Art As Therapy (Part 1) ~ Self Portrait No.4

“Poor Sad Bastard” ~ After all these years I finally got to fall in love again! But alas, it ended too soon. A well meaning friend told me with a symptomatic tone, "people come into our lives for: a reason, a season, or a life" I must of been looking like some poor sad bastard to get that pep talk :) 

Whatever it was, she was great ~ but it has left me a little wilted. So when I look at this piece, I see there's a happy-sad thing going on. Colors are more subdued and the lines are hard, yet there is a positive upwards movement to the whole piece. Hopeful and scared at the same time…you know.

*A person made a commented on this post 1/21/2012. Among other things, she said she saw more pain than joy in the piece. Never one to back down when someone calls me on my crap; I took an introspective look at what I had painted. 

All of the things I had been talking about in the last few post were right there. Emotion in motion! (Sorry Billy Squire), but still, the Bluesy music I’ve been listening to, the internal sunshine turning into a stormy day, and even the exquisite funk! 

This self-portrait was a product of all that ~ even better it was a photograph of my guts as I worked through all this stuff.

I thought about this as I studied it. I saw less positive upward movement, if any at all. I saw the first lightning strike over the heart with fresh red puncture wounds, the second strike happening on the far left side of the page; obviously something else going on there.  And maybe ~ just maybe, there was a falling back, and not an upward movement. 

I like the fact my darker emotions got in there and mixed stuff up. I still stand by my romantic, sunshiny self and say “Love rocks and Girls rule…and I would do it over again, a hundred times!”

* Added 1/23/2012

The Internal Sunshine of the Artistic Mind

Pay attention, because there will be a test; Do you have to be in love to write a love song? Do you have to be depressed to paint a sad painting?  Is a story better when it really happened to you? You catch my drift? The pieces above were created the year while my Dad was dieing, and they don't look anywhere near dark and dreary. So I say "No".

I think art is best when you get what you get .

Everyone says that I'm a "happy" painter, something in all my stuff has "internal sunshine". I'm OK  with that, In fact, I'm grateful for it. However, I would like to think if I were sad, I could squeeze a cloudy day out on my canvus. Things as they are. These guys coming through when they did were sheer joy!  They're like my babies! Over the course of a few months, from conception to delivery, it proved to me that art could be theropy, and in spite of a drepressed mood joyful art could come out.

I LOVE ART!

David Street Art Turns 3000!

Time for a change. I am growing weary of the "Basic Black" treatment of my blog. Time to mix it up a little with one of my favorite watercolor splotches, Thanks to Google, I am getting more hits ~ and today 1/20/12; I hit 3000 at 5:00 PM Boise Time!! Thanks everybody!

Top Five - List No.5 ~ Sad Bastard Music

"The blues ain't nothin' but a good man feelin' bad, thinkin' 'bout the woman he once was with"
Crossroads (1986)

Never in my life have I felt myself slipping into such a deep, dark, yet exquisite, funk! You ask what is causing the mudslide of my soul? A woman of course!

It's not just that though. It feels like everything in my life is going south at the same time! So right now I’m holding on to my sanity with just my figure tips...

...Thank goodness for music.

Here are the top five sad songs that make me happy right now.

No.5  I Got You [ Train ] (2009)
No.4  Better That We Break [Maroon 5 ] (2008) 
No.3  The Crystal Ship [ The Doors ] (1967)
No.2  The Thrill Is Gone [B.B. King] (1970)
No.1  Sideways [Citizen Cope ft. Carlos Santana] (2007)

New Year ~ New Leaf!

Happy New Year Everybody! Not to wax too philosophical so soon into the New Year; But I’ve learn with this project, not only thinking “I can do hard things”, and then going after the task. Sometimes, things go beyond hard to “scares the crap out of me” ~ and I still have to go do them anyway!

I’ve always wanted to do holiday windows, but I didn’t know how to get started. I talked to a friend of a friend and he got me started with paints and clean up. The “scares the crap out of me” part was going out and getting business. I have built up this phobia of talking to strangers, but I made myself go talk anyway. I laughed, after talking to the first half a dozen shop owners, I remembered how darn charming I was! The ideas came easy after that. I even sold this original concept to the Fixx's owner.

The photos you see are taken at the Fixx Coffee house here in Boise. The drawings are Christmas gifts for my kids. Some are from the project; some were ideas that didn’t end out on the windows.