Do we need to let it go in order to succeed?

I think this is a good ending point for the book. I'm done with about half of it by now and am thinking more and more about the main theme, and the sub-themes.

My drips are for emptiness. They’re an antidote to the busy world I try to populate in each new piece. They create the much needed reprieve from the craziness. They introduce abstraction, they move me from my regular status quo. 

They’re an answer to my traditional upbringing, to my fears of rejecting the mold, of letting go. If I completely give into them, they will be me letting go completely. 

But I can’t give up the line. Its piercing musicality is very important to me, its contrast is absolutely key. I don’t know if I figured out form yet, but the line is certainly there to stay. I still can’t tell which forms speak to me and which I’m able to forego. Is it a triangle shape or a semi-circle that is my favorite? A combo of various sized cubes? Do I absolutely need a horizon line? I’ve already gathered that less is more when it comes to color: maximum of two different juxtapositions plus an accent color. But I don’t want to stick to the same palette, do I? I know I need to break it down to get to complete abstraction, which would mean something to me. But how? And do I need to get to abstraction? Maybe this is a constant conversation - a chat between inner and outer reality, between abstract thoughts and practical sides of me?

Could painting actually be better than sex?

Why melt? Because I want to enter the painting. I want the gates of ecstasy to open, to experience the merge of colors and textures, and to discover new possibilities.

First I build a city by looking at it, concentrating on its proper angles, turns, the scale of things. But then I want to dissolve into it, to feel like I'm one with it, existing on this particular day, while I'm staring at it, purposefully, with a mission to truly feel it. And just like Gaudi, I want to re-build it from the drips of paint, forming up like sand castles, directing my thoughts with these rays of hope, droplets of creation.

I've been waiting for this day for so long. It's because no matter how great sex is, with you giving into it completely, this is so much better. I peak time and again with each penetration of a new drip. It's an opening to absolute freedom.

But why not melt it all? It's about questioning boundaries, about giving you a glimpse of what could be vs. what is. It's about not being perfect but always striving for it. Perhaps I'm not strong enough to destroy it, as it pains me when my subjects get completely dismembered: houses losing their windows, foundations merging into roofs. Maybe these are windows into my soul and it's tragic to me when they clogged up. Perhaps it's this struggle between the practical side of me and the crazy destroyer side? They're always at war it seems and my work is an attempt to have them co-exist.

Do you have two warring sides? How do they and where do they play out their struggles?

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I do write quite a bit about the artmaking process, and you could be among the first to see my newest blogs if you sign on to my mailing list !

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And this 36x48 oil and wax on canvas of Parisian rooftops is now finished, beaming with light and raw energy. It's available at $1,900. 

Please feel free to email with your thoughts and comments!

Confessions of a Failed Gallery Director

 I studied to be an artist. I tell everyone this story of how I wanted to be a fashion designer but my mother met a 'starving artist', Andrey Tamarchenko, who convinced her that I needed to learn how to paint everything in order to become one. She had me enroll to take classes while in high school, prepping my portfolio. I was then accepted into all the art schools where I applied, and of course without even knowing how to sew, I surely wasn’t getting into fashion schools. So I just kept going with the life of an artist. But truly it’s a more complex story.

Just like every art student I graduated with a thought that I’ll never make a living as an artist. After a number of different stints I landed a gallery director job and that surely was the dream of every art student and every parent. All that prestige: the gallery openings, art fairs, auctions, fancy clients, celebrities, worldwide travel, crazy money. It’s a perfect life, isn’t it? What more could you possibly wish for? But you know what? It’s a brutal backstabbing world. It’s a life where I didn’t sleep at nights because I knew I wasn’t honest with clients. I suffered from ridiculous bouts of depression – never knowing who my friends at work are, not trusting any information I was given. I sold my soul to the devil and I felt it every single day.

Then one day I was sent to Italy to check out the Venice Biennale and I stayed another week for an art retreat with that same art teacher I met back in high school, my one and only guide through life, Andrey Tamarchenko. Painting every day with him in the hills of Alessandria, I saw just how deep my abyss was. I was balling my eyes out again, every single night of that week. But this time it was different. I cried due to the realization that I cannot live like this anymore. I saw that no amount of money can fix the horrible damage I was inflicting on myself every single day. This art retreat was a deciding factor that finally made me leave the gallery and reevaluate my life.

Yes, it has been tough not getting a six figure salary, and building a business of my own from scratch. But at the end of the day, it’s my painting practice that still keeps me honest with myself. Every week it gives me strength to tackle all kinds of dilemmas that come my way. It’s the only way to stay balanced.

-And here's a little piece I did with Andrey while in Italy. Feel free to email with questions if you're interested. -

Hugs,

Diana

How Kanye West changed my life

About ten years ago around Christmas time two fellows walked into a gallery I managed. Lots of Holiday fundraising teams have been walking around so I assumed they were another pair out on the street who were also curious about art in the window. I initially didn't even rush to get the sculpture out of our display case when asked about it by one of the guys.

I started my usual sales inquiry by asking the fellow who stepped forward: -'Are you involved in the arts?' -"Yes, but on the music side of things. I've always loved Jeff Koons though." Not knowing who was standing in front of me, I proceeded with -"Did you go to school to study art history? or fine art?". He replied with - "I dropped out, but always enjoyed Chicago art museums"...and so the conversation flowed. In the meantime, my sales associates laughed at my ignorance in the back room, knowing full well that I am perhaps making a fool of myself in front of Kanye. But this was a great, genuine exchange, and I even goofed on the spelling of his name when he gave me his direct e-mail address. His manager was a good sport keeping up the façade standing next to him. Our sales relationship lasted for over five years from that point onwards. I think it was all due to the fact that I didn't know that I was to treat him like a star. He was an authentic person, with interesting things to say, and pretty sophisticated art tastes to boot.

I think about my encounter with Kanye a lot now that I am dedicating myself to my own art more and more. It is so easy to get hung up on fame and lose your genuine self. He didn't.

You turn into an obsessive attention seeker and lose that energy that births stunning works. It's inevitable that recognition puts you into a certain role for which you get cast over and over again, with your style becoming boring, repetitive and trite. Your personality suffers. I didn't see any signs of fame shaping his interactions.

You overwork things hoping others will approve. You don't do art because you simply need to satisfy that voice that comes from within. And yet, everyone can still find their voice in relation to other voices. With focusing his attention on his varied interests, he did just that.

I also think of my role as a sales consultant in that particular scenario. It was that honest interest in who he was as a budding art collector that pushed me to be a natural saleswoman.I was someone whose stomach did not churn at the fear of rejection, or of being criticized or ridiculed. I wish I could wear that hat when I make and judge my own art. I wish I wouldn't be so alarmed at the contrasting statements I put out with my melted, scratched, layered world. Thank you, Kanye, for giving me some life long lessons that help keep me on track.

How to balance out home and work priorities

When I was little, my favorite summer pastime was building sandcastles on a beach. I'd sit by the edge of the water for hours, picking up melting sand and creating these Gaudi-like structures. They'd get washed away by the waves all the time, but it didn't matter. It was this constant transformation of sand affected by water into semi-stable castles that drew me.

This year didn't start off well in my head. I was preoccupied with all the wrong things - popularity, fame, success, jealousy. I was so down on myself that I would retreat and ignore my family, my everyday joys, my accomplishments.

It's only today that I, once again feeling this childish joy of building castles with melted wax and paint, had realized that my word for this year should be process. It's the process I enjoy while painting, teaching, parenting. It's never been about monetary gain.

It's me loving how a first layer of paint is being partially covered up in a semi-transparent coating. Or, it's the grooves of existing layers peeking through the scratched off surfaces. It's the great multitude of these fragile sand castles that I build in each painting that excite me. It's the joy of my kids saying and doing something wonderfully new and unique every single day, my husband supporting me every step of the way. My word for 2017 is process.

My Favorite Artists on Instagram

As I explore Instagram as an outlet for my art, and as part of #taaigchallenge, I'm seeing some really great work, and I feel it's important to share it as means of inspiration.
I thought once in a while everyone needs some inspiration, so here are some of my favorites:

I love patches of harmonious color like #UweKowski
I love scraped off surfaces a la #Gerhard Richter
I love ghost trees in the style of #WolfKahn
I'd love my line to be as piercing as Hiroshige Fukuhara
I think the saturated scenes of Stevnn Hall are amazing
The color harmonies are simply perfect in Julia Powell's work:
and I'd love my symbols to be as spiritual as #Wassily Kandinsky, whose birthday is today incidentally...

But god damn it, I want it to be my language that combines all those and transforms into something new, blended seamlessly, yet making a contrasting statement. It'll stem from nature but be taken to an imaginary paradise: where borders are barely visible, where sky falls onto earth, and sand can rise to meet crashing waves. It's where trees can spread their curious branches far into the amplified skies, and they can separate the landscape into mini-icons where one's eyes rest while taking a break from the whole spectacle. It's now my color theory and not Quiller's or Kandinsky's. It'll be my melted, scratched, layered world where I can fit in all my hopes and aspirations, my struggles and disappointments.

 

If Henri Rousseau persevered - we all can!

It was going so well up until judgment day. There were experiments and free play. There was a sense of joy in discovery, a feeling a pioneer or a scientist might have mixing unconventional techniques and ideas. And after a number of compliments I decided I'll put this piece into a juried museum call. In order to do that, I needed to finish it that day and all of a sudden I froze.

All these preemptive feelings of shame of rejection, the nervous anxiety of anticipation overtook my creative flow. I couldn't put down a single stroke without worrying that it'll ruin the piece.

How is it that some people are such natural salesmen? How is it that their stomachs don't churn at the thought of criticism and disapproval? Why does the life of an artist have to be so full of punishments?

Yes, I can tell myself time and again that this isn't about someone's appreciation of my work. But that's a lie. I want to be seen, I want the attention these pieces deserve. I want them bought, auctioned off, hanging in museums. I want to be earning money as an artist. Why even after so many years in the industry do I not get the formula? Is my art too shallow, too impersonal? Do people need to bleed from the inside in order for me to succeed? You take what's most precious to you, turn yourself inside out and only then do you get noticed? Or does it have to be completely void of any personal touch and be an abstract blob?

I'm just thrilled I had read a children's book to my students recently on the life of Henri Rousseau, on his yearly rejections and his ability to persevere. If only I could have the same strength and not take this whole process so close to heart...

Never rush to please the crowds

A more beautiful twin trying to please the crowds - this trite phenomenon played out with this poor baby.

It was stunning from birth. I couldn't take my eyes off it and didn't quite know whether I should touch it too much in fear of ruining it. And then, right before a scheduled exhibition, this awful need to impress took over me and in a course of an hour I worked it to such a degree that it could no longer be part of the exhibit. No one noticed its absence of course, but I did. It brought me to thinking back on why I ran from the gallery world, about how I missed standing in front of the canvas and simply enjoying my process of a conversation with self. Somehow I lost track of why I paint in the first place. These attempts to get recognized, to be an official artist, to earn money as one - turned me into an obsessive attention seeker.

The adult students' behavior at the show was yet another example of simply knowing what you need as a person. It isn't laurels and clients. It's knowing that your creative energy birthed these stunning works - that's all. That's what it's about. The simplest lesson of all - do something because you need to do it, not for the sake of others' approval.

This piece is titled 'Adam and Eve'. It's been sensual, sexual, haunting and brilliant in giving me this simple truth. The bonus is that you can't ever completely destroy anything - you simply return another day and fix it, or it fixes itself...

Traps

This painting has been a torture. It was attempting to come to life amidst declines from juried shows and galleries. I was in a particularly foul mood for weeks. Yet, it has been moving along despite it all and in a very strange way. I've been noticing that the drips don't just come down, (laws of physics and all), - they follow certain ridges and roads that I had left previously. Every time I would come back to paint, I'd be afraid that things would progress too fast. Yet, my barriers created intriguing little turns and twists for paint to follow.

At first, those closed gates seemed to play along with my depressive tune - 'you can't jump over your head', 'you can't go beyond your pre-set limitations' - little mean voice inside my head kept saying...

And then I returned one last time and suddenly thought - 'But wait, I am the one who creates these closed gates. It's completely up to me to open some and close others. It's my choice to direct the flow slightly. I set my own traps.

Just like in life, I can always walk into those pre-designed lived-in scenarios. Or, I can make a conscious decision to behave differently - not sacrifice myself, my time, my energy, but create more meaningful satisfying relationships.

It was truly brought home when I would stand as usual with one arm melting the paint, and the other holding a palette knife, ready to place another automatic mark in another section of the painting. But something inside of me kept saying time and again - 'no, put down the knife, use this arm to consciously turn the canvas and create new paths'...and I did.

Judgement and Inspiration

Why is it so easy to look at a dirty palette and judge it beautiful? Or someone else's finished piece and immediately know where it's lacking color for perfect balance? And yet it's ridiculously difficult to objectively judge your own work? Every time you step back and attempt to see what's missing - it's like you're dumbfounded, blind to your own mistakes. Sometimes, at a very magical time, the work leads you places and that's one happy moment of ecstasy - but to catch that wave - it's so difficult. The inspiration fairy doesn't visit every time you're at work - it's a fickle creature. Its presence it what makes or breaks the work though - you know that if you'd succeeded at following it - you're golden, and if it never materializes, the painting is doomed.

Here's one of the latest favorites where the inspiration fairy had visited, a few times...

Switching hats: art sales vs. art creation

Love the story line disappearing into abstract background



Sam Francis - blobs of paint in opposite colors

So I was wearing an old hat last week, that of an art consultant attempting to sell some art to the somewhat interested public. It's amazing how quickly a different mindset kicks in. Within an hour I programmed myself to disregard artists trying to peddle their wares, to snob students and event organizers, and to hate dealers pushing the same things for less and being successful at it. What a thankless and personality-altering job it is to be in sales. A true salesperson forgets to be civil unless he gets paid for it, would only pretend to be a team player to somehow benefit from it and will wish you good luck or congratulate you on your sales hoping you fall to the lowest depths right after this one successful transaction.



And though I thought that having been in this world would help me in entering it as an artist, it seems that my mind cannot function simultaneously in various roles. I can look at art as a dealer, judging what might sell well and for how much. I can look at art as an art critic for its successful formal aspects. However, I cannot apply the same principles to my own art. I cannot tell myself to do this or that in accordance with current trends in the market. My voice just sort of comes from within and that's the end of the story. However, here're some of my personal favorites from the show and why I liked them.

 

 Love how the figure dissapears into nothingness, love the play of texture and flatness, love the contrasts and limited palette.