Answering Email
Every once in a while I get an email from a stranger about my work. Sometimes another artist from another country, sometimes an artworld person.... sometimes a highschool student:
"Hello Mr. Wexler. My name is Maya, and I'm a high school art student. I was looking up paper collage artists online, and I found your interesting art. I was hoping you could answer a few questions that I have for you about your art and career as an artist. If you don't have time to answer them, I understand. Thanks".
1.What inspires you most when you come up with an idea?
2.What was your path to finding that you loved paper collages with acrylic paint?
3.How do you overcome frustrations when creating art?
4.Can you describe any special techniques you use?
5.What do you most enjoy about being an artist?
6.What does creating art mean to you?
7.What is the most important advice you could give me as a young artist?
Thank you for your time!
Hi Maya,
I'll answer in brief. You can also find any additional information about my work at www.aaronwexler.com
These are the answers in the order of your questions:
1. The possibilities of expanding that idea through visual language and the medium I work with.
2. I was previously making paintings (until about 2000) using paint as flat shapes. I realized I liked cutting the shapes out of painted paper better. It is more efficient and gives me more freedom.
3. I don't overcome frustrations... I just manage them.
4. My most special techniques are all a result of fine tuning my craft.
5. Theoretically I have full control over what I want to make. More importantly though, I always have and always will have the need to be creative. Being an artist fulfills that need for now.
6. It means creatively expressing the way in which I see the world.
7. Be honest with yourself in everything you do. It's the most direct route to making good art and making your way through a difficult career.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
2
Crashing Through VS. Breaking Through
One of my favorite radio programs on WNYC used to be The Next Big Thing. It got cancelled. Unfortunately the show's format and content found itself right between This American Life and Radiolab (both I love).
But maybe it was the core premise of the show that just didn't ring that bell for people? Are we really waiting for the next big thing? or just the next thing? I think the latter.
Applied to the current art world financial mess, we all know that when the tsunami of recession calms there will be half as many galleries and a lot of shell-shocked artists (who were part of that market). Still though, I hear the bunch of us, the wider us, talking about what kind of this and what kind of that is going to come next?! I think that notion supposes that some new thing is going to come crashing through. That's completely impossible if you agree with me that there are no rules anymore. You need rules as shut doors or glass ceilings to come crashing through.
I believe that all kinds of artists have those elusively sublime breaking through moments at some point or other. Hopefully often and hopefully in rhythm. An artist has to excel, exploit and push his or her NATURAL talents to the absolute limit. You want good art - that's when that shit happens. It's all we have to offer as artists. Civic responsibilities and parenting is another story.... or is it? Making the best stuff possible takes an earnesty that sometimes isn't fashionable and at this moment in time certainly not culturally fashionable for young artists in the market. But those who do go at it like it's the last thing they will ever do are going to be the ones who move this era forward.
I've wanted to post these 2 clips back-to-back for a while. I think they are examples of two artists breaking through...
and two of my favorite musicians:
... and I think both are experiencing similar moments.
In terms of formerly needing rules in order to break them in order to create genius. Here is a link to an essay titled The Heresy of Zone Defense by one of my favorite writers Dave Hickey.
This is the moment referenced in the essay:
One of my favorite radio programs on WNYC used to be The Next Big Thing. It got cancelled. Unfortunately the show's format and content found itself right between This American Life and Radiolab (both I love).
But maybe it was the core premise of the show that just didn't ring that bell for people? Are we really waiting for the next big thing? or just the next thing? I think the latter.
Applied to the current art world financial mess, we all know that when the tsunami of recession calms there will be half as many galleries and a lot of shell-shocked artists (who were part of that market). Still though, I hear the bunch of us, the wider us, talking about what kind of this and what kind of that is going to come next?! I think that notion supposes that some new thing is going to come crashing through. That's completely impossible if you agree with me that there are no rules anymore. You need rules as shut doors or glass ceilings to come crashing through.
I believe that all kinds of artists have those elusively sublime breaking through moments at some point or other. Hopefully often and hopefully in rhythm. An artist has to excel, exploit and push his or her NATURAL talents to the absolute limit. You want good art - that's when that shit happens. It's all we have to offer as artists. Civic responsibilities and parenting is another story.... or is it? Making the best stuff possible takes an earnesty that sometimes isn't fashionable and at this moment in time certainly not culturally fashionable for young artists in the market. But those who do go at it like it's the last thing they will ever do are going to be the ones who move this era forward.
I've wanted to post these 2 clips back-to-back for a while. I think they are examples of two artists breaking through...
and two of my favorite musicians:
... and I think both are experiencing similar moments.
In terms of formerly needing rules in order to break them in order to create genius. Here is a link to an essay titled The Heresy of Zone Defense by one of my favorite writers Dave Hickey.
This is the moment referenced in the essay:
Thursday, December 18, 2008
2.5
This is the book that my work is in.
This is the book I cannot afford to buy.
On a day when I answered a craigslist post about hanging christmas decorations for someone's sick mother for $13 an hour, a collector of my work called to tell me how great my work looked in that book and how much I should be looking forward to being in the show.
There is something wrong with my situation.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
3
This is it.
I'm convinced this is an example of one of the most wonderful goals in life.
It's this simple.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
4
Acimilation Project
I was invited to participate in an online/blog project by my friend Rubens. It's called the Acimilation Project - Here.
In a nutshell: "In anthropology and sociology, the process whereby individuals or groups of differing ethnic heritage are absorbed into the dominant culture of a society. The process of assimilating involves taking on the traits of the dominant culture to such a degree that the assimilating group becomes socially indistinguishable from other members of the society. As such, assimilation is the most extreme form of acculturation. Although assimilation may be compelled through force or undertaken voluntarily, it is rare for a minority group to replace its previous cultural practices completely; religion, food preferences, proxemics and aesthetics are among the characteristics that tend to be most resistant to change."
Everyone participating in the project was asked to appropriate the same image (I'm assuming chosen by Rubens). Each artist
uses the image to either add on to or take away from - which in itself is another illustration of what happens during acimilation. I used the photo as an opportunity to level the playing field. Where I grew up and went to school in a strange pocket of West Philadelphia we all were acimilating in to each other. There seemed to be no one dominating religion or race. However, we all in our own personal ways were fighting to merge our families heritages, partially instilled in us, in to a culture growing more and more homogenous. We all wanted to "fit in" but fit in to what?
I was invited to participate in an online/blog project by my friend Rubens. It's called the Acimilation Project - Here.
In a nutshell: "In anthropology and sociology, the process whereby individuals or groups of differing ethnic heritage are absorbed into the dominant culture of a society. The process of assimilating involves taking on the traits of the dominant culture to such a degree that the assimilating group becomes socially indistinguishable from other members of the society. As such, assimilation is the most extreme form of acculturation. Although assimilation may be compelled through force or undertaken voluntarily, it is rare for a minority group to replace its previous cultural practices completely; religion, food preferences, proxemics and aesthetics are among the characteristics that tend to be most resistant to change."
Everyone participating in the project was asked to appropriate the same image (I'm assuming chosen by Rubens). Each artist
uses the image to either add on to or take away from - which in itself is another illustration of what happens during acimilation. I used the photo as an opportunity to level the playing field. Where I grew up and went to school in a strange pocket of West Philadelphia we all were acimilating in to each other. There seemed to be no one dominating religion or race. However, we all in our own personal ways were fighting to merge our families heritages, partially instilled in us, in to a culture growing more and more homogenous. We all wanted to "fit in" but fit in to what?
Saturday, November 22, 2008
5
Final Days of Surly
music selection for this post...
SeeqPod - Playable Search
This is a playlist of songs I was especially fond of when me and Surly were in our hayday. Play it loud, play it again.
Summer 2005 - It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I was still living in a converted sewing factory in Greenpoint, I was in the first of back-to-back relationships with women named Lisa, a young politician from Chicago's southside was beginning his rise to the presidency, I was about to take a trip to Ireland and not come back the same. But those are none of the main stories. I had this bike. It was cool because it didn't previously belong to my mom purchased the year I was born, it was cool because a real bike enthusiast sold it to me, it was cool because I loved it and that was important. Surly or "brown bike" was purchased with actual money I was starting to make from my art. It was a significant purchase in that I felt like I actually earned it. I guess I felt like things were coming together for me, which is a feeling I've never been comfortable with. But one can't live with the idea that a flat tire is waiting around the corner... and I certainly didn't. I was like some sort of athletic bohemian riding around Manhattan and Brooklyn playing basketball, installing my art and playing in band practice (practice? we in here talk'n about practice? -*see youtube, search: practice, Iverson). The Surly even provided some foreshadowing as I raced around Prospect Park. I now live on the southside of it and frequently walk up 9th St. to my YMCA and the movie theater. You see, selling the Surly, which I'll get to, conjures all sorts of Greenpoint memories. My Brooklyn life was all north of the Navy Yards, now it's all South of the land of 2005. Even though I kept a studio in Greenpoint preparing for my first solo show (and getting hit by a truck walking across Canal St.), even though my gal's place there was still where I mostly laid my head, I was already gone. I needed a profound change. Not just in geography but the serious stuff, the stuff you don't even know you're about get in the ring with until your about 30. Holly crap I'm 34 now! So here I am today. I'm moving my studio of the last two years from Red Hook - home of I eat lunch at Ikea more than I shop there - to Prospect Heights. I love the Gowanus area. I'm only moving because I need a white box to work in (and a studio that doesn't cost considerably more than my apartment rent).
I'm selling the Surly. I need to make space and I just don't ride it that often. Feel free to turn that in to metaphor.
As of today - November 22nd, I'm going to sell it for $320. It's worth more. If you or a loved one wants it, contact me:
abwexler at mac dot com
Here is an image of the last piece I completed in the Red Hook Studio:
"Some Assembly Required", 2008. 44" x 60". acrylic and paper collage on panel.
music selection for this post...
SeeqPod - Playable Search
This is a playlist of songs I was especially fond of when me and Surly were in our hayday. Play it loud, play it again.
Summer 2005 - It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I was still living in a converted sewing factory in Greenpoint, I was in the first of back-to-back relationships with women named Lisa, a young politician from Chicago's southside was beginning his rise to the presidency, I was about to take a trip to Ireland and not come back the same. But those are none of the main stories. I had this bike. It was cool because it didn't previously belong to my mom purchased the year I was born, it was cool because a real bike enthusiast sold it to me, it was cool because I loved it and that was important. Surly or "brown bike" was purchased with actual money I was starting to make from my art. It was a significant purchase in that I felt like I actually earned it. I guess I felt like things were coming together for me, which is a feeling I've never been comfortable with. But one can't live with the idea that a flat tire is waiting around the corner... and I certainly didn't. I was like some sort of athletic bohemian riding around Manhattan and Brooklyn playing basketball, installing my art and playing in band practice (practice? we in here talk'n about practice? -*see youtube, search: practice, Iverson). The Surly even provided some foreshadowing as I raced around Prospect Park. I now live on the southside of it and frequently walk up 9th St. to my YMCA and the movie theater. You see, selling the Surly, which I'll get to, conjures all sorts of Greenpoint memories. My Brooklyn life was all north of the Navy Yards, now it's all South of the land of 2005. Even though I kept a studio in Greenpoint preparing for my first solo show (and getting hit by a truck walking across Canal St.), even though my gal's place there was still where I mostly laid my head, I was already gone. I needed a profound change. Not just in geography but the serious stuff, the stuff you don't even know you're about get in the ring with until your about 30. Holly crap I'm 34 now! So here I am today. I'm moving my studio of the last two years from Red Hook - home of I eat lunch at Ikea more than I shop there - to Prospect Heights. I love the Gowanus area. I'm only moving because I need a white box to work in (and a studio that doesn't cost considerably more than my apartment rent).
I'm selling the Surly. I need to make space and I just don't ride it that often. Feel free to turn that in to metaphor.
As of today - November 22nd, I'm going to sell it for $320. It's worth more. If you or a loved one wants it, contact me:
abwexler at mac dot com
Here is an image of the last piece I completed in the Red Hook Studio:
"Some Assembly Required", 2008. 44" x 60". acrylic and paper collage on panel.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
6
New(ish) piece:
Threw and Through, 2008
acrylic and paper collage on panel
38" x 30"
This is the last completed piece in the studio I've been in for almost 2 years. What will I miss the most about my studio in Red Hook?... lunch at Ikea.
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