Jacqueline Maloney, Artist

on mobility and making

2011-12-24T02:55:00.001-05:00

It's been almost 8 months since I began my experiment in a mobile lifestyle. Last Spring, I made a pact with myself to reduce my sum total of belongings to what could easily be stored in a couple of boxes, and my necessities to maintain a healthy lifestyle to what could fit in a pack and a small bag. This was supposed to make a transition to living in close quarters on a bus with five from The Fuhrl collective more natural.

Even in my most optimistic moments before the big day when I handed the landlord my keys, I imagined I would struggle more with such a dramatic shift away from the material possessions, privacy, and personal nest to which I had always been accustomed. But somehow, even tacking on the extra four months we waited for the bus to come out of the shop (which, so it seems, it HAS!), I am happy. Happy with my backpack and a half, with the generous community I've been living among.

The only explanation I can muster for this sense of fulfillment is that it must result from the ways I spend my energy when I don't have the following options:

a) hiding in my room with my computer
b)spending money on entertainment or unnecessary food
c)buying new art supplies
d)NOT making art

options B and D are simply not in my budget. the lack of option A is an interesting situation...because it marks an actual reversal of the average stable lifestyle most of us exist in: as a mobile person, or transient if you like, being indoors means being with people. If I want solitude, I go outside. And that, in combination with all the others, I think is what has caused so much growth in the past eight months. When I am indoors, I am actively participating in a community (satisfying a, I think, human need for a sense of home and groundedness).

My studio practice has mushroomed since I left my apartment. In my sketchbook, I've had a lot of time to feel out new concepts, textures, and compositions. This was a practice sorely lacking through school, when I had money to spend in my free-time:

Somehow, when I am limited to my sketchbook, a few pens, and whatever materials I can find lying around, a compulsiveness to problem-solve, innovate takes hold. Ideas flow, I'm more motivated to follow through, and my process is strengthened by the input and collaboration from the people that are almost always around me while I work. Actually, I think I've gained a lot of artistic fodder observing other peoples aesthetics as they manifest in their living spaces. At this point, the idea of returning to the habit of regular art-supply runs or convenient working surfaces (pre-stretched canvas or fine papers) does not appeal. It's much more fun to respond to the challenge of the recycling bin or a pile of scrap wood from a construction dumpster, or the plywood and house paint in my parent's basement, and maybe a page torn from an old dictionary:

P.S. I think (crossing fingers/knock on wood) we are taking the bus to inspection this week!

Stream of Consciousness drawings...from the past 30 days in Philly

2011-10-25T20:56:00.000-04:00

Depending upon response, I may have a number of these drawings, namely the black and white line-drawings, made into prints (silkscreen) to offer for sale on a new Etsy account. In any case, this group illustrates the direction my studio practice has been moving since the last series of panels I posted in July. More to come in the next couple of weeks.

New collaborative drawings by Max Doyle and Jackie Maloney

2011-10-25T19:50:00.003-04:00

My buddy Max and I have been playing with little black pens for a couple of weeks now in my sketchbook, co-authoring drawings and poetry that seems to come from some kind of secret garden in our subconscious. The four drawings below relate thematically, each prompted by the idea of a Highly Evolved Female Tuning Pretty Hard into the Cosmos. Though, the fourth drawing made apparent the possibility of a whole new direction (it's a different animal from the others, no?)

Heady Duck Momma

Our Lady of Road Harvests to Come


Madame ?

Mycelial Madonna

If the response to these is promising, we plan to have silkscreens made for sale. Holler if you dig 'em!

Preparing to hit the road...and start a new series!

2011-09-11T17:15:00.000-04:00

Hello! It's looking like two weeks at most before I board Loki the Space Bus with a bunch of musicians, visual artists, writers, a carpenter, career travelers, and chefs from The Fuhrl Arts Collective and our extended network.

Our mission statement for the trip is on the wordpress site we update...click on the second link above to access that.

I will, in addition to helping to document the trip visually and in writing, be working on a series of paintings/collages inspired by the passing landscapes and the experiences I have on this wild trip. They will be on a series of wooden panels, so they should travel well and hang on a wall quite easily, and in the sizes of 4"x4"x2", 5"x5"x1", and 6"x6"x1". The two most recent posts on this blog are comparable to the way I'll be working, though on the road there is bound to be more collage than paint.

If any of you would like to reserve a piece from this series, let me know! I think it would be interesting to be able to send these pieces from the locations that inspired them to you via post, and I need to purchase the materials (paint, panels, and matte medium) before the trip, so I am using a model a good artist friend of mine came up with for her trips to Italy. She accepts checks in advance to fund the materials and time spent making art abroad, and returns with the finished work and delivers them to her sponsors. I should be returning just before the holiday season, so all artwork will be sent from our various adventures around this country, at latest, just prior to mid-December.

The prices of the work are standardized, based on material cost, postage, and the time I know works of this size generally take to complete.

4x4x2....50$

5x5x1....65$

6x6x1....80$

summer studio sessions part II

2011-08-10T21:47:00.000-04:00

...and a few more, which I worked on the same week as those in the previous post

summer studio sessions part I

2011-08-07T13:11:00.000-04:00

Kerdieekrdaad spent the unbearably hot portion of the past couple weeks in her ethereal air conditioned studio. I came out with a series of 12 3" square paintings and Bri is going to town on a bunch of source material with her exacto. Here are the first five:

Dragonlady

2011-05-02T19:34:00.000-04:00

Kaley is a magical dragonfly. She was my first enthusiastic volunteer for this new series. I am going to see if I can match insects to my various human canvases based on their personality and physical presence, then draw those insects on their backs, drawing vague analogies between the two anatomies. Should be a good time for all.

can't decide between color and black and white, I welcome your feedback on the matter.

installation of Kerdieekrdaad's thesis begins!

2011-04-21T23:10:00.001-04:00

more happening soon! we'll be installing for the next four days.

extra info:
Kerdieekrdaad's Thesis Installation event page:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=198328816864199

Kerdieekrdaad, Artist Collaborative:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kerdieekrdaad/173990182651268

The Galleries at Moore:
http://www.thegalleriesatmoore.org/site/visit

latest of the creation myth backdrop

2011-03-26T15:26:00.000-04:00

Bri and I just played with this for the first part of our Saturday. Back tomorrow to take it further.

COME OUT THIS SUNDAY EVENING!

2011-03-15T14:25:00.002-04:00

Enter The Fuhrl for a night at our Grand Launch (not to be confused with Lunch) Party, Sunday, March 20th 2011 see right-hand panel for additional info>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Six Week Countdown Daily Photojournal #2

2011-03-15T14:22:00.001-04:00

Bri picked up the L-brackets on her way to school, so at 9am Kerdieekrdaad grabbed a drill and some screwdrivers and assembled the trellises. They are finished now, all spindly and whimsical and leggy, so on to the colors and paper and and scissors.

Six Week Countdown Daily Photojournal #1

2011-03-14T15:57:00.000-04:00

Making the Trellises/framework for the installation. All wood cut, lap joints made, but DARN need to hit up the hardware store for those pesky l-brackets.

studio thesis progress, in progress statement

2011-02-28T21:16:00.002-05:00

Imagine a space in a gallery that invites you to linger comfortably, that engulfs your body first and then, when you discover more and more to explore, mentally and even emotionally. You are entering a world expressed in a language you understand, with trees between you and the horizon, clouds and birds above you. You forget that you dressed a certain way to come to this space, that you are expected to express your decisions or judgments about what you see hear (calling on your knowledge of art history or at the very least memory of the wall labels to sound intelligent and credible and like a worthy member of the club.) Instead of trying to do all that, you simply allow the information surrounding you take you into yourself. All your personal experiences are relevant, valid tools to use as you seek meaning around you. Decipherable writing, paper (a familiar texture), perhaps your favorite color or the favorite color of your best friend, a face that reminds you of someone you know—there is no mystery about why or how this place exists; it’s not at all beyond your comprehension. The person or people (can you tell how many hands contributed to this endeavor? Does it matter?) who made these objects, this world, are not any more special or important than you—we all have stories to tell, we all use our hands to express ourselves and to give gifts to each other, it’s what we share across cultures and generations, and how we understand cultures and generations other than our own. The sense of “I” you are so accustomed to in this society is replaced by a feeling of “we.”

Comfortable and oriented in the landscape situation, you begin to process the next level of information available. You begin to turn the pages of this story, finding history lessons you think you learned in middle school in the bark of that tree, or the same color dirt in that handmade paper as in your mother’s backyard. There is so much to take in on this intimate scale that you can’t help but to make your own associations, to weave your own story into the fabric of this one. That is okay; our stories always become richer, our understanding stronger, when we share, relate, combine, or write them together. And in the end, how different could two people’s stories really be?

Many of the norms and traditions in the discipline of fine arts counteract my intentions as an artist. I desire to make art because of the potential I see in it to foster community and the kind of thoughtfulness/awareness that can lead to real criticism and social change. However, the art world is often less than conducive to this aim.

People enter a gallery space all too prepared for art—inherent to the gallery are several relationships that I wish to change:

1. the hierarchy of the artist’s intention over the meaning an audience can derive from their own experiences and associations,

2. the idea that art is separate from our everyday experience and even safe from it

3. the relationship between a passive observer and the observed object

4. the celebration of the artist as an exceptional individual (and the subsequent implications that art is a thing to be made alone and by a certain heroic person.)

This thesis, in process, content, and exhibition, is my attempt to expose, work against or in spite of these issues, or to eliminate them from my art altogether.

La Fragua

2011-02-20T11:56:00.002-05:00

Javier and Gaby have been developing the La Fragua website quite a bit, and I just noticed that my page has gone up!

La Fragua in Photos

2011-02-09T10:19:00.000-05:00

These photos pair with the sketches nicely; I just got them back from the outlab yesterday. Though, when I was taking shots to correspond to my poem about the Spanish dawn (see excerpt below), I didn't realize I had black and white film in the camera. That was a bummer but is a little funnier this morning.

"Haven't ever seen a dawn

like the one that stole the big Spanish sky

this morning, in the campo, outside El Pueblo.

The foamy quilt of a cloud

over the convent wall

lit crisp

pink and orange from beneath,

it's backdrop:

clear and cold

but the color of equatorial waters.

Even the chuckling, weathered laborers

from within the slightly warmer glow

of the old construction room

onthe ground floor of the convent

could appreciate the exceptionally

bonita

sky.

It put them in proper spirits for a photograph--

smiles forming a rough horizontal division

across the upper third of the

frame.

Fran, too

escaped back to the world of employed men

after a couple too many weeks in the realm of

forced idleness

and newborns.

Now the pink has been replaced

by a color better suited to the temperature.

Ice.

All except my chest and writing hand

furious

has surrendered to it.

The last heat from Javi's breakfast of Champions

churros! churros! churros!

and cafe con leche

all that keeps me writing..."

January 5 2011

La Fragua, Belalcazar, Cordoba, Spain

2011-02-06T21:09:00.000-05:00

These dibujos are from the part of El Convento de Santa Clara, which Javi and Gaby and Uma are working hard to make into what is going to be an amazing artists' residency program. I had a wonderful experience there as their primer artista last month, and met people who rapidamente became familia, welcoming me into their casas for so many holidays (if you go to Spain and want to eat, go between the Navidad and the second semana in Enero!), meals, and Spanish lessons. Belalcazar had so much to offer me in terms of community, history, and life lessons. And churros. Churros churros churros. Next January I am bringing the cake to la dia de Los Tres Reyes Magos.

story hour with Kerdieekrdaad

2011-02-04T15:31:00.000-05:00

Found some prints to be redolent of a few pretty well-known stories, so I inserted some text from said stories and drew in a few more hints. See if you can identify them!

sketchbook update!

2011-02-02T19:57:00.000-05:00

I was looking through old sketchbooks today, I think searching for perspective that might be hidden in old writings, drawings, approaches to the world. Isn't that how we track our progress in knowing ourselves and moving towards who we want to be? By looking at who and where we were? Anyway. I found these drawings which I don't think have been posted here yet.

At the end of semester 8, week 2.

2011-01-28T17:49:00.001-05:00

The shared studio space was immaculate when Bri and I trudged in on our first day of school, two tuesdays ago. Now it goes something like this:

Final Critiques fall 2010

2010-12-20T10:40:00.000-05:00

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

2010-11-23T22:58:00.000-05:00

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

2010-11-15T15:16:00.000-05:00

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.

2010-10-29T10:49:00.000-04:00

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:

2010-09-18T10:32:00.003-04:00

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

2010-09-13T21:37:00.001-04:00

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

2010-09-08T10:20:00.000-04:00

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

2010-08-19T13:27:00.000-04:00

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

end of the season

2010-05-13T22:48:00.001-04:00

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

2010-05-07T17:20:00.000-04:00

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

2010-04-07T01:04:00.006-04:00

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.

getting my mind out of the city

2010-04-04T13:35:00.002-04:00

I'm on vacation. Well, my body is still walking down the parkway to school every day, but in the studio I am walking through the woods behind my house in Maine, watching my mother tend her gardens, thinking of the colors of the late afternoon in Umbria two springs ago, and peering at the sky through the cherry blossoms of April. And I'm wondering if the result of all this pretty and happy will be too precious or trite. I guess I have every reason to revel in real beauty--this art isn't a brain twister or a solution to the world's problems, but perhaps it's a positive experience for my viewer and that is enough right now?

Final Fellowship Collection

2010-04-02T20:13:00.003-04:00

And...we've reached the end. I'm exhausted, but in the way I am exhausted after having a charged and therapeutic conversation. I've had many of those throughout this process, not only with the work as I make it, but with Brianna, my studio-mate, when I don't think I'm going to make it to the end. (Thanks, Bri.) Well, I'm at the end. Now I just need to figure out how I'm going to prepare all these panels for hanging (I'm pretty sure the gallery director isn't going to go for thumbtacks).

Moore Open Studio

2010-03-24T18:36:00.002-04:00

All are welcome to the

Moore College of Art and Design Open Studio Night!!

1916 Race Street

5th and 6th floors, Sarah Peter Hall

Friday, March 26th 6-8 P.M

come visit us, give us your feedback on our work, eat food!

fellowship show, onward!

2010-03-13T15:42:00.011-05:00

Can you tell how many panels I've finished now? I'm headed towards 50, and ideally more than that... This process is so intuitive at this point--I've gotten out of my head to an extent that has freed my hand. I have to keep letting habits die so that I continue to manipulate the trash and colors (the same trash and colors I've been working with since January) in fresh, not-boring ways. But it really involves spacing out, not overthinking it. It's as if my concept is just embedded in the materials and alive in my hands, I no longer need my brain to transmit the general idea. If I'm going to get to 50 of these things in the next three weeks, this is what needs to keep happening.

What I Have, What I Dream Of continued

2010-03-06T13:13:00.006-05:00

it became clear about halfway through this process that a single layer wasn't going to allow me to express my understanding of the complex relationship between city and nature. Once I cut the original images into strips and situated them on top of one another (see last post of this piece) and then began to work back into the image as a whole (this post) I came to see this piece as a metaphor for the upward motion of the city.

The base layer of this work, upon which all the maps and geometric fields rest, can be interpreted as nature, before any human altered it. The rest of the composition is supported by that layer, and as your eye moves towards the uppermost drawings you may notice how simple, geometric, and sparse they become. In only two or three areas did I allow the eye to perceive clearly the organic that exists beneath all the gridwork, and I imagine these areas to be reminders--what if we were to lift up a stretch of the city and remember again everything wild that lives down there?

This blueprint is representative of how I perceive the city. If one were able to slice it into vertical strata, the lowest layer would be the richest and most organic, and the highest layer would only include empty air and the rectangles of the highest buildings. Everything in between would be defined in terms of the spectrum set up by the lowest and highest layer.

Fellowship Panels, Update

2010-03-04T12:35:00.009-05:00

I'm beginning to slow down on these a bit for a lack of focus and a slight loss of interest, but I have to keep plugging. Hopefully continued work on them will get me off the plateau and help me pick up the pace!

What I Have, What I Dream Of

2010-02-18T22:05:00.002-05:00

An exploration of the layers that exist in nature, with the city on the top, most of the time.

An excerpt from the continuously revised fellowship proposal, which I think summarizes this work:
My artwork has become the means by which I investigate the qualities of both the country and the city that, respectively, beckon and repel me. Both environments intrigue me; I love the paradox of the simultaneous pattern and irregularity that exist in seemingly opposite environments.

Beginnings of the Fellowship Series

2010-01-28T14:35:00.010-05:00

I'm competing for a fellowship that could help me leave the city but maintain a studio regimen. These are the beginnings of the show that will make a visual argument for my case.

The drawings and paintings I make reflect an irrepressible curiosity about the nature of my relationship to my environment. My exploration of various ways to discover and express this relationship, through visual as well as written language, began when I moved from coastal Maine to Center-City Philadelphia. I constantly wonder how much of my artistic voice may be attributed to the incessant stimulus of the city, where this voice first emerged, and how the visual logic of my work would be different should it develop or grow in a quieter or rural environment.

additional work on The Beast

2010-01-28T13:55:00.005-05:00

I just couldn't let it sit there; I started seeing things that were wrong with it. That's what happens when you turn a painting towards the wall and look at it again 30 days later. You see things. I'm seeing things.

SOLD (March 2010)

Ode to Vision and Revision

2009-12-13T21:23:00.006-05:00

Over the past three days, as I watched this painting change rapidly beneath my hand, I remembered the a few lines from T.S. Eliot's The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock that read:

There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea.

For everyone else, I hope there is something in this painting that lifts and drops a question on your plate. While I've come to understand that I cannot share through color and shape the conversations running in my head as I make something, I hope that the art provides a starting point for new dialogues, new questions, new debates. I hope something I've painted causes you to be curious, to remember, or to hope--that you leave a little you with the painting and take a little of the painting home.

For me, this painting is about vision and revision. The colors I used and the moments I constructed with those colors resulted from, I think, an honest sense of wonder (to use Rachel Carson's words). Wonder at color, at the way it is dispersed in nature and at the power I feel when I can choose colors. To finish this painting, I needed to take the time to look, often, and have the courage to let pieces of it fall away. The process was one of intuition, serious contemplation, indecision (about every ten minutes), joy (especially when the colors I mixed were vibrant and good), revision, and exhaustion. Today I felt satisfaction, and chose to stop here.

I dedicate the painting to the people that use their senses vigorously and joyously to explore our world!

6' by 4' paint/drawing

2009-11-24T20:26:00.002-05:00

This process is as intuitive for me as that of making the paneled drawings. Its the largest I've worked, and not so intimidating after all. what you see here is about three hours of work, all in one evening.

12 12" by 12" panels, in progress

2009-11-23T15:09:00.008-05:00

just working on these a little every day until they're resolved.

a very good week

2009-11-22T20:31:00.004-05:00

sometimes I can convince myself that I'm capable of mental housecleaning. Usually this happens after a long spell of stress--for me this means aimlessness, frustration, non-motivation, and the sentiment that "I haven't made anything I've liked for months" whether this is the case or not. At some point all of that frustration culminates into a moment of conviction, in which I have a memory lapse, forgetting all sense of accomplishment and happiness I've felt in the past month, and decide I need to DO something about my pathetic situation.

Whether my situation is ever dire enough to warrant such a gung-ho feeling that I am "trying to turn my life around" is questionable. However, this transformation periods always lead to better things, among them serious productiveness (I become prolific in the studio for at least a week or two before things balance out again), an extreme natural high (which takes days to turn off), and an overall confidence in any social situation in which I find myself.

Such a shift took place a couple weeks ago. Although, really, nothing has changed I just feel a bit lighter because the problems that were in the back of my head have disappeared, and I do feel more invested in my artwork. Essentially, what did this was a few good conversations with people I respect and a pleasantly cold walk home that night. Then I had my open studio (with plenty of feedback) and a relaxed weekend at home with Jake and the cats, no work.

The Monday after I threw myself at some blank 12" by 12" panels and a 6' by 4' wooden support with some gouache, markers, cut vellum, and all the energy I'd saved over the weekend. Good things happened, and I suspect that it had to do with making art because I like to make art and a complete lack of concern for what kind of art I think people would like me to make. Of course, when you do that, your teachers always like your art better.

I think making art is how I keep my head clear--it's borderline meditational. When I'm allowing my hand to do what it is compelled to do, I lose total track of time, feel exhausted when I'm finished. Things I see and feel make a little more sense as a result of thinking about them as my hands mix colors or make permanent lines on a page.

The next few posts will showcase the studio progress that has occurred since last Monday.

my corner of some world (a construction in more scales and little nuggets)

2009-11-06T12:09:00.006-05:00

I extended the drawing from the last post into another panel, making a bigger drawing or perhaps a diptych. Here is what it looks like currently:

It feels like I'm drawing a joyous universe for my head. Here's the progression of the piece:

Mirror Carp Scales and Sarah Sze

2009-11-03T20:11:00.005-05:00

This work came out of some drawings I made of Sarah Sze's work and some of the unique scale patterns of the mirror carp.

Now it's its own monster. I am barely holding the reins.

Partial Arrangements and Half-Baked Thoughts

2009-11-02T22:17:00.005-05:00

These studies are working towards a drawing made in several layers on vellum (a semi-transparent drafting paper) The general ideas floating around in my head concern time and the accumulation of information. To show that I hope to let the top layer happen intuitively, where I compose the space by appropriating contemporary sculpture into drawings. In each subsequent layer I want to break down the forms and shapes and lines in the complex, initial drawing. Currently, I plan to do so by finding forms in nature, from the most evolved to the most basic, that could have influenced or informed the artworks. However, the process may change as things rarely work according to my plans when I'm in the studio.

Copenhagen Climate Conference 2009

2009-10-24T09:43:00.002-04:00

I hope Obama attends. I may send a letter asking him to.

http://en.cop15.dk/

composition in string no. 6

2009-10-18T01:00:00.004-04:00

A sort of map of the string sculpture, in gouache (my first time using it.) Two paintings overlapped. Some sections cut out. A drawing in charcoal began each painting. The thought process was almost entirely about the color once I started painting. I treated the drawings somewhat like coloring books.

30" by 60" (approx)

abstraction in charcoal.

2009-10-13T00:48:00.004-04:00

a make it quickly and wonder what it might lead to, not overly cerebral or based on anything in particular drawing from my abstraction class. What does it remind you of?

Philadelphia Open Studios

2009-10-08T09:39:00.003-04:00

Had a wonderful day last Saturday popping in and out of many, many artist's studios here in Philadelphia. Through POST, many artists pay a fee to advertise an open studio day to the public. It was so cool, as "the public" to have a free and open invitation to see the works in progress of the vibrant community of artists in this city, and to meet the hands that made so much of my favorite local art.

I was catapulted into my day (with a fantastic tour guide and mentor, I may add) when I walked into Elaine Erne's house and was confronted by three very, very large bunnies existing in some frightening and sad scenarios. I couldn't believe it when she showed me her medium: regular graphite pencils: to make 60 by 80 inch drawings or so. No, not even thick pencils.

We made a stop at the League Street studios, in which several good surprises unfolded as we turned all the many corners and hallways. Dolores Poacelli had some cool work up, as did Maria Christopher and Lee Horne. Had a good conversation with Lee Horne about how abstraction may be approached, and the differences between unfinished and finished work. I decided after seeing her unfinished abstracted landscapes that it is a murky area indeed. The white spaces in those landscapes were beautiful.

The Midwives Gallery was next, and I laughed and laughed at Angel O's exhibit there. We found Gretchen Diehl camped out in the hallway, with some beautiful drawings, working in her sketchbook. I encourage everyone reading to look at her site. Her drawing hand is exquisite.
Lunch at Charlie's house. He's doing all this colorful geometric abstraction now, a near 180 degrees from the dream-like figuration that was in his studio last time I visited. Isaiah Zagar dropped in and plopped down next to me to partake of the baguette and goat's brie and salami that was being shared. He's a funny guy. And, I don't need to mention, talented.

Finally, up to Port Richmond to see Alice Oh's studio, which was conveniently in the same building as a few Moore alums, like Aubrie Costello, as well as Darla Jackson, Charles Burwell, and the talented folks in The Sweatshop. Darla Jackson's little black animals in party hats were adorable and serious and wise all at once. The birds were my favorite, but the dead (deer?) on the floor was moving. Charles Burwell had a lot to say about his process, and was well-spoken. I came to the conclusion that I liked the first layer he puts on his canvases the best, much better than the last. My tour guide decided the opposite: he liked the last layer the best.

What a day. It would take a novel to describe all that I learned about living and making art, about selling one's art, about getting through difficult problems in a work. I met several people I wish to keep in touch with, if for no other reason so that they can continue to answer the questions I still have about the above subjects.

Off to my dentist appointment, for which I may be late now.

15 minute sketch of my awesome red table and chair and best friend

2009-10-03T08:17:00.004-04:00

getting mileage out of that string

2009-09-28T08:53:00.007-04:00

Now I'm painting from the string spaces. Which is a challenge, when I'm working in oil and refuse to use a three haired brush. I don't think I'll be painting them as forms after this one, because, to be frank, I think blown up, fat looking string in a painting looks cheesy. I may be using them as flat color in the next painting as a way to break up the composition geometrically.

But the solvent saturated paint that being thrown around in the background of this piece, SO much fun!

string things

2009-09-22T21:04:00.011-04:00

I've been toying with the idea of a visual representation of a single life, specifically the progression from innocence to experience. This is the form I've come up with.

String, a tack, all strings supporting a leaning frame and converging at the tack on the studio wall. To the left is a good explanation of how the object looks in my studio space.

When the viewer looks up into the frame, they are put in the small position of an innocent person, probably a child but not necessarily. Everything they see is within the frame, and there is very little color on their side of the frame; in their experience. But, as most people do, there comes a point where one must leave behind the framed world and jump into the mess of knots, twisted threads, uncertain roads.

Here, and from almost any other viewpoint around my composition, there is more color, more understanding, and a greater sense of the whole, the way of things. There is also more confusion, but it is confusion that is tangible and could be worked out.

Sometimes we all just need the beach

2009-09-19T23:27:00.009-04:00

the painting that put me into a funk also released me from a bad painting rut. I was so stuck that I did a one-eighty and decided to destroy the painting with a bright orange courtyard. Which, of course, saved it, and my exhaustion of it. Nearly finished, just a little more work on the white umbrellas and the shadows that appear beneath them.

I've been looking at Diebenkorn and Hopper to get me through this one.

Now I'm onto the next one, full of color and layers and experimentation with solvents and drips.

lungs, cells, and other dark wet things

2009-09-19T22:56:00.004-04:00

the progress is as follows

2009-09-19T12:49:00.002-04:00

what happens when one paints over matte medium with oils?

Leonardo's Lungs

2009-09-09T22:45:00.008-04:00

these are small drawings I'm working on. a series of twenty in total. I'm reading Da Vinci's journals of anatomical drawings, which he had to keep secret from a Roman government that forbade human dissection. The pieces, when finished, will have very dark, dense negative space filled with incorrect anatomical drawings that preceded Da Vinci, and are only guesses, as opposed to observed. I'm sort of talking about dark as an allegory for ignorance and also fear, and light as one for knowledge and also courage.

Obstacle

2009-09-09T21:45:00.004-04:00

and a painting I've just begun about the harshness of transition in the city. (Inside to outside, dark to light, edges, boundaries, shadows...)

Line as Sculpture

2009-09-09T21:39:00.006-04:00

here's where the lines as sculptures idea took me

Sculpture, Framed

2009-08-28T08:23:00.006-04:00

First creative act of the fall semester, in response to a Mixed Media assignment from Frank Hyder. The only parameter for the assignment was a single word, fusion, and that it had to be mixed media.

I tried to discuss the relationship between the canvas and the third dimension, and also between 2 dimensional and 3-dimensional art. I tried to fuse each component in each of these relationships. My answer to the problem was to suspend between empty stretcher bars long vertical drawings, two in vine charcoal, one in ink. I then tried to simlulate the shape and line in each drawing with three dimensional black thread. To avoid adding another element to the excercise, I used vine charcoal, the same I'd drawn with, wrapped within the thread to add bulk in the appropriate places. The wire on which the piece hangs is visible, in an attempt to make the conversation I'm having a little more obvious. Perhaps, though, that's too literal.

My other professor Moe Brooker suggested not limiting myself to the square, flattish format, and thinking about the spatial possibilities of such a discussion (fill an entire room with sculptural and flat lines, or, if I want it in the same plane, and entire wall). I'm inspired to pursue this further now. I think this will remain a study for something grander

single-mom practice sessions

2009-08-13T15:20:00.003-04:00

45 hours a week with these darlings have been rewarding, exhausting, and memorable. I'm finished as a nanny after tomorrow, and I feel I can conquer the world now.

Summer Kitchen

2009-08-12T18:13:00.004-04:00

I drew this and this after doing a lot lot lot of dishes. I think the mess that was there before I went through with soap and rag would have been more interesting.

Sketch update

2009-08-10T17:35:00.003-04:00

for this update, see the two newest photos in my "fabriano sketchbook" slide show at right. One is of a fort I made with the kid I nanny for, and the second is of Jake's English Springer, Charles.

Mardi Gras

2009-08-06T16:27:00.007-04:00

"Overgrowth." The ink drawing in this watercolor just poured out late two nights ago, as if my brain just needed a good rinse before I called it a day. I've always considered myself a morning person, so it's strange that I've made a habit of doing outside-of-my-sketchbook stuff at night. Perhaps it has something to do with the Nanny job I've had this summer, which has given a whole new excitement to solitude.

I think I could have planned more carefully the colors, maybe restricted my palette a bit, because I didn't intend the Mardi Gras effect. Oh well. My Mommy liked it.

AS OF 9/20: THIS WORK TO BE SOLD AT THE 10X10 SHOW BRUNSWICK, MAINE. FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT ME.

Beyond the Map

2009-08-06T00:02:00.008-04:00

when i closed my eyes a few nights ago I saw this pattern on the insides of my eyelids...blue interlocking blobs with four tentacles each, and one green one. i had to make note of it, in case it turned into anything. it turned into this tree. i finished this piece before i even went back to sleep that night. it should be called something like "taking off" or "the exciting unknown" or "up and out" but without the cliche-ness. It both got me out of my dry spell from artwork and made me think of how little I've planned past the next two years, which is more appealing than scary at the moment. I think the swingless swinger agrees.

SOLD October 2009

Emily and the Pie

2009-08-04T22:04:00.004-04:00

i've been working on stuff, I have, I just haven't had scanner access because something ain't right with the old scanner. So an update on what I've been up to will be aired over the next few days. five new pieces, and here's the first.

just something fun I did to please my sister. adobe illustrator and photoshop.

quandaries and acceptance

2009-07-12T23:23:00.005-04:00

I think this one is about being proud of what I have done and can do. It just happened today when I was going through photos from my first black and white photography class, and the pens and pastels came out, and voila. But I didn't really have an explanation for it after I finished trimming the edges, I'm not even sure it's finished--it just felt good to find photos that I took that made me want to make something new.

Although parts of this look collaged, none are. It is a flat drawing in pen and soft pastel.

AS OF 9/20: THIS WORK TO BE SOLD AT THE 10X10 SHOW BRUNSWICK, MAINE. FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT ME.

Daughter of the Flower Lady of Brunswick

2009-07-03T09:41:00.002-04:00

My mother is a florist/flower designer. This sketch doesn't do her work justice, but it was fun to draw a composition that was designed so well for me.

Bright!Loud!

2009-06-27T22:49:00.011-04:00

I was playing with the idea that pop culture can infiltrate even the most spontaneous gestures. With some books reflecting our celebrity culture (Life compendiums, fashion guides, products of fan followings, etc.) sitting in front of me, I dragged out my brightest pastels and worked on top of a torn up oil painting on paper. when I became overwhelmed, I started digging at the surface of the paper, uncovering the white, with metal clay-working tools.

preview chunks

2009-06-25T17:38:00.007-04:00

snippets and hints all zoomed in. about how loud everything seems.

postcard jazz

2009-06-21T15:07:00.009-04:00

Here are some details of the first postcard-sized work in a series I will be working about the human act of making.

I'm not trying to pretend the subject hasn't been done, but today, playing around with a collage that wasn't working, I became very interested in art-making as a subject in itself. So I started over with that in mind.

Contained in this work: sketch called "freshly cut grass all over my feet", cut out smithsonian pages (this issue featured painted patterns from iranian architecture), oil pastel, tangled string from the floor, national geographic image (cropped) of a snake, pieces of a box of flatbread crackers, masking tape, and ballpoint pen.

Cabinet

2009-06-21T09:31:00.007-04:00

I just started a subscription to Cabinet, a non profit quarterly based in Brooklyn that you should really check out. Its about EVERYTHING; I haven't encountered this degree of well-written eclectic-ness (does ecelctic have a noun-form?) before in a periodical. The only thing that holds one issue together is a broad, one-word theme and four columns that are not necessarily related to that theme. The summer issue's theme is Deception (Spring was Fire). The columns are called "inventory", "ingestion", "colors", and "leftovers", and always relate to their titles. And every issue has a tear-out postcard or bookmark.
In Deception, I just learned about some of Kubrick's obsessive directions in The Shining, a history of the relationship between cops and robbers, a history of card tricks, and an exploration of the difference between real and counterfeit money, with context in America and NIgeria and input from Derrida and Lenin. And I've only read about a quarter of the quarterly.

http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/index.php

happy exploring,
Jackie

Studio work

2009-06-14T21:04:00.006-04:00

things I've learned at art school (sophomore year, Moore College of Art and Design)

Urbal

2009-06-09T02:05:00.005-04:00

Urbal. A Sixteen-Panel Abstract Drawing. The whole process of making this work yielded an efflux of thoughts, streams of consciousness, rhythms, and discussions all surrounding issues of home and creativity. Because I was raised in Maine, moving to Philadelphia was quite the leap. I have experienced all sorts of tensions and contradictions that result from creating in such a foreign, busy, regulated, stimulating, and often overwhelming environment. With these drawings, I was asking myself these questions:

Why do I find myself at my creative peak in the midst of such a non-organic environment? How is this possible? Is it possible for an organic aesthetic to harmonize with that of the city? How can I slow down in this fast new world? How is my creativity affected when I get bogged down in the fast rigidity of the city? What life exists in the city? What structure exists in the country? What gets lost in the city, the country? How have both environments shaped and contributed to my artwork? My life?

While I did not find answers to all above questions through the creation of this series, I did make progress, and my art was much changed. Layers of work in the same space became the perfect method of feeling out my conflicts and never getting stuck in one mode of thought or a single answer/solution. I've found that my heart really lies in the process of layering drawings and materials in my art, and I've been exploring this direction since.

Edited First Post

2009-06-08T23:28:00.005-04:00

Welcome!