Part 1 “Commissions”

Occasionally in life the opportunity to take on a massive project, task or assignment presents itself. At first glance the challenge can feel both exhilarating and yet simultaneously daunting. On November 9^th 2010, I signed a contract to undertake the largest creative endeavor of my career. After a year and a half of intricate painting, I had finally completed my most complicated commission project to date. Now that my work has been hung and a few years have passed this feels like the perfect opportunity to sit down and write about exactly what a commission project is and more importantly what an artistic venture of that scale involves. In honor of the longest commission of my career, I’ve written an even longer blog entry.

Before I get into the commission itself, you should understand that selling artwork in a turbulent economy is difficult, especially for an emerging artist. When you tell someone that you are an artist they immediately expect you have an alternative source of income. That happens mainly because surviving on selling your own paintings isn’t easy. We’ve all heard the stories of amazing painters, like Van Gough who died unknown, never having sold any of their artwork, dying broke and alone. It can take a while for the public to catch on to emerging artists and sometimes a painter can live and die without ever getting a second look. You can have amazing talent artistically, but if you want to spend all day everyday painting you must learn to sell. For the past six years I’ve been lucky enough to paint full time and I believe that in order to succeed in a profession such as painting, one must emerge themselves entirely…grinding nonstop until you can achieve stability. I am proud to be a working artist, paying my bills while my style was still being shaped and defined. For me, painting is a fantastic profession, if you can ignore our societies preconceived notions about what being an artist entails then you can make it happen without a supplemental income. Keep in mind that making your artwork is only half of the job. Selling the work is the other. It’s my job to constantly create groundbreaking visual imagery, after that’s accomplished I must convince my viewers it’s a good idea for them to invest in my work. In order to be able to spend all day everyday painting, I have to be a good salesman. Basically I’m selling my work and I’m selling myself…all while attempting to avoid selling my soul. As with most things in life it all breaks down to getting paid to do something you love…but it isn’t always black & white.

Commission pieces are customized artwork, specifically tailored for a person with a particular vision in mind. Clients commission me to paint customized artwork using my previous series and paintings as reference points for the style they envision for their piece. The client usually has specific parameters in mind such as size and color. The more information I have the easier it is for me to create the perfect painting, so I’ll often take or review photos of the location and begin to sketch out my ideas for the commission project. They often take much longer to complete and if you ask most painters they can quickly end up being a headache.

In between shows, clients will come to me and place orders for custom pieces. The process starts with an email or phone call from the viewer, in which they describe a past painting of mine that resonated with them. We try to figure out exactly where/what wall they are looking to hang apiece on. After we pick out a size for the canvas, I take a close look at the room and its colors to determine the pallet for the piece itself. At this point I usually do a rough sketch of what I think would be the most appropriate piece. After an image is agreed on I’ll work up a quote for the project. If the project turns out on time and under budget it is profitable, if it goes over then it starts costing me money. That happens because when I’m working on a piece for longer then scheduled, I’m not working on anything new which costs me money. Throughout this process I try to be as open and flexible as possible without compromising my artistic integrity. I’ve turned down a handful of projects, because the idea of painting batman getting his pants pulled down didn’t exactly feel like a smart career move. So now that you know how the process works you can see how painting a random piece from scratch can be more enjoyable then working on a piece with constraints already in place. That said, I believe that every time I paint a piece of a particular series it improves. The more you do something the better you get at it, creating custom pieces…I view them as homework assignments, a challenge that has fixed parameters, that after completion will have made me a little bit better as an artist. Commission projects are an intricate part of my career, but most artists will tell you they can quickly become a nightmare. They can provide a finical life raft in between shows, or become an albatross. My tip for other artists is to do your best to define the sketch portion of the piece, that way you don’t have to repaint apiece multiple times. I sketch quickly and roughly because time is money and if the client wants a more detailed sketch then don’t hesitate to ask for a deposit (if you haven’t already) getting compensated for your time is an important key to growing your business. Fact is…commissions are notoriously difficult. Its very rare that I can match with a paintbrush whatever image my client has dreamt up in their head, but when you can it’s an amazing feeling!

PART 2 “The Piranha”

That said this ‘Piranha’ commission was the most difficult project of my career. The commission itself consisted of (12) 2ft x 1.5ft panels of South American Red Bellied piranhas painted at various distances/lighting. I created my predator series style by inverting the images much like a photo negative, painting every black in white and vice versa. Doing so created continuity among the panels/predator series. When visually applied to an imager of a natural predator the outcome painted image becomes very eerie. Inspired from watching the intro for the TV show ‘Tales from the Darkside’ as a kid. The commission as a whole was done entirely in acrylics. Each panel has 12-14 different shades of grey so it covers a wide gradient scale. The majority of it painted with .5mm brushes.

That’s the logistics. To say painting these images were complicated is an understatement. Time wise, they took close to a year of straight work. Seven days a week, ten-hour days and it’s about a 10-11 month project. I personally grossly underestimated the lengthy time commitment necessary to complete the panels. I am not a photorealistic painter, and these were a huge departure from my comfort zone. That’s probably why I had to start over on so many of them. I figured out if something wasn’t working to erase or paint it out right away because I’d spend more time trying to fix un-proportionate images then I would just going over them. The projector is a huge help without that I don’t think I would have even attempted to put these on the canvas. Another tip for artists is practice painting simple objects, it’s more about the sketch then it is the paint. You can visually see over the course of the commission how my hand improved. I learned that the fun of painting this way was you that you could avoid nature’s imperfections and replace them with a more appealing line or mark.

I typically enjoy explaining every aspect of my artwork to people. During that process I am often surprised by how accurate, even the heavily of abstracted pieces, my audience is able to accurately articulate my preconceived narratives. I don’t like painting for just aesthetics. There is always a message, meaning, or motive behind my paintings. Sometimes I am reluctant to share the theme; often for fear that it may affect the potential sale. Occasionally a viewer can even offer insight into one of my pieces that I myself may not have even noticed.

This commission has a lot of meaning. The patron wanted a wall to appear like a fish tank, the style of fish was important to him, and he liked how the original one(s) looked, but he was concerned that the fish’s reputation may send off the wrong message to visitors who would see my work in his place of business (conference room.) I thought that the piranha was the perfect fish for the setting, but I’m an artist. For me these were all about the piranha and less about a fish tank. I approached them as if in the wild, the viewer swimming into a school of these calculated animals. I wanted to incorporate the original more menacing open mouth images and expanded the commission from 9 new pieces to 12. I wanted it to feel like piranhas, because that edge/danger was what attracted me to them in the first place. The fish are definitely misunderstood by the public, and it’s often said that the most dangerous piranha is the one flopping around the bottom of a fisherman’s canoe.

It also helped that the client had pet piranha growing up. I was fascinated by the fish because it is illegal in most parts of America, for fear of the fish’s owner getting tired of it and releasing it into the wild where it could ruin an ecosystem since its natural Amazon predators like the crested caracara & baby crocodiles aren’t present in a body of water like the LA river or Lake Mead. Letting something loose in the wild can really have severe environmental consequences. Most native species don’t stand a chance against this exotic fish when fighting for food, and even though the weather in most parts of America prevents a fish like the piranha from surviving in the wild, that isn’t the case everywhere. In LA, where it’s a little warmer then average the idea of having these hybrid fish on the wall feels less like a fish tank to me and more of this unpredictable consequence of these aquarium fish being released into the wild and surviving in this Darwinian ecology.

I see a lot of parallels between my art career and these fish. Both starving, both from somewhere else originally, fighting for success in a very competitive ecosystem. The consequences of our actions are unpredictable, so is the subject matter of my work. Fighting to be noticed and simultaneously hoping to go under the radar long enough to develop. Comfortable going it alone, but finding safety in numbers…I could go on and on. The fact is that I relate to these fish and it’d be fair to say that I saw this project as a self-portrait.

The fish itself doesn’t really attack people often unless it’s starving. They live in muddy rivers and lakes in South America, and when the rainy season starts the rivers overflow and they swim out with the floodwater across the jungle floor searching for food. Eventually the rain stops, the streams dry out and often times the piranhas are stranded…that’s when they get dangerous. If you walk across a muddy puddle of hungry cannibalized piranhas you could really get hurt. However that’s very rare. They’re a cool ass fish. The piranha has about 20 different species and they tend to move in pairs and swim in schools, they hate having a piranha behind them. Some are vegetarians, most are carnivorous. I really did my homework on them and I was definitely obsessed with completing these pieces. When I finished coating them it was oddly emotional. I’ve never put that much of myself into a project before. I definitely need to thank my family for all of their support during this endeavor. There was more then one occasion where it felt like maybe my imagination had taken over and I was in over my head.

Other commissions are usually a breeze. I’ve done commission pieces for restaurants, offices and hotels. Countless personal customized pieces for various clients’ homes, often to fit in a very specific area. There is no greater feeling for an artist, then when the art movers come to your studio to take out a huge custom piece.

For more info about how to commission a painting from me just send me an email through this website and I can walk you through the process.

I wrote this poem back in November dealing with the topic of GMOs and thought it’d make for a good painting. The issue of labeling genetically modified foods is an important topic, especially for us here in Cali. Monsanto alone spends millions (I’ve read its anywhere from 8 to 40 million a year) just fighting the California labeling initiative, mainly because they know the public will avoid those altered foods if given the chance.

So to break it down…things like corn seeds are engineered by these corporations then bred with insecticides, altered to increase yield, even posses a tolerance to drought. The problem is that growing and eating these altered foods have severe repercussions on our health and the environment.

I’m not going to get into the health problem side of things (which most evidence suggests there is a clear link to) because this poem/painting is about the environmental damage the GMO crops cause and the violation of the farmers’ rights.

GMOs are considered ‘novel life forms’ so biotech companies obtain patents to restrict their usage (which kind of makes sense since they spend a shit load of money playing god and making these seeds) What’s crazy is they then sue farmers who’s fields get contaminated with those seeds, something that occurs naturally from drifts of neighboring fields. The GMO crops are also responsible for “super bugs” and “super weeds” which are really hard to kill with conventional toxins.

I personally have never met someone who doesn’t want to know what’s in the food they are eating. There are def parts of the world where, unfortunately food is scarce/hard to grow and maybe these gmo crops could help feed the people in those areas, but that is a slippery slope considering the side effects. That’s why most developed countries don’t rock with GMOs because they don’t believe them to be safe…ex Japan, the whole European Union Australia etc…I think we need to be one of those countries.

The Color Green

As a painter, I spend a great deal of time thinking about and working with colors. Figuring out which color is the appropriate vehicle for conveying a message/feeling is a very important part of my job. I try to learn about the color I’m working with, how they mix, how they go together…I’ve taken entire classes on the subject (color theory) based on pairing techniques and the psychology behind the appropriate usage for each one. Today I’d like to make the blog about one color, the color green, a color that I am at constant struggle with artistically and tend to avoid entirely.

The color green is a valuable tool used to promote environmental sustainability and it’s being used everywhere you look these days. Oddly enough though, this practice of using the pigment green connotes the very definition of irony—it is commonly the most toxic color of all paints/dyes available. The vast majority of people are completely unaware that green is typically one of the most toxic pigments in existence, making its use as a symbol for sustainability seem extremely counter-intuitive.

These days, the color green is more prevalent than ever—obviously due in part to the “Green Movement” and its association with environmental protection.  The color green can be found just about anywhere you look, but using it seems to come with a cost attached. Its been implied that products with the color green in them can contaminate the recycling process creating a headache during the sorting process. Pigment 7, the most common pigment used in green paint, contains high amounts of chlorine which can result in cancer and birth defects.  It’s really the combination of the colors blue & yellow that makes it so dense with injurious chemicals—what one color lacks in toxicity, the other makes up for. After I did a little online research I was surprised to find that there really aren’t that many safe, high quality alternatives to the popular paints/dyes in the color green. As an artist, I am working with paints and dyes of almost every medium on a daily basis, I know most of them are nasty, and keeping them off my skin is a constant struggle. According to a report by The World Health Organization: International Agency for Research on Cancer, my very occupation puts me at an increased risk of cancer of up to 20%, and risk of lung cancer of up to 40%…good talk.

It may sound like I’m picking on green (because I am), but in the spirit of fairness, I will concede that regardless of the pigment used, most paints are made of terrible stuff.

Before I delve more into color green and issues of our environment as related to art, let me first explain what is in latex paint—the type of paint that an average person would use. If you were to paint your kitchen green, would you know what was in that paint? Lets start with VOCs or volatile organic compounds. VOCs are found in traditional house paints.  The amount and style of VOCs in house paint varies brand to brand, but most contain additional harmful stuff like toluene, formaldehyde, and even benzene. These things make you sick and can cause cancer. VOCs are volatile and as a result, the paint can release gas (known as “off-gas”) from the walls into the air—Bad. It increases exposure and has a slew of nasty health effects. So if you are painting, use water based latexes that are low VOC/no VOC, free of formaldehyde and other chemicals.  And always paint in a well ventilated place, preferably with a mask on. This is important because as far as I understand it, even after your done painting your walls they are still “off gassing” nasty VOCs into the air. A good tip is flat finish paints tend to contain fewer VOCs than glossy finish paints, while pale or white paints have less VOCs than vibrantly colored or dark paints (such as the color green).  There are some safe alternatives in existence—paints derived from chalk, lime, plant pigments, minerals and even citruses.   ”Milk-based” paints give off no natural or man-made VOCs, but are unfortunately far less effective.

Bottom-line: the alternatives work, but not great. Here’s the breakdown, there are two types of latex paints out there:  solvent-based paints and acrylic emulsions…better known as water-based paints. The better choice, overall, seems to be a high quality water-based paint because it has a better health benefit.  Performance wise, they tend to be effective and have a much better environmental impact. Solvent-based paints are slightly dangerous, but more effective traditionally speaking. Breathing them in or absorbing through the skin can negatively affect the human body. All right that’s enough quasi chemistry from the artist.

So what—you may be asking yourself—am I trying to say exactly? Green itself can never be green. The problem seems to be that our society has embraced the color green as a symbol of sustainability, but the ingredients used to make that very symbol are contaminating the World it represents. The fascinating thing about this phenomenon is just how green has been involved in disseminating contradictory messages.  In some cultures, it represents life and in others death.  It can invoke the majesty of nature, or just feel “institutional.”

Green has been the likely culprit behind the headaches of artists for centuries—both figuratively and literally.  Green was known to burn right through the canvas if mixed wrong. It could also burn/irritate the skin of an artist if not washed off and was rumored to be used as a rat poison in Paris. It was the first color to fade and its high arsenic content “off gassed” VOCs that were most likely sickening to people who had it on their walls in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Fast foreword to the present. There is a new wave of “green washing” these days—businesses may reap financial rewards for environmentally friendly actions. A great example of green washing is when hotels ask their guests to save energy by turning off lights. Of course it’s better for the environment, but the hotel owners have a financial incentive in the form of a lower electric bill. In our culture, it has become in-vogue to be environmentally conscious. It’s popular to go “green” these days. The environment is finally on peoples’ minds alongside tangible ways that we can make personal improvements. As the masses clamor for environmental change, green paint seems to be a counterintuitive symbol. Pigment Green 50 is titanium, nickel & colbalt…more metal then color. Pigment 36 is not any better; its bromide atoms in combination with chlorine are nothing short of toxic. So with all of this evidence, why is the color green our flag for sustainability?

I asked a man who knows about sustainability, because he lives it. Sergio Scabuzzo, is an environmental blogger and sustainability enthusiast. I asked him to weigh in on the topic of ‘green’ and its impact, both positive and negative. I also wanted to know as an artist, if there were any changes that I could make to environmentally improve my studio/business. My environmental knowledge is admittedly limited.

See our conversation below…

SMO: Did you know about the color green’s toxicity?

Sergio: Yes, I read a post on the Huffington Post about the toxicity levels of the color green, what about you?

SMO: I read this dope article in the NYT by ALICE RAWSTHORN a couple years back that made me want to look into this topic for my own blog in case other artists missed it and because of the contradictory history that green has had already.

So knowing that it’s toxic…does that change anything for you?

Sergio: The color green is just the façade or represents sprouts (it’s the newest part of a plant). It’s ironic, but really what we need to hold onto is the idea, not the actual color. You can paint a building green, but it won’t be “green.”

SMO: Do you think there is a way to replace the color green as a symbol of sustainability?

Sergio: Personally, I doubt that would even be beneficial.  It’s not that green is bad— green is beautiful; the problem is our emulation of what it is…

SMO: People have known how nasty green was for a very long time, it would literally burn through the canvas, so why do you think they chose green as the symbol of sustainability?

Sergio: The answer is because trees, grass, and most fresh plant life starts off green. Maybe for every green sign we paint, we should plant a tree.

SMO: So what your saying is that our representation of the color green is flawed, but through no fault of anyone?

Sergio: So what we need to do is hang onto the idea of it, you don’t need to paint your car green you need to make it “green.”

SMO: If you had to choose an alt color to represent sustainability, what would it be?

Sergio: Blue clear water, clear sky

SMO: What is the most important tip you could give an artist to making the process more eco friendly?

Sergio: Try using recycled objects (precylced) reuse materials as much as possible, and try eco friendly paints and or supplies.

SMO: Since you are the first guest on my blog, and I’m a starving artist, all that I can offer in return is exposure to my limited audience. What’s your blog and do you want to plug anything that my readers may want to check out?

Sergio: www.thegreenmanproject.com is the website.  My whole thing is anything related to the transition movement or permaculture.

SMO: I know one thing…after all this research I’m going to be bringing some houseplants into my studio and tightening up my mask the next time I work with green. We all need to minimize our carbon footprint and provide a safe, non-toxic environment for future generations. So if painting a few signs in a toxic color helps get the message out, then I think it’s worth the risk.

The hardest part of any creative endeavor is usually figuring out where to start. When painting, the beginning, or first layer of the piece, is rarely seen. For me the best way to start a painting is really by just diving in. Writing is much different…it leaves much less coverage for the artist to hide behind. The editing occurs in my paintings with layering, in writing the beauty generates from an economy of words…saying more with less.

Let me start by introducing myself, my name is Steven Michael O’Connor and I’m a Los Angeles based visual artist. The ‘bio’ tab on this site will provide you with more of the details about my life and career if you are interested. My goal with this blog is to provide previous clients, current fans, and constant supporters of my artwork a chance to catch a glimpse inside my paintings.

Ironically, writing about my own artwork has always felt like a daunting task. Even though incorporating text into my art is a technique that I use often. I’ve never had a problem verbally explaining the motivations behind my paintings; in fact that side of this business has always been very rewarding and insightful. The experience revealed aspects of my work that I myself wasn’t always aware of. To a certain degree art should be grasped immediately, and if it can’t be then the aesthetic experience should at least resonate with the viewer. The experience is only truly visceral when the aesthetics melt with a message eliciting an immediate response. I personally enjoy the ambiguity painting provides, but if too much time passes without the viewer picking up the piece’s meaning then, I’m not accomplishing my goal. Of course there are outliers, those highly personal pieces that are not meant for to get. To bring this back around, writing is the best way to convey a direct message, or to throw the viewer off the scent.

Writing is required at every stage of this game, right down to the titling of my pieces. Staying verbally creative is paramount…it allows me to bring you, right to me. Allow me to explain. It is the day before Halloween in Burbank, California. It is dark outside, in a way that only happens this time of year. Its like the ‘magic hour’ loses all of its reds and pinks, washing everything in a vivid blue tint before the sky goes completely dark. I’m old school, so I’m physically writing all of this into my sketchbook, while balanced back on a wooden chair in my studio. Parts of my clothes are still wet with paint from the days work, probably drying directly to the chair that’s underneath me. I’m in my studio, which is still warm from the Southern California October sunshine, but cooling off at a noticeable pace…a pace that only a valley desert can provide. It smells mainly of stale coffee and spilled paint thinner with an ever present fragrance that I can only describe as “grandparents’ garage.” The space is dimly lit for an art studio, and peacefully quiet except for a constant rattling caused by a box fan balanced in defiance of gravity on a pair of empty paint buckets. The old fan is dusty and overworked, but somehow still effectively pulling cool autumn air from underneath the crack in the studio door and pushing the remaining paint & sawdust laced atmosphere underneath the worktables. The only other noise comes from the neighborhood children who can be just faintly heard playing in the driveway just outside the studio. I’m here writing, and with that…now you are here with me. That’s the power of writing. I’ve documented my experience and hopefully painted you a verbal picture of my setting. I love the detailed point of reference that you receive. The idea that you the reader, you will absorb the information that I’ve given you and then fill in the blanks with your emotional experiences to complete the process is truly fascinating to the painter side of me.

Writing is powerful tool for assisting your imagination. It can be done just about anywhere without a bunch of supplies. Painting, on the other hand, well that is my preferred vehicle of expression because there is a physicality required that most forms of communication just plain lack. Writing can be done anywhere, but as the title of this blog suggests it is very difficult for me to start writing. That internal conflict does not exist inside myself with painting.

Recently it became apparent to me that in order for my website to be successful, I was going to have to put more into it. I was perfectly happy with my last website (www.opticalcomposition.com) it certainly served its purpose of walking my clients through images of my past work with occasional verbal context attached. However things have changed. The paradigm seems to have shifted to keeping my viewers and clients more involved with my creative process. Explaining my motives and upcoming events in real time. Since my business is thriving at a time when so many are closing…I needed to embrace that shift. I know the worst thing that I could do right now is get complacent, so its time for me to give something back. Tonight I’ve put down my paintbrush and picking up my pen.

I know it sounds cliché, but my goal with this new website is to give something back. I want to provide a modern, more in-depth look into my art and which direction its heading. Hopefully I will be learning something about myself along the way. My goal is to every couple of weeks pick a topic, such as sketching, Photoshop or like tonight’s topic of getting started…isn’t it ironic that I started that topic and couldn’t see it through. Oh well this is my first real bog, cut me some slack…Since this is the first blog on the new site maybe it’s just more about beginnings.

If you enjoy what I written then I’d ask that you sign up to follow my blog. Please follow along and if you happen to be a writer and blogger then feel free to send me a link so I can embrace the wave of shared ideas/likeminded individuals that the internet and more specifically social medias are providing all while ignoring the unnecessary self-validation. We are looking toward an exchange of ideas in this digital landscape. Getting started…really can be the hardest part.

Steven Michael O’Connor