Shock art, Not my art...

A funny thing happened... Tonight I was going to watch disc 5 of A BAND OF BROTHERS, which I did. This had started out as a tribute to memorial day watching the box set, but had put off the last discs for some reason.

Today, I just finished my final draft of a screen play for one of my students in which we are going to make a film for... I decided to watch disc 5 because I wanted to see the relation to on-screen dialog and the character on screen... But, this is where it gets interesting...

The film is so engulfing that I forgot entirely why I was watching and just simply took in the story. This rarely happens for me, but tonight it did. After two episodes and the winning of the war. I turned off my TV and went to bed. As I lay there staring up at the ceiling at 2:38 in the morning I began to think about how much people take for granted. Not in a passive way, but actually thought about it.

After being reminded of the hardships that Jews went through in those concentration camps it is tough to emphasize the importance of say, "Getting a car" or A good job.

So, As I lay there I kept thinking how the art form of film making reminded me of life's fragile humanity and how that fragility can be easily broken. Through the beauty of story telling and art such an ugliness of human nature inspires beauty.

I began to think of my own art and some series that I have done that have tried to spread awareness through the shock of image. I have veered away from that for reasons other than I intended, but now I make what I consider "EYE CANDY". I have begun to re-involve concepts of what I hold as beliefs. Although, now I am beginning to see that through truth and beauty one can still show the injustices of the world while still maintaining one's own integrity. I am learning how to say what I want, about what I want. In a way that doesn't make the viewer defensive, but instead invites the viewer in for dialog.

I haven't begun to take on such bold and difficult subject matters as the atrocities of WWII, but I am starting on a smaller scale with issues that are effecting the world around me.

My narrative.

I believe as an artist it would be foolish and naive of me to waste my talent painting only pretty pictures. Why do that when I can paint the same pretty pictures, but have them mean something? It does not discredit their significants just because they are pretty. I have determined that there is enough ugliness in the world. What I am trying to do is elevate just a little bit of that ugliness to an idea of beauty by showing the world its' significants and why we should be looking deeper into such subject matters.

Many people make ugly things and some even make beautiful things ugly, but few take the ugliness of the world and pull from it elements of truth, integrity, and beauty...

Why? Because it is a difficult thing to look inside one's self and deal with subjects going on in the world that one cannot solve alone. It is an overwhelming feeling of helplessness and in that discouraging. So that is why people focus on that shiny new car, that long awaited cruise... To think of beautiful things is easy to make one motivated and hopeful, but to take the world's ugly and look at it with that same optimism and positivity is a much more difficult thing.

I guess what I am trying to say is...

That is what my job is as an artist in all works that I create and that is what my goal has always been I just did not know it.

To make the ugly beautiful.

-The Urban Monk

p.s. Now that I got that off my chest I will sleep much easier. What do you think about before you go to sleep?

Busy, busy, busy...

To catch everyone up to what is current in my life... Well, another of the twenty three goals for new years has been completed. I am now officially a licensed driver. Which is remarkable considering the previous week I failed horribly. So after sixteen years of putting it off I can be done with that.

Moving on. The show that I was supposed to do "Art in the City" was cancelled do to the unpredictability of people I will remain to keep nameless for both their integrity and mine as well. On the other hand my painting The zebras ate my new right shoe did make it into the juried professional exhibition at The Ohio State Fair. I consider this a momentous victory considering I got rejected two years ago and they only select three hundred works and there were over eight hundred entered. The opening reception will be July 27. I will let you know how the awards reception goes.

I have scrapped the series called "Fred's workshop" however, it is being transformed into another series in light of the Gulf oil disaster. This new series will be called BPGA (British Petroleum Gulf Art) a little play on the whole PGA thing. The first in that series is being completed, but it will not e finished until the Gulf leak is fixed... It could be a very, very long series.

In other news, the first part of my collaborative independent art film is wrapping up this week. I will be finishing the first hard edition of the screen play. After that there will be no major changes with regards to plot, characters, or concept. Everything else will still be subject to change as we have kept a very liquid approach to this whole project. Namely, because we have no idea what we're doing, but that is the fun part. Accomplishing the impossible. That has been an underlying theme of the current endeavors I have been taking on.

I think that should catch everyone up to what I have been doing over the last couple of weeks. I will try to check in more often, but projects are far out weighing blog-o-sphere time and quite honestly I would prefer it that way.

-The Urban Monk over and out...