Sunday 7/28/24

July 28, 2024

On Sundays I reflect.

I didn’t drink alcohol this week. I don’t even think it crossed my mind.

I spent as much time as I could with my parents this week. We had meals together and took a drive up to Piney Lake.

I finally got back to our new neighbors at The Barn for yoga when a new friend invited me. We were the only two people that showed up so we got a private session. It was great and I look forward to getting back into a routine now that we have such a beautiful studio across the street from Bat Country Studios.

This upcoming week I’ll be back and forth between here and Aspen for the annual Aspen Art Fairs. This year there will be two simultaneous fairs along with satellite events. I’ll be attending painter Allison Katz talk at the art museum about her current exhibition “In The House Of The Trembling Eye”.

In the past I’ve typically attended these fairs for only the opening day and often by myself or with my parents. This year we have a crew showing up and I’ll be spending at least a few days over there. I’m more excited than usual.

I completed a project this week on the torch that I’ve long been putting off due to intimidation. All I did was finish a prototype and it was a very difficult process for me that I’m less impressed with as a finished form. That being said I’m proud of the step I took and in comparison to only my own work with glass it’s a major milestone.

I hold my creative self to a pretty high standard. As a broker and gallerist I’ve spent years scrutinizing other artists work to the highest level that I am capable. I would say I’m even more critical of my own work, sometimes to such a degree that it paralyzes me from even attempting projects for which I’m not confident in my skills.

My parents got me “The Creative Act” by Rick Rubin and one of the messages that already stands out is accepting failure as a part of the process.

I might be moving at a snails pace, or so it feels. I’ve had periods of stagnation and also moments of huge growth. As an artist it can be difficult to focus on those small moments of growth when so much of the process feels so challenging.

Everyone at the studio knew I was in the zone that day. My parents lingered in the background not wanting to interrupt. Stan was busy with bracelets but helped me with a few crucial moves in between. When I hit a hiccup during a deal he ran over ready to help, and it’s hardly noticeable in the finished piece that I fucked up. Nuben helped me load my piece from the kiln to the lathe when it was too hot and heavy for me to handle by myself. I could hear Heather and Ray taking to my parents at some point mentioning something like they hadn’t seen me in this kind of state since moving into the studio.

I was completely tuned into my piece and nothing else could distract me. I can’t remember what music I was listening to but it may have been WHY?, a band I’ve had on a lot lately.

More than likely I was deep in some drum n bass going a million miles an hour.

There was a lot of cursing and yelling.

It was pure zen. My first glass teacher Bob T mentioned elemental flow one of the first times I went to his house to melt glass.

I was a musician when I was a kid. I thought that would be my life. I played in bands all through childhood and in college. When I lived in NYC a decade ago I juggled my band with glass blowing and honestly if the band had caught a break I may have abandoned glass.

Unbeknownst to me, I was experiencing elemental flow playing music and blowing glass. Sometimes. Not always.

As an adult I’ve found a similar experience through acupuncture and meditation.

It’s that moment when you’re fully transcendent for a psychedelic experience, which doesn’t always require the consumption of psychedelic drugs.

As a kid I was slightly obsessed with psychedelic drugs. Eventually I learned about integration of the psychedelic experiences I was having on drugs into my every day reality.

So even though the finished piece is less than I had hoped for, and no psychedelic drugs were involved in the process of its creation, I had a psychedelic experience this week making that piece.

I can’t imagine when I’ll be able to make time to continue pursuing this new body of work, but after a few upcoming commitments I’ve made including the Aspen trips I’ll be prioritizing this work as much as I can.

It feels like a good time to push myself and I’m finally starting to feel emotionally and spiritually ready.

You can’t make an omelet without a few cracked eggs or something. I wasted hours making prep that wasn’t good enough or fucking up prep that was. One of those big pieces ended up in the trash and was beaten by my punty until it was fully shattered. I rarely lose my temper with glass, or in life these days. I was fully in control and aware of what I was doing and it did feel cathartic but it probably wasn’t a healthy behavior.

I bet the neighbors heard me cursing and yelling at that one.

My shopmates sure did.

I recently heard about a practice of spending 5 minutes beating the shit out of your pillow followed by journaling immediately after. I think it was in a Rick Rubin podcast interview but it could have been in the book.

Sometimes it’s ok to let it all out, especially during the creative process.

Sorry to any of my shopmates I may have made feel uncomfortable or concerned.

On an unrelated note my brother and his wife just closed on their first house this week in Miami. I’m so tempted to make a joke about my whole crew hippie bombing the place but I’m working on monitoring my teasing based on feedback I’ve received so I’ll use this space to promise my wonderful brother and sister in law that I will not hippie bomb the new house. Congratulations guys I know you’ve been working so hard to make this happen.

What else do I need to cover here?

I finished the audiobook “Scar Tissue” by Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

In the background of everything leading up to the gallery opening, my studio and creative space had become so chaotic it was nearly impossible to function. Now there is a calm to the space and creative juices are flowing. It reminds me of a story my dad told when I was a kid.

I’ll summarize it here and maybe wrap up this behemoth of an essay.

This guy Moshe is losing his mind at home with his wife and kids and job and all the stresses of life. He goes to the Rabbi for advice and the Rabbi asks if he has a cat and tells Moshe to bring it in the house. Confused he goes home and brings the cat in and the already stressed Moshe has another problem to deal with. Next day he goes back to the rabbi who tells him to bring in the dog. The next day the chicken, then the goat and then the cow. Moshe is at his breaking point when he screams at the Rabbi “I can’t take it any more I need serenity now” and the Rabbi tells him to take all the animals out of his house. That night Moshe sleeps like a baby for the first night in as long as he can remember.

Sometimes it be like that.

I’m not sleeping like a baby, but I’ve never been more comfortable in the space that is Bat Country Studios. As Stan continues to remind me to both of our chagrin, the projects are never going to stop coming and the space is never going to stop evolving. The nature of the beast might just be insanity, but at least we have a functional space inside of which we can be insane.

Thankful for my shopmates, my family, my friends and my community.

Enjoy your Sunday,