I think I've mentioned before that my mother was an artist. From a young age, I had this perception of her as that. Even when she stopped painting, stopped singing, stopped allowing herself to be expressed in those ways, I still viewed her as an artist. She was no longer an artist in motion. She paused.
For this reason, I think if people ever ask me what was important about 2011 from a personal perspective, I will tell them that 2011 was the year I began to blog and the year I started drawing again. Blogging helped me get to the point where I would do art again and it was a very important step for me.
I like my process right now because it's hurried and furious, emotional and based more on memory than anything that is actually concrete. I work fast and quick, refusing to allow myself to obsess over mistakes. It's not so important that it look right, just that it feel right.
One of my first memories of a painting is of a nude my mom did. The painting was in the bedroom she shared with my dad, resting against the wall by their closet. Or, you know, maybe it was actually on the wall. I can't remember that part.
It's actually funny what you do remember about your very young childhood. I remember the sound of my footfalls against the wood floors. I remember the feel of those floors against my naked feet and the gruff texture of the rug. I remember sitting on the floor and looking at the nude and thinking, "Mama painted this. Mama is an artist."
The painting was of a woman with her back turned to the artist. She's looking off an no part of her face is seen at all, just hair, shoulders, back, and ass. When I was little, and it being my first nude, I remember being a trifle scandalized that I could see the woman's butt. They get that social conditioning in early.
I was also weirdly proud that my mother dared to paint a nude, that she displayed it in her bedroom and that it wasn't trying to be anything other than just a nude. My mother tended to do landscapes, so her display of the human form was much the same. Straightforward. This is how it is, naked body with no value judgement at all.
I would look at the painting a lot and I think the woman in it was kind of my idol. As a little kid, I loved being naked. I would strip down to my bare ass as often as possible and someone was always telling me to put my clothes on or chasing me around with a dress held out. But this woman in Mama's painting . . . she was an adult and if she wanted to be naked, no one could tell her no.
This was way before I understood about sexuality or exploitation or anything like that. At three or so, I was more concerned with the fact that clothes were itchy and 70s colored and I disliked them.
As I've mentioned before, all of my mother's houses always burned. And when that house burned, the nude painting burned as well. It's been years and years now, but the fact that we lost that house still hurts me. It hurts that I lost that painting. I wish I had it now, especially as Mom is gone now.
They say that much of our personality is shaped in those first several years. It's an interesting concept in my case, as I spent a lot of the time during those years staring at books with Bosch paintings and looking at the nude in the bedroom. What does the images of twisty punishments and pale nudes with flat butts instill in a child?
Oh yeah. You get me. Hah!
For this reason, I think if people ever ask me what was important about 2011 from a personal perspective, I will tell them that 2011 was the year I began to blog and the year I started drawing again. Blogging helped me get to the point where I would do art again and it was a very important step for me.
I like my process right now because it's hurried and furious, emotional and based more on memory than anything that is actually concrete. I work fast and quick, refusing to allow myself to obsess over mistakes. It's not so important that it look right, just that it feel right.
One of my first memories of a painting is of a nude my mom did. The painting was in the bedroom she shared with my dad, resting against the wall by their closet. Or, you know, maybe it was actually on the wall. I can't remember that part.
It's actually funny what you do remember about your very young childhood. I remember the sound of my footfalls against the wood floors. I remember the feel of those floors against my naked feet and the gruff texture of the rug. I remember sitting on the floor and looking at the nude and thinking, "Mama painted this. Mama is an artist."
The painting was of a woman with her back turned to the artist. She's looking off an no part of her face is seen at all, just hair, shoulders, back, and ass. When I was little, and it being my first nude, I remember being a trifle scandalized that I could see the woman's butt. They get that social conditioning in early.
I was also weirdly proud that my mother dared to paint a nude, that she displayed it in her bedroom and that it wasn't trying to be anything other than just a nude. My mother tended to do landscapes, so her display of the human form was much the same. Straightforward. This is how it is, naked body with no value judgement at all.
I would look at the painting a lot and I think the woman in it was kind of my idol. As a little kid, I loved being naked. I would strip down to my bare ass as often as possible and someone was always telling me to put my clothes on or chasing me around with a dress held out. But this woman in Mama's painting . . . she was an adult and if she wanted to be naked, no one could tell her no.
This was way before I understood about sexuality or exploitation or anything like that. At three or so, I was more concerned with the fact that clothes were itchy and 70s colored and I disliked them.
As I've mentioned before, all of my mother's houses always burned. And when that house burned, the nude painting burned as well. It's been years and years now, but the fact that we lost that house still hurts me. It hurts that I lost that painting. I wish I had it now, especially as Mom is gone now.
They say that much of our personality is shaped in those first several years. It's an interesting concept in my case, as I spent a lot of the time during those years staring at books with Bosch paintings and looking at the nude in the bedroom. What does the images of twisty punishments and pale nudes with flat butts instill in a child?
Oh yeah. You get me. Hah!
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