Comments on: Tommy Kane http://litpark.com/2006/09/27/tommy-kane/ where writers come to play Sun, 31 Jan 2010 05:01:52 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.2 hourly 1 By: Learning a little more. « Countdown to Twenty-Four http://litpark.com/2006/09/27/tommy-kane/comment-page-1/#comment-76617 Learning a little more. « Countdown to Twenty-Four Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:40:08 +0000 http://litpark.com/2006/10/04/tommy-kane/#comment-76617 [...] website, blog and illustration site. I’m very intrigued by him and googled his name. I found this interview and really enjoyed it. He touches on a subject that I’m currently strugling with. [...] [...] website, blog and illustration site. I’m very intrigued by him and googled his name. I found this interview and really enjoyed it. He touches on a subject that I’m currently strugling with. [...]

]]> By: litpark » LitPark will re-open in September http://litpark.com/2006/09/27/tommy-kane/comment-page-1/#comment-54203 litpark » LitPark will re-open in September Thu, 23 Aug 2007 22:16:28 +0000 http://litpark.com/2006/10/04/tommy-kane/#comment-54203 [...] * Terry Bain * The Man Eating Neil Gaiman * Thom Didato * Tish Cohen * Todd Zuniga * Tom Jackson * Tommy Kane * Watch Josh! * Wayne Yang * Writer’s Relief * [...] [...] * Terry Bain * The Man Eating Neil Gaiman * Thom Didato * Tish Cohen * Todd Zuniga * Tom Jackson * Tommy Kane * Watch Josh! * Wayne Yang * Writer’s Relief * [...]

]]> By: Susan Henderson http://litpark.com/2006/09/27/tommy-kane/comment-page-1/#comment-323 Susan Henderson Fri, 29 Sep 2006 19:39:49 +0000 http://litpark.com/2006/10/04/tommy-kane/#comment-323 Tommy, thanks so much for coming by! I'm fascinated by this dialogue between you and Frank, and any time you and some artists of your choosing want to talk for days, I'd be happy to set up a roundtable so the rest of us can listen in. Just before I got on the computer, speaking of art concept vs. the labor, one of the columns on my porch fell away from the roof of the porch and landed against the wall of the house. It felt like an earthquake. They're really cool columns built in the 1930's and apparently rotted now. The kicker is that they're also structural beams. Tommy, thanks so much for coming by! I’m fascinated by this dialogue between you and Frank, and any time you and some artists of your choosing want to talk for days, I’d be happy to set up a roundtable so the rest of us can listen in.

Just before I got on the computer, speaking of art concept vs. the labor, one of the columns on my porch fell away from the roof of the porch and landed against the wall of the house. It felt like an earthquake. They’re really cool columns built in the 1930’s and apparently rotted now. The kicker is that they’re also structural beams.

]]> By: Tommy Kane http://litpark.com/2006/09/27/tommy-kane/comment-page-1/#comment-319 Tommy Kane Fri, 29 Sep 2006 16:11:32 +0000 http://litpark.com/2006/10/04/tommy-kane/#comment-319 A lot of people I know who don't do some type of art have a preconceived notion about what it's like to draw and paint. They see an artist portrayed in a movie or television show and it looks so wonderful and relaxing. The process has never been that way for me and I was using "blue collar" as a way to describe to someone who doesn't draw and paint, just how physical and draining it can be. Yet I am completely driven to get up each day and go do it because I am passionate about being an artist. What if I was obsessed with plumbing pipes and felt beautiful art could be created with them? What if I was a plumber and every day I was off, I spent hours using my knowledge to weld plumbing pipes and tubes together in my house so the water ran in all kinds of crazy directions? What if there were pipes running along the floors, walls and ceilings covering every square inch? What if art critics suddenly loved what I was doing? My tubes and pipes hanging in every gallery and museum. The PHYSICAL PROCESS of putting pipes into someone's house for money and making art out of it just happen to be one in the same. It's the results that are different. I don't know if you are familiar with Andy Goldsworthy. He is an artist who works with nature. He builds impressive scuptures out of stones, rocks, branches, icicles and bolders. There is a big outdoor scupture park upstate called storm king. He built a huge wall there that runs through forests and under highways. A giant undertaking. There is a documentary about Andy called, "Rivers and Tides." (I recommend everyone see it.) Anyway in the film we see that Goldsworthy didn't know how to properly build stone walls. He hires an expert, who ends up building the whole thing himself. The expert is like the plumber you talk about. A guy sweating and cursing to build this great wall of china. So I agree with you that Andy Goldsworthy is a guy driven by passion to create a certain type of art that is in his head, but to my point the process of making that art is very blue collar. Also what comes across in the film is that the blue collar wall builder also has tremendous passion for what he does. He breaks his balls to make it perfect. He never cuts a single corner. Another artist, Louise Nevelson thought up crazy scuptures but she had a crew of blue collar workers to build it all. She didn't lift a finger. So I wonder if the workers felt the way you did as a construction worker or did they feel inside they were building art? The point I'm making is that there is the part of me that is driven to make art. The intellectual part, struggling to concieve of what to do . Then there is the Blue collar part that has to go build it. I think Frank has opened up a whole other interesting topic that we could talk about for days. A lot of people I know who don’t do some type of art have a preconceived notion about what it’s like to draw and paint. They see an artist portrayed in a movie or television show and it looks so wonderful and relaxing. The process has never been that way for me and I was using “blue collar” as a way to describe to someone who doesn’t draw and paint, just how physical and draining it can be. Yet I am completely driven to get up each day and go do it because I am passionate about being an artist. What if I was obsessed with plumbing pipes and felt beautiful art could be created with them? What if I was a plumber and every day I was off, I spent hours using my knowledge to weld plumbing pipes and tubes together in my house so the water ran in all kinds of crazy directions? What if there were pipes running along the floors, walls and ceilings covering every square inch? What if art critics suddenly loved what I was doing? My tubes and pipes hanging in every gallery and museum. The PHYSICAL PROCESS of putting pipes into someone’s house for money and making art out of it just happen to be one in the same. It’s the results that are different. I don’t know if you are familiar with Andy Goldsworthy. He is an artist who works with nature. He builds impressive scuptures out of stones, rocks, branches, icicles and bolders. There is a big outdoor scupture park upstate called storm king. He built a huge wall there that runs through forests and under highways. A giant undertaking. There is a documentary about Andy called, “Rivers and Tides.” (I recommend everyone see it.) Anyway in the film we see that Goldsworthy didn’t know how to properly build stone walls. He hires an expert, who ends up building the whole thing himself. The expert is like the plumber you talk about. A guy sweating and cursing to build this great wall of china. So I agree with you that Andy Goldsworthy is a guy driven by passion to create a certain type of art that is in his head, but to my point the process of making that art is very blue collar. Also what comes across in the film is that the blue collar wall builder also has tremendous passion for what he does. He breaks his balls to make it perfect. He never cuts a single corner. Another artist, Louise Nevelson thought up crazy scuptures but she had a crew of blue collar workers to build it all. She didn’t lift a finger. So I wonder if the workers felt the way you did as a construction worker or did they feel inside they were building art? The point I’m making is that there is the part of me that is driven to make art. The intellectual part, struggling to concieve of what to do . Then there is the Blue collar part that has to go build it. I think Frank has opened up a whole other interesting topic that we could talk about for days.

]]> By: Susan Henderson http://litpark.com/2006/09/27/tommy-kane/comment-page-1/#comment-305 Susan Henderson Fri, 29 Sep 2006 01:57:04 +0000 http://litpark.com/2006/10/04/tommy-kane/#comment-305 Lance - It's good to have you back! Frank - I don't know. I found it really refreshing to hear someone describe their process this way. To be honest, I don't know a lot of writers who love to write. The writing gets in the way of our families. We pull our hair out over it. It's never good enough. Some days, and for some entire projects, from trying to capture your idea on paper for the very first time right up to the last rejection letter, it's a wickedly depleting process. Why do we do anything so illogical or so bad for us. What Tommy says, we just need to. If we don't do our art, it's like we're dying. You can call that need passion if you want. Spirit. Something unconscious trying to get out. For me, reading Tommy's interview and looking at his art, it's all about some kind of fire in the belly. Something I've often wanted to say about commissioned work: DaVinci, The Beatles - a bunch of great artists created masterpieces out of work someone else asked them to do. Ask any freelance writer. There's the work you can't help doing and there's the work you are asked to do. Passion and creativity and eventual ownership can come from that work, too. Lance – It’s good to have you back!

Frank – I don’t know. I found it really refreshing to hear someone describe their process this way. To be honest, I don’t know a lot of writers who love to write. The writing gets in the way of our families. We pull our hair out over it. It’s never good enough. Some days, and for some entire projects, from trying to capture your idea on paper for the very first time right up to the last rejection letter, it’s a wickedly depleting process. Why do we do anything so illogical or so bad for us. What Tommy says, we just need to. If we don’t do our art, it’s like we’re dying. You can call that need passion if you want. Spirit. Something unconscious trying to get out. For me, reading Tommy’s interview and looking at his art, it’s all about some kind of fire in the belly.

Something I’ve often wanted to say about commissioned work: DaVinci, The Beatles – a bunch of great artists created masterpieces out of work someone else asked them to do. Ask any freelance writer. There’s the work you can’t help doing and there’s the work you are asked to do. Passion and creativity and eventual ownership can come from that work, too.

]]> By: Frank Daniels http://litpark.com/2006/09/27/tommy-kane/comment-page-1/#comment-300 Frank Daniels Thu, 28 Sep 2006 12:25:41 +0000 http://litpark.com/2006/10/04/tommy-kane/#comment-300 Tommy Kane is a badass. Interesting side-note: I once got into an argument with an artist because he said that making art was no different than selling coffee, or any other blu-collar job. I hear echoes of this sort of jaded sentiment from Tommy here, but for some reason am not nearly as offended. But still am somehow. It just seems to me that if you are making art solely for the sake of art, because that's what you DO, then your art is going to lack compared to the art of an artist who really has something clawing in him to get out. Of course, Warhol was most of the most cynical bastards on the planet when it came to making art and I (for the most part) love Warhol, so---I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here. I jusrt want the art I indulge in, through whatever form of media, to have a passion behind it. Is there passion to the plumbing put in your house? As a former construction worker I can say that while there is a lot of sweating and profanity involved, there really is nothing that can be considered about that blue collar work. So art, in closing, should never be considered blue collar. No disrespect to Mr. Kane, just one asshole's opinion. Tommy Kane is a badass. Interesting side-note: I once got into an argument with an artist because he said that making art was no different than selling coffee, or any other blu-collar job. I hear echoes of this sort of jaded sentiment from Tommy here, but for some reason am not nearly as offended. But still am somehow. It just seems to me that if you are making art solely for the sake of art, because that’s what you DO, then your art is going to lack compared to the art of an artist who really has something clawing in him to get out. Of course, Warhol was most of the most cynical bastards on the planet when it came to making art and I (for the most part) love Warhol, so—I’m not sure what I’m trying to say here. I jusrt want the art I indulge in, through whatever form of media, to have a passion behind it. Is there passion to the plumbing put in your house? As a former construction worker I can say that while there is a lot of sweating and profanity involved, there really is nothing that can be considered about that blue collar work. So art, in closing, should never be considered blue collar. No disrespect to Mr. Kane, just one asshole’s opinion.

]]> By: Lance Reynald http://litpark.com/2006/09/27/tommy-kane/comment-page-1/#comment-298 Lance Reynald Thu, 28 Sep 2006 02:11:50 +0000 http://litpark.com/2006/10/04/tommy-kane/#comment-298 love the art, think the artist is pretty darned swell!! have missed the Park....but I"ll be napping on my little red mat. good to see the park full. xo-LR love the art, think the artist is pretty darned swell!!

have missed the Park….but I”ll be napping on my little red mat.

good to see the park full.

xo-LR

]]> By: Susan Henderson http://litpark.com/2006/09/27/tommy-kane/comment-page-1/#comment-296 Susan Henderson Wed, 27 Sep 2006 23:29:59 +0000 http://litpark.com/2006/10/04/tommy-kane/#comment-296 That's why I don't open the cafe every day of the week, so we all have time to do our work. That’s why I don’t open the cafe every day of the week, so we all have time to do our work.

]]> By: Tish http://litpark.com/2006/09/27/tommy-kane/comment-page-1/#comment-295 Tish Wed, 27 Sep 2006 23:12:17 +0000 http://litpark.com/2006/10/04/tommy-kane/#comment-295 Susan, I've been here before. It's a fabulous site. Like a literary neighborhood cafe I wish I could visit. (Of course I'd get no work done...) xo, Tish Susan,
I’ve been here before. It’s a fabulous site. Like a literary neighborhood cafe I wish I could visit. (Of course I’d get no work done…)

xo,
Tish

]]> By: Susan Henderson http://litpark.com/2006/09/27/tommy-kane/comment-page-1/#comment-294 Susan Henderson Wed, 27 Sep 2006 22:49:13 +0000 http://litpark.com/2006/10/04/tommy-kane/#comment-294 Ellen - I love his work, too. Glad you stopped by in between interviews and radio shows! Lori - Hi. Isn't he inspiring? And sexy! Okay, I said it. Myfanwy - I agree. I was moved to tears, maybe because it hits close to home. Joe - The ears are looking good, yep. Kasper - What a beautiful comment. Thank you for that. Tish - I'm so glad you're here - and looking forward to your book! Greg - Invigorating is right. And what a relief to hear from another artist who doesn't exactly love the process of creating art but just NEEDS to create. Mikel K - Brilliant, yes. And I had no idea AB used to be in advertising! Amy - Agreed! And now I'm going to see where your link takes me. Ellen – I love his work, too. Glad you stopped by in between interviews and radio shows!

Lori – Hi. Isn’t he inspiring? And sexy! Okay, I said it.

Myfanwy – I agree. I was moved to tears, maybe because it hits close to home.

Joe – The ears are looking good, yep.

Kasper – What a beautiful comment. Thank you for that.

Tish – I’m so glad you’re here – and looking forward to your book!

Greg – Invigorating is right. And what a relief to hear from another artist who doesn’t exactly love the process of creating art but just NEEDS to create.

Mikel K – Brilliant, yes. And I had no idea AB used to be in advertising!

Amy – Agreed! And now I’m going to see where your link takes me.

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