Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Sunday, 21 February 2010
Dear Jamie Vasta
I love you. You work in glitter. Really? That is sort of crazy and amazing (cramazing?) 
"In the Rushes", by Jamie Vasta, click and look at her other work. Interesting.
"In the Rushes", by Jamie Vasta, click and look at her other work. Interesting.
Thursday, 18 February 2010
Sunday, 14 February 2010
PS PS PS --
MOCA has a piece of Eric Fischl's on display! Similar subject matter to the piece at the Harn, similar palette, but smaller scale and paper. Doesn't resonate the same. Just a note for myself, with regards to um, you know, my favorite things ever - scale and presentation.
Parfois, le Dimanche...
Today I took my valentine to look at some art, since he'd never before been to MOCA
Friday nights have become my norm for working on photos as it's usually empty-ish at the lab and I can totally space cadet out into my work undisturbed, with little to no socializing. Here's the photo bleach (potassium ferricyanide) that I use to achieve varied densities.
My set up. Working in batches, in multiples, allows for variation and for nuances to arise, as well as for progression. I feel, for me anyhow, the more I work an image, the more ingrained it becomes and the more intuitive and organic my markmaking is. Usually working in series allows for at least one or two strong pieces to emerge (which you analyze after, not in the midst of, hah, this I must always repeat to myself!). Anyhow, I'm doing work, so there will be at least some kind of outcome, yes? Be it a new idea, something that zings just so, some paper to sit and be glared at and then drawn over, or a technique discovered or perfected.
Speaking of progression, these butterflies were waiting to be unleashed from the torn out pages of magazines not too long ago, and now they are in flocks on a gallery wall. My, what our minds and hands can do.
Sarah has been kind enough to allow me to work with her and see the steps it takes to get a show ready and installed. In doing so, my mind repeatedly stumbles on to the same thought: context. How the context in which work is created differs so greatly from that in which it is viewed. How something generally private, the act of creating, transforms into something public, and in turn becomes strictly object/image-based. How most things tend to end up without context? I think is what I am trying to say? (Holy wow this Medieval Woman Author's class is messing with my view of perspective and context and the social lenses through which we view things). I know that art (any art) is a vehicle of expression. I know that the viewing of art will always be personal interpretation, regardless of what plaques on museum walls say about context and the supposed personal intent and meaning. But, I just love all of the baloney it takes to create something strong, something that resonates, all that unseen and unmentioned effort. I love the context, even though it disappears when it leaves your hands. Anyway, I guess this is encouragement for me, in my last semester of undergraduate work (and in life really? but especially now, so I can grind a rhythm of production into my soul while I still have some semblance of structure), to keep making crap in hopes of getting something glistening and alive to come from my two hands, because I can appreciate the work of others knowing that they probably have made as much crap as me.
I guess what I am trying to say is, the juxtaposition of these: the rawness of something physically coming into existance because of your mind and two hands! A cheese platter and wearing high heels! Point A to Point B. This I am pondering. Regardless of my (naivety? Nouveau view? what shall we call it?), Sarah's show looked beautiful and I am honored to have helped with it.
Friday nights have become my norm for working on photos as it's usually empty-ish at the lab and I can totally space cadet out into my work undisturbed, with little to no socializing. Here's the photo bleach (potassium ferricyanide) that I use to achieve varied densities.
My set up. Working in batches, in multiples, allows for variation and for nuances to arise, as well as for progression. I feel, for me anyhow, the more I work an image, the more ingrained it becomes and the more intuitive and organic my markmaking is. Usually working in series allows for at least one or two strong pieces to emerge (which you analyze after, not in the midst of, hah, this I must always repeat to myself!). Anyhow, I'm doing work, so there will be at least some kind of outcome, yes? Be it a new idea, something that zings just so, some paper to sit and be glared at and then drawn over, or a technique discovered or perfected.Speaking of progression, these butterflies were waiting to be unleashed from the torn out pages of magazines not too long ago, and now they are in flocks on a gallery wall. My, what our minds and hands can do.
Sarah has been kind enough to allow me to work with her and see the steps it takes to get a show ready and installed. In doing so, my mind repeatedly stumbles on to the same thought: context. How the context in which work is created differs so greatly from that in which it is viewed. How something generally private, the act of creating, transforms into something public, and in turn becomes strictly object/image-based. How most things tend to end up without context? I think is what I am trying to say? (Holy wow this Medieval Woman Author's class is messing with my view of perspective and context and the social lenses through which we view things). I know that art (any art) is a vehicle of expression. I know that the viewing of art will always be personal interpretation, regardless of what plaques on museum walls say about context and the supposed personal intent and meaning. But, I just love all of the baloney it takes to create something strong, something that resonates, all that unseen and unmentioned effort. I love the context, even though it disappears when it leaves your hands. Anyway, I guess this is encouragement for me, in my last semester of undergraduate work (and in life really? but especially now, so I can grind a rhythm of production into my soul while I still have some semblance of structure), to keep making crap in hopes of getting something glistening and alive to come from my two hands, because I can appreciate the work of others knowing that they probably have made as much crap as me. 
I guess what I am trying to say is, the juxtaposition of these: the rawness of something physically coming into existance because of your mind and two hands! A cheese platter and wearing high heels! Point A to Point B. This I am pondering. Regardless of my (naivety? Nouveau view? what shall we call it?), Sarah's show looked beautiful and I am honored to have helped with it.
Monday, 8 February 2010
Another Monday
They've been glaring at me all weekend. I need to get on it like whoah.
A copy of an illustration from a 1950's cub scout guide, interesting colors
Speaking of connotations.. hah.
Fiddling around with stained glass stuff, trying to get a new glass cutter to work ( it finally did), drawing up new patterns - I'm going to make something for my Dad's geburstag since this is all of his old equipment. Found stuff in there from three years ago, I think I'm going to try and surpass all of the Mondrian-esque (read: easy cuts) things I made.
Friday, 5 February 2010
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
First Wednesday
Artwalk tonight (home early to do homework, boo). MOCA was crackalackin', as always. I was kind of overwhelmed by the Marilyn show, lots of work, strange displays... many photographs, stacked kind of high, too far up for them to be easily viewable. Dan Estabrook's show, Forever and Never, was quietly gripping. I appreciated his presentation of the negatives as well as the prints. It was peculiar to see the thing that is usually invisible yet so crucial, to the final outcome. Scale was something present in my mind when viewing all of his work.. (seeing a theme? Jeez, hah). His works are fairly small, thus very intimate. It pleases me to have an entire image, everything you need to comprehend right before your eyes, or small enough to cup in your hands even. Why is that? If we're going to go the gender route, woman's art (and the genre of craft) is historically on a much smaller scale than the epic nature of 'masuline' art; but that these works were created by a man throws the gendered lens out with the bathwater and only would explain my leanings, theoretically. My Medieval Woman Author's class is making me aware of gender, but at the same time, I'm not sure of the relevance of dissecting it. It seems strange to me to single out pieces of the whole, when it's the whole that functions, not bits torn apart and out of context... ? I don't know how to phrase this. Here's an asterik for this to be continued later - "*". Onwards..with regards to framing, some of the more ornate little frames worked very well, but some of the larger pieces ( I say larger, still probably only 11 by 14 or so) just needed a little bit more breathing room, and could have benefited from a more clean lined frame, I feel. The more I view the presentation of work with a critical eye, the more I can define what I like and dislike, what works aesthetically in my opinion and what does not (large shiny silver frames at South Light Gallery, no and no and why and no!!!!!!!). Anyhow.. finished up a new batch of drawings/watercolors, and applied to a show at the Kinsey Institute, funny, no? Pictures soon, I've been mondo slacking lately, my mind is just ten places at once, keeping myself intentionally busy so that I can't really think about too much. Happy Wednesday night, fabulous mid week marker!
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