summer studio sessions part I

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:

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.

getting my mind out of the city

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

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).

 

fellowship show, onward!

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.