Post #746108 by Tiki Shark Art on Thu, Jul 2, 2015 10:52 PM

Aloha Tiki Tribe!

365 days until my big Tiki-Art Show at La Luz De Jesus gallery.

Thanks LLT, and RVICTOR - I really appreciate your words of encouragement.
U guys RAWK!

Thanks soooo much!

Every one in the Tiki Tribe who has told me they dig my art has really done me a huge favor, .. you may not know it. But it's those little things that keep you going.

A year seems like a long time ...until you see it fly past in a blur of office work & paying bills with commercial art work, business trips, & all that day to day stuff that sucks the "art time" right outa' ya!

Life is not constructed to make it easy for anyone to be an Artist & make a living at it. Just isn't.

I have many really talented friends who work so hard with no reward in sight, just a dream...

These people inspire me with their determination and perseverance. When they do get a break - it's magical!

Jeepers -freakin' Creepers! I thought I really had two years for this. But, something happened, and I turned around, and now I have one year to do this.
hmmm… I dunno. Life happened.

A special art-charity-event locally.

I had a problem with a lower back injury. It's on going, had some medical procedures to get that fixed… kinda' getting better… finally. (ah, fingers crossed on that one)

Oh other things happened like a couple huge business opportunities where you gotta' fly off some where and put on a dog-and-pony show for some-one so "maybe" a big business deal "might" happen and later on you'll get a piece of that action.

Just work stuff. All that kinda' thing.

A big Art show like this at a "name" gallery like la Luz…
It's very exciting, and extremely scary, all at once. It's the chance to be the great artist you "hope" you are, but also the possibility to fall on your face in front of the world because you couldn't generate the self discipline to schedule up every day to make sure you put in the man-hours to make it happen. There's no secret to making amazing art. It's just putting in the hours, and days, and weeks, and months of work. That, and pushing yourself to be better. You can't rest back, and think you "made it" cause there is no such place.

But, sometimes I REALLY wish I was one of those artists who throws paint on a canvas for five minutes and gets 20 grand or more 4 one hour's work.
But, course, that's not how my "Art Muse" instructs me.
That's not what makes my blood turn to liquid fire and get me going… super-cartoon Low-brow Art with a million man-hours in it does!

The latest issue of Hi FRUCTOSE has a great article about my hero - the Father of Low-Brow Art: Robert Williams. It talks about how he would get up at 4:30 AM and make art all day till way after dark…every day... for years. Sounds familiar. Sometime you sacrifice a lot to get that image down on canvas. No free time to hang out with friends, go to the beach, go to movies, relax watching TV, kicking back doing nothing all week end… those things don't happen. You make art instead. Being bored because I have nothing to do is something I have not experienced in years… decades I think. But that's what being an artist is.

I personally know at least 5 to 10 people who are as talented and much more talented artists than I am, - who I've told that if they painted 8 hours a day for one year, they would be so good they would be selling in an Art gallery. Guaranteed. They all bitch about how hard it is to make a living, and how they hate their jobs. None of them has taken me up on that idea. Zero. No one I knew in art class from collage is a successful artist making a living at it. Not one fellow class mate… they all got "real jobs".

But, that kind of commitment is not easy. It's really hard, and you sometimes feel you give up your life to make your art.
However, I guess, if you are an "Artist" then that is your life, and the only way you feel good about your self is when you are making really great art.

You only feel great when you're making Art better than you've ever made before.

This drive to "make" Art. Robert Williams calls it "..a sort of psychosis."

Bitch bitch bitch…. sorry Tiki Tribe!
Thank you for reading the "Artist's Rant".
Now, back to work!

Here's da' fun stuff…

Here's a sketch…

...for another "Tiki-Toy Souvenir"…

...I'm working on with KC Hawaii:

This little guy is just exploding with "aloha!"

I'm doing turn arounds on 4…no, make that 5 tikis.

This is number 4… on to number five!

Man, with all that, I LOVE this.

I really love being a part of this under ground cultural Art movement. It's such a soul enriching thing for an artist to get to do… for all the bad days, there's that sheer joy of making Art no one's ever seen before, and seeing someone's face light up when they look at it.
There's nothing else like it on earth.
I'm extremely lucky to be able to do this.
Big MAHALO!

[ Edited by: tiki shark art 2015-07-03 19:15 ]