Ten New Pieces

Today was a nearly perfect Spring day in Atlanta. It was a little cloudy but damn near perfect otherwise, considering especially that it is in fact January and should seem anything other than like Spring!  Tonight is even better, complete with a warm, tentative rain and a strange sticky fog creeping through the street light.  If I could coax a lightning storm out of these clouds, this pristine illusion would be absolute.  The weather is making me anxious (in a good way) for the actual changing of the seasonal guard – pitchers on patios, street festivals and early pollen clouds. As per my usual, that’s not exactly what I sat down to write about.  I want to talk about art.

I’ve been busy.  My studio is overflowing and I don’t see an end in sight honestly.  I feel good about what I’m doing now and the flurry I produced towards the end of last year as well.  Most of these pieces are making their internet debut but I have posted snippets here and there along the way. At the risk of sounding overly thus, I am proud of the work and I am starting to finally feel comfortable calling it “the work”.  For the first time in a long time this weekend, I sat down and looked at the canvas I had just finished and thought, “Damn.  That doesn’t suck.”  Admittedly, there are a couple here and there that I monkeyed with for weeks before I could call them finished and one or two I’m still not sure about.  One in particular is a lot heavier than the others – not in a spiritual sense mind you.  It is physically heavier due to the excessive amount of paint applied again and again and again and yet again until I was convinced.  I’m cool with that. 

Someone asked me once how I title my paintings.  I didn’t have and still don’t have a solid answer to that question.  I typically have an idea in mind when I initiate a new canvas, but I don’t always and don’t think I should completely know what the hell I’m going to do when I sit down or stand up to paint.  If there is any redeeming value to what I do it is that it is 95% instinctual.  I let the paint tell me what it wants to be.  That sounds like a steaming pile I know, but it is in fact accurate.  Ideas are never fully developed if they simply remain ideas – the beauty of making art for me is the making of it.  I’m rarely as satisfied with the finished product as I am with the process of making it.  If I have even a vague idea of what I want to say on the canvas, it will reveal itself eventually.  As such, these are all working titles.  The fact of the matter is that giving them titles at all is the height of arrogance on my part.  In an ideal world, whatever it is that you see in the piece is its name.

As I’ve said before, I’m a complete hack when it comes to photographing art – my apologies.  If you like these pieces check out more mediocre photographs of my art at johncstantzart.com.   (Eventually I will update my website, but posting them here was a lot easier tonight.)  Not that you would feel any different if you were to do so, but I urge you to come see what I do in person.  You can’t appreciate any art (however debatable you might think that description of what I do is) unless you see it face to face.  My door is always open. 

written

11.17.2012

11” x 14”

acrylic on canvas

$75.00

face

11.28.2012

10” x 10”

acrylic on canvas

$50.00

bloodshot

11.21.2012

12” x 12”

acrylic on canvas

$65.00

dialogue

12.05.2012

11” x 14”

acrylic on canvas

Not For Sale

morning

12.16.2012

24” x 12”

acrylic on canvas

$150.00

solar

01.19.2013

16” x 20”

acrylic on canvas

$160.00

overlap

01.20.2013

12” x 36”

acrylic on canvas

$215.00

firefly

01.21.2013

12” x 36”

acrylic on canvas

$215.00

clarity

01.26.2013

36” x 24”

acrylic on canvas

$450.00

bodies

01.27.2013

24” x 36”

acrylic on canvas

$500.00

So this is what I’ve been up to since festival last.  Hopefully, there will be at least ten more before the next one.  Speaking of, the next time I’ll be public is Inman Park in April (though it’s yet to be official).  I hope to do at least eight ATL festivals this year and I hope to see you all at every one.  Meantime, Go.  Make.  Art.  

It is necessary and important.