A Small Retrospect Of My Art Paintings

All material copyrighted by Red Jordan Arobateau. 2008.

Excerpts from his art book with accompanying text, A Small Retrospect Of My Art
Paintings. This book in its entirety may be found on Blurb.com & Amazon.com.

I would like this book to become a ‘coffee table’ book for artists—especially
beginners or those recalcitrant, to draw inspiration from—such as does the Student
At His/Her Golden Pot. For artists to return to this reference work at such time
their spirits flag low, or for sheer entertainment. Will say again—if you’re
given a gift you must use it! It is a Prime Directive! Written into the genetic
fiber of your physical & mental being; set up like a canvass on the easel of your
soul! It comes from before the beginning—and will continue after demise of your
physical body! Don’t let your Works go undone!!!! --THE PASSION OF ART, 2008

INDEX OF PAINTINGS
HO’S BATH Circa 1969 Oil on Canvas 36” x 24”
THE WATERMELON EATERS circa 1969 Oil on Canvas 22” x 20”
LOST DOG circa 1969 Oil on Canvas 36” x 20”
FLASH ON THE HUSTLER circa 1970 Oil on Canvas 32” x 28”
THE PIG circa 1969 Oil on Canvas 19” x 25”
THE HOWL circa 1969 Oil on Canvas 12” x 13 ½”
LA SUENA circa 1969 Oil on Canvas 20” x 21”
THE ARAB circa 1969 Oil on Canvas 43” x 40”
THE BLUE DOG 2008 Acrylic on Canvas 36” x 24”
STUDENT AT THE GOLDEN POT, 2008 Oil on Canvas 30” x 22”
THE POOL SHOOTERS circa 1970 Oil on Canvas 30” x 25”
THE MADMAN circa 1970 Oil on Canvas 20” x 20”
THE OYSTER EATER circa 1969 Oil on Canvas 22” x 23”

As I look around my small ‘monastic’ studio apartment-some 500 square feet-- I

take into account what is there. Primarily it houses ‘The Work’ and very little
of my own personal possessions. There are great storage boxes of books, rolls of
canvass, paintings, some business machines for the creation and production of my
books for distribution, two desks, an easel, oil paints---you get the picture.

Like I said before if you are on the road or making art you might be a seeker like
me. You will stumble into all the pitfalls—romantic love, ego, worthless
arguments, & debates, deceptive lures which draw you away from your calling, like
the love of money. You will postpone life being a flunky in some sealed room
without windows bent over a desk, vulture-like, working for a business, which
isn’t yours.

It is quite apparent why some Works are given to the mentally ill or those who can
still see with a child-like mind. For few normal people would go thru the
discipline, hardship; and denial of adult society it takes to be an artist; to go
out across vast deserts of aloneness to find strange wonderful fruits—these
visions-- and bring them back to a studio, set up their easel and paint them, or
rush to their desk and compose them into books—designed to give back to the world.
Nor would many feel the compassions of a saint. Anyway it is not solid material
but spirit, inspiration which is important. And art is close to this.
How much is really known about hermits? About Henry Darger, who apparently had a
low IQ, supported himself as a janitor all his life? Henry went to mass every
single day, plus 5 or 6 masses on Sunday, God is the only friend I have… Darger,
who created the crazy, beautiful, innovative, Realms Of The Unreal; where nympho
boy-girls do battle with menacing, fanged adult monsters from an alien galaxy.
Was he a hermit by choice? Do hermits at some time in their lives attempt to
reach out, to touch others and be like other humankind—but their adventures into
sociability are repulsed so vehemently & so often, discovering they are laughed at
behind backs of hands, the object of cruel gossip and instead of being friends are
simply the amusement of others that they finally give up and do indeed become
isolated strangers; retreat into their private hermitage like old crabs? If so it
is a very sad state of affairs.

Among the hustle and clutter of the world you find things which are destined to
survive; wither they are archived by wealth, or luck; even as the current stuff,
effluvium of the ordinary days is swept by times broom into a dustpile. These
archived scrolls, clay tablets, ornate leather bound, gem embedded volumes hand-
copied by monks. Throughout 5,000 years some dry up; turn to a finite dead
indecipherable dust. Before they evaporate entirely we hope to reduplicate them.
In the soul of a person one gains inspiration from long ago dead masters—ones we
might hate, ones we might envy, who nevertheless inspire us on our own journey,
puts fire under the recalcitrant pot, gives boil to the writers stuck by writers
block, gives a kick in the butt to the procrastinate so they get to work! These
words of the master evaporate into our souls, turning into a fine ink upon which
we draw daily—having long ago forgotten the detested masters name, but their fire
urges us on still!

The old prophet hoped he might be one of the world’s great artists, or at least a
minor prophet as he shuffled upon his daily routes. Heavy book sack on his
shoulders going back and forth between copy centers and paper cutting shop, his
home, the revolutionary bookstore and the post office—mailing off an occasional
order for those dusty tomes he had authored. Every 3 or 4 (or 5) months he
changed the bed linen & his pajamas.
Very soon now I shall say; at last, embarked on the life of an artist! Hands on!
To get dirty in the muck & mire of color, smells, substance; physical form!

New Years day, January 1, 2008, put paintbrush to canvass. Beginning the
construction of a painting—don’t know its title yet. Here is a pen, a
schoolhouse, a reflective face, hands, a garden; a golden pot from which the pen
is refreshed.

Each day for a week Red had been going thru the motions—setting up treys of paint
tubes, brushes, music to play while working, etc., then the official date! The
system’s bugs & glitches in setting up/breaking down the painters space are ironed
out. Here is his format—(It takes under ten minutes.):

1. Put on ‘painting clothes’ (old teeshirt, pants, shirt & shoes).

2. Be mindful of clock—1 hour to 3 hours for painting, before the remainder of
the days’ necessary routine must transpire.
3. Remove light tripod setup from corner.
4. Open up window, place fan for ventilation, then close curtain for privacy—
all but for the birds portion so their beady eyes can gaze outside for
entertainment and a bit of winter sun.
5. Switch on all 4-lights; aim three at easel.
6. Unfold TV-table to hold paint tube treys.
7. Turn cabinet sideways to better access easel.
8. Take out of cabinet the 3 open treys full of tubes of paint, divided by
color, Red-Yellow/Green. Blue-Purple/Orange. White-Black, Payne’s Grey, Browns;
Umbers; Ochre’s. Place them on table and a ledge, respectively.
9. Retrieve canvass currently being worked from kitchen & set it on homemade
easel.
10. Wash dirty brushes & pallet knives, which have been bathing in turpentine
solution overnight, & set in open cabinet drawer with other brushes, ready to go
to work.
11. Switch on background music. (Jazz—Miles Davis Blue Moods courtesy of Sean.)
12. Remove lids & covers from pre-set pallet (the sheet of glass on top of
cabinet) off of turp/ linseed oil tins, and squeezed out dabs of color.
13. Drink coffee! --While scooting chairs around to face canvass—one for self,
and a second for cat who will inevitably sit in one intended for self.
14. Begin!

Well it remains, I don’t know where to place myself on the spectrum of art.
Everyone wants to know where they belong. Is it possible to ‘place’ oneself on
its ever-changing stream?

Am I great, good, mediocre? What? At last! I have blasted open the long-closed
door of a grey, dark, colorless world of form & lines of sentences; now it inches
open; a blazing fire licks out; it rages beyond; a Technicolor world of colors,
sea-green, red, yellow, blue, turquoise, violet; a paradise! All from a child’s
paint set!

Re: the new painting: needs perspective! To turn and twist that torso, in motion
pointing backwards, indicating forewords! Need to shade the depth of the golden
pot!

Your art is your companion for a lifetime—even in the face of loss, when loved
ones have to leave, when your community is shattered, when the dreams split apart—
you still have the art, this gift to do, to be busy, to accompany you, it is a
friend.

You set up for the day. Lights set up shine on the easel; chairs pulled out,
surrounding to sit in for perspective, and next to easel when working sitting
down; paints set up, brushes washed. Then the canvass taken down from a shelf and
placed on easel. You are ready to begin. You turn; across the studio The Work
stares at you in the face. Somber thoughts crossed his mind.

This world increasingly encroaches on the average struggling citizen. A lot of

little people in a lot of little departments all demanding something from you…
Will I survive the coming storm?

Hope these Journals will be an inspiration, and a table book for struggling
artists/ writers/ dancers/actors everywhere—as it regards the labor of the love of
their respective crafts!

The lovely, and wonderful thing about art painting is that it can be a child’s
playground! Everything does not have to be in anatomical perfection, or
photographic duplication of the ‘real item.’ I don’t worry about an extra finger
on a hand, or a foreshortened body with a too large head. The child dreams!
Paint your vision!
—Don’t know how a creative artist can be great, and truly creative if they abide
by the status quo! The very root meaning of creativity is to make something
fresh, and new shooting up in a spot where it did not exist previously. Following
all the others, only for a time, --while learning; --then straying from that ---
to create! You don’t create something new out of somebody else’s plan!

Bought my first acrylic set today—first time since painted in that medium briefly
some 40 years ago. $16.00 including tax. (Will give the tiny case/easel to
Jasmin to do her watercolors.) Contents:
3 brushes
2 pallet knives
1 charcoal pencil
Tiny plastic water cleanse pallet
Minuet canvas
The case; can be used as a laptop easel
6 tubes of color:
Cadmium Yellow Medium hue
Naphthol Crimson
Ultramarine Blue
Phtalalocyainne Green
Mars Black
Titanium White.

Big plan to switch over when this painting is done. Put the oils away.

Build your dream!

Cement it in!
Cement it in!
Or it will wash away
like mud.
It will be pounded away
in bits by the feet
of thoughtless people.
Art must stand!

3 bare surfaces stare at me—the bare surface of the cabinet, upon which once was
the glass sheet used as pallet on which oil pigments had been squeezed out of
their tubes in an array of colors; and linseed; turp tins---now awaiting a fresh
pallet; one large canvass, a new one, on the easel, untouched, facing out into the
room, beside it a tiny canvass which came with the acrylic oils kit also bare,
still wrapped in plastic. What a tragedy it is to waste ones art! My idea is to
paint, paint, paint; let the canvasses dry, then have them professionally
photographed---print out the discs into different size posters of each painting
for buyer demand.

Beginning to discern—from other peoples mention, and own opinion, that to find
your own voice artistically, is worth more then technical mastery. Ones own
voice. Some artists who have mastered perfect technique have unfortunately
mastered someone else’s concepts in the process, and do not have a voice of their
own, so they tinker with bizarre themes as a substitute. Individuality: this is
something Transman Red took for granted—always having had a unique voice and a
personal statement. Was it from his very queer inception as a bi, no tri-racial
individual, growing up with gender disphoria---qualities outstanding, traversing
the world, in a new enhanced human edition.
The soul of an artist is very sensitive-at least in some respects. Often you must
not give a damn about responsibility—your first and foremost allegiance being to
The Gift; this can have dire consequences in your economic future, in your romance
future, in your future standing as a human being in the world; but--- at least
they will say, ‘he/she was a Great artist.’

This is the intellectual property of the author, Red Jordan Arobateau.