Once again

Soon I will host my MFA exhibition, and I have to admit there is a certain amount of anxiety built up around this situation. However, hasn't this all been building to this point. Soon I will have done what C.S. does and Christopher will never hold pesidence again. The bearer of Crist will be the bearer of the new. Novus = new, and I have spent the last 3 months pouring over what might be new.  C.S. Novus will move beyond that which has been planned.  I will be to the world the harbinger of the new!  Novus Arts forever!!!!

I keep forgetting about you my poor blog spot.

I have been busy laying paint and I almost had forgotten about you. Here is a small offering from my studio. And can be seen in person on July 8-20 at Berkeley JFKU Gallery.

Assemblage fodder.

A sneak peak into the process. I paint an acrylic paste up in an hour or so. Let dry then cut appart and re assemble. Think I'll make another.

So ambitious

3'x10' statement that I plan to finish for my exhibition. Just the rough beginnings but it is exciting me all the same, I myself can't wait to see how this one plays out!

Studio time!

Burning the midnight oil

Up late cause that's when I like to do this shit, the really amazing stuff happens after 3 a.m. when all inhibitions have gone the way of fatigue.

Introducing C.S. II

Last night my son and I did a collaboration and here are the results. I am stunned by this. Lil guy really captured something and it is virtually impossible to discern who drew which part. I love it!!

3:30 a.m.

It is such a strange head space that develops for me between 3-4 a.m. while painting.  I am tired and yet I feel driven to press on. So strange. Wasn't even sleepy, till I realized the time. Its majick hour....

Panel one and 2 of a 10' tryptic. I'm feelin' my self even if no one else knows what's going down!

Doing my thing.

Its so hard to remember all this stuff, did I blog that or facebook this, maybe a random tweet. I dunno what I'm doing technologically, but give me some paint and I'll do my thing.

No really!

I can make you that promise

Long gone and forgotten

Tonight looking at my "old" work hanging about the house I realize I don't really remember doing any of it. Is so meaningful, and I know the impetuous behind it. The actual doing has been let go. I wonder am I alone? Or do people forget what they have done, where they have been only to retain a glimmer of the feeling that spawned it!

I was going to...

I was going to blog this, I was going to blog that, but I didn't I got away from the format that works for me. That format being mobile, that's right on my lil trusty phone. So I will do my best to be more consistent as we chronicle the last 3 months of grad school preparing for the big show in July. Sneek peek attached.

Fear of creating

" But we're afraid of creating something on our own, the basic thing is knowing that in the end truth does not exist. Only honesty exists" -Yves Klein

When Vision meets technical ineptitude

I have just spent the last 2 hours trying to make a spinning logo in after effects, illustrator, and photo shop for my proposed new updated web page.  We have reached the gulf of massive vision meets technical ineptitude!  I am not sure I want to try to re-learn all of this stuff.  I find myself slowly slipping into the attitude of what ever happened to a pencil and a piece of paper???  I mean really write it down pass it along, not so complicated it worked great for hundreds of years. now here we are 21st century shit looking at all this technology that quite frankly by the day is passing me by and further disenchanting me. Yet  I'm sure of the fact I need this thing.  I need it, with all of the maddening controlling nature of my critic/ego  needs.  It needs to match the vision at least a little bit. I'm just not sure how I bridge that gulf...

What is in a name

There is this thing that happened to me, O i think it was back in 2005 or so when i was addressed as Chris Novus completely out of confusion due to my web page name Novus Arts.  Initially I didn't feel the need to correct the poor guy and sitting here today I'm glad I didn't.
It morphed into the amalgamation of my first and Last name C.S. and threw in the Novus cause thats what I wished to remain "new" never resting on what I had done. Only looking at the now what I'm about to do shyt.  An attempt to make sure that I did what I ment and needed to be "new" fresh and cutting edge, at all times! 

I spend some time tonight doing that most of egotistical activities as googling all of my incarnations to find out what my placement in the google stratusphere looked like. (like you have never done this)

What I found out much to my surprise is that I have branded in the purest sense of the word, "branded" myself C.S.Novus.  I am him. Whomever that is, I am that guy!  Under my given name sure there are articles and musings some me some not, but somewhere in the last 8 years I have become the one the only C.S. Novus...Sure there are many Chris Schelling in this world we all share a name, but there is only only one C.S.Novus! I'll be damned if it didn't strike me like a bolt that I had done something! I'm not just another chris schelling floating around in the world,  I AM C.S. Novus the one the only the enigmatic artist, that is me! Good for me for being crazy and bold and doing something short sighted that in this day of self recognition I might stand up and say hey, that is me that C.s. Novus with a facebook, that C.S.Novus with a twitter, soundcloud, etc. that is me and shit I'm proud of it.

Damn Happy to be C.S!

Adored

My word I can't put my brain around, just struck me between the eyes.

Watch "Pearl Jam- Immortality (W/ Lyrics)" on YouTube

Time for some work to get done.

Fallow periods

In my cycle as an artist I have endured many of what I call fallow periods.  In my most recent period,  think I made 2 what I'll call major works over the period of about a year and a half. Today I set out to deep clean my art spaces in preparation for a full-time full on blitz of creativity. I decided I had to fix the mess before I could make it deeper. In my excavation of my studio space I am running into dozens of small sketches and scriblings.  I think I now have to rethink what I thought of a fallow.  Perhaps its more like a gestation period, where i laid in contemplation and self preservation.  Feels good to know that even in the dark night of the soul the little flame keeps burning, waiting to be fuled and SHINE.

After the roar!

As a painter who lives on the picture plane and revels in the flat surface, I have to admit I was very excited to watch a motorcycle rip through the plane.  Very interesting to see.  Although just getting there was a happening in its own right, glad I made the trek.

Slowly sinking in

As I sit here contemplating my upcoming work day, it hit me!  I think the first 3 weeks of my new/renewed life as human the artist where steeped in a deep recovery and misunderstanding of what I had actually done. I quit my career as retail manager and restarted back on my path of artist/magician/warrior.  I'm still unsure how this all goes, but what has become very clear is an opportunity like this fleeting, I best not waste it. I feel a responsibility to rise up and do my work with clarity and vigor.  I also feel a deep debt of gratitude toward my wife and children to allow such shenanigans. Life is scary anyway might as well make it interesting too!!

Isolation

Phone blogging!

It turns out I hate sitting down at a computer and writing a "blog". However, I love the smart phone and the mobile blog so.... Welcome to my mobile blog. Short, sweet, too the point. Paint on paper???

Shall we paint??

Okay, admittedly I am not a water colorist. But I was hoping the whomping Arches block that I have secretly coveted but never owned until today will fill the gap between abilities and materials. So here is to making something interesting.
"It's so fine and yet so terrible to stand in front of a blank canvas."
Paul Cezanne

Pick 3 words from a hat and make smething.

Its funny how people look at you like a hobo in the fancy Berkley Bowl parking lot when you are dressed in your raggedy painting clothes drumming on yourself as you stroll by. I was just on a walk meditating on Isolated-unhappiness,  in this case not so unhappy.

I'm not much of a blogger

Ha ha ha, I'm not much of a blogger, 2 years between posts. Turns out my original and only other previous post was about all I had to say at the time.  I would refer to that original post as that is the exact frame of mind I find myself in today!  I have finally found the courage to leap off the cliff and see if this icarus' wings are built to fly.
C.S.