Final Critiques fall 2010

For our final critique, Bri and I collaborated as a preview of our intentions for our thesis show next Spring.  We essentially curated an exhibition of ideas for our thesis, all stemming from a myth we have been creating through stories and drawings over the course of the past month.  The ideas still being worked out, in the form of half finished drawings, studies for motifs, and little collaborative drawings and collages, were sandwiched between two large pieces that Bri and I created separately.  The large pieces became a way for us to see how differently we would interpret the idea of an urban flood.  As you will see, the answer was 'quite differently.' 

The myth, "When Joan of Arc, Eleanor Roosevelt, Gertrude Stein, Kwon Yin, and Megan Perry Helped Restore New Orleans in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina" has become a useful and interesting structure around which to generate imagery, content, and ideas for a project as large as a collaborative thesis.  It is the first time Bri and I have started with content--a narrative--to create work around.  Normally, we let the image come out of our response to materials and each other's manipulation of materials and assign meaning through conversation as we work on, or after we finish, a work.

 

playing around with hormones

I miss the sciences, and am pretty jealous of my cousin in all her pre-med glamor.  Officially dedicating this in-progress series to Paige!

recent work

In progress image of the first work in a (non-collaborative) autobiographical diptych. 

Second work in the same diptych.  I was through with this one early last month, but didn't realize until recently.

We turn our first piece over to you.

Bri and I have just finished our first collaborative drawing/collage of the semester.  A long time coming, but it just didn't scream STOP at us until Bri threw that piece of charcoal at it, ceremoniously putting our last mark on the paper.  However, it isn't finished.  We began this piece with the intention of sending it out into the world like a blank page of a coloring book: we want it to be a source of play for anyone who comes into contact with it.  So, our responsibility has been to compose well, to limit ourselves to black and white, and to restrain ourselves from controlling every area of the page with texture and value.  When we place it in a show at a local synagogue (more information on this to come) next month, we will include coloring instruments (I bought an enormous box of crayons for the occasion, but I think Bri wants markers available too) for our audience to use at their leisure.   To color it in.  Images and collaborative statement about the piece below:

Kerdieekrdaad  (aka Bri Barton and Jackie Maloney)
October 6, 2010



Fill in Later is a continuation of a collaborative experiment intended to discover what is possible when the creative process becomes a shared experience.

It is an exploration of the viewer’s relationship to a work and how one might react when gallery etiquette is challenged.

We don’t like how the artist always gets to make the stuff, and the viewer always views it. We want to share, so everyone does a little making and everyone does a little looking.

Fill in Later is a reverting back to the simplicities of childhood, when being a good artist meant successfully coloring within the lines.

Fill in Later might catalyze new friendships and worldviews.

Fill in Later observes what this world is, what it isn’t, and what it could be, which is all a matter of individual opinion.

It is possible for you to make Fill in Later ugly (ugly is in the eye of the beholder), but it is not possible for you to screw it up.

What a funny surprise to find in a space where one is typically told, “look don’t touch.”

Fill in Later is an inside joke that we would like to share. 

Reflection:

Today, my goals feel simple.  I want to manipulate materials and work with subjects in ways that cause a viewer to reconsider something.  I want you to look at the world with a new question, and to see the unexpected that hides in your routines.  Be surprised by the commonplace.

recent photography

Just got 'em back from one hour photo, and I like them!  It's been a while since I shot with color film, so many of these photos will wind up in collages and drawings.  The ones I'm posting here, though, may yet escape the all-consuming scissors and glue.  Guess which ones were taken on the West coast, and which ones happened here between the Schuylkill and the Delaware!

sources of happy

Big stuff is happening in the studio this week.  But while Bri and I tamper with the latest recipe for Art Soup, why don't you sample the ingredients?  I'll be sharing them daily at the top of this page, in your DAILY DOSE OF HAPPY.

headed home

I'll be back in the studio by the end of next week.

end of the season

here are the pictures that Bri took of our joint venture at the Fine Arts Crits at Moore this week.  The feedback we received was almost all good...a certain professor thought the work we made together was stronger than anything we made individually!  We'll keep collaborating off and on to see how much further we can push it. 

Other end-of-the-school-year matters:

All panels from my fellowship show are going on sale.  I will bring them to my family's house in Maine, go door to door looking for somewhere to show them, and if nothing turns up I'll be considering etsy and otherwise word of mouth. 

I imagine I will take a blogging break for a while, as my summer will just be insane (To Maine next week to spend some quality time with my mother, father, sister and dog, then to Prague and Bohemia for a three-week seminar/studio intensive/sustainable farming experience, then back to Maine for a 24 hour regroup, then the next two months in San Francisco tagging along with artist Philip Hua.)

I may have time to write (I imagine very little in the way of images, however) depending on how much time I can stand being in front of a computer screen when there will be so much to see see see and do do do and oooooooo don't you just love the summertime?

So, until next time!

collabrickie

Bri Barton and I decided to see what happens if we collaborate.  Our positive experience as studio-mates this semester has lead us into a solid state of trust, which so far has prevented any hurt feelings as we rip up each other's old drawings, prints, collages, and paintings to make fresh work.  We are in the midst of an ongoing conversation about what it all means.  So far, everything is still in the "in-progress" category.

Moleskine June 2009-April 2010

I figure it's been a while since I posted a sketchbook update.  I'm going to start casually drawing more, so here's a dump of what's gone into the sketchbook between the last time I was using it a lot (see Fabriano 2008-2009) and the next run (which will start tomorrow.)

 The untitled title page of the moleskine.

 I began writing as much as drawing in this sketchbook.  I find I need both languages to be honest in my expressions.

keys.  I obsessed over their forms for a week, nothing visually successful came of it, except this drawing.  

Now I can identify the keys on my chain by the pattern of their teeth.

I was thinking about Da Vinci for a while (see lung drawings)

but I don't remember what old Roman architecture had to do with it.

Man on the bus.  Liked his hat.

Maya Lin at the PaceWildenstein Gallery.  Maya Lin used to be controversial.  You know why?  Janet Kaplan told me a lot of old white guys were uncomfortable with the fact that a design made by "an Oriental" won the contestfor the government-funded Vietnam Memorial.