ha!
psych!
got an email from my friend in LA, wants to put up a Katrina show in March.
ha! not the end at all.
whole new beginning.
I was just beginning to feel like I have only begun to tap into the images this might inspire.
guess I'll be painting when I get to LA too...
16.12.06
last trip to new orleans.
walked around the french quarter with all the tourists.
it felt like tourism. which is good, surely. their first real xmas season since the storm. i imagine it will be a much needed jump. but saying good bye to the city, there is also a part of me that realizes my chance to have it "to myself" is just about over. i know people who live here still feel a certain zombie-ness in the city. everyone still talks about almost nothing but the storm and i still hear locals talk about leaving cause they're too depressed living here. but especially with xmas bringing more business-as-usual, i can feel the city approaching its normal self. and very soon indeed you will have to look very close to see any differences (except, of course in chalmette, the 9th ward, and lakeview. still i imagine in well under 5 years even there will be relatively normal feeling. )
but the 'normal' new orleans is what i've fallen in love with. the storm stuff feels significant and historical and is the reason i finally did come back, but the city as it has always been is what i will soon miss.
i'm sitting in a cafe, on what has become my favorite street--oak street, and reflecting on traffic. the tattooed and peirced youth often loud and obnoxious, next to a dude who could be a homeless drunk, next to some academic looking older woman. today in the french quarter there was an old guy with his white ponytail died purple. not even in venice do you see a white haired person take advantage of the opportunity for vibrancy nature has afforded him.
the gothicness, if that's what you can call it. everything feels old. and has a darkness to it. fresh paint, but there are still bricks and iron and shutters--i mean, the kind that function. and skeletons and cemeteries are as acceptable here as oak trees and trumpets. they are proud of the way they dance with and around death.
and EVERYONE in the quarter rides bikes. all the locals know better than to try to drive there. it was made for horses.
you see more bikes locked up than in austin.
and black people. i'm gonna miss the black people. LA feels so segregated compared to here.
i spent the day walking around trying to take pictures to remember the city by. no image seemed to do it justice.
there were dudes with trumpets on every corner, but without the feeling of the vibration of their sounds...whats it worth?
so i'm sitting here, trying to just absorb as much as possible. maybe i'll actually come back for mardi gras. it's been 8 years.
and there are weddings and whatnot that will draw me back soon enough,
but i am sad tonight.
sentimental. contemplating the cost of rent here. or a purchase. for the future. hopefully the attention the city has gotten this year will attract the right kind of people. creative, energized, open-minded people. not that that's what makes the city rich. and not that i believe very much will change here, but it deserves to be guarded. physically and culturally.
period. end of story. it does.
so says i.
see ya later alligator.
9.12.06
the long road home (second attempt)
So everything is winding down on this project. At least for the time being.
The past few weeks have been about internalizing and then cramming for a couple deadlines that have come and gone.
That's the best explanation I can give for not writing.
Internalizing.
well. it's been a weird but fun process. trying to take everything i've inputted and figure out why exactly it strikes me and then figure out how to communicate that. can't say i've succeeded, neccessarily, but i suppose i found a start.
on Dec. 1 I put all the work I'd finished--a meager total of 4 peices--and some older stuff, photographs and other paintings, up in a tent in the middle of Heymann Boulevard in Lafayette.
All the streets where closed off for the Christmas Sleigh Lighting Festivities, so there were shops open and live music and food and all that festive stuff.
A bunch of our friends who knew I'd be out there stopped by and a bunch of poeple who were just passing by passed by.
And it was..well, it was valuable, even if it only pointed out how much more I needed to do.
Most people from lafayette went straight to my photographs--suppose their exoticism is intriguing, and some people had recently been to that part of the world.
And a few people paused briefly at the paintings, a couple commented on the use of color or questioned the subject matter (even that wasn't clear to some).
Only two people really seemed to get it.
They were two women from Chalmette, who had relocated to Lafayette. and they went straight up to the painting of Mrs. Virgin's lot. I sat back and listened to their conversation a minute before I approached them. And the woman was clearly touched.
She thought she recognized the lot. Turns out it was only a couple blocks from her home.
I think she said, at one point "this is what people need to see."
It felt good. that the people effected directly got it.
so that made the whole night worth it.
but it also pointed out that i was nowhere near communicating to people who were detached.
and that's definiltey one of my goals.
that left me with less than a month left here, and a lot of work to do to get back to LA and get through the holidays and whatnot.
i spent the next weekend resigning myself to move on and finish up the ones I'd started but then start gearing up to go home.
But Thursday night I had one more big opportunity.
I was donating a portrait commission to the Acadiana Outreach Charity Fundraiser on Thursday.
They would display a sample for people to bid on in a silent auction.
I have to admit I saw it as an opportunity to put a painting out there, a way for all of Lafayette's artists and art apreciators to see it.
So come Monday morning I found myself with inspiration. And I spent the next 48 hours painting.
Thursday was the big night, and thursday morning found me still in the midst of it...
but on top of that, puking. yeah. puking. every time i'd take a bite it'd last 15 minutes then i'd puke, then i'd have to lie down, staring at the paitning, then i'd finally convince myself to get up and do something, but i could only last a couple minutes before i started the whole cycle over again.
finally the hour was upon me and i had no choice. i had to deliver.
i knew it was a risk, and a selfish risk at that, and i had a destinct feeling of guilt,
but i had made the decision not to put up a traditional portrait sample, and was thriving on the fantasy of the stir this paitning could cause.
so--i swallowed down some vomit and brought it over to the lafayette convention center.
the whole place was already decorated, it was all this futuristic psychedelic lava lamp stuff.
all the other art was hung up all over the walls and in the silent auction area.
it looked pretty extravagant.
i was nervous handing off the painting, and honestly I gave them the option of it or two smaller portrait samples (tee hee)
but they wanted the big one.
i went home to rest up for the nights gala.
unfortunately, 8 hours later i still wasn't keeping anything down and was too weak to even get in the shower.
watching it all unfold in my head i was SO bummed not to be there. but alas, my body betrayed me.
my dad would call to tell me how it was going and who was curious and whatnot, and i had wnother internal spy who told me how much it bid for--and it actually did pretty well for the charity, so that was a relief on the conscience.
i still don't really know what kind of an impact it had on people,
but...it must have had some kin dof an impact, eh?
anyway, that's what i'll let msyelf believe anyway.
cause now it really is time to buckle down and tie loose ends and get my stuff in gear to go home.
the other home.
and my conclusion is--
to really express the impact of this event, i think i will need to curate a group exhibition.
hand pick peicces that fill in the story.
of, you now, this very historical and personal event.
so. i guess that will be how i continue this once i return to LA.
hopefully with a show here in Louisiana as well,
so-artists, hear this,
if you have something you feel needs to be heard about your experience with the storm.
let me know.
maybe we can pool ourselves together.
tkim@melodicpictrues.com
The past few weeks have been about internalizing and then cramming for a couple deadlines that have come and gone.
That's the best explanation I can give for not writing.
Internalizing.
well. it's been a weird but fun process. trying to take everything i've inputted and figure out why exactly it strikes me and then figure out how to communicate that. can't say i've succeeded, neccessarily, but i suppose i found a start.
on Dec. 1 I put all the work I'd finished--a meager total of 4 peices--and some older stuff, photographs and other paintings, up in a tent in the middle of Heymann Boulevard in Lafayette.
All the streets where closed off for the Christmas Sleigh Lighting Festivities, so there were shops open and live music and food and all that festive stuff.
A bunch of our friends who knew I'd be out there stopped by and a bunch of poeple who were just passing by passed by.
And it was..well, it was valuable, even if it only pointed out how much more I needed to do.
Most people from lafayette went straight to my photographs--suppose their exoticism is intriguing, and some people had recently been to that part of the world.
And a few people paused briefly at the paintings, a couple commented on the use of color or questioned the subject matter (even that wasn't clear to some).
Only two people really seemed to get it.
They were two women from Chalmette, who had relocated to Lafayette. and they went straight up to the painting of Mrs. Virgin's lot. I sat back and listened to their conversation a minute before I approached them. And the woman was clearly touched.
She thought she recognized the lot. Turns out it was only a couple blocks from her home.
I think she said, at one point "this is what people need to see."
It felt good. that the people effected directly got it.
so that made the whole night worth it.
but it also pointed out that i was nowhere near communicating to people who were detached.
and that's definiltey one of my goals.
that left me with less than a month left here, and a lot of work to do to get back to LA and get through the holidays and whatnot.
i spent the next weekend resigning myself to move on and finish up the ones I'd started but then start gearing up to go home.
But Thursday night I had one more big opportunity.
I was donating a portrait commission to the Acadiana Outreach Charity Fundraiser on Thursday.
They would display a sample for people to bid on in a silent auction.
I have to admit I saw it as an opportunity to put a painting out there, a way for all of Lafayette's artists and art apreciators to see it.
So come Monday morning I found myself with inspiration. And I spent the next 48 hours painting.
Thursday was the big night, and thursday morning found me still in the midst of it...
but on top of that, puking. yeah. puking. every time i'd take a bite it'd last 15 minutes then i'd puke, then i'd have to lie down, staring at the paitning, then i'd finally convince myself to get up and do something, but i could only last a couple minutes before i started the whole cycle over again.
finally the hour was upon me and i had no choice. i had to deliver.
i knew it was a risk, and a selfish risk at that, and i had a destinct feeling of guilt,
but i had made the decision not to put up a traditional portrait sample, and was thriving on the fantasy of the stir this paitning could cause.
so--i swallowed down some vomit and brought it over to the lafayette convention center.
the whole place was already decorated, it was all this futuristic psychedelic lava lamp stuff.
all the other art was hung up all over the walls and in the silent auction area.
it looked pretty extravagant.
i was nervous handing off the painting, and honestly I gave them the option of it or two smaller portrait samples (tee hee)
but they wanted the big one.
i went home to rest up for the nights gala.
unfortunately, 8 hours later i still wasn't keeping anything down and was too weak to even get in the shower.
watching it all unfold in my head i was SO bummed not to be there. but alas, my body betrayed me.
my dad would call to tell me how it was going and who was curious and whatnot, and i had wnother internal spy who told me how much it bid for--and it actually did pretty well for the charity, so that was a relief on the conscience.
i still don't really know what kind of an impact it had on people,
but...it must have had some kin dof an impact, eh?
anyway, that's what i'll let msyelf believe anyway.
cause now it really is time to buckle down and tie loose ends and get my stuff in gear to go home.
the other home.
and my conclusion is--
to really express the impact of this event, i think i will need to curate a group exhibition.
hand pick peicces that fill in the story.
of, you now, this very historical and personal event.
so. i guess that will be how i continue this once i return to LA.
hopefully with a show here in Louisiana as well,
so-artists, hear this,
if you have something you feel needs to be heard about your experience with the storm.
let me know.
maybe we can pool ourselves together.
tkim@melodicpictrues.com
the long road home
where have i been all your life?
finally ready to tell y'all.
but first i have to go make my nephew pancakes...
finally ready to tell y'all.
but first i have to go make my nephew pancakes...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)