My Stuffed Frog

Monday I shared a link discussing people's favorite personal Teddy Bears.  Today, I thought I would share the story of my favorite stuffed animal as a child.  When I was 4, I was diagnosed with a heart murmur.  I remember being told that I needed to have surgery and that it had to be done in New Orleans, LA.  Having been born 4 hours away and being so young, I had no idea what any of that talk really entailed.  I knew I should be worried though because my parents were.  Pediatric open-heart surgery was complicated for 1982 and there was only one doctor at Tulane University- Doctor Brunswick, whom I do not remember, but wish I did.  Anyway, I do not remember much of the pre-op besides being taken on a gurney to the operating room.  I was frightened because I had already been incubated and was unable to speak.  I remember being very frightened and crying and not taking my eye off of my Mom.  The next thing I remember was the after image of a very bright light, which I assume was the operating light.  Then, the very next thing I can remember was lying in a bed on my back and staring up and seeing a stuffed frog dangling over my head.  My Dad had gone down to the gift shop and bought it- I suppose thinking it would keep me distracted.  Over the short time I was in the hospital(I was told I had recovered exceptionally fast), I remember being flooded with gifts from all kinds of people- relatives, church folk from the church my family attended at the time.  I had never received so many gifts at once in my life- a record still held to this date!  However, the only one I can recollect is the frog.  A few years ago, my Mom put together some boxes of my 'stuff' so that I could take it back home with me - an exercise of letting go for my Mom.  In the box, among many other childhood toys was the frog which still looks remarkably well for being over 30 years old.  If any of you have any interesting, crazy, or funny stories about your favorite stuffed animal, please feel free to share it.  I would love to read your stories in the comments.

HAPPY MONDAY!

I hope everyone is having a fantastic Monday.  I wanted to share with you guys a link.  What was your favorite stuffed animal as a child?  In the meantime, I will continue to learn basic video editing.  I am also thinking of new names to call my space.  "Studio" is really no longer an accurate label.

ALL BETTER NOW!

I'm back again after having shaken off a nasty little 48 hour bug.  Fortunately for me, "Winter Storm Janus" made it completely undesirable to be outdoors, so it was a lucky time to get sick. To keep everyone updated, I have been busy planning every single detail of my very first Guided Art Experience.  My plan is to put this event on during the beginning of March.   I am currently debating whether or not to make my first event invitation-only.  I am also considering having the event streamed live online for anyone to watch from home.  Many possibilities.  Expect to see content of all forms coming from me that may be directly or obtusely relevant to the upcoming event.  Please keep reading and watching and as always thank you for your continued support.  I can't wait to take you all with me on this new journey.  And now, a little humor on this Frigid Friday.  What if Conceptual Art could be more accessible?

Portlandia Parodies Conceptual Art

What do you think?

What place will 2D art have in our modern dwellings in 10 years? Our walls will either be constructed with interactive panels or covered by them. Everyone will have an unlimited supply of visual sources to choose from to view at any time for any length of time. Check out the google art project- you can even read the tiniest brush work detail if you choose. So, where will painting fit? Old school decor? A treasured piece of nostalgia of a lost time? What are your thoughts?

WHAT IF ?

How many of you have gone to an art show recently and left thinking: 'Damn, that blew my mind!' or 'Wow!  That's the most fun I've had at an art event'?  How many events have looked like this:  A large, mostly empty space filled with bright-usually warm light.  You walk in.  You may or may not be greeted depending on the availability of the host and/or the perception that you are important enough to acknowledge.  The art hanging on the walls are usually well presented but boring.  You walk up to the wall next to the painting and read the title/description/statement, then walk away feeling either bewildered, confused, dumb, or even annoyed and angry.  You see many people chit chatting away with each other about how amazing the work is and attempt to dazzle each other with their knowledge of the 'style' or 'the process'.  You still do not get it, so you decide to go to the open bar and take a glass of red or white wine(wallet/purse/checkbook lube).  The ART gallery doesn't want to get TOO creative.  You drink, you socialize, and at the end of it all you were probably thinking.. 'wow, I could have done something else.'  If you have not gotten to this point, you very well may.  

Now, what if there was another way to experience art?  What if you could participate in an experience that involves YOU?  What if you could participate in an experience that is ABOUT YOU?  Would you be interested?  I'm proposing an experience like no other I have ever attended or read about.  I'm proposing a Guided Art Experience.  I will provide the concept, the method, the materials(when pertinent), and will be your guide in group discussions during the creative process.  YOU get the opportunity to create YOUR own art based on your discoveries, revelations, and perceptions about the established concept.  These will be multi-disciplinary art happenings.  They may include elements from, but not limited to:  Theatre(of all varieties), illusion, creative lighting, music, story telling, and writing.  These will not be classes.  You may or may not learn something about an art technique.  These will be designed COMPLETELY around YOU so that you, the participant, may get the most (fill in the blank- fun, satisfaction, amazement) from the experience.  I hope to have many collaborators along the way and I intend on touring these experiences if/when the demand arises. 

Thank you for your continued support and I look forward to you attending the first of these experiences! 

I Want to Make You a Deal

As you may have read in my previous post:  I am Heading in a New Direction and I will need the support of everyone who is interested in what I am going to do next.  Here is where the deal comes into play.  I have many paintings stored in my studio and several that are about to come back to me from a 9 month long exhibit in Houston City Hall.  So, my new path is now completely dependent upon my visibility in the realm of social media.  If you can find me 20 new followers that are willing to follow me on My Will Brooks Art Facebook Page  or on my Twitter account @ WillBrooksArt.    in exchange, I will offer you the painting of your choice at the price you feel it is worth to you(as long as it is reasonable- I will not sell a large painting for $100 for example).  In order for me to keep tabs on this progress, the new followers must send me a message that somehow tells me who it was who directed them to me.  Encourage them to be as funny and/or creative as they wish!  This is a first come/first serve opportunity.  I will be available by appointment in my studio for you to view your chosen painting every day of the week unless I am out of town.  If you do not live in the Houston Metro area, you are still encouraged to participate.  The only catch for you is that you may have to cover part or all of the shipping costs to your location.  Ready?  Set?  Go!

ANNOUNCEMENT: - WILL BROOKS ART CEASES TO EXIST IN IT'S CURRENT FORM AS OF THIS WRITING -

As you have been noticing, I have been going through a process of epiphany that coalesced recently upon listening to a series lectures by Alexander Bard over the past couple of weeks.  Somehow, he was able to frame our contemporary lives in terms I was able to understand.  It has everything to do with a major shift in perception.  I encourage you to google him and hear him out if you are so inclined.

Before, like many others, I felt as if I was trying to reconcile a way to merge the old way of doing things with the new way that is currently changing the way we conduct ourselves socially and the way we do business.   The “Gate Keepers” are losing power faster than they know how to handle it.  Art galleries are struggling to operate in this ‘old way’.  So, they’ve devised a new strategy - the art fair.  They are everywhere and they court only the wealthiest among us.  They are only delaying the inevitable fact that the “Art World” is dying a slow, painful and embarrassing death.  Art belongs to all of us and it is not a ‘thing’.  Art that statically hangs on a wall or sits on a pedestal is dead.  I’m certainly not the first to say or think this, however the evidence now can no longer be ignored or denied.  In my opinion, it has no place in the future beyond nostalgia and decor  and will not survive.  Sure, there will be stragglers and those determined to make the world bend to their will, but they will continue to struggle more and more with each passing year in this outdated mode of thinking.  We are still in transition and some of those structures will continue on to become dinosaurs in a new era.  Think about how well traditional retailers like Sears and J.C. Penny are fairing.

 In one of the lectures I listened to, Mr. Bard used the electronic calculator as an example of how we, as humans have changed.  He said when they were first introduced, academic institutions struggled with how to deal with it:  How to keep students from ‘cheating’ using these devices that made learning adding, subtracting, multiplying, and division, among other mathematical functions irrelevant.  He asserted that from it’s invention onward, math students should have been taught how to ‘do math’ using the calculator- manipulating technology we created as shortcuts.  We’ve done it in so many other areas of life.  People don’t build cars, robots do.  Doctors don’t perform many delicate surgeries- robots do.  So, what’s the point in constantly reinventing the wheel?  What good is acquiring knowledge if we are not using it to our advantage as a species.  Using paint on a support was nothing but a technological advancement of it’s time.  They were not meant to be ends unto themselves.  When Western painting was developed, artists used a type of tempera paint to apply it to wet plaster.  When it dried, it created a long lasting and vibrant image- The Last Supper and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel are probably the most famous examples of this.  Next came the advent of canvas supports and oil paints.  The canvas was light and mobile unlike a  fixed plaster wall.  Oil paint was developed as a way to allow artists to continue to manipulate the image on the canvas until the slow drying oil finally set up-a technological advancement.  Then there were the better mousetraps- different supports, new paints like acrylic what were invented as a means to make producing art even easier and less toxic.  These advancements essentially ended in the 1960’s.  Since then, ‘painters’ have come up with innumerable ways to display paint on a support.  We’ve been left with a legacy of work that is so detailed  it mimics a camera image all the way to a totally blank white canvas with no content at all.  The medium has been exhausted.  I was forced to ask myself the same question I’ve asked myself before but this time through different eyes:  Why am I reinventing the wheel?  It’s old and it’s outdated and it’s only important because we were all taught it was.  The Controllers of Art have since dictated what is ‘good’ versus what is ‘bad’.  When it was discovered profit could be made, opportunists came out of the woodwork and that was the birth of our Art-Industial Complex system. In no other time in History have artists been so severely taken advantage of.  These folks do not own our ideas and they can no longer silence the ones they deem unacceptable(unprofitable). The Art Gallery is completely irrelevant now.  No artist needs them, and people are tired of being told how they are to value and experience art.  We artists can operate with ease through the various social media outlets  and are no longer at the mercy of the  wealthiest among us thanks to the advents of gofundme and kickstarter.  If you are “good” and “relevant”, people will support you according to their interest and ability whether it is by sharing your ideas with others or financial support.  This is true Democracy.  People are tired of being told how they are to value and experience art.   

This brings me to another subject.  What is art now? What is it’s function?  How do I see where I fit into this new world?  The answer is that I will continue to create my own ‘universe’.  I will no longer be painting “pictures” or pursuing a “style”.  Again, those are old ideas that are simply irrelevant in our new world.  “Art”- in all forms is the new relevant “religion.”  Successful artists will be those of us who communicate relevant ideas, concepts, and universal truths in an informative and entertaining way. Thanks to new and extraordinary technology, elements from every discipline is at my disposal, and  I will have no bounds as to how rich of an experience I can produce for participants.   My work will include writing, story telling, fantastic visuals and most importantly will be participatory.  My work will be part conceptual, part performance, and part sermon with a visual focus. I will now produce carefully and meticulously planned experiences.  I have generally been referring to them as Guided Art Experiences.  Also, I will no longer be setting prices for any resulting physical art work.  Any of my future events that results in the production of physical  work will be collected through democratic auction or donation only.  Many of my ‘events’ will have merchandise such as T-Shirts, Prints, etc for sale according to relevancy in order for me to make a living-have adequate housing, food, transportation- life essentials.  What should you be expecting from me?  You will certainly find me more actively blogging and more fully exploring other social media avenues pertinent to my mission.  I will be engaging with all of you much more frequently, and  I am excited and I hope you are too.  Expect to experience art in a way you probably have never experienced it before.  Most importantly, thank you for supporting me and staying with me through this process. 

Trust Me, It Will Be Worth the Wait.

I am still refining my statement, please stand by.  Until then, here is my newest painting of the day:

January 16 Painting

4"x6"

Acrylic on Birch Panel 

No, I Have Not Forgotten!

I am still working on my announcement but I have new painting to share with you in the meantime:

January 15 Painting

4"x6"

Acrylic on Birch Panel

Creativity is the Ability to Imagine Possibilities in the Absence of Fear

I hope everyone had a FANTASTIC Tuesday.  I am still working on the details of my announcement, but it will not be much longer.

January 14 Painting

4"x6"

Acrylic on Birch Panel 

After a Brief Delay, My Posts are Back! Also, a Big Announcement is Coming Soon in the Next Few Days

I had a bit of an unusual problem with my laptop last night that kept me from sending you all my daily note.  Now, it is all better and I can catch you up on my most recent paintings!

January 12 Painting 

4"x6"

Acrylic on Birch Panel 

And last but not least, today's painting! 

January 13 Painting 

4"x6"

Acrylic on Birch Panel 

What a spectacular Saturday in January!

You just can't beat a 70 degree day in January!  I've worn shorts for the past two days!  Here's Saturday's painting.  Enjoy!

4"x6"

Acrylic on Birch Panel 

The "REAL" painting of the day is brought to you by the letter "A".... for AWESOME

I wasn't in the studio long, but it was enough to get a lot of pre-work done along with my painting today!  Enjoy!  Then go out and have a nice time tonight.  You deserve it!

4"x6"

Acrylic on Birch Panel

It's Friday!

I was so busy yesterday evening that I forgot to post my painting for January 9.  Here it is:

4"x6"

Acrylic on Birch Panel

"No Selfie Control" while I groove and paint in my studio this warm Thursday evening!

Congrats to my favorite band, Pet Shop Boys for the announcement that they will be headlining the dance stage at Coachella this year! 

Thursday

Through the Looking Glass: The Inner Workings of my Artist Brain.

I’m sure many of you have been curious as to the sudden change of subject matter in my work over the past few days.  First, I need to address the sudden uptick in work and blog posts.  Before January 1, I made a commitment to myself to create one original painting a day.  In order to make this not so overwhelming, I limited the size of these paintings to just 4”x6”.  I had been in a creative rut during most of the second half of 2013 due to a variety of reasons which included some drastic changes in my personal life and with it an unfortunate spike in my constant battle with anxiety.  This project was designed for the sole purpose of getting me into my studio  and painting every day. These are meant to be created throughout the year IN ADDITION to all the other work I will be creating which means that I will be a busy man in 2014.  I have many exciting projects lined up and at least one partnership opportunity with a local gallery.  The most recent paintings in the 4”x6” format have been quite abstract compared to the work I have been producing.  This is where the creative rut comes into play.  I start looking for inspiration from photos I had taken with my iPhone.  Some were speaking to me, but many have not been suitable for such a small format.  Then, I decided to revisit some old sketchbooks- I have several.  I went back to my 2006 sketchbook and flipped through the pages.  I began remembering my thought process at the time I created those drawings and the type of satisfaction it provided.  So, I decided to take some of those drawings I never used and use them for this 4”x6” project.  After painting a couple I started wondering why I stopped exploring the options of working in this way.  After much thought, the answer came to me.  I got bored.  Then the “Ah Ha” cascade continued.  Over this past year, why had I not been wanting to paint and create?  Besides the reasons already stated, I got bored.  More on this later.  

The infancy of my aesthetic began when I rejected the goal of trying to render every subject as ‘realistically’ as possible.  This started in college.  I was looking for more.  I was looking for my voice.  I wanted to be more free, so I began exploring all the possibilities of gesture drawing.  Somewhere during this period, I learned of Matisse’s late paper cut-out works.  I fell in love with the simplicity and it was then that I believed it was possible to produce minimal work that was still very narrative.  I began editing my gestures down to what I considered the bare minimal elements that still communicated the feeling/action.  At this time,  the extent of Matisse’s influence on my work was very apparent. 

After college, I took a corporate job out of necessity which nearly killed my creative spirit in just 3 1/2 short years.  Five moves and one terrible hurricane later I caught my footing in Houston, TX.  I began working again and tried to pick up where I had left off in college.  I found some models.  Some posed for me voluntarily in my creating space while others were unknowingly sketched while I sat on the patio of my local Starbucks.  My goal had changed though.  I began seeing my minimal gestures as developing into some kind of  literal visual language.  With the exception of a very short experimental series(first two pictures), almost none of this work is titled.  How can you title a ‘language’ that can not be spoken?  I also began visually studying Japanese, Chinese, and Islamic calligraphy.  I mashed this up with everything I loved about Matisse’s cutouts which resulted in work like this: 

This method of working is very intuitive and quite abstract.  I had to decide what should or should not be included very quickly as my subject moved.  These images are intended to be very flat and may or may not appear obviously derived from the figure.  This work is about a captured moment-the present.  The challenge in creating this work is the editing.  What stays?  What must be discarded?  This was an intense exercise in economy and required that I pay very close attention to balance.  Positive/Negative.  Straight Edge/Curved Edge.  These combinations force the eye to move around even the most simple of compositions.  However, this way of working had one major drawback.  It locked me into only being able to use two colors(or black and white) at a time in order for the piece to read most effectively.  I could not resolve this problem, so eventually I got bored.  I also felt the strong desire to tell more of a story.

I will call the next phase my ‘Hybrid’ phase.  I began this work with gestures as I had before except that source images came from both real time observation and photographs. In addition, this time I decided to use many shapes that could overlap each other.  And although the work was still completely flat with no illusion of the third dimension, this enabled me to make my work appear more obviously derived from the figure.  Some of this work is serious in subject and some are very light and even cross into humor.  This is when I became much more conscious of color theory and how I could apply it effectively.  I challenged myself in this work by limiting the number of colors AND the number of times I could use those colors in each piece. I also had to strike a balance between representing the actual subject in both an abstracted and more representational way. It was  self-imposed limitations that made me work very hard to include ONLY the most important aspects of the feeling/subject I was trying to convey.  Restriction demands creativity.  It was at this time that I began titling all of my work in a very free form of Western Haiku.  I did this partly out of my own insecurity about no one being able to ‘get’ my work, and partly because I wanted to add more ‘story’ to the work.  Some of the titles are based on a shared experience with the subject while others obliquely reference something that was current in the subject’s life at the time.  Very few titles are complete fiction.  Even my bird pieces usually convey bits of my personal philosophy.  

My most recent body of work has by far been my most representational.  All of the pieces continued to be titled in Western Haiku format.  Some major changes from my previous work:  All work is derived from photographs(mostly taken by me).  For most of the portrait work I chose a cinematic widescreen format and hard cropping to create more drama.  My visual investigations go deeper in this work as I try to address the psychological and emotional aspects of my subjects.  Many of my subjects I know personally.  Some of my models are my friends.  Some of my models are former friends, and some are much more than just friends.  This work is very painstakingly planned.  I have to choose my colors very carefully because in my portraits I must notate not only local color(the actual seen color) but also the value( light or dark) in order to give even the most modest illusion of three dimensions.  This is very challenging and the most time intensive.  And above all else, the image must accurately represent the subject! 

The better I know my subjects, the more quickly the process moves because it is not difficult for me to visually interject whichever chosen emotion into the piece.  Though they were(and still are) greatly appreciated, my most difficult pieces have been commissions by people I have no relationship with because the only clues to their personalities are available to me primarily over social media.  It is sufficient, but not quite the same.  The only discernible difference is that these take me longer to execute and complete.  After many successful portraits I began searching for ways to expand that resulted in many animal portraits.  I have painted some fish and have painted many birds.  Then I felt as if I hit a wall.  I got bored.  

Back to the beginning again.  I had been hit with a conundrum.  I could not possibly create work any more abstract than my early work and still maintain any reference to the figure.  The work in between was an obvious bridge between then and now.  And as for my most recent work, I have not been able to think of any new ways of depicting my subjects representationally that would not get so complex that it violated my self-imposed restrictions regarding simplicity.  After all, my mission is about reduction and distilling the image down to only the bare essentials.  I had been looking at my art making career as if it was a short story or novella:  A beginning, a middle, and an end.   Then I began to ask myself:  Where do I go from here?  I have always felt passionately about the figure and it has always been the focus of my visual explorations, while shape and color have always been my preferred tools to communicate those ideas to others.  Thinking linearly, I felt I reached a dead end.  I took the figure from extreme abstraction through to minimally rendered representational portrait work.  My thinking was incorrect.  My artistic energy is fluid and organic and not bound by linear time.  Since I can draw ideas and imagery from any source for creating  my own art  regardless of the time in which it came, why not give myself the same luxury and freedom to use my own creations from My Art Universe?  I can toggle between them  seamlessly and with ease at any time of my choosing to change up the way I have decided to express my ongoing experience with the world.  The toggling will not only reduce the possibility of boredom, but will also encourage creative problem solving and exploration as I further develop each of my  highly developed methods of working.  I have already started developing more than a handful of viable projects using my most abstract method of working.  I feel strongly that I have developed a unique aesthetic, and have yet to see any other current artist’s work that even looks remotely similar to my own.  My basic mantra is:  Less is more.  After reducing, reduce more.   If I had to choose any way to describe my work besides using words like “mine” and “awesome”, I would maybe label it Sophisticated Minimal Pop.  This is “My Art Universe” that I have been nurturing for so long.  There are unlimited possibilities waiting to be explored within the parameters I have established for myself. This is going to be a very busy and very big year for me.  Please keep looking and reading.  I am very excited about the work that is coming.  Thank you for your continued support. 

Ready for Spring!

I don't know about you guys, but I am about half past done with this grey weather!   Here's my newest tiny painting:

4"x6"

Acrylic on Birch Panel 

I'm sure many of you are wondering what the deal is with the 'new' subject matter.  Well, I'm working on a complete explanation which I will be uploading shortly.  

It Was an Electropop Tuesday studio working day!

Here is my newest work:

4"x6"

Acrylic on Birch panel

Yep.. I've been going back to the future lately.... 

I was so distracted by the cold that I almost missed my post!

Monday painting:

A little deja vu, eh? 

"Polar Vortex" on it's way.. and my new painting for Sunday

Good evening all.  I hope you are all warm tonight as the "vortex" descends upon us all. LOL  Here is my most recent painting.  I was uninspired this evening, so I decided to do a color study of Emerald Green.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading.

Color Study: Emerald Green

4"x6"

Acrylic on Birch Panel 

January 4, 2014

Last minute posting of the Saturday painting..

-Finally-

-The Purple Squirrel- 

-Has arrived-

4"x6"

Acrylic on birch panel 

Source photo

Prep drawing

January 3, 2014

New painting for Friday!

-Blue skies-

-Spring air-

-Time for a run-

4"x6"

Acrylic on Birch panel 

Source photo

Prep drawing

January 2, 2014

Here is another fresh new painting from Will Brooks Art Studio:

-Nature's elegance-

-where masculine- 

-meets feminine-

4"x6"

Acrylic on birch panel 

Source photo

Prep drawing 

January 1, 2014

I hope everyone had a great start to 2014 and wish you all health and prosperity for the year ahead.  This quite possibly will be the most prolific year for me to date.  Here is my first painting for 2014.

2014

new possibilities 

for love and growth 

4"x6" Acrylic on Birch Panel 

Source photo-iPhone 5S

Prep drawing