Oh My Lima Beans!

#15

2009-03-14T22:47:00.000-04:00

#14

2009-03-14T22:01:00.000-04:00

#13

2009-03-12T22:05:00.000-04:00

#12

2009-03-12T22:03:00.000-04:00

#11

2009-03-10T22:59:00.003-04:00

#10

2009-03-10T22:58:00.000-04:00

#9

2009-03-09T11:26:00.000-04:00

#8

2009-03-04T11:38:00.000-05:00

#7

2009-03-02T14:55:00.000-05:00

#6

2009-03-01T23:18:00.000-05:00

#5

2009-02-23T22:47:00.005-05:00

#4

2009-02-23T22:47:00.004-05:00

#3

2009-02-23T22:45:00.002-05:00

#2

2009-02-23T22:12:00.001-05:00

#1

2009-02-22T19:20:00.001-05:00

Quilt patch

2009-02-21T22:56:00.002-05:00

Quilt Patch, about 36x36 inches (estimate from memory), 2008-2009.

I apologize for the horrible picture. This is my first quilt patch, made as a commission for a personal quilt. I believe a real quilter will use this square as part of a full sized quilt, and maybe fix it up in a few places, if needed. A lot of this was done on a sewing machine at my mother's house during the winter holiday. The rest was completed by hand once I returned to Boston in January. It was much more difficult to execute the pattern than I had originally planned. I had very little control and felt rather limited in what I could make and sew together, so I never expected it to look like this, but sometimes that can be beneficial.

December Salon Pieces IV

2008-12-08T20:41:00.005-05:00

Untitled, acrylic, oil, watercolor, pencil, ink and paper, 2007-08

This collage is about 5 or 6 inches each way. Part of it was cut out of a painting that I had done last year, titled Green and Warm Yellow (or something like that) which was displayed last year at the Philadelphia Sketch Club. I was never that fond of the original painting and decided it needed a change. There was no use keeping a painting around that I didn't really like anyways.

This piece had a few physical limitations that restrained me to working in a particular way, which actually turned out to be a lot of fun. Because I was working on it the night before the show was going up, I did not have time to let oil paints dry. And because the original painting was done in oil, I could not paint directly on top of it, even with acrylics (oil will go on top of acrylic, but not the other way around). So any time I wanted to change something, I had to paint a separate piece of paper and glue it on. Several times I ended up cutting large chunks of the piece itself to rearrange, and glue onto a new piece of paper. In certain areas there are probably 5 or 6 layers of paper and board stacked in all.

December Salon Pieces III

2008-12-08T20:40:00.007-05:00

Julian's Lines, acrylic, paper, pencil and ink on canvas, 2008.

This is a small painting, I think about 5x5 inches. I will admit that I made it pretty quickly the morning that I took all the paintings to the gallery to be submitted. But I think it turned out fairly well in spite of that. (It ended up selling to a local Somerville artist, Bill Turville, famous for his fish car).

The painting is a still life of objects from my work space, pot full of pencils and brushes, can of turpenoide, etc. This is one of the few still lifes that I have done recently, and is also based on direct observation without layers of abstraction between the object and the final product. It is titled Julian's Lines, after Julian Hatton, a New York artist whose work I look at a lot. He uses lines in a really interesting way in combination with blocks of color so I thought it appropriate to reference him in the title.

December Salon Pieces II

2008-12-08T20:39:00.002-05:00

Untitled, pen and ink, 4x6 inches, 2008

December Salon Pieces

2008-12-08T20:37:00.003-05:00

I was born on the day that music died
Watercolor and ink on paper, 4x6in

Untitled
watercolor and ink on paper, 4x6in

December Salon

2008-12-03T19:58:00.004-05:00

I have a few pieces in a show coming up. It opens tomorrow at Nave Gallery. The show is an amalgamation of about 60 artists, and it will be hung "salon style," which means they squeeze as much onto the walls as they can, and when things are sold they are immediately taken down and replaced with new art. It is kind of fun, and I like the idea of having a dynamic exhibition. The down side is that I don't actually know if/when my pieces will be on display. I submitted 2 collages, a small painting, and 5 postcard drawings. Images will be posted soon, but I figured I should at least wait until the opening to encourage gallery visitors.

Nave Gallery is an interesting place. It is inside of a church near Teele Square in Somerville, MA, although run independently, as far as I can tell. They have a lot of music events (including various performances in conjunction with the show, which should be good!)

December Salon
opening reception 6-8pm Dec. 4, 2008
Clarendon Hill Presbyterian Church
155 Powderhouse Blvd, Somerville, MA
see website for other open hours/events

Craigslist ad

2008-11-28T23:29:00.000-05:00

http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/hsh/937581003.html

Ellsworth Kelly

2008-11-06T14:02:00.016-05:00

There are two different reasons that I respond to artwork. One is aesthetic: often a piece will speak to me automatically upon viewing, all of the visual components come together in just the right way and it hits a chord somewhere inside. The other reason I respond to a piece is intellectual: learning about an artist's processes and decision making increases my appreciation and fascination of the piece. This is usually build up slowly over time, and may be entirely independent of any aesthetic reactions I have. These two are, of course, not mutually exclusive, nor encompassing.

To give examples of each scenario: the artist Logan Grider was recently brought to my attention by a fellow artist and friend. I know nothing about Grider's methods, influences, background, etc. but I was immediately drawn to the work. I have the opposite reaction to Ellsworth Kelly, however. At first glance, I did not feel anything special about his geometric, borderline-minimalist works. But after spending some time with many of his observation-based line drawings (see previous post), I have been learning a lot about Kelly abstracts objects from nature, and how he makes artistic decisions.

One reason I am drawn to Kelly is his method of abstraction. This is something that I am very interested in, how any artist goes about translating what they see to what they create, and Kelly's in particular makes a lot of sense to me. Here is a great description from his childhood: "One evening, passing the lighted window of a house, I was fascinated by red, blue, and black shapes in side a room. But when I went up and looked in, I saw a red couch, a blue drape and a black table. The shapes had disappeared. I had to retreat to see them again." I love this passage because it epitomizes all of Kelly's works. Every shape and form that he creates comes from something tangible in front of him, whether it be a couch or a pattern of shadows on a staircase.

Ellsworth Kelly, Study for La Combe II, 1950, ink and pencil on paper. Based on a photograph of shadows casted by an outdoor staircare.

But the objects, as objects, are not necessarily the point of each piece. Kelly says, "Instead of making a picture that was an interpretation of a thing seen, or a picture of an invented content, I found an object and 'presented' it as itself alone." What does it mean to "present" an object? I am fascinated by how anyone can make a series of decisions to distill a person or an object or a space down to a few essential elements. They become unrecognizable, but is this problematic? Is it important that the viewer "sees" the object in the art? Should it be obscured so much as to prevent anyone from seeing it? I am still not sure I entirely understand the difference between Kelly's three pictures (interpretation of a thing seen, picture of an invented content, and presentation of an object), and may now need to do all three for a few objects.

Moreover, Kelly says he draws from an "impersonal observation of the form...Making art has first of all to do with honesty. My first lesson was to see objectively, so erase all "meaning" of the thing seen. Then only could the real meaning of it be understood and felt." What would happen if he used a very personal, emotionally charged form of observation? I wonder what his images would look like then.

Ellsworth Kelly, Red/Blue, 1964

In my own works, I am not trying to reveal the "true meaning." But I do try to move away from objectivity, and allow all of us to see shapes and forms and colors, not as objects or emotions. Everyone will be reminded of objects or emotions that they have encountered, or that are important to them, but that is a personal process and can be, I believe, independent of how we view works of art.

Kelly tries to eliminate any meaning of "things" around us, to reduce them to their essential components. It borders on oppression, though, as objects are reduced from having an infinite number of qualities, to having one or two (eg. red, or square). (Note: Perhaps rather than this method being oppressive or limiting, it should be seen as confident. Kelly can make decisions about what should be included, what is most important, rather than avoiding any decision making by including any and every bit of information.) While Kelly isolate these qualities from objects to inform his pieces, I try to translate those qualities to work in new situations and environments. Kelly takes the red couch and blue drape to make a red oval and a blue rectangle in isolation. The two objects have an elegant relationship, and almost eerily exist in isolation together. I may take those same objects, and likewise reduce them to the red oval and blue rectangle, but then try to transpose them to new environments. Because the objects are reduced to shape and color, instead of putting them back in the original environment, as Kelly does, I mix and match from various scenes to create new worlds, to give the shapes a new meaning and life and personality, free from its original context. It is not recognizable, but based heavily off of observation of the objects and the spaces in which they sit.

Ellsworth Kelly, Purple Relief Over Black, oil on canvas (2 joined panels), 2002

Both Kelly and I like to flatten shapes. Keeping objects in 2D forces me to focus on how the shapes relate to each other to create a space, rather than a 3D object informing us of space through depth, volume, etc. Using my own drawings and paintings and reusing shapes and colors over and over again helps to remove any associations attached to the original object, and to create a "color-shape" (which is a term critics seem to use a lot in reference to Kelly's works) that can be viewed without bias.

Shower Curtain

2008-10-19T23:37:00.004-04:00

I painted my shower curtain! I became inspired to do this after realizing that if you want to buy a shower curtain from the dollar store, which I did, you have to be prepared to end up with a really ugly/boring one. Requests for hand-painted, personalized shower curtains can now be sent in to me. I will even mail it to you.

Mariko's Car 2

2008-10-12T15:40:00.004-04:00

This is the final product!! I ended up painting for a total of about 8 hours over 2 days. I picked the worst weekend to do this, as it rained nonstop the entire time. I had originally envisioned spending the day outside in the sunshine, but ended up painting in our garage. It was a little cramped, and did not have great lighting, but still a lot of fun to do.
The images and shapes are based off of some sketches that I did a few months ago, drawing the lines and cracks in cement and stone walkways. The stones originally seemed very flat and smooth, but after looking a little closer, you can find all sorts of beautiful patterns and intricacies. I also added a more graphic pattern in mustard yellow to balance the very organic shapes in the front. You cannot see it in these pictures, but the pattern extends up onto the top of the car.
I used "1 Shot" oil enamel paint, originally made for signs. I did a lot of research and finally decided on this paint, as it is meant to be applied to metal surfaces and to withstand the outdoors. It will not rust, and, equally important, the colors can be mixed together and applied with a brush (not an air brush, which I did not want). I also used a small paint roller, sponges, towels and fingers to apply paint.

Mariko's Car

2008-10-01T13:02:00.004-04:00

For those of you that don't know, I recently moved out of my apartment in Philadelphia and am now living in Somerville, MA. One downside to this move, however, is that I no longer am living with former roommate, Mariko Terasaki. But, in what I like to think of as a way to stay together, if not live together, she asked me to paint her car. Keep in mind that Mariko does not have a beat up, rusting, paint-chipping car. She has a gorgeous Volvo with an equally gorgeous paint job. But she asked, so she got what she wished for.

This image is from the painting process this past weekend to give you an idea of what it will look like. There will be plenty more coming soon.

P.S.

2008-09-07T22:10:00.004-04:00

I am obsessed with my pink poster paint marker that I bought this summer. It kind of kicks ass, and can stand out amongst any other color or marker like no other.

Specifics:
Sharpie Poster-Paint
Fluorescent Pink, Medium Point, Water-Based Opaque Paint Marker

Dear Fleisher 2008

2008-09-06T11:09:00.002-04:00

Exhibition Update:

I will be participating in a group show at the Fleisher Art Memorial The first week of October. The show is called "Dear Fleisher" and is a fundraiser for the organization, which offers free art classes to the community (highly recommended! I have taken many classes here). Hundreds of artists have donated works of art, all 4x6 inches, to all be sold for $50 each. The list of participating artists grows each year (2004, 2006), but it is kind of awesome because emerging artists and established artists, and everyone in between, exhibit together and all sell at the same price.
If you get a chance, stop by to check out the show, and maybe even invest in some art, on Sunday Oct. 5 from 4-7pm.

Travel log 4

2008-08-12T23:40:00.005-04:00

Kitchen, pen and ink, 2008

This is my favorite piece from the farm, and also the one I spent the most time drawing. It is a view of the outdoor kitchen in the worker's quarters where I stayed. I executed this differently than most drawings that I do. Instead of trying to work the piece evenly all over, I drew a basic skeleton of large objects and planes to define the space, and then I filled in the smaller objects and details from the bottom up. Each object was drawn in isolation from the ones around it, and each section of the kitchen was drawn in isolation. I don't necessarily think that is the best way to do it, but it worked for this piece. It was like I was picking up each object, one by one, examining it, and then putting it back in it's place. It also reminded me of dusting, or wiping down a counter, in which each object is delicately lifted and cleaned off.

Carrizo, pen and ink, 2008

I do not think this drawing is particularly successful, it is hard to figure out where things are in space, but it is a somewhat decent documentation of my time on the farm. The room had no glass windows, but instead wooden panels that opened up on hinges. All of these were covered with pamphlets and posters from the nearby town. The room also had corrugated tin roofing, which was beautifully loud during rain. This piece includes the infamous rubber boots (see previous post), and the half-finished cane grass panel I was working on at the time.

Travel log 3

2008-08-12T23:39:00.002-04:00

Rubber boots 1 and hiking boots

Rubber boots 2

coat rack

Objects from inside of my room on the farm. They do not necessarily have any special importance, other than being the objects around me while I was sketching. I drew my rubber boots a gazillion times, I had a very difficult time getting the curves exactly right. I still don't think I quite got it, but I liked the process of trying over and over again.

Travel log 2

2008-08-12T23:37:00.002-04:00

These three images are from my time at the Tungurahua Tea Room, in Banos. I spent 3 weeks here as part of the WWOOF program, working on the small farm and playing with big dogs.

The farm is situated at the base of the active volcano, Tungurahua. From the fields and orchard we had a breath taking view of the snow-capped volcano, which rumbled constantly during my stay. It often spewed out ash, which luckily is taken away by the wind. One night I woke up to find her grumbling and throwing out glowing lava and burning rocks.

The idea of using my art as a journal is new to me, and prompted by my class earlier this summer at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (see earlier posts for work from the class). Incorporating my own experiences and emotions is difficult to teach, and was never something that had been a part of my art education. I was more interested in the "academic" side of art, if there is one. But I am starting to think that is just the tip of the iceberg, and, while a great way to get started in making art, can be rather limiting. I still believe it is important to understand and concentrate on formal qualities of a work, but finding a way to do this in your own voice and in a personal, meaningful way is just as important. Actually doing that, though, is not quite as easy, but I see these documentary sketches as a beginning.

Travel log 1

2008-08-12T23:35:00.004-04:00

These two images, and several more that will follow in the next few posts, are from the sketchbook I kept with me during my travels this summer. I bounced around from the beginning of June until just recently, when I have finally settled into a new apartment in Somerville, MA. Instead of taking photographs or keeping a journal, I made simple sketches of the places I went and the things that I saw.
I became infatuated with pen and ink drawings, and I found them much more pleasing without any color or value. For a long time I used to be afraid of drawings like this, in which it is difficult to hide mistakes and accurate observation was necessary (or so I thought). But, as I discovered while executing this series, I enjoyed the process for those very reasons. I liked staring at the various objects in front of me, trying to figure out how to place them correctly on the page. My process was rather slow, or slower than what I am used to, probably because I spent more time observing, making sure I had it right before I made any marks. I also realized that my definition of "mistake" changed. No matter what mark I made, even if it were not at all what I meant to do, I liked trying to figure out how I could incorporate it into the rest of the piece.
The piece above and the one below are from James' bedroom in Quito. They are simplified versions of two different views in the room, and both include the bed I sat on. An unofficial title for the mini-series is "The Most Uncomfortable Bed."

2008-07-01T14:17:00.005-04:00

These two pieces were inspired by/for my friend, Becket Ming Flannery. He commissioned a piece by me, and requested it to be 2 x 1 3/4 inches. So here you go. He is currently studying in Pont-Aven, France, so the actual painting is probably sitting in his mailbox, waiting for his arrival. The second piece, Green Ribbon, was completed at the same time and is the same size. Both are based off of a series of 8 sketches I had drawn about 2 months ago. I liked working so small, and am glad I was asked to do this, otherwise I probably never would have made such a small painting. I was forced to pay attention to things that I often overlook when working larger, like subtle shifts in value and intensity. Even the smallest brush mark could affect the entire piece, which was interesting, but also asked me to generate more intentional mark-making.

Becket's Commission 1 3/4 x 2 inches, oil on paper

Green Ribbon 1 3/4 x 2 inches, oil on paper

Experimental Drawing IV

2008-06-15T12:05:00.003-04:00

Big collage! about 5 x 2 feet.

Detail of the collage.

Experimental Drawing III

2008-06-15T12:02:00.003-04:00

Final piece from Museum School class. I spent about 15 hours on this, and it is about 6 x 6 feet, maybe? I am guessing. It is acrylic, ink, pastel, toilet paper, newspaper, newsprint, oil stick, charcoal, and poster paint on Strathmore paper. This drawing combines a lot of things we had done during the week, both physically and thematically, including some Ellsworth Kelly references, as well as the artist Ghada Amer.

Detail of piece from above.

To give some sense of proportion...

Experimental Drawing II

2008-06-15T11:56:00.002-04:00

More drawings from the Boston class... All are about 18 x 24 inches, pastel or acrylic on paper.

Experimental Drawing: The Figure and Beyond!

2008-06-15T11:51:00.008-04:00

These images are from a week-long intensive art course I just completed at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It is the same number of hours as a semester-long class, so we worked from 9 to 6 every day. It was taught by Robert Siegelman, who was amazing. I made a lot of things that I never imagined I would have made, and went about art in general pretty differently, which was rather refreshing. We focused very little on technique or skill, and paid much more attention to emotions and purpose and experimentation.
Everything is based on the figure, some more literally than others, some only very loosely, but the figure certainly acted as a theme that tied everything together. These 5 images were based on quick, gestural poses, using acrylic and some soft pastel on paper. Another big theme was translating negative spaces into positive shapes, so even if the figure is not obvious, there are usually lots of figural elements in the pieces.
These pieces were also done after spending some time with a few Ellsworth Kelly books (props to Seal Stone Craver for the suggestion). Specifically, I was looking at his contour drawings of leaves and plants. His works are elegantly simple, and take the object out of its context, leaving a skeleton line drawing behind. But there is usually enough information to recognize the object, or at least to believe that he had the object in front of him.

8 sketches: 6, 7, & 8

2008-05-28T10:41:00.001-04:00

All of the following 8 sketches are 1 3/4 x 2 inches, graphite on paper.

All of these sketches are 1 3/4 x 2 inches, graphite on paper.

8 sketches: 3, 4 & 5

2008-05-28T10:39:00.001-04:00

8 sketches: 1 & 2

2008-05-28T10:31:00.002-04:00

The studio/bedroom

2008-05-27T12:32:00.001-04:00

Kai in the studio

Super cat!

2008-05-18T12:50:00.002-04:00

Untitled print 3 - same two plates as Untitled print 1 but printed on brown chine-colle paper. I also experimented with adding the ink directly onto the plate with my fingers in specific areas, instead of applying a uniform layer over the entire plate. It allows the colors to be much brighter and darker.

2008-05-18T12:46:00.003-04:00

Untitled print 1 - 2 plates printed on top of each other on off-white chine-colle. The first plate used black ink, the second used magenta.

2008-05-16T12:52:00.002-04:00

This print, another from my class at Fleisher, uses chine-colle, sugar lift and hard ground. I started out using sugar lift (a gooey mix of sugar and water) to paint the trumpet- and heart-like shapes. When that dries, a layer of hard ground is put on top. The plate is then immersed in boiling water, which dissolves the sugar and allows it to "lift" off the plate, while the hard ground stays put, leaving the original drawing exposed. Hard ground was later used again for most of the thinner, cleaner lines.
The two larger shapes started out as doodles from my head (something I normally avoid). Some of the smaller details in chine-colle came from an amalgamation of images on the cover of a science lab supply catalog I had with me at the time. DNA, test tubes, etc. If you are curious, the catalog was from Millipore, they make amazing filters, although the images were pretty arbitrary. The plate was really meant as an experiment with sugar lift and other techniques, but I am mildly satisfied with the end product.

2008-05-15T22:23:00.002-04:00

I have been taking an etching class at the Fleisher Art Memorial since January. Yesterday was our last day, and this is the first time I am posting anything from that class, meaning it has taken me an entire semester to feel remotely competent in the medium. I had never done print making before, so there was a lot of learning and technique experimentation.

I did these 2 prints mid-semester, based on the Mississippi Sheiks' album, Stop and Listen. This is done by iron transfer and chine-colle. I cut out the two figures' silhouettes out from a printout of the original cover, and then photocopied the assembled piece. If done within about thirty minutes, you can iron the toner from your photocopy directly onto your plate (I have been using exclusively zinc plates).
The yellow and orange are colored rice paper, glued with methyl cellulose and pressed during the inking process. I had originally planned on continuing this edition, using several other colors, but my plate mysteriously disappeared after 2 pulls. I am still on the hunt....

2008-04-22T20:25:00.003-04:00

Also wanted to mention that I now have an official art website! It is not 100% complete yet, but there is enough up that it is worth checking out. Suggestions are always welcome!
www.blakeelizabethroberts.com

This blog will still exist and continue as a venue for process and thoughts and ramblings, while the website will hopefully serve as a more permanent archive of my work.
(If you are interested in another site that I designed from scratch, this is what I did for the lab at Penn, where I work during the day: www.med.upenn.edu/shorterlab)

2008-04-22T20:16:00.002-04:00

Hurry, hurry! You can still make it to see two of my paintings in a group show at the Philadelphia Sketch Club. This show is the 145th Annual Exhibition of Small Oil Paintings, has about 150 artists, so there is a lot of really great stuff. It will be up through April 27, and is open Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 1-5pm.

2008-04-22T12:15:00.003-04:00

"Blood in My Eyes"
album cover for Ben Bradlow

Hopefully Ben will not mind the premature launching of this image. I believe that his album preview/release party is this weekend, but I wanted to put this up sooner. Any comments or feedback would be great, as a lot of this process (painting an image, putting it together on the computer, etc) was new for me. Although it looks pretty different than the last image that I posted, I really did use that idea to inform this image. In particular, that is true for the organ/meat/red object shape. I must have drawn that shape 30 times. None of them were any better or worse than the others, but I think I needed to know that I could draw it again if I needed to, that the shape wasn't created accidentally. The small circles below that shape were inspired by a trip to Locks Gallery, after seeing a show by Jennifer Bartlett, which is essentially composed entirely of tiny dots. I am liking dots right now.
I also really like how the brown background ends up looking like a smear of mud. That was totally unintentional, I didn't think much of the texture would transfer onto the computer, but in the end it came out okay. I originally thought that I would base this painting on the idea that Ben's music (and all music, really) is founded on a long line of musicians from the past. All artists grow and develop their own ideas from what they see and hear of other artists. But that ended up translating into very superficial images, the worst culminating in me trying to transpose Ben's head onto silhouettes of the Sheiks. Bad idea, bad.
But other themes seemed to come out from Ben's music which were more appropriate. While painting I thought about natural, primal emotions and how that can get channeled into music. Parts are muddy, parts are more vibrant; sometimes it gets quiet, and sometimes it yells out. I don't expect my images to symbolize any particular idea, but I hope the overall composition opens up different visual associations for each viewer.

2008-03-28T23:32:00.002-04:00

I am currently working on an album cover for Mr. Ben Bradlow's new CD. This project is proving itself to be more difficult than I imagined, as I am trying to use sound to inform my images, rather than visual entities. But I am also working with visual images that relate to the music, such as the intense red lights projected onto the stage and the resulting deep, black shadows that I remember from his concerts. I have various images like that floating around in my mind, we'll see how they all come to weave together, or if they do at all.
This is a preliminary watercolor, which is based off of an image of Ben and one of The Mississippi Sheiks' album covers, "Stop and Listen." I really intend for the colors to be much more vivid and raw, I think oils will come next, which will help with intensity and texture.

2008-03-16T19:40:00.004-04:00

"Hush Pink"
oil, acrylic and paper

2008-03-16T19:38:00.002-04:00

"Forest Rain Green"
oil, toilet paper, pencil and paper on cardboard

2008-03-16T19:29:00.002-04:00

"Mermaid Song Blue"
about 20 x 24 inches
oil, acrylic, pencil and paper collage

I love the extravagant titles given to the color chips from paint companies. I have been using these factory-made color blocks in a lot of my pieces lately, and they are often appropriated for the titles. These color chips are smooth, matte, and flawless, which I find to be an interesting contrast to the blocks of color I paint myself and then cut out for collage, which have texture and streaks.

Statement from apartment exhibition

2008-02-29T14:45:00.000-05:00

I walk across the South Street Bridge at least twice every day to get to work and back home. I am bombarded with graffiti, billboards, cars, porn, trains, posters, stickers, horns, poems, highway. Halfway across the bridge, in the middle of this chaos, the word “LISTEN” is spray painted on the sidewalk. In pink letters. Every day I am reminded to listen, not to the commotion, but to the story that my paintings tell me back in the quiet of my home.
According to the artist Kiki Smith, listening “is what making art is all about.” Painting out of my apartment for the last eight months after moving to Philadelphia has given me the opportunity to focus on process, and to work on a more intimate level with my paintings, which I believe is the story they are telling me.
My bedroom floor is littered with virtually every color swatch that Home Depot offers. I try to find color combinations that our eyes are not used to seeing. When I see two or three colors together that interest me, I rustle through the pile on my floor to find the exact hue and value, or I mix my own color and paint a block, and tape them to my wall together. Color blocks have taken over my room, so that every aspect of my life is inundated with them: getting dressed, eating, taking a nap. It is unlikely to find these color combinations in advertisements, or fashion, or kitchen tiles. Seeing certain colors together can have a jarring effect, be rather unpleasant, and take us off guard. But in turn these combinations are refreshing and provoking, becoming visually engaging, and I enjoy the challenge of incorporating them into my work.
Repetition is also integral to my process. I draw the same shapes over and over again, but with each repetition I allow the natural flaws of the hand and the eye to become exaggerated. By periodically stepping back and looking at what I have made, I overcome the urge to smooth and cover up mistakes or unplanned moments. This slower pace allows me to hear the subtle areas of disorder that my hand has created, through imperfect drawing and experimentation of the medium. I am not trying to create exact duplicates of the previous image, but the shapes become dynamic characters as they metamorphose from one piece to the next. I am not depicting real places or real beings, but instead am moving between control and awkwardness of the medium, hoping to discover a new world somewhere in the middle. It exists as a reality, telling its story through the push and pull between medium and space.
Absorbing the sounds and stimulations of the world outside my home is now a part of my daily routine, just as sleeping amongst color blocks is routine. Seeing the word “LISTEN,” reminds me there is another world within my paintings I can always return to, as long as I am willing to pay attention.

A tiny collage

2008-01-11T20:38:00.001-05:00

3 x 3 1/2 inches
acrylic, oil, pencil and paper on cardboard

This is a tiny collage. I think I need a new glasses prescription after doing this one. I had a lot of fun. Using watercolors so much recently has made me forgotten how gorgeously intense color can be. This is the first piece in a while that I feel connected to. I put a lot of thought into it, which is usually how I paint, and I felt more in control of the medium.

I read an entry from artblog this week about a show they had seen in New Jersey. Their description of the art on display comes pretty close to how I think about making art:

"About the artist's mind, the material in front of us, and the relation between the two. It's about taking something and making it make us think of something it is not. It's about creating a new object that never existed before, and the best of the work is also about creating a new object that could never have been made prior to present times."

See artblog's (Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof) original review: In the Garden 2 & 3

This description helped me to get through the collage above. It helped me to figure out, not entirely, but come a little closer to understanding, why I am making these objects and why other people might care.

Quito part II

2008-01-11T19:59:00.001-05:00

7 x 9 1/2 inches
acrylic, pencil and paper on cardboard

This is the collage that subsequently followed after the watercolor from Quito. Many of the colors were originally painted onto paper, as color chips (see post below), and I continued to mix new shades and hues as I went along. Working with a fixed palette is interesting, especially when using a watercolor as my source. It is impossible to recreate all of the blends and bleeds of the paint, and while that is not my goal, I do try to use the colors that I see in the painting, making this a process of simplification and down sizing. I also get to find hidden colors in the paint, and then emphasize them in the collage. Small changes are made and decisions have to be made when transferring from one medium to another.
I intend to continue this series with another collage, taking the down sizing to another level. Each time that I go a step further, by using a previous work as the source for the newest one, the original image is lost a little bit more. I love seeing the progression that is made, and all of the wonderful shapes and relationships that can evolve.

Post from Anchorage, AK

2008-01-01T23:53:00.001-05:00

"The Backyard in Anchorage"

watercolor 9 x 11 2/3 inches (23 x 29.5cm)

This is a small watercolor I did for my grandparents while in Anchorage. My grandmother asked for a picture of the backyard, so it is my first commissioned piece! I am still learning how to control the paint, and this was also a good exercise in observation.

Color blocks

2007-12-12T20:57:00.001-05:00

This is the beginning stage of a collage, based on the night city-scape scene from Quito. I'm not sure yet how faithful the collage will be to the original watercolor. But I am starting by mixing up approximately the correct colors from acrylic, and then often similar hues or shades next to it. The paint is brushed onto paper, and depending on how translucent I want it to be, I often add two or three layers of paint. Thanks to Mariko's hairdryer for speeding up the drying time between layers. I will probably end up making more colors, but this is what I am starting with.

Sketches from quito

2007-11-29T23:05:00.001-05:00

I spent the last week and a half in Quito, and while I did not get as much done as I had hoped, I spent a fair amount of time doing some watercolors. They are based on what I could see from the apartment of James Crall and Brian Chen, on the top of a hill with a gorgeous view. The scenery from the window was so familiar, as I spent many years looking out similar windows, onto similarly gorgeous views. Although I was originally reluctant to let the Andes and landscape inform my painting, how could I spend a week in Quito and not be influenced by the mountains?

I also ended up painting shapes and shadows from the houses across the street. As I was painting at night time, I'm sure the neighbors could see me, but my image was blurred and with little definition. I occasionally allowed the reflections that I was getting from the windows to be a part of my composition, as well. The colors ended up being muted and dark, which I enjoy. I found it actually quite difficult to get very dark values, as the translucent nature of watercolors lets so much white through the pigment. But I had fun layering the paint and finding darkness this way.

While it is great that I found and had access to such an inspiring source for my painting this past week, I am left with the same problem of subject upon my return to good old Philadelphia. I know that I want to paint, and I know that I enjoy painting, but what am I supposed to paint? (See Becket Ming Flannery's A Question on Being Minimal-ish) Even though I have figured out that I don't necessarily need content in my work, which sets me apart from Flannery, I still need a subject or a source to work from. How do I find a source without making it become content? Alternatively, how do I find a source without it becoming arbitrary or trite?

2007-10-30T16:05:00.001-04:00

Acrylic and paper collage mounted on cardboard - 8x8 inches

This is a draft illustration I made for the following caption:
"Suddenly, the tiger roars as he pulls back its cheek and lips, showing its huge teeth." The children's book will be bilingual in English and Chinese and is about a tiger and a fox.

2007-10-30T13:27:00.000-04:00

I have recently been exploring the world of collage. These are two that I consider finished, there are many more that are yet to be completed. The process is slower than how I would normally work, and requires a lot of patience. I am basing these images off of the cartoon strip-like water color trio from a few weeks ago. First I pick out the main colors and mix up a batch in acrylic. This is actually difficult to do because watercolors bleed and blend so much that no shape is a single color, but I do my best. Then I paint a sheet of paper that color and let it dry. I usually create all my color swatches at once, which really forces me to think in advance about what each color is going to do in the composition and how it will interact with the other shades and hues. After I have decided that I have a variety of swatches to work with and a range of value and intensity, I start to cut out the various shapes and play with their placement on the board.

Acrylic and paper collage mounted on cardboard

I am playing around with the size of the paper cutouts, and whether a shape is made of a single piece of paper, or whether it is comprised of various small pieces together. I like building up my shapes the way I would with brush strokes. Using one large piece, like in the background of the bottom collage, reminds me the paint can effect on KidPix. But I also like the comparison between larger, flat expanses and the agitation from stitching bits together. I also am exploring the addition of non-cut out elements to the collage. In both works I either used a paintbrush or charcoal to go back and rework the space.

Acrylic, charcoal and paper collage mounted on cardboard

2007-10-11T23:17:00.000-04:00

I don't have any new art to post this week, but this afternoon I went to an exhibition opening at the Slought Foundation. The exhibition is by the artist Braco Dimitrijević, called "The Casual Passer-By I Met at 3.01 pm, Philadelphia, April 9, 2007." Although the artist and his work pose interesting questions about anonymity, fame, and artist-subject relationships, I was much more interested in Slought's attempt to move outside the traditional gallery setting. The mega-sized portrait was hung outdoors on the side of the Fresh Grocer building, which in itself takes the art outside of the gallery, available to the public. But there were a series of "conversations" that went along with it, as well. Today's opening did not have wine and cheese inside the gallery, but was composed of 4 gatherings of people at various sites near the Foundation. The one I went to was with the artist, and someone from Slought recording what he was saying on an iPod. About 15 people huddled around him in the cold and asked questions, although it was difficult to hear.

"The Casual Passer-By I Met at 3.01 pm, Philadelphia, April 9, 2007" by Braco Dimitrijević

Particularly in the context of works that are attempting to interact with the public, it makes sense that any relevant discourse should also be available to the public. And it was, but the same problem still remained. Although people walking by noticed a group swarming around in a circle on the sidewalk, unless you already knew about this and had the map of where to go, how many random people just stopped to listen? And if they did, were they intimidated and left? How can you integrate art more fully into public life than having a conversation about it on a park bench? But this still does not seem like enough. There are still people that are alienated, and it still gives off an intellectual air of superiority.

"Conversation" sites in University City

Despite these complaints, I am continually impressed with Slought's dedication to broadening contemporary art's audiences. The fact that artistic discussions came out to the sidewalk is in itself fascinating and in my mind becomes its own form of art. The idea of placement inside or outside of dividing walls to define our behavior is very interesting. Certain spaces have somehow been deemed the most appropriate to present, view, celebrate, and discuss art, but why can't that happen elsewhere? Although public works like Dimitrijević's begin this process by broadcasting to the public, it does so by attempting to transform a public space into an "art-appropriate" space. It ends up taking the elite and intimidating aspects of the art world and pasting it on a public space. Public conversations may also be trying to transform theater steps and park benches into "art-appropriate" spaces, but they also create a platform in which anyone could potentially participate, and at least begin to break down the walls between galleries and the outside. If we are going to hang giant artworks for the public in public places, we should also allow for a more intimate interaction with this work; the only way we can successfully do this is to discuss its penetration of our everyday lives, not just look at it.

2007-10-04T01:21:00.001-04:00

oil on paper

This week I am having a mini-show at Dhyana Yoga in Old City. They are having an open house as part of Philadelphia's First Friday events. It is very low key, but I am very excited about it. This is the first time I am showing my work in Philadelphia, and it will be along side influential Old City galleries, even if they don't realize the yoga studio even has art.

oil on paper

All of the works are from this year, although the paintings on paper are from my time at Swarthmore and the two on canvas were completed about a week ago. I don't have exact sizes, but they are all roughly 3 inches in width. The show also includes two oil paintings on paper from earlier in the summer, which were included in one of the first posts here.

oil, wax and charcoal on canvas

This one (above) is my favorite. Although hard to see in the photograph, the red shape is painted with wax, which gives it a very matte finish. I liked sculpting the figure out with the wax, and how it is so heavy it has plopped down in space. There is very little depth in this image, it is all working on one plane, but I like the simple relationship that sets up between the red and black shapes.

oil on paper

oil on paper

oil on canvas

When I stopped painting this piece, I didn't think I was done and I intended on returning and changing things around. It was also the piece that I fussed over the most during the painting process. I don't think the extra fussiness particularly helped much, and I'm glad I didn't end up going back to rework it. I might try another similar one and change things around. For example, I would have made the small turquoise ball more intense to make it stand out more. But now I wonder why I always think that is necessary. Do the smaller shapes always have to be the most obvious? Can other shapes attract your eye for its color, and not just its size? I want to work on playing with color, size and placement to intentionally draw the viewer's eye into one area, but not have it always be the same kind of area. Although not nearly successful yet, this painting is a start in the right direction, as although the turquoise blob does not glare at you, once the viewer sees it, its small size and blurred outline bring about questions of its role in the space. It demands attention that way because it is not so obvious, but still holds the other shapes together.

2007-09-21T21:56:00.000-04:00

9 1/2 x 2 1/2 in (24.1 x 6.4 cm)

6 1/2 x 5 1/2 in (16.5 x 14.0 cm)

6 x 5 in (15.2 x 12.7 cm)

7 1/2 x 2 1/2 in (19.0 x 6.4cm)

2007-09-15T01:16:00.000-04:00

This week I have been working from a photomontage by Hannah Hoch, "The Coquette I." Hoch was a rather influential artist working in the German Dada group, but one of the few, if not the only, woman that received any attention at the time, and even that paled in comparison to her male counterparts. I am drawn to her work not for its critiques and discussions about society, although that is also captivating, but for its aesthetic qualities. The use of newspaper and black and white photographs limits the colors that she uses, and the objects/figures are roughly cut out shapes stuck into a new space. In the piece below, I was also particularly struck by the red oval behind the beetle; despite it's small size, it stands out amongst everything else.

Hannah Hoch - The Coquette I: (Die Kokette I) 1923-1925 photomontage, 18.5 x 20.5 cm

When using Hoch's image as a reference, I used the same general shapes and values as her cutouts for my starting point. I did not want it to look like her figures, but to simplify and find new forms and relationships from her composition. The watercolor below is a product of about 3 paintings before it, each using the previous painting as a reference. I intentionally do not adhere to exact shapes, as I enjoy watching objects morph into new forms on their own.

5 1/4 x 4 1/2 in (13.3 x 11.4 cm)

The next series of 3 came as a way for me to explore the scale and placement of the various objects in space. Everything was simplified so that I could play around with where things were placed in relation to other objects.

1 3/4 x 5 1/2 in (4.5 x 14.0 cm)

Although I have used this process many times before and made many series of paintings that explore placement and scale, this was the first time I have realized that a narrative is created. The different shapes become characters, and they move around from one scene to the next interacting with each other.

My first watercolors

2007-09-05T22:37:00.001-04:00

4 x 4 1/2 in (10.2 x 11.4 cm)

After moving to a new apartment this summer and finding that I have a much smaller space to work in than at Swarthmore (my tiny cubicle in Beardsley seems huge in comparison to my new space), I spent a long time struggling with my art making environs. I felt confined and restricted to working at my desk, sitting down, as opposed to on an easel with room to walk around and pace back and forth. This translated to a reluctance to paint, which was rather disheartening. I found that while I wanted to paint, I ended up frustrated that I couldn't paint the way I wanted to. The current solution I have found is my new watercolor set. I have never used watercolors before, so this is an experiment, and it is sort of like I am learning how to paint all over from the very beginning. They are much quieter, and offer a more tranquil, desktop-appropriate alternative, which I am thoroughly enjoying. Watercolors have a very different feel than oils, and it is very fun to explore the properties of the paint. I have not given up oil completely, and I hope to combine the two in the same piece soon.

3 1/4 x 4 1/2 in (8.3 x 11.4 cm)

These 2 watercolors stem from the oil paintings below, which originally came from a few Bonnard paintings. I do not intend for the final product to necessarily look like a copy of its source image, but as a way to explore and push the various shapes and colors in space. Shapes will get expanded or shrunk, rotated, colors get darker or brighter, and different compositions will become melded together into one.

Paintings from the summer

2007-09-05T22:09:00.002-04:00

6 x 5 3/4 in (15.2 x 14.6 cm)

3 7/8 x 4 1/4 in (9.8 x 10.8 cm)

3 7/8 x 4 in (9.8 x 10.2 cm)

2007-09-04T15:55:00.000-04:00

This blog is being made as a way for me to share my artwork with others. It is also motivation for myself to keep producing things, and so that I feel like I have somewhere that my work is going.