All the Horrible Girliness

www.schellstudio.com

At Jordu's studio, the heads on the wall are altogether beautiful, disturbing, crazy. It makes you thankful that Jordu has taken up this work. Plenty of interesting, crazy people work in IT departments and you never get to see the monsters in their heads. Some who do art are no good at it and it's wasted. Jordu is a genius with no attention span, crazy and wonderful and brave, unafraid of his darkest bits. And there they are, all his dark bits, hanging on the walls and balanced on shelves. It makes you glad to be alive, to know there's this deeper part of humanity, especially after a long time around the Cosmo readers and the Camry drivers.

There's a fine layer of dust on surfaces and a purple fridge and a purple rectangle of carpet and a luxurious couch with purple throw pillows in the entryway. I want to take care of him, in this new way I have, with pride. I want to wipe up the dust, vacuum the purple carpet, because he, like Mr. Aran, is a genius and above that sort of maintenance.

Jordu tells his students about what he charges, which is all they want to know. They think they'll go work in movies, and one or two might. Probably none will be as independent as Jordu. They think they'll take this financial information and use it in their real lives but they're asking the wrong questions. They should be asking about the work itself, how much time he spends practicing, what his influences are, how many designs he bangs out a day on a project, what he considers failure. I'd ask about the people, who is bad or good to work with, who hires newbies, what the shops are like politically, what a director demands. I'd ask what he does for aching arms and fingers. When he knows a design is done, and when he gets the clicking in his brain that it's good.

We went to an Indian buffet with Jordu for lunch. I was amazed by three things: One, the spiciness of the green bumpy sauce with the vinegar, so spicy my mind opened up; Two, Jordu's excitement and weakness all out there for anyone to see, all these things most people have the civility and good sense to keep quiet; Three, that these grand artists listened to anything at all I had to say.

It amuses me to think that if someone broke in to this sculpture studio, they would take the computer equipment and leave the real treasures untouched.

posted by Samus @ 4:27 PM