My Practice As An Artist

1.

My practice as an artist is non-existent which definitely is underscored once more by the

fact that my alma mater on Granville Island is mounting its Foundation Show. My
foundation show was some ten, twenty years ago, time flies et. al. and all I am doing
these days is trying my hand as a writer, unsuccessfully. The main reason why I slithered
from the visual arts to the literary arts is a so very pragmatic one, you do not need storage
space for writing. Which cannot be said for paintings, they are a logistical nightmare, it is
not first in first out with paintings. They have to be stored somewhere, you have an
inventory that you have to move. With words it is easy, you store them in the cloud.
Anyhoo, I am pondering if I should write a book that is named MY PRACTICE AS AN
ARTIST, one that is not merely whining and complaining about my ineptitude as an
artist. No show @ the MOMA 4 Yours Truly, but, hey, seems none of the people I went to
skool with have had a retrospective at the MOMA or the TATE either. Must be the school
we went to, this particular one does not produce MOMA material. Others do. The ones in
NYC and New Haven, just by mere geographical proximity. Then again, former students
have exhibited at the VAG and continue to do so. I myself have exhibited at 221A, many
times.
I am pondering if I should write a book about my struggles as an artist but I said that
already. Repeating sentences does not make for good reading, you have to be somehow

disciplined as a writer. You have to describe your world to non-artists. The ones that
chose not to go to art school.
I have problems with writing in the first person singular, I usually write in the third
person. SHE does this and SHE does that. It kind of sounds nicer. Dont ask me why, it
just does.
Author here ponders if she will be able to submit this text in the non-fiction category to
prospective publishers. Her jumping around between first person singular and third
person singular does not help. Writing should be fluently soothing, not wonky and
holpery. Out of kilter is so yesterday.
A woman in a dotty summery dress comes in, the colors are white and black, something
very Club Monaco. That is how career artists should dress. Guys can wear whatever they
feel like. Though the young man at the printer has his hipster cool accurately down to a T,
what with dark clothes somewhere between black and grey, a toque on his head, darkbrimmed emo glasses. The woman who is now printing something out looks more like a
future suburban housewife. In art school looks are everything, if you look a certain way
you will make it, nobody cares about the art.
The guy with the toque is back, he has a wisp of a soul patch, now that is definitely a
nono for any artist, aspiring, struggling or otherwise. Then again, he seems to be into
writing, given that he is printing out what seems like a dissertation, well, if you are
heading straight into academia then looking like a fashion disaster is actually a godsend.
Author here ponders, her insights are second to none, she could venture into the
exhibition space in the north building and look at the actual foundation show itself, but a
cursory observation on Sunday two days ago cemented her belief that no foundation

show after the one that she was in could ever match the high standard that was introduced
by the class of 2002. Something is off, the curating maybe, nowadays the artworks are
put on as if they are in a store, there are no highlights, it seems that the profs have too
much of a say and try to be so very egalitarian. When author here was at the end of her
first year, the students mounted the works of all the first year students themselves, thus
they totally discriminated and gave some work prime showroom space and tucked other
stuff into a corner to rot and hardly see the light of day. Which is actually how any
exhibition space should work, there are high tones and low tones, like in a symphony. It
is called using the space dynamically. It definitely makes it more interesting for the
viewer. She or he can always come back and find hidden gems.
Anyhoo, we have one page already here, time to save this, spellcheck, time to wander off
into the nice April weather of 2015. And it is nice today, no April showers, thank god, no
disgusting heat either as of yet. Just mellow mellow mellowness bordering on slight
boredom and dullness. The library in the art school is hAPPENING ah happening.
(817 words)