A Trip in Korea

I don't want to harp on my vacation too long, as this is a blog about Carateart and not Mike's vacation blog. But it is true that life effects art, or at least I like to let me life effect my art. So I'll harp a little.

I never left Seoul the entire time I was in Korea. I was only there a week and Seoul is just a fucking awesome city. Imagine that you were only in NYC for a week, would you think to leave to go check out Buffalo? Hell no.

To explain Seoul properly I would like to dispel any existing perceptions on what Korea is like. I must admit to having some American bias before entering and was quite surprised to see where I had landed. Korea is not a "totally different" culture. Its not Mars. Many customs we have in the US, Koreans also have. Florida is a much freakier place. If was easy to order food, find a bathroom, get a hotel, etc. Many of the younger Koreans speak English. There are like 4-5 English channels on television. The porn sucks, so does the food, but like any big city there is a wide variety of foreign competition. Also, I would like to point out to those traveling that the dollar is not all-powerful there. A buck is worth about W1000, which is worth about a dollar.

Seoul is a grand city, much like New York. They have a strong public transportation, a huge population, and various districts that specialize in goods (shopping, food, art, fabric). The people of Seoul are well educated and quite proud of their culture. They are happy to suggest things to do and even join you if you invite them.

The most I have taken back from Seoul, the things that will linger and resonate in my life are so: I miss the city. Being in a real city for a week has made me realize how far away I live from the energy. In Seoul I was treated with a great deal of hospitality by the people, and I find that a good example to follow. Americans are much more hostile to foreigners and it is shameful. there is no limit to the amount of things you can put on a moped. Squid and cocktail sauce don't mix. Inspiration is like a light that surrounds you, it keeps you in the groove and it gives groove to all around you. NYC taxi drivers actually drive kinda safe. Being lost in a strange city is almost always a good thing, if its scary thats even better. good stories come from weird shit. The way to beat a Stasis Deck is to be patient and wait for an optimal round. My brother, Dustin, and I are night and day. He joined the Army and I'm an artist. Yet despite our many differences something musta happened deep int eh Oklahoma mud that bound us. I miss him a lot. Playing Magic and bullshitting with Dustin is about as good as it gets.

Other than that, if you want to know more about Korea or Seoul buy a guide book. Here's a standard tour-book picture.

I Got Seoul

So much happening. Why I work in spurts I do not know but I am always either on or off. Right now I am on, and I feel very bright. Things are happening in my studio again, the painful beginnings where you don't know what to do and you search blindly for inspiration. The project currently is Red Vinyl #2 (Jason Szalla). It is a project I began a few months ago and never delved past the layer of ice on top (mostly due to Karazan). Its ugly right now, but its happening and that's what's important. Everything is given way to this, I promise I ain't slacking no more, at least not for some great length of time.

Tomorrow I am getting on a plane for Korea. my brother joined the army a few ago and he's at least not in Iraq. I'm looking forward to visiting him, this trip has been planned for ages. So Red Vinyl will have to wait till I get back, but I'll be working while I'm there. I will be searching for answers and ideas. I'm bringing a camera, my new journal, some watercolors, and some running shoes.

When I get back, and things get a little more presentable, I promise some pictures of Red Vinyl #2 and maybe a pic or two of my vacation. I'll try to send you a blog from Korea too, so keep checking in.

A definition of the word art

(I would like to thank everyone who has waited so long for a new post and continued to visit Crateartist.com)

















My friend Noel just got married yesterday. Weddings are special events, they are points in time where many people come and reflect their lives, change their lives, see their lives, and remember their lives. They are like reverse explosions, so many lives coming to a single point. I do not see how anyone can witness such an event and be the same person afterward.


Reflecting, I see that the people who surrounded me in New York are sorely missed. The artists and musicians I constantly socialized with are 2000 miles away and there is no one here, in Florida, to replace them. Even the yip yap of the pretentious gallery idiots leave a vacant space that I long to fill. Good friends and inspiration are minimal here, in the Sunshine State, and to have been at my friend's wedding I felt as though a great thirst had been quenched and a long awaited reflection and motivation had come at last.


Art. At one point in my life the creation of art was a romantic and emotional well. I could create my pieces and pour my soul into them, capturing a piece of myself for all to see. While few, or maybe none, understood what they were seeing, it was there. My emotions and perceptions captured in two dimensions, unclothed and unedited.

As I progressed, through college and after college, I was taught that a professional artist will calm this kind of expression in exchange for the craft of an object. To explain this further, a professional artist must be able to communicate fully with his/her audience and create a piece that is both coherent and masterfully crafted. A work of art must be clean and polished unless a tarnish is well intended. Any high school kid, battled with emotions, can draw a picture to release their inner conflict. An artist must do more.


This idea led to a great conflict in me. On one hand I wanted to be a great artist, I wanted to prefect what I do and take my talent to a higher level. On the other hand, taking romanticism out of my work was to give up the most important element. My conflict was first illustrated in the early paintings of garbage, and later illustrated in the creation of Crateart. For example, Crateart was a humorous form of anti-art done in mediums that are not considered high art, on subjects with no reverence, with no meaning, and no romanticism. All the pieces were well crafted, visually stunning, but purposefully empty. The message was as if to say, "If my emotions are not welcome in my art then here, have nothing at all. I will make the prettiest kitsch possible."



So here I am again considering making art. Many times I have tried starting to make new body of work and every time I have just quit. To my dishonor, I admit that I have been lazy. Too many video games, too much television, too many distractions. But the pressing issue has always been the same: Now what? What do I make 2000 miles from my nearest friend or family member? Who is it I am trying to impress with my ideas and my creations? what possible purpose does my artwork serve now with a child and a family, a car, a cat, a garage, and a swimming pool? Do I play the game of the professional artist, and crate marketable work or do I ignore the idea of professional progression and create work that is personal and therapeutic? (note: I realize I said art therapy)


My friend Noel once wrote a story about "Dave Winfield", the rooftop outfielder. Dave Winfield fell off a three story building and lived. He had a crooked walk and sore temper. He slept on his table-saw after drinking himself to sleep each night, while the toxic dust of the concrete grinder seeped into his rooftop, tree-fort, home. He was the romantic artist, suffering his life away for his work. I mention Winfield because I see two kinds of artists. There are the Dave Winfields, the Jackson Polllocks and the Jason Szallas, the mad scientists who invite demons into their lives so they can exercise them onto canvas. The Winfields create work that rarely sells, they exist in a world where only they are right and everyone else is under the influence of illusions. Their reverse are the Jamalis and the Steven Assels, the highly refined phonies. They are the sell-outs who work from 9am to 5pm making pretty pictures for anyone who will buy them. Crateart was a parody of this manner of art, emotionally empty and well crafted. The High Refined Phonies usually do rather well with their work or change professions early on. They can tell you long tales about the meta-physical meaning behind their work, how the work is deeply personal to them, yet they will forget what year the piece was made and have to reference the title on the back. To this type of artist, art is business and the galleries (institutes of money, not culture) embrace them for it.


My conflict is that I hate the Phonies, which is to say I hate the art market. Hate hate hate hate hate. Yet I do not have the courage to be a Winfield. To be a Winfield is to dedicate your entire life to the passion of drama and misery, to be always unappreciated and misunderstood, and to watch the Phonies succeed by pretending to be you.


In my head I hear my mother telling me that I am too dramatic, that I cannot place the entire art world into two groups and believe that I must choose one or the other. So my response to her voice will be that I perceive it that way, and right or wrong I see little other option but to choose one faction or the other if I wish to progress as a professional artist. I would also add to her, and to others, that this opinion does not come uneducated.



So today I bought a journal, a black journal. Every phase in my life since I was 20 years old has begun with a new journal. Its symbolic to me I suppose. I am going to wipe the table clean of half finished work that no longer appeals to me and, once again, begin fresh. I am going to starve myself of my distractions for as long as I can go without them. I will stare at the blank pages and the blank substratum and draw my hand, or my son, or my cat, or a boat, or a plant, anything until I can answer or ignore these conflicts in my head. My instinct is to return, not to Crateart, but to a much older body of work I left in Oklahoma, before I moved to NYC. I'm not sure what I will do, but now is the time to do it. At my friend's wedding the best man, Bill Greezyfingers, made a toast saying that every person exists in a swirling infinity as a morsel in time and space. I can't spend my precious time playing video games and watching television any longer. I have a romantic urge to create art, I always have. Whatever I make will be called art, even if I am the only one who understands it and the rest of the world is wrong.