Appreciation of Another’s Creative Gift

In the face of tragedy it’s only human nature to gravitate toward the headline-grabbing details of a situation.  For g-d’s sakes, turn on any news program at 5pm on a weekday.  And once we get over the initial shock, only then does everyone start reading between and beneath the lines of what happened, to really understand WHO happened, and by “happen” I mean brought some kind of unforgettable value and joy to the lives of the people around them.

Lauren F. was a fellow Morristown High School Alum who graduated with my own younger sister in the class of 2003.  Her old sister, Emily, graduated several years earlier with me.  In the most tragic of circumstances, neither of these two lovely, kind and successful young women are with us anymore, and it’s that word “NEITHER” that’s been grabbing so much attention the last few days, as the community quickly caught wind of Lauren’s passing via mouth and social media, barely three and a half years after her older sister.   Untimely exit from this lifetime is tragic enough in itself, but even more so when it’s compounded by a double incident.

I found some of Lauren’s artwork via a friend’s tribute posting in an online forum this morning, and I was really impressed!  I didn’t know Lauren all that well, and with the age difference, I never had the pleasure of sharing an art class in high school.  Clearly this is someone with a delicate, discerning eye for art, for subject matter, and for color, and who translated it just as well into physicality.  Beautiful pieces that quite honestly had me thinking, ‘Man…I wish I could paint that.’  If I’m not mistaken, I believe she went on to study art management in London.

It’s my school of thought that no matter where you are on this earth and otherwise, the gifts of one’s creativity should be shared with all to appreciate.  And I suppose this holds true even more so when you are no longer here and the opinions start to form around your legacy.  Now there’s likely not a single person in our well-known New Jersey suburb that would say anything less than extraordinary, beautiful things about these two ladies, because if Lauren was anything like her sister, I’m sure she shared those qualities- one of those people you never caught NOT smiling (and you wonder how they’re so good at it!).  Lauren and I didn’t share many exchanges really, but I see that we at least shared a mutual passion for creativity, and from one artist to another, it’s something you’ll never fail to appreciate about another human being.

Take a look at some of Lauren’s oil and acrylic work here.

Me…& ‘My Coffee Face’

Hey look – I’m on the ‘Artists on Tuesday’ edition of MyCoffeeFace.com!  One thing most people know about me, however, is that I’m not a coffee drinker, yet I do enjoy drowning myself  in the caffeine-light indulgences of green tea  [at least when it's too early for wine].  http://www.mycoffeeface.com/2010/04/dana-leavy-artists-on-tuesday-edition.html.

One Hell of a Creative Paradox

Today is much like any other day, where I go through the motions of taking my job for granted, thinking about my artwork, things I’d rather be doing at three thirty in the afternoon.  I peruse MSN.com for awhile.  I come upon a video news clip depicting the story of a young girl who had half of her brain removed to alleviate the severe symptoms of Rasmussens Encephalitis, a rare neurological disorder that causes severe uncontrollable seizures.  “Whoa.”  That’s my reaction.  I couldn’t play the video sound on my computer, so I did a google search for “girl with half a brain” and came upon the story on ABC News’ website.  The story was actually about a different girl, several years older than the one in the other story, but with the same condition, and perhaps even more remarkable story.

Now, it’s amazing how many people I’ve encountered in 27 years who, when I engage in any kind of exchange regarding mine or my brother’s artistic endeavors, reply with some variation of “I wish I could draw like that.  I’m totally not artistic at all!”  Perhaps they’ve tried and failed, perhaps they’ve surrendered before they even started, either out of lack of interest in the arts in general, or maybe some belief that they lacked “the artistic gene”.  That last part is even more ironic to me, when you consider this.

I wouldn’t say Brandi Binder necessarily lacks any kind of creative or artistic gene.  A twenty-something from Colorado, her artwork is quite good.  By 13 her work was hanging in the offices of Congress.  And at age 6 she had the entire right cerebral hemisphere of her brain removed as a last resort treatment for Rasmussens Encephalitis.  Her family was told that, in the event that she even made it through the risky procedure, she would grow up with no appreciation for or ability in art, music or anything in the creative realm, being that the right half of the brain controls all creative impulses and stimulation.   Thank god for people who refuse to simply settle for the hands they’re dealt.

Over the years, Brandi’s left brain was retrained to develop new pathways to help her recover some of the things she lost when the right side of her brain was removed.  She enrolled in art classes, learned to draw, and essentially reinvented herself as an artist against the “expert opinion” of the country’s top neurosurgeons.  Needless to say, as someone who’s been blessed with the creative gene since day one, I am beyond inspired by this girl’s story, and for someone like me, it’s a real shame to take that gift for granted.   Artistic nature isn’t defined by one’s skill, by how many years you spent in art school, or how many people know your name.  It’s pure 100% concentrated passion for the craft, and this girl…has got it.

You can, and please do, read more about Brandi’s story and her art at ww.brandibinder.com.

April Must See: Boston Motion Graphics Festival

Boston Motion Graphics Festival 2010
April 1st through 5th, All Around the City

Featuring artists such as: The Mill, Dvein, Pleix, Psyop, Herzog & De
Meuron, Three Legged Legs, Jean-Paul Frenay,Yoshi Sodeoka, Alan
Sondheim, Addictive TV, Warp Records, The Crystal Method, Royksopp,
Assassin’s Creed 2, LucasArts, N.A.S.A., Larry Carlson, Ken Adams, Jen
Stark, Shantell Martin and more.

Featured Artists :: http://mgfest.com/10/boston/#featuredartists
Workshops & Conference :: http://mgfest.com/10/boston/#education
Tickets and Registration :: http://mgfest.com/10/boston/#tickets

The Motion Graphics Festival will soon be back in town, and from April 1st to 5th, ready with a new wave of artists to awaken those sleeping synapses. Witness and participate in a convergence of motion, sound and interactivity, embrace new ideas, celebrated the inquisitive spirit, and at evening’s approach, dance.

The festival debuts the 2010 schedule with screenings by Lumen Eclipse, “Psychedelia” and “Somatic Death, Soma Life” at the Brattle Theater on Thursday 1 April.  We will journey down the road set by thirteen artists exploring a new mind-manifesting experience – challenging afresh our perceptions and pointing towards a reawakening unhindered by the prosthetic body.

Friday night’s Best of 2009 screening by Stash DVD Magazine highlights
36 commercials, music videos, virals, short films, broadcast designs
and game cinematics from top-tier studios across the world. Something
will grab your attention, setting off a chain reaction and igniting a
fresh set of ideas, which may have been lying dormant for years,
uninspired to leave the confines of its stasis.

Saturday night’s performance by Z.E.E. in the 2012 Lounge at Machine
features a completely integrated audio + video live performance music
set.  The visuals are rendered in realtime, seamlessly spread across 3
full-HD resolution projections, achieving a horizontal resolution of
over 4500 pixels at 30 frames per second.  The entire evening
experience brought to you by Zebbler, Vermin Street and MGFest.

Boston may not be the same – but neither will you.

Full Festival Info :: http://MGFest.com

The Literal Art of Passive Aggression

I’m working on a new mixed media piece that I’ve aptly entitled “Passive Aggressive”.  It’s always interesting for me, as the artist, to see through the manifestation of this, all the different moods that have come and gone throughout its several-week build.  Probably most entertaining to myself is the initial stages, the inspiration behind it, and how it first started out – basically that being a life-size imprint of my right forearm prominently raising my middle bird.  Something/one had irked me that evening, so what else is an artist to do other than passive aggressively express my anger and frustration in the best, most productive way possible – messily, and in multiple stages of revision.

Now maybe it’s not fair for me to sync the phrases “artist” and “passive aggressive” so universally.  Not every artist (or musician… no actually, scratch that… musicians are generally angry.  Especially drummers.) is preserved in a constant state of angst, anger, anxiety or other words starting with the letter ‘a’.  But hell- no one can take the physiological  unpleasantries of those emotions and so seamlessly do a 180 with them, transforming them from otherwise detrimental mental flaws into physical embodiments of meaning, like an artist can.  I made that up…but it sounds good.  And honestly, there is a decent amount of truth therein.

The Latest: “Untitled 1 & 2″

I decided to try something a little different this go-around.  The latest duo of paintings in the Flora collection are both 10″ x 20″ mixed media pieces on 3/4″ canvas.  A combination of Japanese paper, acrylics and black ink, these two were an experiment gone right, gone wrong, gone right – in tha order.

First came the paper application to the canvas using a clear acrylic medium.  After that dried, the original flower was done in acrylics, followed by the ink, which was inspired by my love for the art of Japanese ink drawings.  A second coat of acrylic semi-gloss medium is applied over all three layers to “seal the deal”.  Voila!

The Latest: “He Loves Me/He Loves Me Not”

My latest and youngest additions to the Flora collection include two abstract floral portraits inspired loosely by my new Peruvian lilies.  Beautiful little things they are, though give them a few days and they start shedding their petals like crazy!  Here they are mid-way through their bloom and doom, in “He Loves Me” and “He Loves Me Not (He Loves Me)”, because he does… hence where the lovely lilies came from in the first place.  Both pieces were done in acrylic on 5”x7” canvas board with a semi-gloss finish.

Check Out: Urbania

This Wednesday evening you can enjoy the artistic renderings of NYC-based artist, and colleague of mine, Jason Borbet (“Borbay”) at his exhibition show Urbania, being held at the M&T Bank Flat Iron branch at 200 5th Avenue. The show starts at 6pm.

“Urbania is a one-night-only art exhibition, featuring the work of Time Out New York’s Most Creative New Yorker, location artist Borbay. On display will be Borbay’s architectural-impressionist recreations of cherished New York landmarks, including: The Woolworth Building, Manhattan Bridge, Chrysler Building and the Brooklyn Bridge.“

For additional information, please go to http://www.borbay.com/urbania/

Please VOTE FOR ME!

Please vote for me in the “Artists Wanted” Competition – most popular profile wins $1000.  Details about the contest, as well as my bio and profile can be found here: http://www.artistswanted.org/DanaLLeavy

New Year, New Motto

The idea of limits was something I never really understood in AP Calculus.  There would always be some trick question where the answer seems poignant and obvious, only to find out that the limit doesn’t exist.  Non-existent limits was also something I didn’t fully grasp.  It’s even harder to understand ‘limits’ and ‘non-limits’ the more you age, and the more frequently and intensely you find yourself grappling with the battle between making a rational professional living and following your passion towards a higher goal than the safety of the status quo (and is that even safe anymore?).  Welcome to every artist’s internal dilemma.

“Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world,” said 19^th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.  If you’re a New Yorker, you’ve recognized that “Train of Thought” plastered under the plexi-glass ad space in various subway cars.  Amazing how nearly one hundred years of socio-political change and psycho-medical advancement later and we have yet to tackle the most basic of human internal conflicts of what to do with our lives, and who we are, taking up space in that mecca while simultaneously opening it up to other inhabitants who we hope influence us enough to answer our own inherent questions.  “To be” something is no longer good enough.  Titles don’t make a living, they don’t guarantee happiness, and perhaps they never did.  But once upon a time, a simple definition defined your placement in and obligation to society…to your family…to yourself.  One hundred years ago, a cobbler was a cobbler, a doctor a doctor, and an artist an artist.  But times have changed, and the modern man’s Picasso dwells internally in anything from a trust fund Harvard grad who, at the tender age of 22, decided “real work” wasn’t for him, to the rent-control studio-dwelling Brooklyner who, despite making nary a dollar in the fine art of painting now and then, would without thought sooner classify himself “an artist” than a bartender, waiter or account manager, the titles that otherwise comprise 75% of his waking hours.  But here’s the thing – said artist doesn’t confuse what may make up 75% of his waking life and 99% of his gross income with what makes up 99% of his heart and soul.  That’s the difference.

In 2009 I learned a very important lesson – one that I perhaps had the opportunity to learn several years before and many times over, but never fully digested.  Adopted from the same-titled book I’m currently reading by professional coach Kelly Bryson, my new motto going into 2010 is “Don’t be nice…be real.” Sounds like a harsh reality at first observation, and it’s not an invitation to wake up tomorrow morning and suddenly be a heartless ass to everyone you meet.  It’s an invitation to look fully and deeply inside yourself and, for once (for some of us), listen to your internal voice and give yourself the gift of acting upon it.  Don’t define yourself by the status quo and what those around you expect of you externally, soley for the fear of seeing what happens when you say “nope, not going to happen chief.”  Because there is a different person inside, one who, contrary to the other 75% of people in your life, is going to be with you in 10, 20, 50 years, and have no qualms about telling you “I told you so” when you realize at 75 that you never quite let him or her out.

A couple of weeks ago I asked a friend and fellow artist basically why he quit his secure and prominent media job to become a full time painter.  More than anything, it was a matter of intrigue on my part, and hoping there was some magical formula I could follow to attain a similar lifestyle. “Always when life seems to be at its apex of craziness is when resolve can arrive,” he responded.  “You have to be so fed up with your current situation, that your motivation will drive you. You also have to be ready for adversity in its truest, and rawest form… Sometimes the opportunity comes when you least expect it, but the window closes quickly. Act prudently, but when the right time comes, go without abandon.”

Wouldn’t it make sense for someone to invent the ultimate roadmap to a fulfilling life, the holy grail of human existence?  But much like the effort to separate moral values from politics, it’s just something that can never be done, because every contributor to the bigger picture is so different and unique- we only know what we know, and what we feel.  With that, I challenge you in 2010 to figure out what that knowledge and feeling and desire to be is, and in some way, even the smallest, manifest it.   It took me 27 years to legitimize myself in my own mind as an artist- a painter, a musician- and it was a hard road to navigate…and make no mistake, I’m still on board.  But it will be an eternity and a half before I relinquish my ownership of that.  It’s mine for the taking, and that feels f—ing GREAT!

Happy New Year, in all its glory and possibility.

Dana