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workshop – keep hitting the button – At the start of September, I set a goal to press “print” on the average of once a day on the resin 3D printer. I’ve been averaging a bit better than that. Today I believe I pressed time #15 and #16. Most of these prints were failures as objects – bizarre pancakes fused to the vat, abandoned grids of scaffolding sometimes towering above like the landing tower for a deflated blimp. Instead of product, my goal was process, to get myself feeling more confident with this tech.

I pursued a similar strategy back in June with the router. I hated the noise of the router. I despised the cloud of wood dust it kicked up. I feared the way it cut so goddamed well that the merest touch could mess up whatever I was working on. AND I also knew that it was the right tool to make frames. I paint on oddly sized scraps of wood and it is impossible to find frames off the shelf to fit them. I have come to believe that a frame is pretty necessary to help folks understand how to look at my paintings. I’m monkeying with the dimensions and subject matter; the comfort of a frame allows viewers a bit of reassurance. (Digression: My interpretation of Sonic Youth, one of my favorite bands from the 80’s and 90’s is that for all their weird experimentalism, at least two of the members played something intelligible at any given moment and that struck me as pretty genius and as a kindness to the audience.) Back in June, it took just a week before I knew how to cut a pretty darned good rabbet and then, how to add a nice decorative edge to a piece of wood. Within 10 days I was able to make a frame that custom fit any of my tiny paintings.

And pretty soon I realized that I would never get fast enough at making frames, even with off the shelf molding, to make it cost effective to frame my little 3″ x 4″ paintings, especially since I planned to give them away for free, possibly chargin $10 for the frames. I then thought I might cast frames in resin… and then two-part resin prices when crazy during the lockdown. And to be honest, the kind of frame that I wanted to make would require a two part mold which would add just a bit more complexity than I wanted.

About this time, I discovered resin based 3D printing. I’d messed around with filament based 3D printing probably a decade ago and it felt not ready for prime time. The resolution and the print times in particular bugged me. Resin printing is far smoother and with the right kind of printer, it’s far faster.

I purchased the Anycubic Photon Mono X printer and the Wash/Cure station during a summer sale. I am very happy with the purchase. I gamified my 3D printing education by positing different “levels” and the tangible goals that would prove I’d “leveled up.” I’ll write about those later. Anyway, today, I took a free .stl file from the interwebs, made an attempt at slicing it into a format my printer could understand and tried printing. This was technically second level work. I’d tried printing the Venus of Willendorf earlier and both my attempts failed. (I suspect I need to hollow out the model which is a 3rd level skill) The cool thing is that the .stl I used today was for a baroque frame. It printed in about 36 minutes and came out passable well, so I hit print again just before I went to my side hustle. (I was dishes for my partner’s pie business.) If I wanted to be precise, both frames are slight failures due to some delamination between the base and detail levels. It happened on both prints which makes me think I need to inspect that model again. However, the BOTH look like frames and could very easily function like a frame so I count them as successes.

My hall of successes: the AnyCubic Cube in clear plant-based resin, the Loot Studios Santa Claus and base (two print jobs) in clear plant-based resin and now TWO slightly decrepit baroque picture frames. 5 successes out of 16 prints. I have saved all the failed prints and am going to assemble them into a monument to perseverance.

Shown above is “Lilith” which sold at the Damned show in 2019

SKIP TO THE END FOR THE BIRTHDAY GIFTS!!

As part of my birth-month celebrations, we’ve been re-watching some of my favorite movies and the other night, we watched Highway 61 (1991) Probably my favorite rock and roll movie, possibly my favorite Canadian movie and a solid road movie by any standard, Highway 61 was directed by Bruce McDonald, written by Don McKellar who also starts as Pokey Jones, the creatively stunted barber/trumpet player and stars Valerie Buhagiar as live-wire roadie Jackie Bangs. It’s low budget, smart and witty and packs enough insight and spark to repay multiple viewings. Rounding out the cast are a delicious scattering of rock and roll reprobates playing bit parts, my favorite being Jello Biafra as an American border guard. I own the soundtrack CD and the novelised comic book as well as the movie on VHS and DVD… let’s say I’m a fan. It was released while I lived in Toronto in the 90’s so there’s also a bit of nostalgia in my affection.

What struck me during this viewing was the idea of deals with the devil. The film’s antagonist, the hilariously evil “Mr Skin,” trades people’s souls for usually very tangible goods. At one point in the movie Mr Skin tallies up his recent acquisitions and what they cost – bus tickets to Thunder Bay, a mickey of bourbon, the promise of success and fame… As a token of each deal, he snaps a Polaroid (which was a self-developing photograph film from the last century) The inside of his house in New Orleans is studded with these photographs. On their first meeting, Mr Skin asks Pokey Jones who is holding his trumpet “Do you play that thing or just pose with it?” and goes on to say he could help Pokey “play like Gabriel.” (Pokey refuses, BTW) It’s a commonplace story, the musician who makes a deal with a “devil” to achieve artistic success.

What struck me — and which I admit has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the actual content of the movie — was an inner meaning to the archetypal story which awakened a simple spiritual truth. To make a deal with the devil, an artist has to WANT something and in particular to want something that the artist feels is impossibly beyond reach. That essential separateness perhaps distinguishes ambition from temptation. The devil appears and offers to GIVE that unreachable desiderata to the artist on the condition that the artist surrender some part of their essential being. I love how it’s become “soul” in the stories, especially as popular understanding has eroded about what the heck a “soul” could possibly be. One answer? I’m reminded of another deal with a devil story in the Simpsons where Bart sells his soul, only to discover that the automatic doors on the Qwikee Mart no longer open for him! So THAT’S what a soul “does” (grin) Theology, by which I mean Aristotle aside, my interpretation works I think with almost any understanding of what the artist surrenders to seal the deal. The merest, smallest, most imperceptible part of the artist’s personality is all that is needed for the tragedy of this agreement to happen.

The artist willingly sells into servitude (or eternal torment) some portion of their current existence for the attainment of something that they believe is outside their existence. Sometimes this is outside of their possible existence (or what they imagine as possible) and sometimes it is just outside their current existence (short circuiting all those hours of practice to be good right now.) In tales of Faustian bargains, there is sometimes a scene of the artist at the pinnacle of their creative power who yet still feels unsatisfied with their work. They are already in torment. And by that point, the tragedy has already LONG in the past. Just like the fun scenes of degraded power and eventual paying-of-the-piper, they are all falling actions.

You’ve already lost as soon as it even SOUNDS like a good deal.

The inner wisdom of soul-to-devil-trades is that we will NEVER be as good as we want to be. We will ALWAYS have to practice and make attempts that don’t succeed like we hoped and imagine even greater possible ways to use creativity to serve our audience. This yearning does not mean you are an imposter; it just means you are a working artist. You are ALREADY an artist fully, as much of an artist as you will EVER be. The pleasure you already receive creating is a full measure of the joy you will ever get, I mean, alloyed with the bittersweet tang of disappointing attempts and the bracing twang of higher hopes.

We don’t need a devil to promise us something we already possess.

The sad part of the tragedy is the willingness to trade away any part of our being. Our downfall is the idea that we could somehow become “more” whole by making ourselves fragmentary, by surrendering ANY part of ourselves and our experiences. From my experience, any time I ransom away some part of my life experiences, I also cut off access to some associated resources.

I am considering that sense of wholeness, of artistic integrity alot this birthday. For a large part of my life and artistic work, I have more or less gladly muted down or edited out various aspects of my experiences. For instance, folks know I am spiritually driven… and different sub-sets of my friends might be horrified to know the full extent of my spiritual expressions. I am focusing on authenticity and these newsletter are one way I’m searching for the folks who will be served by this authentic work. My Tribe.

I create from a sense of abundance, a sense of joy and curiosity, experimentation and service. My audience are the folks who need to see this, read this, feel this. My work may help them get through a difficult time or might help them flourish. And I am not pandering to what I THINK they might want. I am making generous and authentic offerings… and it is extremely likely that much of what I do won’t be for you. I’ve heard this described as being “on the hook.”

OK so the slightly more “goth” interpretation of all this is that artists don’t need to sell our souls to the devil. As soon as you become an artist, doing meaningful work for people who care, you will be hooked into a life of “eternal torment.” Which is also an eternal delight.

IS THERE A PART OF YOU THAT YOU’D LIKE TO TRADE AWAY? Some pesky corner of your being that you’d rather do without? A favorite sacrificial portion is what some folks call “The Resistance” that nagging procrastinating sabateur that seems to stop your best efforts. Instead of offering it to the Infernal Pawn Shop, perhaps ask your Resistance what is it’s Positive Intent. Really listen. It probably has a perspective that your ambition would rather forget (like safety or love…) Find a higher value that your ambition and your resistance both share, like your well-being. It’s likely that this Resistance also has a resource squirreled away that it can bring to the party. I’ve sketched the process here VERY briefly. The process is something I’ve learned from NeuroLinguistic Programing (NLP) and I’d love to help you work through it. Send me a message; no signature in blood necessary!

This is a special BIRTHDAY edition of the newsletter and it comes with GIFTS! I couldn’t figure out how to give paintings away for free using my on-line story (Obligatory Link Here) so I am including photos of eight Tiny Goddess paintings that I described in my very first newsletter (Link Here) They are each 3″ x 4″ oil on gessoed panel. See one you’d like? Send me a private email telling me the number of the one you’d fancy AND your mailing address. First Come, First Served. If you miss out this week, I plan to list another 8 tiny paintings next week as well.
And feel free to GIVE this newsletter away to someone you think might dig it. And if you have received such a forwarded message, consider joining us with this subscription link: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/jX0Ddba It’s my once-a-week reflection on what it’s like being creative during the past week, designed to help you spot more resources and opportunities you may have overlooked. You in?

Tiny Goddess #1 Tiny Goddess #2

Tiny Goddess #8