Hard to know where to begin on such a historic occasion, not to mention I'm completely exhausted and not feeling especially articulate. Never have I been this proud of my country. Thank you for taking the time to make the right choice, America. This truly is progress (at risk of sounding like every cliche you've heard thusfar) and I am excited for the new era this will usher in. This country had all sorts of back-water excuses to fear a Black President, but I'm happy to find that enough people have gotten passed this sort of deeply woven and highly ignorant thinking to see the larger scope. America just might survive after all.
I spent my election day alone with a big blank canvas. Later in the evening, I began jumping back and forth from my painting to cnn.com to check the stats. I didn't expect this much of a blow out - nor this early of a decision - but I'm thrilled for it needless to say. Part of me wishes I was in among Probama friends in Brooklyn (where apparently fireworks were shot off moments after the announcement), Midtown where the televised NY mob congregated, Reading PA where I would have likely done some canvassing with Kevin and his crew, or certainly anywhere in Chicago where I stomped around just two days ago. My celebration was quiet, but I did share the acceptance speech via msnbc.com with the fellow artist resident Jen Van Winkle - which I was touched to witness as most of us probably were.
Back to the painting... My intimidation of the 51x46" blank canvas was finally put to bed - I did some serious damage to that bad boy and it's looking really nice. So far this residency I've done much smaller canvases (2x3 ft, etc) for a variety of reasons (less shipping costs, less prep, less materials - and the fact that I'm a little bit of a pussy who didn't want to jump out of a comfort zone) but now I'm more comfortable than ever and can't wait to finish this one so I can start another big one. This photos don't exactly give it proper scale, but it's the largest I've worked since (I think) college.
Man, ROCK THE BIG SHITS!!
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the great benefits of this experience is that you can stretch beyond your Brooklyn bedroom and explore how your work translates within a larger scope! Do that shit.
And, yes... the fireworks were sick... and you were painfully missing from the equation.