Pic-a-day: Pig

Pic-a-day

Pic-a-day: Scraps

It's always entertaining to take some scraps and construct something from them; these are scraps from a kid's activity tent ... short pieces of yard and a few pipe cleaners. Plus, this play inspired a couple large pieces I now have in mind once I collect enough loose pieces of yarn.

Coincidence

In searching online for the image of Rampant Mythical Lion (from the Art Institute's collection) to link to, I came across this piece, which I had not seen before. The form reminded me of some of my current work.

Switching up

Working out a new piece after spending time yesterday at the museum. This is influenced by Rampant Mythical Lion (Vyala), a 8th/9th century sandstone piece from India, Madjya Pradesh or Rajasthan. The piece reminded me how artifact images cross cultures and societies as a similar lion form appeared in an Iranian architectural detail from which I previously drew inspiration and in the Book of Kells from which I have also drawn inspiration in the past.

I don't often start with studies anymore, preferring to work directly with the flow of my materials instead, but I decided to do so on this piece to change up my habits and challenge my entry points into developing work. The first study is more literal than the ultimate piece will be. The second is an initial reduction study. After a few more reduction studies, I'll move to a flow study and then to the piece.

pears

Reduce. Overlay, Recombine

Playing with reducing images to color overlays (upper) and recombining (lower) with the original image (middle)

Pic-a-day: Combination

Pic-a-day: Flora

Pic-a-day: Flora Sum

Desaturated sum

Feeling Wordy Today.

No image coming to mind, just a series of thoughts.

Experience Cutting Across Medium

Installation art is experiential, right, the experience of being in/within the work, as opposed to viewing the work? The work, however, are still viewed (the phone and computer on the desk next to the stapler and tape dispenser are viewed) and can be dissected down to its elements. Each viewing offers a different experience, sometimes within a close continuum and sometimes more broadly ranging.

The best drawing pulls in the viewer, holds the wall, and strives to be experienced immersively. Sclupture holds the space (the spot and air and context where its installed) but can dominate the room/landscape to varying degrees, offering different experiences.

Degree of scale moderates the experience of a piece or set of pieces. One large piece like the mountain overwhelms. A lot of smaller pieces on a wall can be like votive candles or a series of windows or marks in themselves accumulating to the larger experience of a composition on the wall. A bruise. A scar. A tattoo. A mask. An adornment. A combination of some or all of these.

Collage and Review

Fallen off, lately. Tomorrow, I will listen to a grants panel review my latest work. It will be interesting to hear their thoughts, as this is something one often does not get from a group audience. I have to sit silent and just listen, which means it will just be their reaction to the work (and my brief write up, I suppose) rather than to interactive discussion, influenced by back and forth dialogue with me. The intent, to the extent relevant, will by definition have to stand out from the work itself.

So much is and has been collaged that it's interesting to watch a viewer be distracted from the image quality by the fact that the image was collaged from a bunch of different materials that the viewer was not necessarily expecting.
Collaging is it's own way of thinking and piecing together images, first and foremost because the bits ("marks") carry with themselves their own image references to be emphasized and/or deemphasized and second, because in the end pasting bits is quite different physically and emotionally from boldly striking a line across a page with graphite or paint or shaping a clay vessel. While adding bits conceptually does nto stray that far from accumulating dots and other marks, the collaged bits ("marks") are preselected rather than simply made as a collage bit must be collected and/or cut. Applying/adhering/compiling the bits involves the hand but separated from the paper or other surface upon which the pieces are attached/adhered.

Collage like method does get evaluated differently. Perusing the web in a current moment of procrastination, I have started to think more about the issue of whether relelatively mediocre work -- in the sense of the ultimate imagery -- gets a leg up by being done with novel or different means or method. The post it or push pin face is not judged by how amazing a portrait it is, but rather how "amazing" it is that it was made of post-its or push-pins, even if, in the end, the same image painted would be rather innocuous, perhaps in some cases rather badly rendered.

Color Abstract

Thinking about the limits of volume and linearity.

Pic-a-day: Doodle Variations (More Division)

Pic-a-day: Doodle Variation (Division)

Pic-a-day: Doodle Variations

Pic-a-day: Doodle Variations

Pic-a-day: Doodle Variations

Pic-a-day: Doodle Variations

Ancient Images, Artifact

see this site

Pic-a-day: Doodle

Pic-a-day: Loosely After Turner

Pic-a-day: Another Ghost

Figure

Bust

Figure

Working Sunday: new work, rethinking. And a couple proposals to write.

Pic-a-day: Cat

Slat Progressions

Pic-A-Day: Lemur to Zebra

Two Layers: Lemur and Zebra

Pic-a-day: Meld

Two layers melded.

A Break ... Going for Cute