HUNTINGFORARTSTUDENTS 101

I started incorporating hunting into my art work back in 1994. I had hunted as a kid but had ceased the practice until I found myself drawn back through my work. I was living on the Lower East Side and searching the streets for cheap material with which to do my work. (I always hated art supply stores. $20 for a tiny brush? Fuck that!) At first it was thrift store paintings that I painted over. Then it was book covers that I made into little collages and paintings. Everything was either free or dirt cheap. It had surface and history and a lot of the process was the hunt. I had an idea. Why not get back in the woods and REALLY hunt again? Could this work as art?

The parallels between hunting and art are many. Lets break it down. First in order to be a good hunter or a good artist always remember the 3 Ps- Persistence, patience and perseverance. Then there's rejection and failure. Make these your friends. And finally there's just showing up. Many's the morning I do not want to get out of bed. Artists can sleep late but hunters have to get up before dawn. No deer will cross your bedroom floor. But like hunters, artists must hit the "woods" also. Of course doing your art work is paramount, but you must communicate it in some way. If you are lucky enough to work on the world stage and show in museums and galleries, good for you, but most artists don't. Just like most hunters don't have 500 acres of corn fields and oak woods at their disposal, you have to make do. If it's a dozen friends and facebook or a tiny woodlot between houses- so be it. Put that shit out there. Get in the tree.

That brings me to this morning's hunt. So far it has been a very frustrating and dismal season. The only good news I have to report is I haven't missed one.......yet. None of my spots have produced any action to speak of. So I've been moving stands and trying to figure it out. Yesterday I moved a ladder stand behind my house just off the edge of a swamp. This AM I got out of the house in the dark and worked my way to the stand. It was so dark I lost the path numerous times and when I finally got to the spot I couldn't find the stand. As I stood there turning in circles, a deer snorted behind me. Fuck! All the stumbling around in the dark and now my sweaty frustration had tipped off the deer. It snorted a dozen times as it crashed off, alerting every deer within 5 miles that a human was in the woods. Busted.

As the sun came up I eventually found the stand, but it was already too late. I had blown it. 2 hours in the stand and i saw only squirrels. I climbed down and made my way home. How's my art career going? About like my morning hunt. I stumble around in the dark trying to find a my spot. I try my best. I work. I ask other artists when they are running. A gallery? A museum? A collector? An opportunity to take a shot. And when the opportunity comes i want to be ready, judge the distance, draw back the string, set the pin on the vitals, breathe.........