Leigh cooney paintings and sculptures

You've Heard it All Before... But I'll Say it Again

12/4/2012

I know it's easy and tempting to buy everything this Christmas from a big conglomerate retailer, but I for one will be buying as much as I can locally and from independent retailers where possible. I have to stress that I know it can be slightly more difficult and slightly more expensive, but we can ALL afford to buy at least a few items for a little more money if it means that the item is made by someone of working age (aka not child labour) and if it means that the money you spend will support a local economy and business person. But if you're having trouble finding time to make it out to local shops, try the internet's many options and shop a little further afield (but still independent.) I tend to go in this order:

1. By local and independent.
2. When I can't find it locally, buy via the internet from an independent retailer somewhere else.
3. Buy from a stinky conglomerate. :(

If you don't contribute to independent retailers you'll soon find that you have no choice but to buy your books from Chapters or Amazon at whatever price and selection they choose once all the local bookstores close and there is no longer any competition. You'll have no choice but to buy your kids generic mass produced Disney junk built by someone elses children in sweatshops in Asia (sorry Asia, I wish it weren't so) and the money will go into an Asian economy not yours... of course if you're Asian it's easy to "buy local" ;) but you could still consider buying independent.

There is no need to run around in a Guy Fawkes mask making the independent supporters look foolish to the general public... and trust me when I say this does nothing to help your cause. The hundreds of millions of people who hold all the purchasing power don't want to think about revolutions, but they do want to do what's right where they can. If one wants to change the world, one simply needs to support independent retailers whenever possible in order to "fight the man" without ever setting foot in a protest, because if everyone were to support local independent businesses there would be no "Man" to fight against. There would only be thousands of little retailers that are just people like you and me in our community. Huge corporations could no longer hold sway over the actions of our government, and the so-called 1% would lose their monopoly on the market and the disproportionate wealth they hold could be redistributed more evenly. Imagine... no need to camp out on Wall Street in the snow, and no need to smash windows or start riots. If you don't like the way things are, simply refuse to buy into it, and encourage others to do the same.

Need help getting started? Here's a couple starting points:

If you've already tried your local bookstore and can't find what you're looking for, or if you live in a rural community with no access to a bookstore and you generally rely on sites like Amazon, try www.Abebooks.com for a change. Abebooks connects you with independent retailers of new, used, and rare books all over the world, and the prices are better than anything you'll find on Amazon.

Or, are looking for something for the kids, or for a newborn baby shower, or simply something for yourself that you won't find anywhere else? Why not try www.Etsy.com? Etsy is an e=commerce website focused on handmade or vintage items. These items cover a wide range including art, photography, clothing, jewelry, food, bath and beauty products, quilts, knick-knacks, and hand made toys. So not only are you getting products that are hand-made by an artisan that you won't likely find in your house, and not by some poor child in a sweatshop in India, you even have the option to narrow down your search with the "buy local" tool so that you're investing in your local economy. WIN.

12 Comments

Response to a student

10/22/2012

6 Comments

Hi Leigh,

my name is <B--- F---> and I am doing my Masters of Arts education through Boston University. I have to do a writing assignment on a piece of "outsider art" and I have chosen to write on your man with the gumball head. What should I say????

Hi Beverly,

Thanks for thinking of my piece in relation to contemporary Outsider Art. Hmmm, where to begin? Firstly the painting in question is one several paintings I've done that attempt to depict the nature of mental illness and psychological disorders. That's not to say that I'm analyzing theses disorders; I'm merely trying to provide a metaphor for the daily struggle that most every human being deals with to some degree or another, but for which many people struggle to find an adequate description.

I'm fairly lucky in that I don't have any serious disease, disability, or mental illness, but I am unfortunate in that I suffer from a very very misunderstood but fairly common disorder called Adult ADHD, or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. Many people are familiar with the disorder as something that is supposedly misdiagnosed in school children daily, but which is actually a very complicated neurobiological condition that makes otherwise simple daily tasks a real and very frustrating challenge.

When I began painting seriously about four years ago I was 26 years old. I had never heard of ADHD in adults, and I erroneously believed (as so many do) that it was a somewhat silly disorder that gave kids an excuse to misbehave in class, and gave doctors and pharmaceutical companies an excuse to hock pills. It's almost embarrassing now when I hear people dismiss ADHD, or other oft-misunderstood conditions like depression as flights of fancy.

I have spent my life arguing with parents, teachers, friends, employers, and eventually my wife, that my problem with attention and anxiety was more than a case of "daydreaming" or "lack of interest" as it was so often shrugged off as. It was so much more complicated than that. I've lost jobs due to the condition and finally one day I even told my wife (fiancee at the time) that I was going to invent a "disorder" that I could tell my boss about because I felt so strongly that what I had was indeed such a thing, and because hard work and a decent education weren't helping me through this frustrating obstacle course of everyday activities.

when I discovered painting I decided I would use the medium as an opportunity to represent visually some of the metaphors I had previously used unsuccessfully in conversations to describe my thought processes. My first painting was a simple one of a man trying unsuccessfully to catch the butterflies fluttering from his open head with an absurdly small net and even smaller arms. This came from a conversation I had had in which I compared my challenges with processing information to catching butterflies that flutter about with seemingly irregular patterns. Someone might ask me an obviously “simple” question such as say... what's your dad's birthday? Yes I have the answer to that, but it always seemed just outside my grasp like a wet bar of soap. Can you imagine every thought you have 24 hours a day for 30 years coming to you in this manner? Sometimes you just want to scream.

About two years ago I finally decided to visit a doctor and ask some questions. My doctor referred me to a psychiatrist and eventually we concluded that my problem was a long overdue diagnosis of ADHD. Once I saw the looks on people's faces when I told them I suffered from what they perceived as a "kids" disorder I started to appreciate other "invisible diseases" like clinical depression that I had always approached in others with the "pull up your socks and stop feeling sorry for yourself" attitude that I myself had been raised on.

What I realized was that when someone suffered from a physical disability like the loss of a limb, they weren't expected to perform the same way as someone with all their limbs, but someone with a psychological (invisible) disability was shrugged off as self-involved. I soon translated this into another metaphorical painting that was broader in its scope. It was a simple piece again (but on a significantly larger scale) that depicted a dog with no arms (front paws?) sitting on a stool wearing a "dunce cap." At his feet were three juggling balls, and on his face was a pleading expression that I hoped would ask the question, "you can see I don't have arms so why do you ask me to juggle?" The real question when you understand the background is fairly obvious. You wouldn't expect the same performance of someone with a physical disability as you would from someone without said disability so why not try to understand the limitations (or at least the hurdles) that people with psychological disabilities also face every day?

Having said that, I'd just like to take a second to clarify that I'm not saying that people with physical disabilities can't be expected to perform many of the same tasks as a person without a disability, but rather that one should be understanding if a person with a physical disability approaches a certain tasks in a different manner, or at a different speed then their non-disabled counterparts.

I'm sorry to have provided more information than you probably needed, but I'm not exactly known for my ability to compound an idea into a short explanation, and I could be wrong but I feel like it helps for you to have this background information in order for you to understand the piece in question: "Self Portrait with Gumball Machine."

If you stopped for a minute you could probably piece it together fairly easily if you wished. The gumball machine is yet another metaphor that has come about as a byproduct of my attempts to explain my condition to a friend. The idea that I'd like to cull (be it a name, a date, a descriptive word etc) is in there all-right, represented as it were by the sole pink gumball, but where a non-affected adult might simply reach in there and pull it out at will, I am stuck turning the metaphorical dial until I eventually either give up in frustration, or sporadically receive the desired fact or idea.

Well I hope that helps. Thanks for asking, and thanks for taking an interest in my work. I think that all too often my paintings are misunderstood and it's nice to have the opportunity to clarify some things and get people on the right track. The "track," in it's broadest sense is that my art deals most often in issues of a psychological nature. If you understand that then I believe you can get a richer perception of my meaning. If that's not what the viewer is interested in of course, then they are welcome to walk away with whatever interpretation suits them best.

Good luck with your assignment, I'm sure you have encountered many of the pitfalls associated with defining "Outsider Art." I won't lie; I wouldn't want to be in your shoes. Have a great day.

Yours,

Leigh

6 Comments