posted: January 31, 2010

”There’s an irony to fabricating an alternate self.... I realized that one could literally forge one’s career by the idea you instilled of yourself in others...” Norman Mailer The Spooky Art
"If one man can do it, another can!" Anthony Hopkins The Edge.


2000-2010: Musings on the Scary Decade [Director's Cut]

The tenth year anniversary celebration is the first of the major milestone anniversaries. Initially, I never thought that I’d even be able to do it at all, embrace the digital world that is. I’m no Luddite but I do lack the temperment for directions, tools, recipes, machines, following rules and jumping on popular bandwagons [I can barely work a screwdriver, rejected 8 Track out of hand, resisted CD’s for the longest time too and forget iPods - I decided that I don’t like music THAT much!]. I did have the very first Macintosh though and a few susequent Apple SE's but strictly for word pro type stuff. Looking back on it though, it’s hard to imagine getting as far as I did without a computer but now here it is 10 years down the line, a little bit poorer but not in debt. It was a roller coaster ride to say the least. This February and throughout the upcoming year, as we here at Scaryjoey.com celebrate this special 10th anniversary, we will be thinking about the durability of our commitment for another full decade of exploration, problem solving, fun, shape and paradigm shifting and fear. Oh, yeah, FYI the gift item is TIN!
 
 

The Legend of Scaryjoey Part 1

I have always been someone else. A doppelganger. Anyone who has known me intimately invariably evokes a “Jekyll/Hyde” comment at some point, and although I don’t buy the Astrological card, I am, in fact, a Gemini. Gordon Brook-Shepherd, in The Austrians, A Thousand -Year Odyssey [I’m 100% Austrian], cites an illuminating Austrian proverb that succinctly sums up this duality: “One Eye Laughing, One Eye Crying”. It’s the National character for Chrissake [and this, I find out when I’m forty nine and thanks to my ex wife]!

That might sound like it came straight out of the DSM but I am NOT Bipolar [ although, I do have intimate experience with that disorder and actually WORRIED about it myself until someone asked me if I'd ever woken up one morning and bought airline tickets to China out of the blue!].

In my formative years though, I was to all the world Böse Bübe, the evil boy, the rascal, garbled nomenclature from my Austrian American family. Over the years I’ve been everything from “[Fied] the Pigs” to “The White Isaac Hayes”. After art school and my first few jobs, I was always Joseph Daniel Fiedler, all three, all the time. So, in addition to Yin Yang [to put a positive spin on the duality], I’m also blessed with a solid biblical moniker that has a reasonable cadence to boot.

The Legend of Scaryjoey Part 2

“Scary” grew out of a climate of increased vigilance from both the Politically Correct and the Identity Politics movements at a time during which I had just moved from the Rust Belt to rural, Northern New Mexico [in order to escape a brutal divorce and a subsequent near fatal breakup -1996]. At that time I detected a kind of paradigm shift away from any notion of having “opinions”, especially if they bordered on this side of critical thinking, pessimism, skepticism, or any form of cynicism or “harshness” whatsoever. I call this Anti-judgemental-ism. or Mr. Rogers-ism. Apparently I am, if not quite, VERY opinioned by ordinary pedestrian standards.

In addition, at that time, heterosexual men were becoming a type of target for many marginalized or “liberated “ women. For the sake of a less punitive term, let’s just say that to many, heterosexuality represented a boring and self-limiting choice and that straight men had become ciphers. After all, wasn’t it James Dean who said that to be single gender oriented would be like...”tying one of your arms behind your back”? It was especially bad in Taos, the out-post town and it 's a lot to think about, even now. I guess I’m missing out on a whole lot.

But straight as I am and coupled with a climate [Post 9/11] where my creative output was often referred to as emotional**, dark, depressing or dismal I had gotten myself a purulent cosmic soup congenial to an oozy metastasis; an acrid effluvia, permeated with almost supernatural reactive tenacity. I know it’s “low-class*” but I retain a strong streak of knee-jerk “fuck-you-ism”, a holdover from my plebeian roots. What, did they think I was an aristocrat or something? As photographer Mark Hobson confided to me one cold, rainy night in Pittsburgh, "I'm not Saint Francis of fuckin' Assisi!". The whole thing stank of a reactionary Fascism of the Left, which I suppose makes sense considering that they were reacting against the newly virulent Religious Right. It was almost as if the Left had gone so far as to have come 'round to the Right!

The Legend of Scaryjoey Part 3

In the mountains of Northern New Mexico there are many people with narrative, exotic names like Raven, Evening, Moonbeam, Rain, Welcome, Royal, Juniper, Galen and Sage. They are New Agers, left over Hippies and children of left over Hippies from the Sixties and Seventies [Taos is/was a Mecca for them, the very people who spawned Identity Politics in the first place]! Remember, this is where Dennis Hopper made EASY RIDER [HINT: Captain America & Billy].

Also, in the Native American/First Nations population exists a tradition of name giving. Names such as Red Willow, Pretends- Eagle, Many Goats, etc. are quite common. Culturally on the local Hispanic front, [Santa Fe was a Spanish capitol 100 years before Plymouth Rock!] I heard such winners as Total, Menga, Brazos de Oro, Plomo and Viejo among others. It was in the air.

So there I was, a creative, straight male with a college education and a career, lot’s of opinions, no Hippie nickname and living in Taos, New Mexico! It was the makins' of a perfect storm! KA-BAM! In came the East Coast Dash of Harsh, cynical, judgmental, motherfuckin’ Scaryjoey! The alternative to Have a Nice Day! And this before the advent of the 2nd Bush administration and the revivification of the nickname. But then, it was mainly just to amuse my friends.

Just so you don't get the wrong impression, I LOVED it there! It was my very own world filled with blue skies, blue tailed skinks, Mountain Bluebirds, Lazuli Buntings, Taos Blue [I even knew a guy named Blue!], Kiva Fireplaces, awesome red or green chile sauces and Pinon smoke. And I didn't even mention the Buffalo dance, Rutger Hauer or the German Trust-afarian woman!
OK, so there was a contingent  who insisted that I was dark, that my work was dark, my world view was...”dark, dark, dark*”. Even my agent at the time said that I was..."seven shades of brown!". Well, I thought fuck’em then, I’m Scary Fuckin’ Joey! Let’s turn that around, package it, spin it backwards and sell it! It was also a time of branding and reinvention. We are now constantly in the process of reinventing ourselves so as to be better able to cope with an unclear but distinctly digital future and to capture a greater market share. Besides, it makes good sense to have a cool handle on the net and Fecal Face was already taken!

The Legend of Scaryjoey Part 4

Viola! Scaryjoey made an international debut at ICON2 in Santa Fe, New Mexico due to the good graces and keen eye of Jack Unruh who selected me to be Sergeant at Arms for the conference [some of you may remember the memorable Voodoo stick Jack had made for me-I still have it!]. I guess that Jack thought that I looked just like the kind of bad motherfucker needed to police a rowdy crowd of industry folks. Nobody gave me any shit the whole time and remember that was the one with all the cool in-fighting, paper throwing and everything! And that, as they say, was that.

Scaryjoey.com. was launched on a Mac G4 in 2000 to coincide with the millennium [it’s easy to remember!]. I think that Scary is about a lot of things, but Scary is most importantly about contradictions in a Punky, Catholic sort of way. Scary is layers. Scary is a sponge. Scary is an attitude. Scary is a collage. Scary is a scrapper and most of all, Scary remembers and to Joe Average-man, apparently, that’s really scary.

I crave the return to just being who you are and being good enough as it is. Today, we’ve all become quasi-mini-celebs, spouting our bullshit for dollars, fishing with wit-bait. My in-grown toenail becomes YOUR news! Fellow ‘Burgher Andy Warhol’s dictum about 15 minutes of fame really has proven to be the truest, most prescient thing ever said as far as I can tell, and obviously he wasn’t lamenting his paltry half of the gender argument either. I wonder if he ever fellated James Dean in the back room at Max’s Kansas City? Betcha! "FACTOIDS: James Dean starred with Dennis Hopper in two of his [only] three films. Hopper knew Warhol from the LA art scene [Andy's very first solo show was at Irving Blum's Ferus Gallery in 1962]. Also sharing two out of three films with Dean is none other than Sal Mineo. Probability: VERY HIGH!"
PS I'm still using the G4 [I call her Lucille] and I couldn't have done a lick without my High Desert "tech guy" Howard Roemer @ Brainwax.com . We have a pair of real Silver Foxes*** living in the forest behind our house too!


*Actual quotes faxed from a very prominent illustrator whom everyone loves.
** Actual AD quote from A-list client.
*** NOT the Charlie Rich type.

News Whatever

posted: January 11, 2010

For me, the two coolest things to read about are Bob Dylan and Creativity. Since I’m not a musician, general creativity takes precedence but there might not be a difference. Creativity is the bedrock, the fountain from which we all drink. That this fact is grossly overlooked by millions of people today [I’m thinking here especially about OUR business-I have 37 years experience] and totally undervalued by most Americans is as appalling as it is fucked-up. I mean, really, what could be a worse environment in which to work? It is encouraging to see creativity getting press today though. Maybe this all might seem obvious to some but I’m always amazed at how little folks actually pay attention to this.

Early in my life, I had the unique opportunity to work with a great thinker on the subject of creativity: Joseph Michael Essex*. Essex’s very first “professional” job was design director at WQED channel 13 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. WQED was the 1st public broadcasting channel in America. It is the original Channel 13 [Pittsburgh also boasts KDKA which was the very 1st radio station in America.  Are you aware that Andy Warhol, Philip Pearlstein, Errol Garner, Billy Eckstein, Art Blakey, George Bensen and Stanley Turrentine are all from Pittsburgh?]. Pioneer town, all. When I was not yet two years out of high school and studying at the now defunct Ivy School of Professional Art, I garnered the first of many jobs from WQED. That experience shaped my future and the general aesthetic/paradigm that is my umbrella. I’ve often lamented the fact since those with whom I subsequently worked only underscored how critically important it is to work with the “right” people. Joseph has since moved on to Chicago where he became senior vice president, director of design for Burson-Marsteller World Wide before starting his own place. Now he is one of two @ SX2, a firm he shares with his wife Nancy [the 2]. They publish VOICES, an HTML newsletter. They have a cool slogan: We See what You’re Saying! This excerpt is from his latest missive. I thought it was right on and sharp as a razor:

“Getting the Best from Creative People

Managing creative people is not possible in the same way attempts to control nature are both futile and delusional.

Truly creative people are motivated by internal forces, so they are not stimulated or satisfied by external manipulation, no matter how benign or benevolent. Creative people are rewarded by the act and experience of their own creative process. However, when creative people do what they do well, clients and their customers are also rewarded.

Contrary to common understanding, creative people are quite disciplined, but usually according to their own methods. Rather than attempting to produce innovation by following one particular method or a formal set of procedures, creative people regularly redefine how they do what they do to achieve the desired results. The quality of a solution is always more important than how it was derived.

Those with the responsibility for managing creative people do themselves a favor when they create a working environment without preconceived notions. Clients do themselves the same service when assignments are defined and evaluated by a goal to be accomplished rather than suggesting methods to accomplish the goal. These procedures are also effective when working along side those whose creative gifts have not been developed by education, experience or vocation.

In pursuit of excellence, leading the creative process has little to do with motivation and much more about creating a safe place to play, explore and discover unexpected solutions.”

I am currently re-reading Mihaly Csikszentmihaly’s CREATIVITY. You may vaguely recall him as the author/originator of FLOW. Mihaly is a professor and former chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago. This is an awesome, accessible tome chock full of quotable shit. It’s good to familiarize yourself with something positive and it is essential to do a proper review of the literature regarding our endeavor. As I read, it strikes me how much of this Essex had internalized. Mihay’s key concept is similar to Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours deal with the addition of the notion that REAL creativity changes the domain or field in which one makes the contribution. Let me toss out a few choice, savory nuggets. I know you don’t like to read but WTF -prove my point:

“If we're to learn anything we must pay attention to the information to be learned. And attention is a limited resource…To achieve creativity in an existing domain; there must be surplus attention…[this concept is very similar to Jared Diamond’s theory of cultural evolution regarding the advent of agriculture: when people had mastered sedentary crop production, there was enough surplus to feed the thinkers so they could have more time to think instead of hunt and struggle all the time. This is why written language evolved in centers of agricultural innovation and of course, how culture spread via the written word.].

It also seems true that centers of creativity tend to be at the intersection of different cultures, where beliefs, lifestyles and knowledge mingle and allow individuals to see new combinations of ideas with greater ease…Therefore it follows that as culture evolves, specialized knowledge will be favored over generalized knowledge…Yet it is practically impossible to learn a domain deeply enough to make a change in it without dedicating all of one’s attention to it and thereby appearing to be arrogant, selfish and ruthless to those who believe they have a right to a creative person’s attention…[Anyone who has lived in a foreign country can attest to this!].

The sociologist of art Arnold Hauser rightly assesses this period: “In the art of the early Renaissance…the starting point of production is to be found mostly not in the creative urge, the subjective self-expression and spontaneous inspiration of the artist, but in the task set by the customer.”…

A field is made up of experts in a given domain whose job involves passing judgment on performance in the domain…In other words, a person must learn the rules and the content of the domain, as well as the criteria of selection, the preferences of the field…All scientists would agree with the words of Frank Offner, a scientist and inventor [semi-conductors] “ The important thing is that you must have a good, very solid grounding in the physical sciences before you can make any progress in understanding.”…

“And so I guess I am most proud of the things in which I succeeded in impressing other people with what I have done.” George Stigler, Nobel laureate, economics…

So you have to have the kind of memory that you need for the kind of things you want to do. And you do the things which are easy and you don’t do the things that are hard, so you get better and better at doing the things you do well, and eventually you become either a great tennis player or a good inventor or whatever, because you tend to do these things which you do well and the more you do, the easier it gets, and the better you do it, and eventually you become very one-sided but you’re very good at it and you’re lousy at everything else because you don’t do it well…

Contributions that require a lifetime of struggle are impossible without curiosity and love for the subject…

Someone who is not known and appreciated by the relevant people has a very difficult time accomplishing something that will be seen as creative…”

I realize how much the new means of information transfer may have set many of these notions on their ear [Mihaly wrote in 1996], or what appears to be an ear, insofar as the vogue for anti-hierarchical, democratic consensus goes but I think Mihaly is right. I believe in validation. I crave it. I thrive on it. I read in the NYT recently that the most money actor Larry Storch [Sergeant Agarn on TV’s F Troop] ever made was for a MacDonald’s commercial. Anybody remember Agarn?? Today, he’s no more than a blip: a one-trick-pony, a one-hit-wonder. I think that we are setting ourselves up for a good laugh. It's just that I'm not sure what the joke is. I just hope I’m around to share the chuckle. LOL - BTW Bob’s a perfect example of Mihaly’s thesis, isn’t he? Well, read about it.

*FYI I stole Essex’s penchant for three names after reading that David Hockney preferred long titles for his paintings since it made them stand out in catalogues. Oh, and before I go I should mention that the second job that I ever did [for Essex] got into the 1975 Graphis Poster Annual. That's when they were still in Switzerland and I was 18. Go figger'!

posted: January 7, 2010

I am offering these new paintings for your consideration. They are more big drawings than paintings I guess and as I have no exhibitions planned for 2010, I thought I’d post them here. Smaller works are each comprised of a single sheet of Stonehenge print paper and the larger ones are made up of 2 sheets, which = 8 11X17 scans [each single sheet takes 4 scans]! The politicized title Afrika/ Afrika refers to the conflict that engulfs the “dark” continent we all share as motherland. It is unfortunate that our cradle is so unstable!

I’ve also done some house cleaning over @ www.scaryjoey.com. Cast about, see what you think and enjoy the New Year!

posted: December 28, 2009

..."In December, even the Professor walks fast!"

Japanese saying

This is a time of transitioning, of year's end reconsiderations and of tying up loose ends. In that spirit, I present some recent work.  Wishing all the best for 2010!

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