Talented SAD Girl!

Able to sleep vast hours in a finite amount of time! I think I spent twelve hours in bed yesterday, which is kind of nice but mostly horrible. It's funny because I'm never not tired. The weather here in Bodymore, Murdaland is misty, grey, cool and wet. What the heck? Ahh well. Hopefully I can wake up a little today and get in the studio.

Oh the idiocy

I cannot believe how long these guys are bantering in front of the vending machines. They either never went to bed and are still drunk, or they woke up and smoked up. Don't do drugs, kids. "Dude, do you smell that smell? It smells like smoke." "Man, I don't know, I can't smell anything anymore." "How can you not smell that? It's like pouporri and Meyerhoff smell, like food, over everything, over smoke." "If you could have anything in this machine, what would it be?" "M&M's, man." "Did you know the reason that bills have to be inserted face up is so that they don't have to arrange them when they count the money?" "No way?" "What kind of drink do you want" "I don't know, man" "Let's get out of this stinkpit." Today I'm heading up to Philly for a formal Japanese tea ceremony, should be fantastic, it's in an old-style samurai house. I really am not looking forward to being on my knees for an hour and a half, but I suppose it will be okay. I wonder if we are having thick tea or thin tea, and whether the tea is to be with wet sweets or dry sweets (wet with thick, dry with thin). Also I wonder how my tea bowls turned out from the kiln....

Homesickness is funny.

Well, not really funny. Kind of agonizing. They tell you when you're a camp counselor to help girls identify that they are not physically sick from missing home, that they're just missing home. But what about when home is all these associations, intangibles, people far far away. I'm watching Catch & Release (oh Kevin Smith, you sassy scene-stealer) and seeing all these Colorado trappings, missing Angie and Blue and all my co-counselors, Songbird and Zig-Zag. I also had an existential crisis in the yogurt aisle at the grocery store and called mah momma, which brings up how I'm all grown up yet still need some guidance. Also, longest graveyard shift ever. And I love chubby clever boys like Kevin Smith, my sweetheart, and Jack Black.

Ninety degrees what?

Popsicles and Joni Mitchell. Fantastic.

Note to self:

Sentences on Conceptual Art by Sol Lewitt Conceptual artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach. Rational judgements repeat rational judgements. Irrational judgements lead to new experience. Formal art is essentially rational. Irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically. If the artist changes his mind midway through the execution of the piece he compromises the result and repeats past results. The artist's will is secondary to the process he initiates from idea to completion. His wilfulness may only be ego. When words such as painting and sculpture are used, they connote a whole tradition and imply a consequent acceptance of this tradition, thus placing limitations on the artist who would be reluctant to make art that goes beyond the limitations. The concept and idea are different. The former implies a general direction while the latter is the component. Ideas implement the concept. Ideas can be works of art; they are in a chain of development that may eventually find some form. All ideas need not be made physical. Ideas do not necessarily proceed in logical order. They may set one off in unexpected directions, but an idea must necessarily be completed in the mind before the next one is formed. For each work of art that becomes physical there are many variations that do not. A work of art may be understood as a conductor from the artist's mind to the viewer's. But it may never reach the viewer, or it may never leave the artist's mind. The words of one artist to another may induce an idea chain, if they share the same concept. Since no form is intrinsically superior to another, the artist may use any form, from an expression of words (written or spoken) to physical reality, equally. If words are used, and they proceed from ideas about art, then they are art and not literature; numbers are not mathematics. All ideas are art if they are concerned with art and fall within the conventions of art. One usually understands the art of the past by applying the convention of the present, thus misunderstanding the art of the past. The conventions of art are altered by works of art. Successful art changes our understanding of the conventions by altering our perceptions. Perception of ideas leads to new ideas. The artist cannot imagine his art, and cannot perceive it until it is complete. The artist may misperceive (understand it differently from the artist) a work of art but still be set off in his own chain of thought by that misconstrual. Perception is subjective. The artist may not necessarily understand his own art. His perception is neither better nor worse than that of others. An artist may perceive the art of others better than his own. The concept of a work of art may involve the matter of the piece or the process in which it is made. Once the idea of the piece is established in the artist's mind and the final form is decided, the process is carried out blindly. There are many side effects that the artist cannot imagine. These may be used as ideas for new works. The process is mechanical and should not be tampered with. It should run its course. There are many elements involved in a work of art. The most important are the most obvious. If an artist uses the same form in a group of works, and changes the material, one would assume the artist's concept involved the material. Banal ideas cannot be rescued by beautiful execution. It is difficult to bungle a good idea. When an artist learns his craft too well he makes slick art. These sentences comment on art, but are not art. First published in 0-9 (New York), 1969, and Art-Language (England), May 1969