Currently...
I am reestablishing order and balance as I allow my new jobs to enter my life beside my art career.
Since painting (and selling) The Artist, I've started on a new project and painted 1 new piece. The new piece will go up as soon as I have a nice picture of it.
SO I've started to introduce more mixed media into my work and on this idea. It started with the movie, The Factory Girl, and the artist/model/socialite/actress, Edie Sedgwick.
There's poor Edie Sedgwick. Going to art school, wanting to model, having disapproving, rich parents, and this craving for New York. Being a model in New York! She goes and BOOM besties with Andy Warhol, lots of attention, lots of cameras and lots of no-no head shakes from mom and dad. She becomes so unraveled by the fame, the drugs, all these issues she had never quite gotten figured out now exploding and mixing around with all these other chemicals in her body. The excitement, the thrill, the addiction, the overwhelming sense of acceptance and inner rejection. At 28 she came out the other side having been to rehab, growing up a little, getting married. And then she dies of an overdose.
Now before this I was not aware of who Edie was. But of course I was familiar with Andy Warhol and his golden touch -- he makes you famous. But reading about Edie and seeing her most famous pictures and clips gave me the same feeling in my heart as being around my other addicted friends and acquaintances.
Addiction is tragic. Not only for the addicted person but for all involved. If you ever go to an alanon meeting (support group for families and friends affected by an addict/alcoholic) you'll see loved ones completely at a loss for words over what they're experiencing being in that person's life.
I guess you could say that her addiction wasn't what made her famous and popularized, but then what was? She was very intelligent, came from a rich family, she was a free spirit, etc etc. She even says in one of her clips that the reason she dressed the way she did was due to her mental illness and drug use. I guess you could also say it was all just a coincidence. And her style and artistic vision was strong enough to permeate passed obscurity.
But that's the intrigue. Because it isn't just Edie.
I did portraits of Jean-Michele Basquiat and Gia Carangi with the same question. Was it just the art? Their style? Their personality? Or is their addiction what really makes people want to dig deeper to know them. To save them with fame and adoration, quoting them, plastering their face in idolization.
Does everyone forget the tragedy of the addiction? Forget that their friends and family were scarce or hesitant and reluctant to continue to hope and help?
This isn't to say that they weren't fun, loving, great people. I'm not referring to who they were. There are lots of fun, loving, great people that don't suddenly get famous. And some of them still die of drug overdoses.
The whole idea is kind of hypocritical on my part. Since I'm putting their faces in my art and sharing their story. But that's the point. The hypocrisy of their addictions and dilemmas -- all the issues, pain, and self-medicating that they desperately needed to face and deal with -- and their subsequent/continuing fame before/after their death.
I'm still putting together more portraits but we'll see who I decide on adding. I'm taking my time with it as the idea fleshes itself out in my head.
What do you think?