all night and keep the neighbors up and make a whole bunch of little cats so you pet the house-mouse and give them Pounce and tell them to go find a chair to sleep on and then you get to make breakfast, clean the cat box, (es), get the kid off to school, answer that letter form Aunt Mathabula, who you haven’t given a thought to since nine teen fifty-six, but you can’t ignore, clean off the counters because that is all the cleaning you have time for, get dressed and get out of the house cause you have bills to pay and groceries to shop and the car to fill up and you just have no energy left to share with anyone else.

Tough. Everyone has all that to do and they manage so get over it and get busy. Find something you can do to contribute to your art and the art community.

May is Photography Month, (How did he know that? And why would he mention it like it was something important?), do you know anything about photography? Have you read about the pioneers, Mathew Brady, Edward Wesson, Ansel Adams? What about the women who changed the way we see because they couldn’t be kept out of the boy’s club, Dorthea Lange, Margaret Bourke-White, Annie Leibovitz. What about the world’s most annoying and invasive photographer, WeeGee. He created the gangster image and was the first paparazzi so if you hate the guys lurking in the shrubs better blame WeeGee, but maybe you should know who he was and hwy you might want to hate him.

And don’t forget May 15th. That’s the day we try to capture a snapshot of the world.

But then you have to be willing to do something…