Phase 1 - appreciate and develop expertise - conclusion

For the last few weeks I've been hiding out in my art-hamsterball to finish Eros et Thanatos . Big thank you and much love to my family and friend for their support at the opening!


Picking back up with Tempus Fugit, Redux - I've been working on phase 1 redux "appreciate and develop expertise," and I made this lovely chart

I think the chart is a thing of beauty, but I feel like maybe I've been dragging my feet by dwelling on the details of an easy question instead of trying to take it farther and make it better (oy!).

The chart helps with an action plan (I'm going for the things in the overlapping sections first and the others as opportunities arise), but it leaves some harder questions like: "why would a person need/want these expertise," and "assuming it's possible and achievable - what then?"

Using the chart as a starting point - the "Drawing" bubble is the biggest and most central - (nerd alert: "Ah, drawing, my Deleuzian refrain!" ) This week, I practiced figure drawing

let's make some why? soup

Since I'm not much of a multi-tasker,
 I picked "why;" ("what for"
 will have to sit on the back burner for now) 

My first solo attempt at wood engraving, 
2 x 3,"focusing on carving for now 
 (this is a digital inverse of the block
- baby steps ...)

25 minutes

5 minutes

15 minutes

25 minutes

The other bubbles connect to and extend the Drawing bubble (all good), with one exception - the "Text" bubble. It's the only one disconnected from the "Drawing" bubble. Also, it's labeled "Text" not "Words." 

I got to thinking - the places I make are populated by animals and iterations of the same person so there is never any need for speech. In recent work (The Forest of And, And, And, Gemini, Night Owl) I've been using text that already has a rhythm and trying to turn it into a visual pattern.

Conclusion: I really prefer pictures to words

Trying to think through some of this things, I went to see "Story Tellers and Conjurers" at Carrie Haddad Gallery a couple of times earlier in the week (up until Dec. 8th) I enjoyed the mixed media exhibition [hums: to "These are a few of my Favorite Things.... the danse macabre and hybrid creatures - masks and puppets - birds, plants, and animals...] 

Things that helped me stir the why? soup:

1) The pieces work together to suggest a specific, imagined place. I've been wondering - Why create a place? I think it's not that it makes reality less, but that it offers an alternative - to me, it's like a teenager who wants to stay out past curfew, going from a single parent home to one with parents and stepparents. It's not that seeing an imagined place makes reality less authoritative, it's more that it suggests other options of places to go to get the answer one wants. (I could make a comment about Pygmalion / Weird Science here, but I think I've reached my "nerd quota" for the day - semi-resist!) 

trying to draw on the computer 
may still need a bit more practice....

In my ideal world - I would 

communicate entirely through

pictures, baked goods, and 

presents

2)  These paintings in the exhibition by Kahn & Selesnick incorporate text as an organic part of the iconography. I've been thinking about the relationship between pictures and words and how to include text in pictures in a non-shouting way (hmmmmmm - still thinking).

Circling back around to phase 1 Redux - I feel like one reason I love picture making is that I'm kind of a conversational turtle - may be incorporating the words into the picture could be a way of getting around this.  

Other conclusions from the chart - I think I may need to work on digital skills (eep.) I love, love drawing, but the results are spacially limited (they can only be in one place at a time). Technology could help...

On the docket for not too distant future - William Kentridge at the Met..(venturing out - turtle speed ;))

conversational turtle ....

phase 1 - multi pack of pre-cut, 3"stencils from big box store
(less than 10 cents each (!))

phase 2 - generic interpretation 

phase 3 - adding to that generalized version to try and create something specific and unique

my first comic

Very excited for the upcoming opening Saturday, but since the work is all delivered and installed, I decided to try a little something new...

my first comic 

And they all lived happily ever after ;)

Eros et Thanatos - Installed!

:) Eros et Thanatos installed!

It's biiiiiig

like, really big!

Some vignettes and "the list"

on view at Thompson and Giroux until Jan 5!

 

 

Eros et Thanatos update

No words today, just pictures :) 

 

 

mid-week update

I've instituted the "high-intensity schedule" in which I get up at 5 am and draw until 10 ish, then spend as much time as I can cutting foam core backing, gluing, sitting under weights, adhering hangers to, and photographing the earlier pieces (....tick, tock, tick, tock, tick tock...)

my feline assistants loooooove watching squirrels...

but I find chipmunks  even cuter (they're like mini-squirrels ;))

more parrots

and now they're a flock :)

getting a little crowded in here
(but no worries, they can be more spread out later -
for now,  I'm just trying to get as much as possible off the floor :))

Sometimes, something seems like a good ideas at 5 am, but by noon, I start to wonder....
(like today: "I'd like a new raptor, even though the paper isn't big enough" -
haha, thank goodness for the magic of collage ;) )

a rainy day in the studio