The Fight. The Struggle. The Love.

It’s been about 3 years since I last posted on my blog. Going to pick it up again. Why? A few things.

1. I love writing. I have always written. My last solo show was based on specific poems that I wrote between 1995-2022. I also finished my first novel 1.5 years ago and have been pitching to literary agents.

2. It is a great way to process. I read a ton. I journal, take notes, and also mentor artists around the globe. Writing here will wonderfully combine sharing my thoughts about all the above.

3. I have an exhibition coming up, opening on May 25th here in Waco, Texas, at our local museum. (Art Center Waco). I don’t think I can put down in words, like Elton John, how excited I am. But having a show in your town adds a ton of pressure to perform on additional levels. The exhibition is a 2 person show with one of my besties, Vy Ngo, a fabulous artist out of Austin, TX. This will be our second exhibition together, but on an entirely new level! 

I actually cleaned the studio last week:)

I wrapped up a solo exhibition at the end of January at Vaughn Gallery (Austin) and took a little soul care break after 5-6 months of intense studio time creating work for the show. Getting started again was really difficult. I always want to live in moments of growth or evolution in my work. As the incredible book Art and Fear states, “The function of the overwhelming majority of your work is simply to teach yourself how to make the small fraction of work that soars.” And “Leave a loose thread, unresolved issues, to explore in the next work.”

I follow those two rules with a reckless abandon. This also makes the process at time full of chaos and loss. But like Friedrich Nietzsche says, “One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.” And so I live in the chaos while I create. Here are a few things I wrote on my Instagram posts the last few weeks that show me in those moments of struggle. 

A lot of experimenting and evolution trying to take place.

March 22

So many thoughts, ideas, mess ups, start overs, good moments covered by bad moments then covered by another moment….this is the way:)

March 29th

Some days….you want to throw in the towel. This week I have scrapped 8 pieces. Meaning, I have painted over them multiple (at least 4/5) times. I know I will find where I am going. That’s what time is for. I mean, I just painted 32 paintings this week, but only 8 newly started pieces exist. So, you want to be an artist? This is the way.

March 30th

Progress. Man, what a hard week. Fought through, didn’t give up. Pushed, yelled, cried, got dominated by vision and knocked out by techniques and experiments. By the end of today and a lot of hours I feel pretty good about where things are going. Time to take a few days off for soul care with a close friend! But next week the monster comes back! Haha!Progress. Man, what a hard week. Fought through, didn’t give up. Pushed, yelled, cried, got dominated by vision and knocked out by techniques and experiments. By the end of today and a lot of hours I feel pretty good about where things are going. Time to take a few days off for soul care with a close friend! But next week the monster comes back! Haha!

April 5th

The most spiritual place I know. For me, painting is prayer. Alone. Silent. Intimate. 

If you are just discovering my work, you can follow me on Instagram at @tynathanclark

The struggle is real for an artist.

IAMA MESS, but IAMOK, THANKS.

The struggle is real for an artist. We are often a complete mess internally. We are mostly alone creating and spending the majority of our time with our own thoughts. I received this questions from one of my closest artist friends the other day. She asked,

“We all go through phases of elation then deep doubt and questioning. What do you do to get out of the later?”

There is a troubling feeling that we share as artists, no matter how young or old we are. This feeling is as if we are all alone in the world and can’t quite find out how to exist in a space that is undefined. This space is called the art world, and the art world itself will provide no answers to you as an artist, it just exists and if you are lucky, you get to play within it. There are no rules, only suggestions, there is no road map because everyone’s is different, you are the one that makes your journey into the world. For some of us it is handed to us on a golden spoon for whatever mysterious reason, and for most of us we have to bust our asses, go broke, lose our minds, cry a lot, paint with scraps, eat less and make a whole shit load of art! 

I think I hit a low point today. Like a seriously low point. Here is the reality. Art is fucking hard. If you didn’t hear me the first time, Art is fucking hard. It is literally the most difficult thing that I have ever done, and I have done many, many things over the years. It seemed as if 2019 was going to be the year where everything comes together and emergence becomes a notable fact. But on the heels of two solo exhibitions where not a single piece has sold, the mental fatigue begins to attack the heart and then the heart attacks the soul and it becomes difficult to even breath at times. 

Work from one of the shows.

I don’t lack confidence. I don’t lack work ethic. I don’t lack in study. I know that my work in both shows was strong, not every single piece, because that is almost impossible. But most of the work was really strong, and I continued to grow in my craft with each piece, each body of work, in a way that I can feel very proud of. One of the shows was a blast and unluckily the work just may not have been a good fit for the clientele, that happens, that is a part of testing the water in the art game. The other show should have sold multiple pieces, again nothing. I knew it was a risk and it fell flat on its face. Lesson learned. It’s not that my work doesn’t sell, it does. I have collectors all over the US that own multiple pieces of mine. I even have a piece that sits next to a Rauschenberg in someone’s home! The hard part about art is we have to try every avenue that comes our way, hoping that one of them is the next step or the next meal. When it turns up short, then we the questions sink in…

Back to my friends question. 

“We all go through phases of elation then deep doubt and questioning. What do you do to get out of the later?”

I have done a lot of doubting in the last few months, not with my work. I know my work is strong and continuing to grow. I have been doubting the journey, the road, the trail, the process, the patience, the self. It is hard for someone to truly understand the emotions and mental/physical energy that goes into creating a large body of work. In my last series I worked 12-14 hour days painting and sewing and framing and stretching for a couple months and this was on the heels of the series prior spending a couple months working the same hours.

Working on art like this is the most joyous feeling that I reach inside, it is worshipful, spiritual, like a symphony playing at the top of a mountain with the sound reigning down on the towns below, it is magical! Once the work is finished, we crash, our spirit drops as the momentum comes to a halt. That opening for the show brings the energy into that second wind, the excitement of seeing your work on a wall amongst its peers while people gather to discuss and become involved with the pieces, this is what I live for. Then when disappointment follows, disappointment that is out of your control and in the hands of others, this is the really difficult part for an artist. The doubting, the questioning, the whirlpool of thoughts that my friend Steven Pressfield would call “The Resistance”, begins to creep in and set its foundations, and you know that you don’t have much time to wallow because you need to be back in the studio painting as fast as you can, because you need it and it needs you!

Shit. Three weeks just flew by and “The Resistance” has been winning. The only way to get out of the doubt and the questioning is to work, using my hands, getting on my knees, drawing lines and making marks and washing colors in pastel dust and cloth. 

Today, in the studio, physically and emotionally exhausted.

So, I have been in my studio the last few days grinding away at a new series that I am going to title, 

“I am a mess, but I am ok. Thanks.”

I read a quote this week from Chuck Close.

“ Inspiration is for Amateurs- the rest of us just show up and get to work.” I talked to my artist friend about this. It would be easy to say, “just find some inspiration to get you through, to get you moving.”

Well,  If you are always waiting for inspiration then you will never be a great artist. Inspiration comes in unexpected moments and they are a million times fewer than the days that we need to work in the studio.

Another quote for my week is from the ever amazing Mark Bradford, he says

“I work when I am sick, happy, depressed, constipated, jet-lagged. I show up.”

Yep, Mark, I agree and damn it is difficult. If we are not able to work these things out with time working in the studio, then why are we doing this? Why are we even trying? 

One more quote than I am done.

“The most important tool the artist fashions through constant practice is faith in his ability to produce miracles when they are needed.” Mark Rothko

Maybe sometime that miracle is simply pouring that coffee at 6am in the morning and heading straight into the studio to see what other tiny miracles show up in the day.

Today, I hit a low point. Discouraged. Upset. Quick to anger. Frustrated. Sad. I am a mess, but honestly I am ok.

-Ty

7/17/2019 9:28pm

Budapest: Day Seven: Cosmos in the Chaos

Today is day seven of my residency here in Budapest. I have just finished lunch ( a Hungarian potato and bean soup with a fresh baguette, a nectarine and sparkling water) and am sitting in my apartment listening to Agnes Obel. I haven't really wanted to write for the last few days, I haven't slept great yet, so that may be a little of the no writing angst. It also could be the stories of the local people and the generations who suffered under the hands of German Fascism and the Russian Communism. I have experienced both sides in other countries and lived in a communist country for a while. I do feel a new confidence amongst the youth, but also feel the years of suffering and worry of the elder generations.

I took these two pictures in the dome of Buda Castle.

For the first 5 days I explored the city with the other residents, from Canada and San Antonio. I could probably write about all the museums, streets, architecture, and beauty that this magnificent city holds. But I am here for art. To grow as an artist, in another culture. Taking everything that I feel and observe and transform it all into artistic growth. This can be easy and difficult as an artist. For me, creating art is often times more a time of prayer than a subject. As an abstract expressionist I often need to empty myself to experience as much of the divine that I can come close to grasping. 

Madeline L’Lengle writes, “It is a frightening thing to open oneself to the strange and dark side of the divine; it means letting go our sane self-control, that control which gives us the illusion of safety. But safety is only an illusion, and letting go of it is part of listening to the silence, and to the Spirit.”

Taking some time to enjoy some literature and Hungarian wine.

This may be why I have refused to write over the first few days. I have felt emotional “heavy”, I have experience magnificent art, art that was created in forms that is longer practiced. Stood before Mogdiliani and Picasso exhibits. Two artists who have influenced generations and that will continue to do the same, long after they have died. As I paraphrase L’Engle and add my own words, “Each of these men, whose paintings I stand before and admire in a great fashion. They are just that, all men, and all dead, Their distance from us in chronology seems to give them an overwhelming authority. But they were not dead when they painted, and they were as human as the rest of us.”

I moved from powerful exhibitions of the created and spent a day in the Terror House Museum, that walked you through the history of German Nazi rule and Russian Communist rule. The power of death, betrayal, hatred, and ugliness has virtually left a small stain on my heart as I moved through relics of Nazi Germany, the torture chambers connected to tunnels under the city from Russian Communist rule. I needed to experience a visual representation of people that overcame these cruel moments in history. I have heard the stories from our Residency Director of her family suffering at the hands of both Nazi Germany and Russia. Family in camps, bombings, raising chickens in the house, hiding in the basement, moments from books and film. I am changed, again. My eyes have observed many peoples and my ears have heard similar stories first had, all over this world. “Leonard Berstien says that for him music is cosmos in chaos. And it is not true only of music; all art is cosmos, cosmos found within the chaos.” (page 17) I have truly found cosmos, here in Budapest, cosmos that is resting amongst the chaos of history and story. And this has led me to create. The reason I my journey has led me here to this specific moment in time.

Yesterday, I set up my tools of the trade in my momentary studio. This is were the cosmos met my soul and my hands. My working space is in our Director Beata’s studio basement. This space holds stories from Hungary’s history, from her families history. The house was built by her grandfather, and during German occupation the house was bombed. There were multiple families seeking refuge here in the house. They kept chickens upstairs, for eggs and food. One evening her grandfather was upstairs checking the chickens and he was spotted from the Palace moving around in the window. Orders were given to bomb any house where people were seen moving. The house was bombed. The families were able to survive by taking refuge in the basement. Where I now sit, amongst their memories of fear, joy, tears, laughter, love and chaos. As my hands reach for pencils or pastels, I think about children playing amongst these stone walls and bricks, not knowing the chaos that existed above. 

I knew coming into this residency that there would be challenges for me as an artist. Challenges that I knew if embraced fully would only help me grow in my craft. The first is working small. For the last two years I have primarily worked no smaller that 4 feet in scale, with multiple paintings in the 9 and 10 foot range. The second is the theme. Since I have been working in bodies of work from my personal writings and literary classics, having a theme outside of my current idea sphere would be a challenge. Our theme is environment. Not something that has been in my working map before. The challenge for any artist is creating a piece that truly speaks, that allows the audience/observer fresh eyes to see. 

I began processing what this could look like a few months back and my thoughts led me to begin working on a thesis based upon the harmony of matter and spirit, asking questions based upon the relationship between creation and the created, nature and humanity. 

How does life outside of humanity react and live alongside of us? 

Do our actions/spirit/emotions/relationships affect our natural surroundings? 

What is at work in the air, in molecules, in the environment that we cannot see?

When we feel happiness, sorrow, anger, joy, hope, distrust, love, hate…does nature feel the spirit of these feelings as they come out from our souls, mentality, attitudes, actions and reactions? 

Does tension, reconciliation, discrimination, judgment, hate, mercy, in our communities/cultures seep into to the air and disrupt nature’s harmony- having an affect on climate change or environmental deconstruction? 

Could these things add to nature’s disruption? 

These thoughts are all built upon the theory that the Creator of the Universe is in a love relationship with all things created. All things created continue to create themselves towards the image of the Creator.

I am only beginning to write, read, study, think and paint through these thoughts. I will write more as they develop. Here is a video from my first day in the basement painting. Please leave comments, thoughts, ideas that you have. I would love to talk through these ideas and this world with you all! Here is a short 1:00 video from my first day working through a few studies.

i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun’s birthday, this is the birth

day of life and love and wings; and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth…

now the ears of my ears are awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened. 

e.e cummings

"An Attempt to Breath" a new painting.

Here is a time-lapse of me working on my latest piece, "An Attempt to Breath"-

Would love to hear your thoughts below:)