(From June 1st, 2012)

I am not really sure what to talk about.  Usually my blog posts here take several days to mull over, compose, edit, re-think, word politically correctly…spur of the moment Linds tends to be a bit brash with a dash of inappropriate swear words thrown in.  But you know that’s why you love me.

While a majority of my blogging comes from social issues or with silly things like couponing, I thought I could tell you a little something more about myself…?

How about how I stumbled into art.  Almost literally.

I have always enjoyed making art work, I was one of those kids always running around with a crayon. Cliche, sure, but the absolute truth.  It wasn’t until my Senior year in high school that I took art with a lovely woman who was really not a great teacher (by this time.  She’d had medical issues, was wonderful before). I remember my mid term was a paper chain that went around the auditorium.  Hey a good use for the entire room full of construction paper, right? Well, two months or so before I graduated she retired and we got a new teacher and he was pretty awesome, making us draw cones, cubes, all sorts of the lame necessary things I make my students draw now.  I completely loved it.  I still have my final drawing of Grace Kelly stored at my parents house.  It’s pretty bad, but kicked butt at the time!

When I went to Junior College I remember walking by the art room and thinking, “wow, I really want to take an art class” so I dropped a computer class and it was all down the proverbial rabbit hill from there.  I was hooked.  Especially after seeing “Wheat field with Crows” by Van Gogh.  Ironically, I generally find landscapes to be incredibly boring, yet here was my first major inspiration.

I graduated from my Community College and spent several weeks studying painting and art history in Italy, which was life changing.  I LOVE Italian Renaissance Art.  Hardcore love it.  Give me Michelangelo, Pontormo, Gentileschi, etc over contemporary artists any day of the week.  If given the chance I would probably live in Florence.  And I could ogle all of those beautiful marble figures endlessly.  Because of this visit I have a deep love for classical figurative sculpture (and seek to render as a sculptor would work, just in 2D) and slightly disturbing artwork.

I then continued onto a State University for the rest of my Bachelor’s degree as well as my Master of Arts. I got to learn from some amazing people, and further my love for figurative art, and was trained in a very classical way.  Interestingly enough, that training is something that has been difficult to break away from as a contemporary artist.  There is beauty and strength in this style of making art work, but I either needed to aesthetically be hyper-realistic or become something else.  I had to/and have to figure out how to reconcile my classical inspiration and sensibilities with contemporary theory and (my choice) of experimental technique.

So I have moved away from the pencil, paintbrush, and charcoal and am embracing installation, non-traditional mediums, and the physical decay of my art work.  I have never sought to create art that would out live me.  I like the thought that as I age, as does the pieces I create.  That they will eventually decompose as I will.  I don’t want my art work to be forever waiting, much like the “Awakening Slave” is above.

And yet, I don’t want to lose what made me love this in the first place.  How marble can look like flesh, how lighting can change the mood of an entire piece.  I will always be classical at heart, the key, and the fun of all of this is learning this delicate balance between the artist I know I am and the artist I should be and want to be in order to make a life in this art world.  It’s not easy, it’s not pretty, and it sure as hell isn’t lucrative monetarily.

This fall I am FINALLY going back to school for my Master of Fine Arts, where I will work on everything above, but also work to figure out how activism plays a part in my life, and how (or even if it should) be a part of my work.  In addition to the entries you can read below in certain issues, I also make art work that looks at the impact of long term abuse on children, and the impact of their memories–and how those memories can change over time.  I have many great ideas to bring to grad school and I am excited, relieved, and rejuvenated to have the time to make this my life.

So I leave you with this.  Two details from an in-progress installation piece, and two panels of a 4 panel piece.

And a few older pieces here:

** PLEASE DON’T USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION**

You can see older work at: http://www.lindseyguile.com