And yet, here I am
A new era unfolding...
6teeeeee
I’ve hit the big leagues!
It’s December 10th, 2024, which means that, as of 11:50ish this morning, I officially began my sixth decade of life. It’s going to take some getting used to saying that I’m 60, but I’m completely cool with that because, hey, I made it. Honestly, I’ve been preparing myself for this moment since I was a teenager. Yes, I’m serious about that and let me tell you why…
The thought of getting to be sixty years old has always been somewhat poignant for me because when I was 15, my father died just days shy of his 60th birthday. He went into the hospital because of a bad case of pneumonia that he never recovered from. Since then, the thought of not living to reach this age has been a big part of my existence. Add into that the rate of deaths of young Black men, especially growing up in the city in the 80s around the time I was a teenager and into my 20s. Thankfully, I wasn’t into doing drugs and didn’t get caught up in the crack epidemic of the times.
Of course, there are any number of other things that could’ve taken me out before now, but we’ll not focus on that.
This past Saturday, I had a birthday party and the question “How do you feel?” was thrown at me a few times. I mean, honestly, I’m just glad to be here. I don’t suddenly feel any more wiser or intelligent than yesterday, but I know I’ve probably picked up some information that’s been added to my data bank of knowledge and experience. One of the guests put it this way, based on something he’d read, (I’m paraphrasing) “The older you get, you have all of those ages and experiences behind you, your teens, 20s, 30s, 40s and now 50s. All of those people are still with you and you can reference any of that knowledge at any time…” That’s so true and parallels the idea that there are multiple versions of yourself within you at all times.
I’ve been feeling the build up of learned experiences more and more lately, especially as an artist and I’m engaging in dialogues with younger artists in casual conversations as well as in a mentoring role as a visiting artist giving critiques. The wealth of experiential data that I can access at this point is pretty big and growing all of the time. As I continue living and making art, I continue learning.
I’m laughing to myself because this afternoon, I received a phone call from an artist friend, who’s 72, wishing me happy birthday.
“How old are you?”
60
“Wow, the 60s are the best!”
I laugh at that because everyone who passes into a “milestone” decade usually gets the same reaction from someone older. All I can say is, great, I’m looking forward to it and will be grateful for every second.
And now, for something completely different…
This is the piece that I posed in front of in the self portrait at the start of this post. It’s something that I’ve been working on and off for the past year or so. Every now and then, I’ll pull it out, add something to it and put it away for another few months. I’ve been working on it again recently and have had it up on the studio wall since early last week. I feel like I’m finally coming to some resolution with it, but that’s always subject to change.
This is part of a larger project involving the repurposing of my studio rags as art pieces or parts of installations. This fits right in with the part of my practice that’s about reusing whatever I’m able to in order to make more work. In this case, there’s something kind of meta about using the objects (rags) that contain the residual material (paint wiped from brushes and palette knives) of painting.
I feel like this is going to take on more material before I’m done. I began with having just the paint on the rags and the addition of glyphs throughout the piece. However, after bringing it back out after some months of leaving it be, I started to subvert the dominance of the glyphs in favor of other layers of paint and medium. Last week, I started adding pieces of dried acrylic paint skins to it and I like what that did to the work. I feel like I’m not too far from the finish line with this one.
Pro tip: don’t leave your brush sitting in acrylic gel in the first place, but if you do…
By now, most of you will know that I work with acrylic paints for most of my paintings and works on paper. What you might not know is that I can forget about certain things, especially when I’m running out of the studio to make sure I’m catching the scheduled bus outside to go home. Every once in a while, I’ll forget to clean up a brush or at the very least, leave it to soak over night in a little amount of water.
One day recently, I was working on a couple of things in different areas of the studio and when it come time to leave, I finished off with one project, but had forgotten about the other. Said other project had required the use of one of my wide nylon brushes to apply some acrylic gel medium to a piece.
You can guess where this is going and yes, I came in the next day to find I’d left the brush out with quite a bit of gel medium on it. You can see the results of that in the video above. It was about as stiff as a brick. Thankfully, I’d gone through this before and had found a solution by applying my favorite studio motto: “Let’s see what happens…”
The solution that’s worked for me in situations like this is submerging the brush bristles in all purpose cleaner. There seems to be something in the chemical makeup of an all purpose cleaner that acts to break up acrylic polymers in acrylic paints and gel mediums. This softened the acrylic gel enough that I could begin to remove it from the brush bristles.
I let the brush soak for a day or so. After that, I took it to the sink and used warm to hot water and soap to remove the gel. It took me repeated applications of the soap and working under running water to finally dislodge all of the acrylic gel medium, but as you can see in the video below, it’s all but new.
Caveat: the all-purpose cleaner I used was by Mrs. Mayer’s Clean Day and I haven’t attempted this with other cleaners, but I think that most all-purpose cleaners will work similarly, but your mileage may vary depending on the chemical makeup of said cleaners. Also, note that this is a nylon brush; bristle brushes may react differently to being submerged for long periods in household cleaners.
New to me…
Doechii has my ear right now. Both the Late Night and Tiny Desk performances are legit tight!
Today’s chapter of “daily observations” concerns this oh so barely seen bit of orange line/curve peeking from between the asphalt and concrete.
Thanks for being here and I’ll see you next time!
Black Drawings & Other Things You Didn’t Know About (Last chance! On view until December 18th)
HBD belatedly. Keep breathing. Keep creating. Keep enjoying. Keep learning. Pushing 80 & still creating, engaging & inquisitive about what’s next.
Happy belated Birthday from a 65 year old! 🎉🎂🥳