Jona8than Green Art and Other Things

So I got the job at Eastern Edge Gallery as 24 Hour Art Marathon Coordinator. I started the 15th of May with Amanda, who is also from Grenfell. I have been working there for two weeks now and as been a great job so far. I worked 10 - 5pm, Monday to Friday. Our job is to basically organize the 24 Hour Art Marathon, Eastern Edge Gallery's premier funding event and one of the bigger art events in the city. It happens on August 16th, at noon and continues for 24 hours to noon the next day. Artists and other creators create art for 24 hours, after which the art is auctioned off in a silent auction, with half of which return to the artist. There is also performers, musician, bands, buskers, etc at the event as well. There is a lot to organize for this event, a lot of people to contact, get donations and sponsors, just a lot to do. Bit of weight on the shoulders to make it a great event. Do have th reputation of having fire fighters come to a party in Grenfell, amongst other things.

Since starting my job at Easter Edge I have also been spending my time at St. Michael's Printshop trying to make prints. I received the Don Wight Memorial Scholarship from St. Michael's this year, which consists of a year residency at the printshop, as well as materials and a honorarium. Aso get to sit in on the visiting artist' workshops for free as well, and there are some great visiting artist this summer. So far I have been working on a drypoint, as well as print some etchings and I just did a roll up on a lithograph have been working on. Trying to take advantage of the printshop as much as possible, conceiving of it as my "studio" for the next year. The more work I can make there the better.

That has been the past two weeks really for me, haven't been going out that much, though will say I am not a shut in either. I recently saw the Nan Loves Jerry play at th LSPU Hall with my brother and Rory, and the recent Rooms show of Don Wight. That was an awesome show, one of the best shows I have seen in a while.

I'll try to update this more, hoping to have a lot to fill it with.

"And sometime around 2 AM you end up taking advantage of yourself. Ain't no way around that. Making a scene with a magazine."

Tom Waits, Nighthawks at the Diner 1975

And sometimes around 2 weeks you end up taking advantage of yourself and others. Ain't no way around that. making a scene with an art magazine

It's 2am, I'll probably be up for another two hours, if not more. Been reading Ralph Steadman's The Joke's Over, a book about him and his relationship as artist to Hunter S. Thompson, and Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. Two madman perhaps. Also been reading the latest Border Crossing, a Canadian art magazine, fuck, been reading all the copies I have of Border Crossing. Looking for something, finding tons of things, I have everything really; some talent and skill, a decent enough mind, paper, supplies, even some ideas and sketches for Goya's sake, no distractions of girls or drinkin' distractions [though I'd love a little bit of both...], and the only things against that are few. Lack of space and no courage.
And I do have a lack of space, I don't have the grandiose space of the fourth year space in school. I got a wall in the bedroom for drawing and a small space out in the shed for painting or wood. The weather affects the shed, and it has been miserable. The room wall works though.

I just don't have the courage to draw or make art here. I have before, the summer past, but for some reason I don't want to do stuff in front of the folks. Have always been private around them, but as my art gets more introspective at times, I don't want to explain it to them. Shit, I don't want to explain anything. Isn't that lame? The being inside all day does not help either, this cabin fever. And without that courage to explain, or least lie, I can't draw. Can't draw without courage, won't be art, be demoralizing to use Nietzsche even. Would bring about the downturn or further downturn of humanity. It's an unfortunate excuse, but it the excuse.
Have all this talk about changing my ways in the previous post, but am I? I don't sleep at night because when I lie down, with nothing distracting, all the baggage enters, all the questions and worries.
Listening to Kanye helps, but not enough.

"despite any odds"...

Been letting the odds stack against me, and can't say I have done anything to stop them. Just complain about it really, let it keep me lazing round the house all day. I know it has only been two weeks since I left Corner Brook, but just as well be a month or three, it feels like that. No one has been really doing much else, but that hardly consoles me. I complain about the lack of space here, because I don't have a studio, I don't have a room of ones own; a place I can close the door and keep it close so no one looks in. I am having a problem even getting something to draw, a lack of inspiration that many artists would scoff at. Inspiration? The rest of come in here and work from 9-5 everyday, to paraphrase Chuck Close. And he's almost a quadriplegic.

In one sense, I think I put a few bodies of work out this past year in school. They're not done, but maybe done for now. Not sure what to do next. I have said I think I need to "live" a little, need something to make art about. But "live" how? Go on an adventure? Maybe it's me, but adventure seem to need least a little cash. Maybe thats an excuse from the non-adventuring type. I don't know. Really, I have no idea what I meant by "live". A cliche I grabbed really. I would say Bukowski "lived", but all he did was drink, hang with whores and freaks, etc. Cohen did the same, in his own sense, really very few of the writers and artists I admire have really done anything besides their normal living. They just used it better.

A change of pace is good in one sense, and I am moving to St. Johns, but is that much a change? Lived there last summer, went to school, interned at St. M's, but really didn't do a whole lot different than what I'm doing now. Never made any good art. Not really sure when I'll get a real external change, I'll apply for some things and see what happens there. Got to get some things in order for that.
There is internal change, and I have always thought that is a way to things. The problem is of course what to change, perhaps the outlook, think outside the box, or take a knife to the box and cut it to pieces.

Got change something here, get a solution to something, I don't enjoy my idleness as much as I should.

1: Make lots of prints at St.Michaels' this summer

2: Make a piece of furniture [preferably] or something under the brand "Team Shake N' Bake" with brudder

3: Drink a Booster Juice once a week

4: four drawings once a week, despite any odds

5: Through communication with others, engage in art work producing through the mail with bon amis

6: Get an ordinateur- preferably a Mac

7: Do some video work

8: Write a short story or perhaps some poetry, and try not make it flakey

9: Was going to try to get to Berlin, but maybe somewhere closer would be better, or maybe find a way to make a collapsible shed

10: Go on a living spree, party like a skeet skeet muthafucker

I am home. I am graduated. I am bored. I don't know what to do. I am looking for a job. I am thinking about art. I don't have any space for said thoughts about art. I ate Mary Brown's tonight and I am sick. I am not depressed. I am confused. I check Facebook way too much. I have nothing to read. I dislike the wind here though I missed it but a few months ago. I have thought about making the switch to the third person, but don't think that works for Jonathan. I miss people. I am mostly confused however.

It's only been a week, and I can not expect opportunities to fall in my lap right away; I am aware of that. One week is a small length of time. It's just that I find ti hard adjusting to not having somewhere to go everyday, something to do, the same people around me. I sometimes think that like animals, humans are creatures of habit. I feel I am one, least at this moment. I come home, and I can't get used to having nothing to do. I reread old magazines, books, go back and forth to the internet, watch tee vee I haven't seen in ages, but nothing interests me. I don't know if others are feeling this, some people go to better or different situations than I. Maybe worse. I don't know for certain.

I am unsure why I write this here, first time I really let personal experience into the blog, mostly it has been focused on my art making or things that do with my art making. Maybe this has to do with my art making. Been getting ever more personal in the making.

There are a lot of questions about my immediate plans, what am I going to do, etc. I dislike those questions. I ever ask people that. It is not because I don't care [ well, for some people I don't] but I don't ask because it is a tough question. Plans rarely go as planned. But I will write some aforementioned plans or perhaps expectations.

I will be moving into St.Johns to live with my brother in June. That is when I have a place of residence. Before then, I do not know. I'll be in there, off and on. Everything after that depends on variables. The variable dependent list I will post next, for I know how short people's attentions spans are. I kind of steal that from Arthur Asa Berger, who wrote a book in which the chapters are composed so they can be read in 15 minute spans.

I just completed my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Arts. I had my final critique this previous Tuesday, and it went very well, got some good feedback and constructive ideas on my pieces. It went by pretty quick, 45 minutes just fly by.

Just really glad to be done, and a little scared, little anixious about what's next.

Been reading a few excerpts of Andre Bazin's "Art of Cinema" last night, it is pretty interesting. There are elements of cinema I would like to try one day, that just can not be done with drawing and painting, cept perhaps in the work of William Kentridge or Jeff Wall. Still up in the head really, just another piece of info to swirl about up there