Turquoise Cups

The bigger your TV upgrade, the further you sit from the it…. why does it take a few thousand dollars to realize that your just moving your seat backwards to adjust to the size? Its funny, when people live in a tiny area, they really see what’s going on right in front of them, they see how much garbage they make, they realize how much plastic they use, how much mud is tracked in, everything a parent would dream their kid would notice if they had one of their wishes granted. It’s easier to see your habits, and get used to maximizing your organizational skills to the greatest potential.

I don’t like much, it takes a bit to make me happy, but it’s just a negatively unique part of a personality trait that grew into me, and now I try to make the best of it. I stopped this morning and compared my life to someone I really shouldn’t of spent the energy on thinking about. I woke up as usual in my sleeping bag on the floor of my art studio, and I simply looked to my left and looked at the mess on the floor. I looked at the cans I didn’t bring out yesterday, the wrappers from taco bell, receipts, rags and then I saw the paints. Bunch of paints, from a few failed attempts at pieces over the last week, but I was in such a zone, that I didn’t really take notice.

I spent awhile in my studio, staring at a particular big wood panel that was taking up room, so I tried to paint it, and even though I tried to do make something out of it, I really couldn’t see it as being a good one. The colors all got mixed together too thoroughly and it did not look good, like the color of cat puke. It was dripping onto a large plastic drop, and the additives in it made it still runny and wet. The ugly, dark, grey, bluish, brown color was annoying the hell out of me as I stared over at it. The color of lost money, the color of lost time, time with old emotions running through my head as I toiled away at getting paint on the panel, was wasted. Either trying to remove something from me or to create something from me, I couldn’t even tell the difference anymore. Why was I feeling so shitty? This feeling of failure? I started to imagine the paintings with faces, like dripping blood on a battlefield, or a big group of people laughing at you, being egged on by a bully or teacher, all melting away like a psychedelic Pink Floyd video.

I knew I had to switch gears, or it would consume me all day, and after all, it was morning, literally waking up on the wrong side of the sleeping bag. It’s really not that bad, all comical, I have to laugh, because I was prepared to fail for this.

At some point, I just threw anything that got paint on it in the middle of the plastic drop that the table holding the paintings was on. Over a small layer of cups, stirring sticks, old dried out brushes, seltzer box makeshift pallets, there was even one of my sandals that had paint all over it, and rather than try to wipe it all off or track any across the floor, I just left it there. There was that ugly color. My extension cord to my heat gun dragged through it and spread it everywhere, and then the sandal prints reminded me of why I took them off in the first place. That ugly color that resembled the lint out of a dryer, my own personal color of defeat. Nice big mess.

The painting wasn’t small, it was four feet by four feet, and had that ugly color on it. It looked like shit, all I could think of was “I better cover this, or play with it”. So I played with it. I squirted lines, and squiggly lines of nice acrylic over the ugly color. It was much like spraying a room full of rotten fish with a cheap dollar store flower scent to make it smell better. Layers of pretty paint, wasted on an ugly background, like beef and broccoli served on rotten shrimp fried rice. It wasn’t even as pretty as a bright white shirt with a coffee stain splattered all over it. Then I knew I was slipping, yeah, time to snap out of it.

Any artwork will automatically bring out the strongest emotions of why I’m doing it at first, and often its not positive. I’d think “ I made a bad decision in life to pursue art, I’m not financially where I’d like to be, its put me in a strange niche that makes it hard to interact with people on certain levels, and yeah, its too late in life to think of anything else. Then it leads into dumb comments from stupid people piss me off. They come from people I’ve cared about or even from strangers. People who will dismantle your stuff in a few words, without a real idea of what being creative full time can do to a person. Everyone is an artist, yes, that’s true, but what would an architect think had someone said “I also happen to be an architect” and pull out the plans of their garden shed? Everyone is an artist, yes, some have dedicated their lives to it, like a lifelong study, like a priest or a nun. It becomes a lifelong study for some that went to edge and dove right in. They fail to realize that this is your life, your putting your life into this stuff. Is YOUR life bullshit? The cars you fix? The houses you build? The company your part of? Is it welcomed to be used in a joke? So in turn they are dismantling your life and usually don’t realize they are doing just that.

Then the realization that it IS your life starts to comes out, the part where there is healing, and time feels holy and the emotions will turn. I’ll actually feel like I’m looking through the eyes of my ancestors, my grandfather was an artist, and sometimes I do feel that I am carrying a torch, whatever that torch really is, I’m carrying one of them. Yes, it is that powerful, not bullshit, its life. If I was close to the creator, it obviously is during the time when I work. If there was a regular time of the day, where I felt like I was absorbed in prayer, it would have to be that time. Its my church, my mosque, my temple, my sweat lodge.

So I stared at the ceiling and admired the height of my studio, I love my big hanging orb light. Those lights are associated with someone who has a big house, big ceilings, to me it was a symbol of wealth, only now I had one, but It was my light, it was off, but I could turn it on, it was mine. The huge metal truss on the ceiling, now looked like something out of a Manhattan style loft, the word….loft…..yeah, I like the sound of that. And my landlord would probably think it was neat if I painted it, I could paint that gold if I wanted. I had no worries. Rent is paid, I’m not going to starve, I have money coming in, I also have a side job I can get when I need it. Then I thought about the beauty of it. “....You really can flip your sense of perception like you did to those cups of paint if you tried to….. looks like you really did get rid of something, and then create something as well”...

Lots of turquoise, lots of gold, lots of black, they are still in the cups. I didn’t have to paint a picture with colors for this view, it was there for me, I chose to see the dark bluish matted down mess of color before I saw the cups with the bright perfect ones. Much like the cup being half full instead of half empty, mine were all empty, but they had the paint still in them. It almost looked like colors a wild peacock would use, or kings palace in Dubai. I didn’t have to choose colors for this magnificent photo opportunity, no color choices, I did that last night. I didn’t know I’d make a great view worthy of a photograph, this wasn’t Bacon or Pollock’s studio, this was mine.

Through the pouring process, I feel like the spontaneity of it is something I need out of life. Most of my artwork is refined, like silver or carving, that can drive me crazy sometimes, because I already know what the outcome will be. But the paintings, are so fast, but you can also fail real fast, and usually costs me half a day’s pay when I do. I also feel that there are spirits or energies that direct me in this. When I work, I feel like I’m connected to a spirit, a creative spirit that my grandfather had, I’ve been told that from family members “he has what the old man had”. A desire to make things, a desire to fix broken things using a different method, and often with components that were not being used or deemed worthless. So when I sit down to carve, emotions go through me, lots of them, not all good either, many are bad thoughts of rejection of failure, so the tension builds, and then the holy thoughts come, like remembering why I’m alive, why I’m here, what I’ve been through, who I lost, who I don’t trust, and what to avoid to be unhappy along with finding out what makes one happy at the same time. When I pour, I noticed the same feeling, but it’s quick, and then its over. I like that. I have the final decision on what colors to pick, but again, who’s to say thats not a spirit controlling me? (haha) Who’s to say the piece itself is not the one responsible for making me bring it out? As with every lesson I’ve been taught, you can always put your spin on it. The cup can be half way full or halfway empty, its all in how you perceive it. And I learned it can even be possible if your cup was filled turquoise paint, much like my turquoise cups.

By Noel Chrisjohn Benson