Lots of cool art happened and good laughs were had on Friday when I paid a visit on my old friends Oliver and Spencer Hibert.
Because we don’t hang out nearly enough, we’ve decided to try to get together to paint / draw / doodle / hang out whenever convenient. I think I painted 12 hours on Friday: five before I went over to Spencer’s and seven when I was there.
One of the things I was working on was this pattern painting (shown at right), which is almost done. I had no plan for which color combination to use, so I laid out a few choices and had my friends choose for me. (Have to leave some room for randomness!)
Originally Oliver picked out orange, brown and light blue; but after I explained that I’ve used that combo far too many times, I switched it up to red, brown, and light blue. Long story short, it turned out to be an eyesore, in a good way.
Spencer at left, Oliver at right, refusing to pose for the camera.
But it was really good to get caught up with Oliver and Spencer, bringing our energy together. Oliver and I have been through so much together — highs (Arizona Biennials) and lows (the disintegration of The TRA25 Capsule experiment) — and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know Spencer better. Our work has evolved into very different spaces over the past two or three years, but we’ve only learned from that.
It was all high comedy, punctuated by pizza from Hungry Howie’s. (Q.: “What’s for dinner?” A.: “Any flyers with discounts hanging on the doorknob?”) Just kind of underscores how important it is for artists to have other artists as friends. Especially here in the outskirts of metropolitan Phoenix, where the culture for art is pretty … well … alienating.
One of the things we talked about was originality … how almost impossible it is to do something absolutely new anymore. Why burn yourself out trying to be new? Instead, just be yourself, and make what you like.
Can’t wait to get back together with them again, which may happen Tuesday evening.
Tags: oliver hibert, spencer hibert
Yeah dude! Had good times for sure! Lets get together again real soon, maybe ill actually paint something this time….
That pattern painting is pretty great – it reminds me of some kind of electrical conduit…