We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for this important update.
Here in the United States we’ve elected a new president. While it’s unclear exactly how this will change for the arts, there is one thing I believe should stay the same—hold fast to your freedom of expression.
Whatever form you choose, whatever lights you up…lean into it.
With that in mind…what do apple pies, cheese caves and The Swamp Thing have in common? Read on, dear subscriber, read on.
Warning: There’s an image in this episode that you may find NSFW. I can assure you, however…that it is indeed, art.
We buoy each other with our passions to help find our way to shore.
It’s exactly times like these that push us past our boundaries. I tend to take an ‘all bets are off’ attitude with my work and often the results surprise me.
So if there’s something you feel compelled to do. Do it.
There’s no permission needed. You’ve got the green light. Full steam ahead. We need to SEE YOU…and feel SEEN.
I mean, this is why we got into it in the first place, right? Probably even why you’re here reading this right now. Let it fly.
We’ll see what sticks.
Speaking of things you feel compelled to do…the above stylized study of a slice of apple pie was the first time I’d seen this idea outside of the confines of my head. And to be honest, it took way too long to get it out. But there you have it. Sometimes it be like that.
Then two others came rolling out…
These pie studies were done during the pandemic. I think I’d felt I was given the time and permission to undertake a passion project solely for the purpose of pleasure. It was my form of play.
However, there was a much broader idea buried within it…and it was screaming to be let out.
Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe by Édouard Manet
After my divorce (and what felt like a ‘sheltering away’) I was thrown back out into the world. I discovered a newfound sense of self as I moved into my apartment in the Bronx.
I had the distinct fortune of having a lover that would come over and bake me apple pies. I mean…really good apple pies. If you get my meaning.
I’d make homemade ice cream and we’d delight in the wonderous baked good that made me wonder how I ever got by without it.
I decided right then to take on the task of painting the sexiest most luscious slice of apple pie you’d ever seen in your life. I’m just gonna head over to the internet and easily find a few references to spur on this mutha-of-all apple pie slices and…
could not find a thing. Wtf?
Isn’t there such a thing as food porn? “Where’s my apple pie food porn?” I’d ask out loud.
At this point friends I’d like to admit that I never disclose my deeply personal references but now is not the time for pulling back.
THIS was all I could find that spoke to me in a language I understood perfectly. Yes, notmissingathing dot blogspot, I hear you.
This exact pic, as you can see by the push pin holes, has been pinned up and dragged around with me everywhere I went to keep the idea burning in my brain. I even lost it once and freaked the fuck out. I wizened up and finally scanned it. duh.
One day, on the way to work while reading 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez I came across the phrase…”greeted with a great deal of familiarity.” In the novel it was innocuous but thanks to my newly rekindled love affair with apple pie— in my head I’d finished it… like a kiss from a lover long since passed. The phrase stuck with me.
You can’t always force an idea. Inspiration also comes from living your life. In 2018 I took a trip to Paris. It was one of the most incredible trips I’ve ever had. Two days in I was on the radio being interviewed about my work.
After which I was handed wellies and driven to an undisclosed location where we went sneaking off into what was to be a “cheese cave” or so they called it…
My friend snapped this pic and I am forever grateful for it.
When we got deep inside the cave they spread out, lit candles by sculptures they’d made previously in the limestone and set up some charcuterie & wine. Voilà! Cheese cave.
It was on that trip that I got to once again see one of my all time favorite paintings…L'Origine du monde by Gustave Courbet at the Musée d’Orsay.
This is that NSFW part in 3…2…1
Something about it, besides the obvious spoke to me. Like I’d seen it somewhere else. In something else. I bought the postcard and placed it by my bed on the boat in Paris and then by my bed at home and there it stayed until I could understand why.
I would actually hide it when company came over because I did NOT feel like explaining the whole thing.
Back to my passion project…
I knew this slice of apple pie needed to be on the plate of plates. So off I went in search of THAT. See? This is why some paintings can take a dozen…yes, a dozen years to come into fruition. I’m not proud of it, but there it is. Now you know.
I stepped into ABC Home & Carpet with a mission to find the PLATE-of-all-plates for my pie. <giggle>
Low and behold… there she was. A lovely creamy white delicate vision. In my head (as she shakes her head) it looked like an abstracted plate version of…how shall I put this?…ejaculate.
I know. I know.
I brought her home and made a bed of moss for her. So here’s the part where I pull all the pieces together for you.
My mother-of-all pie slices was to be as if cut off the lower left hand corner of Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe by Édouard Manet.
The idea of a slice of pie coming to that party (had to) was completely absurd. Which is exactly why I HAD to do it.
Another big catalyst for taking on this project precisely when I did was a play that my work was to be featured in that dealt with art, hunger and class. When I read the play I felt the time was NOW. The pandemic halted it’s production but not my newly found raison d'être for the piece.
It’s about the absurdity of tossing aside something so fragile as feminine sexuality.
Sexuality at all for that matter, but it hit close to home for me and I felt the need to speak to that. It would be titled Greeted With a Great Deal of Familiarity.
When I lost my studio in the Bronx during the pandemic I packed her into my suitcase and drove the six and a half hours to Pittsburgh and my new home in my sisters attic. When I unpacked her, she was broken. My $75 plate in pieces. The most I’d ever paid for a single piece of dishware.
Not to be discouraged I kintsugi-d that shit and I feel she’s all the better for it. Here she stands in pride of place in my studio on her new bed of moss.
Two other sources of inspiration for the full painting were lilacs (thanks to the Brown Dog series of books by Jim Harrison that a friend turned me on to) and what I call my beloved obsession with the love affair between The Swamp Thing and Abby. Seen here in one of my favorite incarnations by Charles Vess.
(this is why my hair is white)
In my mind the notmissingathing dot blogspot apple pie pic merged seamlessly with Courbet’s Origin of the World painting. When I held the two together it was as if they were separated at birth. And those lilacs and Swamp Thing references? They bring that added soupçon of pop culture that I do so enjoy.
Put all of these together and you’ll find my love affair with painting as an art form. A heady combination of art history, literary references, and a deep need to break through societal norms.
Below is the first time I’ve ever seen them sketched in altogether.
My goal as I work through her is to keep doubling her size until she’s as big as Manet’s Olympia. A delicious reclining nude slice of pie on a plate that feels more like a bed. There. I said it. Now I gotta do it.
I have no idea if I can make it work but I guess we’ll find out.
What have ya got brewing in your mind or placed on the back burner until you felt the time was right?
I’m tellin’ ya friends—DO the thing. It feels really good to get it out. We’re all rooting for you and now is as good a time as any…
maybe MORE so.
Tell your secrets. Find your pod. We got this.
Till next time,
xo
P.S. The studies will help fund the project and I’m having some very special frames made up for them. You, my dear readers will be the first to see them in all their glory.
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