Pic-A-Day: Grey

It's grey out -- ubiquitous, winter.

Pic-A-Day: Fun with Photoshop

Playing around with photoshop for a break. Red/Green/Purple. It's a bit of a mess, and the psd file quality is better than the jpeg, but I like it,

MyArtSpace.com Featured Artist

I am honored to be selected as a Featured Artist this month on myartspace.com A nice, unexpected start to the new year.

The work I have on their site now includes images from the Open Studio residency, images from Unform, Inform, Deform, Reform (Chicago Artist Month -- Andersonville), Ponder and some of its derivative patterns, drawings on surfaces, and a transformation sequence shifting from physical to virtual. I hope to be posting from the Snuggles work a bit later in the month, if that work develops to finished artwork.

Pic-A-Day: Snuggle

Happy New Year

Another fresh year begins.

At the tail end of last year, The Drawing Center Viewing Program, which includes an online artist registry, selected me to participate. A high level of many variations on drawing can be viewed in their registry: perusal there is well rewarded. I am honored to be included.

I also finished my stint at the City of Chicago Open Studio, managing to videotape and photograph my installation. I think the experimentation with paper construction will prove significant as I move forward. It was very immediate, yet still meditative, as a process. It's a simple enough step to move to doing this experimentation with more archival papers and varied types of papers. Caution at the other end -- avoid redundancy. I am less certain about the integration of the graphite imagery on newspaper; I like the result, but the process lacked predictability in how the newspaper took the graphite. Ink may well be a better option there. I loaded images of the Open Studio project onto www.myartspace.com -- I'll post the link when I sign back into blogger in using Firefox -- their site has a quick flash program that shows the images in a moving slide show.

I am working on picking up knitting and crocheting. I see utility for expanding the weaving concept in my work, and I see room for using these techniques to expand my drawing. Plus, as an aside, I feel like making cute critters. I have my mother's knitting and crocheting needles, plus some of her patterns, and I found general instructions on the web. I am working more or less free form on my own version of what is beginning to resemble an elephant at the moment as I get the hang of the different crochet stitches.

Here's hoping for a great and productive year!

Incubator: Rememberances

Incubator entries contain some of my germinating concepts that will work their way to full blown artistic expression over time.

My mother died recently after years of chronic illness. The memories of her that come to mind overall are good and amusing ones even though there was at times considerable distance between us, and at one time, resentments that over the years faded away. Some papers she left behind show her caring and her own trials. This has me thinking about memories and rememberances.

I will be remembered as … even our own day-to-day, year-to-year memories are fleeting, sometimes dead wrong. Does it matter how we are remembered; if so, why? One idea is generational -- how we are remembered impacts our family, perhaps our friends. Another idea is divinity -- we'll be judged later. A third idea is our highest and best purpose -- does the way we are remembered serve to achieve our purpose (even if we are unsure the purpose)? We pass the world onto others.

Open Studio

Here's are close-up shots of a couple of the figurative elements for The Open Studio Project, Vessels with Souls, and an installation shot. The project has been extended by the city into December. I am now working on other constructions with the newspaper, without consideration for graphite or pigment surface imagery.

The graphite pulled the repeated Vessel figurative shapes together and engaged the dynamic I was after: at a distance, each shape appears dark and singular, but on closer inspection, both the newspaper layers and the graphite imagery layer reveal themselves. As my thinking progressed with each shape, I became more interested in using the woven paper to add quasi three dimensionality to the pieces; at the same time, I also became more interested in using the graphite to obscure as well as to accent when integrating the graphite imagery into the newspaper elements.

The butterfly was a bit of a surprise, beginning as a meditative exercise in interlocking pieces and growing organically into a form. At one point, I could see it as a shroud growing to fill the the expanse of the room, and yet, since Vessels has representational content, I felt a deep need to maintain a representational aspect to the developing form; hence, the form felt complete when it reached this stage. It can go on the wall and be suspended from the ceiling, as well as lay across the floor or other forms, taking on the shape from whatever supports it is given. I see many dimensional possibilities, which I am beginning to explore. How form possibilities engage a concept remains crucial. I plan to engage the expansive room shroud idea in some manner, letting it run its course without the confines of the larger installation concept, at a later date.