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Being an Artist
Actually not the real beginning, but it is my beginning as a blogger. Those who know me know that I never stop. I've got a million things going on and I'm always out doing a million things. It's just who I am. I'm committed to living my life fully and to bringing as many people along for the ride as I can.
I do remember a time when I just went to work and then after a 10 hour day building someone else's dream, coming home and playing with the kids, eating dinner and plopping down in front of the TV for a few hours of culture input, then going to bed and getting up and doing it all over again the next day.
I don't know what happened. Maybe it was getting laid off all those times and just feeling like I was getting nowhere. Maybe it was all those years of chasing money with side businesses, trying to build my own dream by doing something I was not really that interested in but someone had convinced me would be a path to financial freedom. Maybe it was getting divorced and feeling like I'd failed as a provider and ultimately as a father. I don't know what it was, but when I started really doing what I loved, the artistic stuff. And when I started showing other people how to reach their dreams or at least clarify what their dreams were, that's when it all started coming together.
The first step was to get that I was an artist. Thats who i am. Inside that I could utilize many mediums. I paint, I make movies, I produce events, I cook, I take photographs, I garden, I design my living space. But all of that, all of it is the doingness of an artistic being. Getting that gave me peace. There was no place to get to. I was already an artist. How did I get that? Well starting to paint again was the key
For that miracle I have two very special women to thank. the first is my friend, Rachel Delux. She is a very talented painter and a very special woman. I think I fell in love with her the first time I saw her at an opening at C-Pop. She had just moved here from California and was out celebrating her birthday in her inimitable wild woman way. She made an impression on me and we stayed in touch. A year later when I was producing my first feature film, The Passenger, and the script called for a wild painter/filmmaker, I thought of her. We cast her and it was not a mistake, the part was made for her. The best part was she and I started spending a lot of time together, talking about art and culture and living in California and Andy Warhol and Charles Bukowski and in general discovering we were kindred souls. I had never painted on canvas. All my early work in LA was on found objects and mostly sculptural but I had been fooling around with the paint program on my computer and had about 20 pieces in there and was amazed at how easily they flowed. One night after a long day of shooting I was in the throes of doing ten more pictures while Rachel took a nap in my guest room. When she woke up I asked her if she would take a look at them at give me her opinion. Hers was an opinion that I respected and I was more than a little nervous as she sat her self down at my computer. She looked at the first one for a long time and when I could stand it no more I said, "Just push that button to go to the next." She said, "I know." and kept on looking at the first one. She did the same for all of them, spending wha
t seemed to me an unbearable long time looking at each. When she was done, she turned to me and said; "You've got to put these on canvas." It had never occurred to me to do that. I was not thinking of them as art or as treatments for a painting. To me they were just doodles on the computer. I said, "Really?" She said, "Ed, if you don't put these on canvas, I will steal them and do these paintings myself." I didn't know what to say. Over the next week I started asking her what I needed to start painting. I did not go to art school, I didn't know. I pumped her about equipment and paints and colors and armed myself to begin my journey as a painter. I produced more imag
es on the computer but I procrastinated about getting the supplies and beginning.
The second person who made a difference in my being an artist was my friend Sarah. We met at the bar she worked in one night and became fast friends. We started hanging out together and I would often go to the bar she worked at and talk to her while she worked. As I got to know her I discovered she was a photographer and eventually prevailed on her to show me some of her work. she was brilliant and it became apparent that she was happiest when doing photography. And not that happy working as a bartender.
In my commitment ot have everyone around me fulfilling on their dreams I remember sitting in the 2500 Club with her one night and asking her why she was not pursuing photography. she obviously was happiest when she was doing that. I said you are a photographer. Be a photographer not a bartender. You can work as a bartender but be a photographer working as a bartender part-time, not a bartender trying to be a photographer. I said if you be a photographer you will naturally do what photographers do, take pictures, have shows, get commissions. Then if you be and do first, you will have what photographers have, success, money, acclaim. The order is be, do, have. Most of us get it backwards and think we have to have something before we can do and then if we do enough we will be. It's backwards! I'll never forget what Sarah then said to me. She said, " What about you? When are you going to start painting?" She had me. I was a deer in her headlights. I had been procrastinating for weeks and was no closer to painting than I had been months before. I stammered something about I had just been looking at supplies the day before and was planning on purchasing what I needed that weekend. But inside I knew I was procrastinating.
The next day I came home from my day-job and there on my doostep was a bag and a note. the note said simply, "Be, Do, Have." Inside the bag was an entiere set of acrylic paints, extra brushes and three canvas boards to start me off. I looked at it and I cried. I started painting the next day. I have not stopped since and I am an artist.
t seemed to me an unbearable long time looking at each. When she was done, she turned to me and said; "You've got to put these on canvas." It had never occurred to me to do that. I was not thinking of them as art or as treatments for a painting. To me they were just doodles on the computer. I said, "Really?" She said, "Ed, if you don't put these on canvas, I will steal them and do these paintings myself." I didn't know what to say. Over the next week I started asking her what I needed to start painting. I did not go to art school, I didn't know. I pumped her about equipment and paints and colors and armed myself to begin my journey as a painter. I produced more imag
es on the computer but I procrastinated about getting the supplies and beginning.
The second person who made a difference in my being an artist was my friend Sarah. We met at the bar she worked in one night and became fast friends. We started hanging out together and I would often go to the bar she worked at and talk to her while she worked. As I got to know her I discovered she was a photographer and eventually prevailed on her to show me some of her work. she was brilliant and it became apparent that she was happiest when doing photography. And not that happy working as a bartender.
In my commitment ot have everyone around me fulfilling on their dreams I remember sitting in the 2500 Club with her one night and asking her why she was not pursuing photography. she obviously was happiest when she was doing that. I said you are a photographer. Be a photographer not a bartender. You can work as a bartender but be a photographer working as a bartender part-time, not a bartender trying to be a photographer. I said if you be a photographer you will naturally do what photographers do, take pictures, have shows, get commissions. Then if you be and do first, you will have what photographers have, success, money, acclaim. The order is be, do, have. Most of us get it backwards and think we have to have something before we can do and then if we do enough we will be. It's backwards! I'll never forget what Sarah then said to me. She said, " What about you? When are you going to start painting?" She had me. I was a deer in her headlights. I had been procrastinating for weeks and was no closer to painting than I had been months before. I stammered something about I had just been looking at supplies the day before and was planning on purchasing what I needed that weekend. But inside I knew I was procrastinating.
The next day I came home from my day-job and there on my doostep was a bag and a note. the note said simply, "Be, Do, Have." Inside the bag was an entiere set of acrylic paints, extra brushes and three canvas boards to start me off. I looked at it and I cried. I started painting the next day. I have not stopped since and I am an artist.
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