Over the weekend I participated in the Go Brooklyn Open Studios...
I had something like 75-85 people over the weekend. Maybe a hundred....From all walks of life.
My studio is kind of out of the way or at least there aren't too many other artist studios around my neighborhood. Mostly it is an industrial neighborhood with Marble Fabricators and
Wood shops. On Saturday it poured all morning and by the time it cleared up the crowds were pretty thin... So on Sunday I decided to take some action. I went out with a couple of rolls of Blue Painter's tape and from about 4-5 blocks away, I made arrows all pointing towards my front door. Subliminal advertising as there was no real info, just arrows on buildings and street lamps and sidewalks and roll up gates, etc, etc. All eventually leading into my building and then up the stairs right to my studio door.
At some point my friend Michael showed up and we were sitting around drinking beer and then a woman and then this guy came in, he was all sweaty. He had been jogging and said he saw all the arrows, he just wanted to find out what they were all about.
The guy had no clue about art really about art or even the Open Studios. He said he lived in the neighborhood and went on to say he was a salesman for some "high-end" software company. And he proceeded to tell us all about his past businesses, selling solar panels, and the one before that one, and his failed marriage etc. The guy was full of information and he kept going and going.
At some point he started to ask me about my paintings, and I was telling him about the advertising images that provoked my work and he immediately got into the fact that buried somewhere in all of my paintings are subliminal messages; pictures of naked girls and words telling people to love my work and that the work they are looking at really makes them look sexy. I 've been burying these kind of things in the work for years. I think honestly this was the first guy ever to notice it...
We began to speak about that books from the 1970's about writing the SEX on Ritz Crackers and baking them in, or about the dude with a hard-on and the naked woman in the drawing of the camel on the pack of cigarettes....and about how laws were passed to outlaw this kind of behavior and then someone said that they heard this kind of subliminal messaging never really worked in the first place,
to which the Jogger-Guy then says, "Well it really does work. Almost all the people in this world walk through life completely unaware." "They are sleepwalking and unaware, and totally not picking up on all of their past lives ." This guy was a believer in something, but I really have no idea what he was talking about.
The guy got all religious or spiritual and I was suddenly like wondering what the hell was I thinking letting a bunch of strangers over to my space... particularly ones who just walked in off the street!
Look...
I was happy to have people over all weekend but the reality is that people are often
not unaware but just real nut jobs. Thank god I take that kind of stuff with a grain of salt, but I really am glad that I have become so thick-skinned that as soon as this guy started to go all-crystal/zen on me, I immediately excused myself and walked into the next room to grab another beer, and somehow, even though no one else had come by to visit at that time, never went back to pick up where the conversation left off.
I know I might sound like some kind of dick, but to tell the truth I am what I am. I complained all weekend that not enough people were able to come by because my studio was remote and off the beaten path that most artist take and so I don't have any studios near enough to build up some kind of friendship or community....which I hate to say is exactly how I like it in the first place.
Thank God the Open Studios are over!
DK
Easy To Please 2012 Oil on Canvas 65" x 63"
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