Ideas That Go Bump In The Night

8/14 2016 (part 1) 

I’m going to start out by saying I wrote all that follows (part 1… this paragraph or two) some time back. I often lose track of time so its no big deal that I cannot remember what happened when…..

but I am very aware that the passage of time seems considerable.

But what I’m attempting to grapple with in all this may be may be an important idea or two…… (or again maybe not). I could really use some pedantic soul who thinks a lot and is considered “smart” or even “very smart” to validate what I’m driving at …but in all likelihood that will fail to occur.

However, in what I wrote previously I mention a sculpture that I called “The Parade of Happenstance”

In whatever time has elapsed since I wrote “part 2” I have done a lot to this sculpture…. adding a lot of elememts but trying to be at least somewhat judicious in what has been newly spawned” in the sculpture.

  But in general, lately I have leaned heavily on the side of “adding more” and “not less”. The same characteristics are infiltrating a lot more of my work at the moment and I perceive it all as somehow “even wilder than usual.” I have changed the title of that sculpture to what is currently “From out of the Parade of Happenstance” as I believe in essence that what is occuring. My recent creative work is derived from utilizing what I more than ever perceive as “Happenstance”

I will shut up now and let you settle into all I wrote in the past.

­­­Ideas That Go Bump In The Night

Somewhere in time (or quite a while ago) “Part 2”

I awoke the other day and realized that I suddenly had an idea ….or perhaps I had a few more than just “an idea” ……

And on that particular day, this idea seemed to make sense.  Its hard to know what makes sense  at this point.

Maybe it’s an idea… or maybe it’s more of a theory, but whatever it is, its roots are buried deep in my artwork and it goes back to some simple question that I first pondered when I was a child.

Art involves decisions ……and lots of them. Also, nobody gives a damn what kind of decisions you make, because this is ART and “there are no rules” and why get worked up about things? Or, if there were any rules, those rules have been, or in the future will be overruled.

In short if you are a contemporary artist, (and which artist, still breathing is not a contemporary artist?) you can pretty well do whatever you damn well please when making “ART”.

So, how can one make decisions in such a loose structure or chaotic system, or should I say such an “open ended system”? The only way to get out of making decisions in art is to decide not to make art …and that in itself is a pretty major “decision”. If I do decide to make art, I better decide something before I start, and that is “HOW” to start.

Then each decision I make “after that” is based on the previous decision. And, not to be redundant, with unlimited choices, how does one tell which possibility is better than any other?

My father, as well as a lot of other well-meaning and good intentioned people, would, take one look at contemporary art, and then retreat back to a past when there were still a few rules around. Or he and his like-minded cohorts concluded that Contemporary Art is bullshit, and that all contemporary artists might either be “nuts” or “full of bullshit”.

I heard one story about Picasso that may or may not be true, yet it still says a lot about art and understanding a man like my father.

 A man approached Picasso on the street and said. I want to show you some real art…not that stuff that you do….. And he pulled out a photograph of a woman, showed it to Picasso and said, “there….this is real art…it’s my wife.” Picasso studied it for a while and said “Your wife looks very small and very flat”.

Of course, a photograph is literally “flat” so the woman depicted is also flat…. And the depiction of the man’s wife was also small.

In other words, as far as contemporary art is concerned …There seems to be a little more going on than simply rules vs no rules. Maybe some things pertaining to “perception” creep in here and there ?...and that can change the game.

When a clear objective or endgame (no matter how broad) is sought, all decisions play a role in the attainment or the thwarting of the goal. So that a decisions usefulness within a chain of events can be determined by the results that occur, and a decision can then be evaluated based on its success or failure.

But what happens when no perceived goal is obvious?

Even in the past when rules did rule in the world of art I think a lot of anomalies existed.

Suppose Michelangelo decides that the left hand of the Madonna figure in his “Pieta” is 1/2 of an inch “off”. Let’s say its shorter than what he wants it to be.

Should he simply “start over” with a new block of marble, and forget the one he has been working on?

Or can he say “what difference does it make? No one will notice.” After all the sculptural figure of Madonna that is being “created” has never existed before, so who is to say what is correct? In fact, Michelangelo may have tons of “mistakes” buried in his work, and they may or may not be perceived by the artist or the audience as mistakes. And if the “mistakes” are purposeful, we might be witnessing the overruling of a rule or “the overthrow of reason itself”.

Here is a bit about a perceived “Mistake” Michelangelo was accused of in his time:

This too involves “The Pieta“.  The masterpiece comes with a major flaw, which Michelangelo, perhaps wryly, insisted was a manifestation of grace. Jesus looks his age. He appears to be a dead man in his mid-30s. But you needn’t look all that closely at the Madonna to see a teenage mother. When his critics drew attention to this age discrepancy, Michelangelo quipped, “Chasity enjoys eternal youth.””

Also, what else is at play in this “train of thought”?

 I often try to imagine the world without me or my artwork in it. It is a lot like what the angel showed Jimmy Stewart in the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life”. Without the Jimmy Stewart character in the world, his brother would have died when he fell through the ice at age 9 and the town of Bedford Falls would have become “Pottersville” (not a very nice place to be). So, at the end of the movie all are grateful that the Jimmy Stewart character is in the movie, alive and breathing as much as all the rest of mankind.

So, is the known universe the gatekeeper to what “is” or to what will become? Can the universe, which has obvious forces that affects all things, not play a role in how something comes into being?  After all, if I wasn’t here, there would be no Ed Haddaway Art.

And what is imagination anyway? Is it our ability to perceive that which is not real?

Now we are off to the races about what is reality.

Ok, ok…. so much for this kind of conjecture…… at least for now. I have my answers and questions about the nature of things and how the universe works…..and you can go to work on your own ideas.

However, a few words that get tossed around in all this about decision making and art are: capricious, arbitrary, impulsive, unpredictable, and of course “whimsical” (all the opposites of “reasonable”).

One curse in life that I am forced to endure, is that I have to live with being labeled a “whimsical” artist. And as best I can tell, that means that I make choices that are somewhat haphazard and that maybe I should not be taken as seriously as a “real” or “serious” artist. Whimsical is defined as “determined by chance or impulse or whim rather than by necessity or reason.”

Of course, in many ways it is the reasonableness and logic that  I find objectionable about so much of modern life.

Life devoid of idiosyncrasy seems “stale” and “safe.”

One or two final thoughts need to be stated at this point:

I have always had an innate instinct about the choices and decisions I make when working on my art. In some ways my decisions seem almost “primal”.

Call it a connection with Carl Jung’s “collective unconscious”

or call it whatever you want, I think things which appear to have been done capriciously, may actually have a “hidden road map” that is difficult to grasp or quantify, but is still very real. And I think there is a good chance that the universe is very much alive, just as we are, and involved in all things. From time to time I perceive the world or universe that I live in as something that works with me in the art making process.

I am currently working on a new sculpture that I have already titled:

It’s called:

“The Parade of Happenstance”

“ Happenstance” is defined as “chance or a chance situation, especially one producing a good result”

When I first started writing all this, I tried to sound smart and sophisticated. Soon, however, I threw in the towel on my writing and started over……and some of what I wrote and quickly abandoned has still worked its way into this version.

However, the more I wrote, the less I seemed to really understand.

So, wanting to not just “seem smart” I started looking around on line, trying to see what others (maybe more scholarly people) have said about all this stuff, if anything.

For some reason I looked up “Chaos theory”. I may be dead wrong, but as far as I can tell, the “Chaos Theory People” are wrestling with the very issues I am trying to get at in this bit of writing.

Here Is A Short Description:

Chaos theory is a method of qualitative and quantitative analysis to investigate the behavior of dynamic systems that cannot be explained and predicted by single data relationships, but must be explained and predicted by whole, continuous data relationships.

And A Bit More about It:

In common usage, "chaos" means "a state of disorder". However, in chaos theory, the term is defined more precisely. Although no universally accepted mathematical definition of chaos exists, a commonly used definition, originally formulated by Robert L. Devaney, says that to classify a dynamical system as chaotic, it must have these properties:

[ it must be sensitive to initial conditions,

it must be topologically transitive,

it must have dense periodic orbits.

In some cases, the last two properties above have been shown to actually imply sensitivity to initial conditions. In the discrete-time case, this is true for all continuous maps on metric spaces. In these cases, while it is often the most practically significant property, "sensitivity to initial conditions" need not be stated in the definition.

If attention is restricted to intervals, the second property implies the other two. An alternative and a generally weaker definition of chaos uses only the first two properties in the above list.

_________________________________________________________________________

I don’t know about you, but I am fairly lost at this point……but I look forward to working on acquiring more “dense periodic orbits” in my artwork.

MAKING ART/ MAKING THINGS

You have to bear in mind just how long I have been at this.
I have determined that age 5 (which I attained in October of 1955) was the official start of my art career.

Like most things in early life it is hard to get a fix on exactly when things happened, but I do have vivid memories of “making things” from a very early age, and I have photographic evidence of this pursuit. And while it is hard to know anything from a distance such as this, my gut instinct says that by the age of 5, I was pretty much at it full time. Certainly, by that age I was clearly obsessed with the making of things. To the point that if I wasn’t engaged in the act, or rather in the attempt to act and make things, I was thinking about both what to make, and how to get it done.

This October I will be 76 years old, so we will soon be looking at something I’ve done for 69 of my 76 years.

It is as if a record broke or was deeply scratched at some point in my childhood…again and again it would replay and all that went into my decision-making process, as well as the repetition of all the necessary tasks involved in the making of “things” were gone over in minute detail before I fell asleep. It was a veritable dress rehearsal of the mind that occured nightly. I was also fixated on this activity most of my waking hours and making things became integrated into my life as a child. In fact, there was a massive co-mingling as all this was occurring along with other parts of my life and it was the beginning of my highly active and intense imagination.

At some point along the way, I saw a movie about the boyhood of Thomas Alva Edison. Edison became not just someone I revered or aspired to emulate, but in a convoluted way, I saw myself as Edison himself, and began to look for a code or a sign in both my dreams and in my waking life that would prove to the world that I was in fact the reincarnation of Edison.

To “invent” became the key phrase to describe “making things” and avarice was also thrown into the mix and encouraged by my parents, as I was encouraged to “invent” something that was needed by all of the people on the earth at that time, and therefore get rich for my efforts.

However, along with the fantasy involved in making things there was a brutal reality that soon became firmly attached to my illusions of building things. The reality would hit just as I got to the point that I crossed from that fanciful contemplative world in which I imagined the making of something, to the real attempt of actually physically doing it. At such moments, I was struck full force with the most profound sense of frustration and disillusionment, as I fully encountered just how difficult it was to master the skills necessary to put things together piece by piece.

The frustration I felt was leavened with an ongoing self-education program in which I was taught by myself and others just how to manipulate tools and get things done. It was a slow arduous process and it never ends, there is always more to learn and more to do. I became more comfortable with my situation as it was all part of the mix in learning how to make things and get things done, and it is woven into the doing. There is little to do but age gracefully in the knowledge that what I want, can be accomplished so that the intense frustration lessens, and that part of the process gets integrated into the whole.

Along with this dose of reality at that point in time, I came to understand that “how something was defined,” played an important role in my understanding of the nature of things and how to build them. As a child, I would often become euphoric in the process of making things. As I had during many previous days, I would start by simply nailing boards together in a joyous cacophony of glee. Unfortunately, however, on one particular day, when I was asked what it was that I was building, I said, “it’s a boat.” Little did I know that this was to be the death knell of the simple pleasure of blindly building something.

The Boat I Built Is Not a Boat, painted steel, 38 x 38 x 8 in

Suddenly, it was understood by all who encountered the object that it was a “boat.” I could almost hear a haunting whisper as it spread from lip to lip “It’s a boat” and the words grew more demanding every moment… “It’s a boat,” the voices repeated.

In my mind, on one level my construction was a boat, but what I meant by that was that it was and would always be an amorphous and ill-defined boat. Maybe I even meant that it was just a suggestion of a boat. I certainly did not care if it functioned as a boat would function. (Function of anything has always been at the bottom of my list.) The sanctity of the structure I was building was not meant to be crossed by others, or exposed to the vicissitudes of nature. I can no longer recall what this object looked like, but I believe it was quite large. I do remember the basic story I am sharing, and I remember that we were on the boat in the water for a time, so I have little doubt as to its size.

But on that day when I was happily building “my boat,” my brother and sister had mistakenly taken my statement literally, and began to insist along with their shouts of “It’s a Boat! It’s a boat!” that a boat had to float…and further, they began an insidious plot that involved bringing the “boat” to a small lake that was close by in the neighborhood, and there it was to be “tested” to see if it really was a “boat.”

My early experience in the building of stuff left a marked impression on me. It was one of unmitigated joy.

Now I was to get an even larger impression branded into my flesh.

And it was much less favorable than my first impression.

I was primarily convinced that what I was building was a boat simply because I said so, and it was in the building of things that I felt the sense of mastery and dominance. And if it made me happy to build a boat or say something to that effect, why should anyone or anything disrupt or question in any way that intent?

Frustration and confusion are not things to go looking for, and I was content to simply banish them from my world view.

However, to define things, did not seem at all helpful in any part of the making of things. And it was hard enough to face the tedious difficulty of using the tools involved when I was trying to make things.

Suddenly, “making art” was looking much more forgiving, than “making things. And I began to appreciate the inchoate quality that was at play in “Art.” Had I just defined the object I was building as “art” and not a “boat,” I could have gotten away with murder.

Soon enough “making ART” did stand in for what I previously called “making things.” Art was a better word anyway, because no one could say what it was.

However, the transfer I made to “making art” did not truly begin until I was singled out as having artistic abilities. This began and was solidified somewhat when I was in the third grade. My talent was recognized by not just the public-school art teacher I had, but I was singled out to attend advanced art classes in a city-wide program based on my artistic ability. To be lumped into the same category as other artists was a definite boost to my ego. Surely that could count for something.

Definitions come and definitions go, and I did not care if my boat was never ever even associated with bodies of water. I had enough on my mind to truly be concerned with other than what it was I was making. Still, it was beginning to look like I was doomed, as the battle I was fighting was not about art, but rather it was about boats.

And being doomed began the evolution of realizing just how important the process of defining things was, and how it suppressed the freedom of expression.

I did not want to endure any part of the escapade that was rapidly approaching. Yet it seemed destined to become reality. Nor did I like any part of this this whole idea, that was brewing just below the surface of the seemingly pleasant facade that my brother and sister presented.

However, I was defenseless against the superior reasoning ability of my older siblings. “Making art” was much more forgiving. I could see that, and it would soon stand in for what I previously called “making things.” Yet, at that point in time, it was too late to redefine what it was I was doing, as I was the one who called it a boat.

Making THINGS and making ART….The confluence of time and events made the two words and their corresponding worlds “akin” to each other. Early on the “things” I had made were labeled as “art” by the adults in my life. So that I was dancing to both tunes at once. And I could readily agree (as I see it today) that I still continued to make “things” and that I had always made “art”.

However, to fully believe that calling the “things” I made “art” took many, many years to solidify.

The word “Art” had been tossed about by others at the drop of a hat, and I was often told by authority figures that art was what I was engaged in. But internally, I could not immediately recognize the truth in such a world view, as I had an over-abundance of respect for what others were capable of doing and accomplishing when they made art. How could what I did measure up to such high standards?

The things that I saw that were most often called “art” involved a high degree of skill at depicting things. When I was very young I was capable enough at visually portraying things that it was often possible to name the thing that I was revealing. Yet as I got older, simply crudely reproducing something was not always considered enough to raise a drawing into the lofty realm of “Art.” It seemed more and more was expected with age. And for the work created by the artist to be considered “art” and especially “good art” was constantly just out of reach.

It is the nature of confusion that it can always find other ways to strike.

Why were my drawings of the things I wanted to make almost always labeled as “art” yet the things themselves seemed to seesaw wildly between being defined as “a work of art” and a mere “thing”? And who is it that actually determines what is what in the world of art?

It took a neighbor as well as both my father and my mother to lift my heavily laden “boat” into the station wagon. My brother, my sister and I piled into the car along with the dog and even the neighbor’s kids. I sat solemn and shrunken in the back seat as we proceeded, and the time needed to get to the lake grew longer and longer. However, eventually we arrived at the lake and fortunately it was possible to park the car close enough to the water so my mother and father could, by themselves, drag the thing into the water.

To say that the boat didn’t float is an understatement. It also didn’t sink. Instead It rested in the exact spot where it had been dragged and the water and muck at the edge of the lake simply inhabited it.

The dog and all the kids (except for me) were immediately enthralled at the spectacle. They danced and danced, and water flew in all directions until each and every child along with the lone dog was soaking wet. I hung back as long as possible, then I was forced to admit defeat and dance with the others on the heavy boards, until I too was soaking wet. We then abandoned the boat. It had failed the test, and I tried my best to turn this defeat into success. My parting shot was that if only more wood had been available, it would have floated away as I intended.

The lessons learned from life are myriad and many. And to separate the wheat from the chaff is rarely easy.

Perhaps though, the most important lesson learned from the boat was simply this:

That no matter what, in the world I inhabit, I had built a boat, at least, my definition of a boat……And whether I had made “art” or “thing”, or whatever, making it was justification enough.

Tales from a Sordid Past: Part 1: Learning the Ropes

I begin these stories in the same way most people do. They cover my college years. Yes, these years are pivotal in many respects for most artists. And somehow the arts and the time spent in colleges and Universities are closely intertwined But I believe that the real path into the world of art begins much earlier,….in childhood. College and any form of higher education does little but solidify that which occurs early in life. At least that is how I perceive what happened to me.

 I have written a good deal about my childhood view of things, and of what one day became an art career, and I’m sure if you look around you will find a lot of material on my early years. Here, however, I am focusing on the world I experienced when in school and immediately afterwards.

I am only making this point so that you do not confuse what I say about art in my college years and beyond with the more important reality one experiences at the true origination of the spirit of one’s life in the arts.

Like any artist, I started out working in a variety of materials. in school, I did a number of bad paintings, then fairly quickly moved on to bad sculpture. I explored a number of disparate ideas, attitudes and possibilities as well.

After I graduated from the University of New Mexico with a double major in Art and English, I got a truck and a camper and took off for the great unknown. Traveling mostly around the western part of the US, I looked at magnificent vistas until I was sick to death of them, wandered around aimlessly, occasionally looking at or meeting women and when I had to. I would get a job that I was qualified for: mowing lawns, painting houses or doing the best manual labor anyone had ever seen at the time.

This was in the early 1970’s.

After my year or so of traveling, I felt lost and rootless. Just the idea of coming to a stop and staying in one place made me nervous. Up until that point, I always had every option open. No commitment at all was the name of the game. To land in one place seemed very risky. However, if you want to make art that means you have to be grounded, at least to some degree.

Following the lead of a friend I’d known since childhood, I settled in the country near Denton. Texas. I was still under the sway of nature-loving hippies. I decided being in the country and being isolated was necessary for my artistic temperament.

I had planned to go back and get my masters, and I assumed I would teach, since as far as I knew, universities were the only breeding grounds for artists that still existed. I even started taking courses at North Texas State in Denton.

Then I made the mistake of listening to people who were older and wiser than I was.

“Kid,” he said, “the teaching jobs are all gone now .... there are not enough art students to keep everyone of us employed.” This was said by a knowledgeable, tenured professor. I listened to him and decided to quit my own pursuit of knowledge, at least the academic kind.

Meanwhile the only artist I had made friends with at the University of New Mexico went on to get his masters, taught at a very good school, made connections that got him into major shows and New York art galleries, and he had a successful career.

I instead got a job via my cousin in a very good Dallas, Texas contemporary art gallery. My cousin was gay, and he lived with the man who had started the gallery. I guess that knowing the right people and having the necessary connections counts more than plain old ordinary knowledge. It certainly didn’t hurt.

Mowing lawns had been a big step forward in my career as an artist but working in a really good art gallery was in a class all its own.

Since I was giving up on the prospect of an academic career, I decided to spend the money I had set aside for graduate school on tools. At that time, I mainly bought wood working tools as wood was the material with which I was most familiar.

So, soon the decision was made; I would set up a studio and make the things I wanted to make. It was that simple.

I set up my first studio in the slums of Dallas and worked at night on my art. During the daytime hours, I would work at the gallery, and I would also go into the homes and businesses of the wealthy and deliver artwork to those who could afford it. I was meeting the crème de la crème of Dallas society but with little or no fanfare.

What I saw, based on my situation was that in the wealthy areas of Dallas, the men, and especially the women looked immaculate and healthy, while in the slums, where I lived, many of the women (and men) were missing some if not all of their teeth . They got around while missing hands or arms and sometimes legs and feet. Generally, my neighbors looked quite dirty, fairly beat up, and unkempt. There was a dire need for more personal groomers in that neighborhood.

Eventually though, after the novelty wore off, I got tired of leading this double life, so I took a short vacation, and I traveled the familiar road to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and my intentions were to think long and hard about what I wanted to do next. I struggled with that question as I visited a number of people I had known since first going to the University.

I also met a sculptor who made some amazing things out of wood, and I immediately wanted to know everything about how he put his work together. His name was Julian Harr, and I wanted to spend some time with someone I took as a professional artist. Julian was simply set up in a workspace, living cheap, and working at his art. Sound familiar? Since the big question for me was “what do I do next?” the idea of simply emulating someone else whose lifestyle made sense to me seemed like a pretty good answer. I decided to move back to Albuquerque and abandoned the Dallas art scene.

During the year or so I spent in Dallas, I did make some art. I worked with glass and mirrors and old wood.  I was excited about the artwork I was doing and felt it had a lot of potential. It dealt with a lot of optical illusions, and I had always been interested in illusion, magic and the like.

However, many of my hopes and dreams failed to materialize while I lived in Dallas. The people at the gallery never proclaimed me one of the world’s greatest living artists as I would have liked them to. In fact, they never saw anything I made, and had no idea that I aspired to be an artist. I was not at all confident in my own abilities, and I could not get comfortable with the idea of approaching people to ask them to look at the artwork I was making. I assumed that no matter what I accomplished, the people at the gallery would always see me as someone who they could ask to move art from one place to another, or as a person who could build a crate if necessary, and I could see nothing that I could do that would change any of that.

However, in the university, no one had even posed the question, “How are you going to survive in the hostile world of art?” or “Realistically, will you be able to continue to make your art when you leave this school?”

In the university system, “Art” was seen as a rarefied experience, and it was exalted as something that was in many ways outside of the world of everyday life. Dallas exposed me to the gallery system and to the people in it. Art was much less theoretical when I left. I had met a number of “successful” artists and realized Art did not exist only in the universities but was rather hidden in plain sight and there was much to absorb. I was on my path, and it was time to move on.

The change was to be both mental and emotional and it was life altering. I found myself striving to come to grips with all that was happening to me. I began to hang out with Julian, help him with his work, and soon I considered him my mentor.

Once back in Albuquerque, I set up a much better studio than I had in the slums of Dallas. I continued to buy tools every chance I got and working at my art had become my new passion. It was now at the center of my life. I was once again making things and exploring ideas and that kept me motivated. I also stayed very busy doing odd jobs to stay afloat. In addition, I lived right in my shop/ studio (a dilapidated cabinet shop) to save money.

Hanging out with Julian Harr was exciting in many, many, ways. He was an outsized individual with an out sized personality. Learning happened spontaneously. And not only did I pick up some much-needed wood working skills, but Julian taught me everything someone should not do if they want to continue being an artist for any length of time.

Julian had a rich girlfriend who had bought him some expensive and wonderful tools and he had promised to build her a house. For some reason, he never quite got around to building the house. Instead, he drank a lot of beer, partied a fair amount, and hung out with some other very good artists…. including his friend John Wenger, who taught art at UNM and was a wonderful painter.

At that time, Julian talked incessantly about a theory he had which may well have solved all the great mysteries of the universe. He was well versed in a number of esoteric ideas and was constantly probing those ideas and questioning his (and my) thinking. The theory he was propounding at that time seemed to have a great deal to do with evolution.

His obsession with his theories may have played a part in his failure to build the promised house …..as he was much too busy thinking and talking to do menial tasks like earn a living or fulfil promises. His subsequent estrangement from his rich girlfriend was a faite accompli. She had stopped sending him money about the time I arrived on the scene, which was aggravating, and not all that helpful for Julian. Every so often he would sell something he had made which helped to keep him afloat and moving forward. Then, Julian got invited to be in a major sculpture show at the Santa Fe Museum, and he became even more obsessed with his ideas and a belief that he could persuade others by way of his artwork.

However, with his new lack of funding, Julian made a fateful decision. To make this big sculpture for the museum show he needed a lot of materials. Materials cost money and he had little or none of that.

Fortunately, there was a pawn shop nearby and it was a short walk which was also good, as Julian had no vehicle. He soon developed the habit of pawning his tools to raise enough money to buy more materials. This happened not just once, but quite often over a period of months. When money showed up, the tools might come out of hock until it was necessary to hock them again. However, a deadline was looming, and as the important museum show grew ever closer, that took precedence over everything else. So, it was as if Julian was both creating and destroying in one glorious climax.

As I remember it, after a large part of the sculpture was put together and a lot of the sanding was done, there was a point that Julian decided he needed small wooden balls to complete his masterpiece. In fact, he needed a massive amount of them. He bought all he could, and his tools continued to be hocked. The sculpture that was nearing completion was huge, with many intricate individual pieces interwoven into it. Julian worked feverishly into the night gluing ball after ball to the piece. All of the significant areas were covered and just before he was due to head for Santa Fe with his piece, he worked for three days straight without a break. He was gluing wooden balls right up until the end.

The installation at the museum was extremely exciting. I was there pacing back and forth, and probably acting more nervous than the artist. The museum staff did everything, so I couldn’t stay busy doing mindless tasks and there was nothing left to do.

There was, however, a lot of good artwork to see. And right in the middle, of it all, front and center was Julian Harr’s masterpiece with the wooden balls covering absolutely everything.

The opening came and went and there was much exaltation. Many important people were there, and Julian was full of high spirits and high expectations. I cannot remember how long the show was up, nor much about the aftermath of the opening. But I do remember having vivid dreams around that time, and a pervading sense of impending doom.

The ending of Julian Harr’s time in Albuquerque was a bit anticlimactic. Julian literally had no money and no tools, and the prospects he had imagined for his big sculpture at the Santa Fe Museum failed to materialize. He looked out over his barren studio and decided to pack up his artwork, both finished and unfinished and head for San Francisco. His days in New Mexico had been spent, and there was little else he could do. In San Francisco a number of his artist friends awaited his arrival. I suppose the rich girlfriend who was evidently homeless, had Julian just where she needed him…. So, perhaps the house got built after all. I will never know.

Right before he left, he handed me a wad of pawn tickets. I never saw him again.

At the time my supply of money was also somewhat diminished, but I did manage to acquire some of his hocked tools which I still have today.

Julian left, and I went back to work. It was soon after my reacquaintance with Albuquerque that I was invited to be in a show at an artist-run space in Santa Fe. Since I had only recently settled in and had little new work ready for exhibition, I showed what I had put together in Dallas thinking that perhaps, my moment had come. However, my work drew no crowds, in fact I rarely saw anyone in the gallery, and I was immediately dismissed by a critic in the local paper with a single line: “Haddaway’s work is also much ado about nothing, he seems to care more about his titles than the actual work,” was the dismissive line.

Things did not look promising.

Photos:

Above: Ed Haddaway, Dream Child and the Virgin, early work

Below: Ed Haddaway, Old Fashioned Pyramid Case, early work

Julian Harr Sculpture

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Tales from a Sordid Past: Part 2: You Too Can Learn to Teach

The major questions of life are rarely answered in a day, a week, a year, or even a decade. But along with “What is art?” another vital question an artist is asked to grapple with is “How is it that the artist shall live?”

And the answer to that comes as an artist lives his or her life. The lifestyle of any artist is no doubt an eclectic decision. Or many eclectic decisions. For me though, emulating Julian Harr was more or less a closing of the loop that I had started in Dallas when I rented my first “Studio in the Slums.”

And my lifestyle was built on the fruit of living the lifestyle I chose. I made art. I lived in a place and manner that induced me to make art. There really wasn’t much else for me to do. I was living in an industrial building surrounded by tools that I had purchased to use. I also bought materials which needed to be used. Had I not started making art in that environment, I would have been unable to answer the questions, “Why was I living there?” and “What was I doing?”

The basic picture of how my life had developed while I was starting out, became a solid basis for living which withstood the test of time. It has continued on, to this day, not changing much, year after year.

If you draw a somewhat solitary figure that calls his or herself an artist, spends a good deal of their time alone in a space designated for such activity, supplied with enough tools and materials, imagination, and drive, gradually a picture will emerge. The image is that of one who chooses to make whatever he or she wants to make, or do whatever it is he or she wants. At the end of all that, the “work” that he or she does, can possibly get some exposure, a lot of exposure, or very little exposure.

 And with luck (or even without luck) an audience may, or may not develop, and that audience will either love the work that is done, ignore the work that is done, rail against it, question it, applaud it, devalue it, or perhaps purchase what it is that the artist has done.

And the lonely figure will do his or her best to evaluate the entire situation and come to grips with what he himself is doing, as well as what the audience is doing, and then within a given period of time, he will repeat the very same experience all over again. This pattern of behavior will coalesce into something that is sometimes called “art.”

At least this has been my experience.

Within the next few years, a number of other things happened as well.

One was that I applied for and received a National Endowment for the Arts, “Artist in the Schools” grant, and the other was I joined an artist-run Co-op Gallery in downtown Albuquerque.

The “Artist in the Schools” program was a very unique opportunity in that it made me feel as if I mattered in a world where very little did matter. Also, it was up to the artist to decide how to implement it. My role was to simply be an artist and share what I did with the students. I was not to be a teacher or a teacher’s assistant. I was to work in the schools exposing the students to my artwork and to those parts of myself that were deemed artistic. Fifty percent of my time was to be spent in the classroom, and the other fifty percent was to be spent focusing on my own work. And weekly, I received real money for doing this.

This was probably the best thing I could have possibly fallen into. I figured out how I wanted to work with the students, and I spent the majority of that time working in elementary schools. I lived in Albuquerque so this particular grant, which allowed me to work in the Albuquerque school system was especially beneficial to me. And, in time, I learned that the Albuquerque school system was considered one of the better locations in New Mexico for a number of reasons.

To make the program work, I became a one-man traveling art circus. I would load up a bunch of my artwork and sculptures in my truck, and I also bought with me a number of the drawings and artwork I had done while I was in elementary school. I also shared with the students a broad range of the work I had done. I would set up in an unused space in a school that varied from unused classrooms to spaces in hallways, and I was allotted an hour to spend with the kids in one class. I would work at a school until I had seen each and every kid who was in attendance.

I would do a 20-minute presentation about myself, and what an artist did, show all the artwork I could, and I talked a lot about imagination and how important it is to hang on to it.

At the end of my presentation, I would have a lot of cut up shapes of wood, glue, paint, hammers, nails, wire and a few miscellaneous tools, and the rest of the allotted time, I was a child amongst children helping each and every one to make their very own work of art (at record speeds). I would clean up after everyone left with their “sculptures” in hand and soon another class would arrive, and we would do it all again.

I geared things slightly differently for Middle School age kids, but I found they responded very positively to my approach. I also worked with a lot of high school students in an entirely different way. It was all challenging but very rewarding. And looking back on it, I was a good deal younger then, and one really needed to be younger to get through the day.

I did this for two years which gave me the impetus to really focus on my work without having to worry about money and it also allowed me to gain the skills and the ability to teach art to grade 5 through 12 for three years after that.

After I finished with the “Artist in The Schools” grant, I was hired by Sandia Prep School in Albuquerque. I had no teaching certificate and had never taken a teaching class in my life. After teaching others, I came to believe that we are all teachers in one way or another, and that teaching can promote thought and deed in the students one comes across in life…be that for the good or for the bad. I stood before my classes on day one and only after I was thoroughly exhausted did I realize that I had been on stage the whole time. For an introvert such as myself, it was both a good and a bad thing to be on stage.

To effectively communicate with others, you damn well should have a pretty good idea what it is you are communicating. Being an introvert, I had spent my life retracing all my steps, mired in the middle (and the muddle) of who I am and thinking about what I thought until I got somewhere further down the road of “Know Thyself.” The bad part is that an introvert’s energy is eaten alive when other people are involved. You have to learn to pace yourself. I also learned that having a plan “B” was a good idea, as Plan “A” might not work out just the way you think it will. The only other thing you need in teaching is Plan “C, D, E, F, and beyond.”

Because Sandia Prep School was serious about learning, it was entirely possible to earn a grade of A, B, C, D, or F in art. Although, someone had to really work at it to get an F. Lou Liberty, a long-time teacher at that school, kept a wary eye on me to make certain that I was not in danger of going off the deep end because of the constant stress involved in teaching. (I had after all replaced a teacher who had her hair set on fire by students in the last year of her employment.) 

Lou gave me one bit of advice when I started that I still try to live by, “Don’t volunteer for anything,” she said, “they will always need volunteers.” It was good that she kept tabs on me because most mornings would start out stressful, and the stress built throughout the days, and then the weeks, and even the months and years.

“Really teaching” was a daunting experience, and at the end of my second year, I decided I really liked my time on the “Artist in the Schools” grant much better than “teaching”.

Since applying for the grant had seemed so easy, and the results were so rewarding, I decided that I was so special and so good, I should certainly apply again because it was all so easy and I was sure to get the grant, making my life easier. Besides, the necessary time had elapsed, allowing me to apply again, so why not? Almost no time had passed at all before I got my rejection. It was the first of a vast multitude of rejections that continue to this day.

In fact, in applying for the second time for the grant, I had failed to make the first cut. In other words, my artwork was judged as being inferior and not good enough to allow me to be considered for another NEA “Artist in the Schools” grant at that time. And this was only two years after I had received the grant and was given the position in the coveted Albuquerque school district. In fact, much of the rejected work was produced during the time I was in the program.

Many years would pass before I was able to come to grips with the harshness of all the rejections I was to get, however, whether I came to grips with it or not, the rejections just kept rolling in. So, to boil it all down, it has also been my experience, that when you apply for anything, you might get it and you might not. It’s like fishing. You might catch a fish and then again, you might not.

Teaching is not easy. When I quit the job after only 3 years, I was flat out exhausted. It is amazing how much it can drain your energy, but of course I was also trying to juggle a number of other things at the same time. Fortunately, once I quit, I was soon able to go back to making artwork full time in my studio, and I am forever grateful that that was the case.

Balthazar

Walter

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Tales from a Sordid Past: Part 3: The Alligator Went to Chicago

Location, location, location. It is vitally important that a young artist position himself in a location in the world where the social mores of society are supportive of those inclined toward the artistic pursuits. Paris was once considered the place to be. Then New York proclaimed itself as “the place” if you are in the arts. Chicago, LA, Milan, and countless other locals have all been on the artistic map in one way or another. My hearing has always been bad, so maybe I failed to understand precisely where others were telling me to go. I grew up in Ft. Worth, Texas, went to a Junior College in Corpus Christi for 2 years, then transferred to the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. And I wandered aimlessly around the western area of the US for a year or so after that. Somehow these places do not seem to quite be in the same league as Paris or Milan.

I did attempt to make a splash in the art world of Gold Beach, Oregon, during a summer that I was working there, but I chose to mow lawns instead.

Looking back, it had been vitally important to learn about the art world firsthand, by working in the gallery in Dallas. I don’t believe the term “art gallery” was even mentioned in my 4 years of higher education. And, I’m certain the subject was never covered in depth during that time. I was decidedly bereft of knowledge and culture as I emerged from the womb of academia, especially culture that had any connection with the real world.

But before too many more years had passed, I decided I needed to go see New York, and try to acclimate myself to or ingratiate myself into the New York art world.

Walking into a gallery in New York, is an event that is at once disconcerting, and shrouded in a profound sense of mystery. And my early attempts in visiting New York convinced me that even though I was in a place where contemporary artwork was visible, I felt as if I had gone down the wrong road in getting there. I soon decided that being ill at ease was just a necessary part of the New York art gallery experience.

No one, working in any gallery I visited, ever looked up from what they were doing or glanced in my direction, or caught my eye. I also felt as if one was supposed to whisper in such a sacred and hallowed space. But even if I had been capable of formulating a coherent question, or comment, and was capable of whispering it, I doubt I would have been able to utter it. My throat was bone dry.

It must have been pretty obvious to all that I lacked the money needed to even pretend that I was going to buy something. So perhaps if I had looked the part, I might have attracted some attention. Or, maybe all transactions are done via mental telepathy, but I assume if someone comes into a gallery, truly wanting to buy a work of art, someone, somewhere, in the gallery, will deign to talk to them.

I had my own approach in navigating this unique world, which was heavily dependent on my looking serious.  I always looked as serious as I could while walking around looking at art. I had decided that to do otherwise would be disrespectful of the artwork.

Speed was another factor, I stumbled upon. After entering a gallery, I would look seriously at the artwork in the gallery as quickly as possible, then look at my watch and head for the door (still looking quite serious).

I also attempted to look like I knew where I was, and where I was going… as if I was late for another more important appointment at another gallery, where I was going to continue to look seriously at still more art. However, in my heart I knew, that no one working in any of the galleries I visited really gave a damn what I did, just as long as I seriously left.

I did make some inroads into the New York art scene, in the form of receiving advice, however. The forays I made were done in the pre-computer days, long before WEBSITES or JPEGS or TIFS. In those days it was de rigueur to use slides and photos to give someone an idea of your artwork. So, I lugged a good size book of slides etc. around from gallery to gallery and it only took two and a half days to find a gallery director who would look at my work.

“Your work would do well in Chicago,” he said. I did not have a travel budget, so a few years went by before I got to Chicago. I was still carrying the same book of slides.

I was able to establish contact with a gallery in Chicago, where the gallery director looked at images of what I had made. Almost immediately, in a voice similar to the one I had heard in New York years earlier, she said, “Your work would do well in California.” “Wow, California,” I thought, and I began to imagine another trip, another gallery visit.

Amazingly, I was to hear that refrain repeated many more times…. at almost every gallery I visited during my many sojourns. Gallery people almost always had the same exact advice……only the geography was different. And, while I always felt optimistic about the next stop I would attempt to land on my artistic journey, it turned out that in general I belonged somewhere else.

Having grown up in Texas, I was aware that another sort of interaction could develop between people who work in commerce and their customers, or between a gallery and a collector. In the south, you might find a touch of the New York approach here and there, but the gallery in Dallas where I worked, was visibly manned by a beautiful, charming and friendly woman who seemed happy to see people come in the door and there was no lack of southern hospitality.

I had my work in many galleries for a number of years, and I was fascinated watching the interactions of different collectors and gallery people. I also gained many friendships with serious collectors and also with ordinary people who purchased artwork from me for the first time in their lives. Selling one’s art is a very personal experience, and while showing my work in galleries, I tried to educate myself and understand just what my roll was while in the middle of it all. And if I could, I tried to look as if I was somewhat happy to be there, And also somewhat well adjusted, so as not to cause anxiety among those who were thinking of buying something.

But my most educational experience was forged before I had sold much of anything. In general, talk is cheap amongst one’s relatives (or friends) as far as collecting art is concerned (or at least my art). But I could always count on my mother to dutifully purchase my work from time to time. She was, after all, deeply invested in it.

My work did have appeal to some, resulting in an occasional personal sale here and there. But I had had little or no real experience in selling through galleries at that point in my career, and I decided to join a small artist-run, co-op gallery in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The gallery was called Meridian Gallery, and it was located in downtown Albuquerque. This was back when very few people even went downtown (probably for good reason). This was good in some ways, as rent on our large space was quite reasonable. We all paid a monthly fee to be in the gallery and it was up to the member artists to get people to turn out at our events.

However, we did attract one down and out “connoisseur” who almost always attended our openings. An “opening” is always a good opportunity to grab something to eat, and also drink some wine, which is much more pleasant than looking at art. This fellow was more interested in the wine, however, than either food or art. He knew to look hard at the artwork on the walls or on the floor and to motion with his free hand in a circular fashion. The other hand clutched the wine glass tightly, as he signaled that he was edified with the work being presented. It was clear that he was really knowledgeable about both art and fine wines.

Meridian was already functioning when I came aboard, and I think we had around 10 or 12 members. Fortunately, most of these members were committed to the long haul.

When decisions were needed, we voted on matters, and we were constantly working on one-person shows and group shows, and from time to time, we would invite nonmember artists to show their work as well.

In many ways, it fulfilled a need, much as I imagine graduate school does. It gave us a structure in which to interact with each other and there was a free-flowing range of ideas expressed at almost every meeting.

In this environment no one was truly focusing on sales as an impetus to do our work. In fact, I would say for most of us, sales were at the bottom of the list of our priorities. I had long taken it for granted that nothing I did would ever sell. That turned out not to be the case, yet there is a certain amount of sense in approaching the subject that way. The word “volatility” comes to mind as far as art and money are concerned.

Sadly, a lot of the details of how the alligator went to Chicago are lost in the mists of time. Perhaps I was in a state of shock at my encounter with the 2 prospective collectors, but I can state unequivocally that no drugs were involved.

Some version of the events did certainly happen and to get through the fog I am in, let me just tell it this way:

It was a weekend, and it was my time to watch the gallery. Two men came in and were immediately drawn to the alligator. They spent a long time looking at this piece. A rather animated discussion ensued, and I decided to go over and introduce myself. One of the men said, “I want this alligator in the waiting room of my office.” The other man had taken the opposite side of the argument and found several problems that might make it a difficult transaction. I was able to assure the men that I would work with them to make it as easy as possible to get the sculpture to Chicago. Soon, all was agreed upon, and I had my first real sculpture sale. I do remember working on the piece and getting it ready for transport. Since I was just getting my feet in the door as far as galleries and art were concerned, I believe my prices were very reasonable, and I do not remember any difficulties after it was on its way to Chicago, nor do I remember ever hearing from my first “collector” again.

Titled “Madre de la Cienega”, the wood sculpture stood approximately 3 feet tall, was 3 feet wide and 20 feet in length. This sculpture was on exhibit at the Meridian gallery in Albuquerque probably in the later 1970’s. When I made the alligator, she was done in sections, and I seem to remember a lot of assembly, disassembly and difficulty with her transportation. I also think I remember a number of children riding on her, so perhaps she went to a school with me. With a high degree of certainty, (provided by an image of her at Meridian Gallery), I can say that she was there at Meridian toward the end of her days in Albuquerque.

I hope my alligator has had a long and happy life in the swamps, wetlands, and jungles of Chicago. And perhaps someday she will once again surface in my life.

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FROM THE HOUSE WHERE THE WOULD-BE SHADOW LIVES

2013

painted steel

22' x 5' x 5'