Ongoing: scroll 1: art on the floor

Art on Floor: WALL EDITION! brought to you by a broken pipe

Update: with all the heavy rain lately, art on floor is now...art-on-wall! I'll keep adding to it, but I'm starting a new one, too.The floor is my jam! I want to keep adding layers to this one though and push the composition to the edges on all sides./div>

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For the past few weeks I've been doodling and painting on this giant roll of paper on the floor.

Working on it mostly when I'm not sure what else to do or have extra paint to use up. Lately, though, it feels most comfortable and natural out of all the things I'm doing.

(Inspired in part by classmate Shea Justice's amazing scrolls, which he's been working on for the past ten years as political, social, and personal commentary. )

the whole thing so far-- almost time to roll out some more!

detail: left side

detail: right side

Series #5: Procession of the Magi

Procession of the Magi by Benozzo Gozzoli. My current muse.

 Characters in Search of a Story

 BIG IDEAS:

1. I love to draw characters. Often cartoony in style.

2. I love looking at fantastic and well-crafted landscapes. Often rendered classically.

3. I don't have a story to connect them. I wish I did! 

(Everything appears and wanders randomly in my brain).

If it were 500 years ago in Europe, and I needed a story, I would paint a scene from the Bible. I'd have structure, patronage, all the main characters, some creative license, and suddenly my work would have universal significance. Amazing! 

Case in point: this is one of my favorite paintings in the world, the Procession of the Magi by Benozzo Gozzoli, painted from 1459-1461. It's part of a series of frescos in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence.

Gozzoli put his contemporaries' faces on the biblical procession: you can see Medici family members Lorenzo, Piero the Gouty (on the white horse) and Cosimo (on a donkey) and even a self-portrait by the artist (he's one of the figures wearing a red hat, on the left side of the composition).

Why I enjoy this painting so much:

1. It represents a journey. In a macro-sense, I imagine a universal journey-- we're all traveling from one place to another, simultaneously in a crowd and alone. 

2. Multiple levels of meaning- can be interpreted on a Biblical level, or as a vehicle for the artist to comment on the society he lived in, or many other ways as well by the modern viewer.

3. Visually exciting to the eye. The wealth of detail, with imagination and observation combined to make this fantastic landscape (i particularly love the cliffs).

SO: Here is my idea:

to take my hipster-cartoonish characters for a journey though a medieval-style landscape.

Beginning: unknown. 

Destination: unknown.

Significance? Some kind of universal, life-long journey.

I'm hoping a story will emerge as I continue. Here's my first experiment so far:

1- cliffs

2- begin the parade

3- advancing steadily

4. onward and forward! Dad said it looked like an 'exodus', so i'm attempting to make the background more cheerful. They're not fleeing from anything in particular-- just traveling from somewhere to somewhere else.

Alright! we've got a mysterious futuristic structure in the foreground and I've been working hard to develop the topiary. There are so many details in the original 'Magi' painting--next time I'm working on a larger scale!

Series #4: Steph fails at minimalism

I was told by many observers that it might be a good exercise to pare myself down. This is hard! It requires thinking BEFORE painting. I prefer thinking WHILE making. I'm impatient! But I really tried.

My goal, again encouraged by my mentor Scott Listfield, was to take a few items from by many pages of silly ideas, puns, and one-liners, and turn each one into a painting. Originally I'd intended them as T-shirts or cards.

I bought 8 9x12 canvases for this series.

Attempt #1: Horse plus traffic cone equals unicorn.

The traffic cone is a transfer of an image i printed out on the computer.

Gotta keep it simple. Simple, simple, simple.

Ok! I think I am done!

Argh! why couldn't i just leave it alone??? taking a break.

Studies: medieval landscapes

Update: Getting mountain-happy
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Add caption

Getting medieval!

series of landscape studies, acrylic on on large, repurposed canvas. Still room on the canvas for at least 8 more!

I've always been fascinated with early landscape art, with its wonky perspective, fantastic shrubbery, and anatomically questionable inhabitants.

A recent visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum gave me the impetus to try it out.


Inspiration:

   I bought this book at a flea market in Cape Cod for $4. I went through it picture by picture and copied sections that caught my attention.

Landscape study: detail

Landscape study: detail

My first 'suite' of paintings! 6 character boards in various stages ofdevelopment.

Presenting... my first completed 'suite' of paintings! Not sure how they fare individually but it's nice to see them hanging together. I like to think of them as 6 sets of characters in different stages of development.

Troubles:

I was struggling mightily to reproduce the same style character cut-outs as the one I made for the residency (see top right). But it wasn't working-- my fingerprints kept dirtying up what was supposed to be a crisp white backdrop, the characters and poses weren't as inspired, and I was losing steam.

My mentor commented that making art is essentially about finding out who you are (disclaimer: he fully acknowledged the cheese inherent in this statement). At some point, looking at my foiled efforts to make two pieces of art that looked the same, I realized--  

I'm the sort of person who CAN'T do the same thing twice!

Routines confound me. Remembering to wash my face or take my crazy pills every morning has been a real struggle all of my life. As an art teacher, my biggest frustrations come from not being able to create a consistent studio environment for the kids-- between losing their seating charts and forgetting who does what job and not having proper places for things to 'go', I've become miserable  at times watching the classroom dissolve into chaos knowing that I, the guide, was totally helpless to get us back on track.

Luckily I'm good at inventing new tracks.

 So, rather than trying to REPRESS any differences in these groups of paper-cut characters, I let the mistakes lead the way. I attempted to showcase and react to the imperfections, rather than hide them... process as product, I suppose. Present weaknesses confidently and they're something like strengths...

More thoughts about the content:

Despite being crowded into busy compositions, most of the characters above are quiteisolated. Sometimes the most crowded places, like airports or parties, can be the loneliest. The figures react to each others' positions in subtle and overt ways. But though they peer or scowl at each other, most of them never touch.

However- in a few of the pieces, the figures reach out to each other and interact. In the last piece I made, I tried to imagine two characters tearing themselves free from their rigid posts and jumping into each others' arms.

Series #3: ocean print

New printing plate:

Took about 2 days to carve. The edges line up for an endlessly repeating pattern!

Process:

 

Inspiration: 

 My boyfriend Jon and I were in Provincetown, MA last week, and among all the galleries we saw, this one left the deepest impression! The Woodman/Shimko gallery features prints that are actually silkscreened panels of fabric originally designed as door hangings in Japan. I really enjoyed the combination of traditional technique/aesthetic sensibility with more modern content and composition. It reawakened my obsession with Japanese prints!

 

Experiments:

     Haven't had time to make a proper print of the plate yet, but I did some rubbings to make sure the edges lined up-- I was envisioning a tiled, wallpaper feeling similar to french toille (sp?) or japanese water designs.

extra rubbings collaged onto a painting of a mountain i was playing with earlier.

Series #2: Sticky-felt characters

While cleaning out my apartment, I came across a stash of self-stick black felt. Throwing things out has never been a strength of mine, so I took a break from packing boxes and made this:

Made 6 pages of characters in the past week and a half.

Pros:  (of working with the sticky-felt): no adhesive required, and the material is very stubborn and willful, which makes for unexpected shapes that are fun to react to.

Cons: lint and dust sticks to the edges of all the little creatures and the residue of the adhesive has a very grubby sort of feeling. Also, I think the black felt has a feeling that's a little too 'crafty' and cute.

 

Ready to move on to something new.

Series #1: cut-paper characters

Update: June 17th, 2012:

Not loving these. How did I keep the first one I made so clean? The matte medium accumulates fingerprints and dust bunnies. And rather than energetic and fresh, it feels labored and forced.

I call this one 'paper characters: the racially sensitive edition'

Found a more successful method for keeping the overall picture clean. Rather than using matte medium, I painted a heavy layer of blue acrylic and adjusted the edges with an awl. 

Step 1 for maintaining a cleaner surface: paint background color thickly with acrylic.

Step 2: adjust position and flatten edges with an awl. Be sure to clean the awl constantly!

Another idea. I don't like the way it turned out, it's kinda cluttered and rushed, but I like the whale. And the ninja plant.

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The plan: to make a series of these construction paper character grids. I made this one for the residency and was encouraged to make some more. Need to go buy some clayboard or panels!

Pros: I think this could be a good confidence builder for me and a good discipline-builder, too. 

         Plus, I have a feeling these might be 'coffeeshop friendly'-- able to be exhibited and sold, that is.

         Once I do the preliminary measurements, they're  pretty intuitive to make. I can get lost in the process   without having to "think" too much.

  

Cons: Tedious, labor-intensive, and a bit carpel-tunnel inducing. I may need to watch several series of a television show back-to-back while working on them to retain my sanity. 

Any suggestions? 

Former marathon TV-art marathon combos have included Avatar the Last Airbender, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Project Runway, and that strange art reality show called 'I Forget What'. Perhaps Art 21?

Studio Space

Update: Organization attempt! I've separated my studio space into zones. There's a now character wall, a landscape wall, a floor space for an ongoing I-don't-know-what-to-draw roll of paper, a collage corner, and an 'old stuff' corner. And a cardboard box for trash and old plastic cups that once contained inexpensive iced coffee.


Studio Location:
Basement, Humphreys St Studios, Boston, MA.

For the first time ever, I don't have to clean up after myself! Unless I feel like it.
It's pretty exciting to have a real space to make things.

My cell... er, chamber of creativity.

Entryway. This signmaker works here, too. He makes wood-carved plaques located all around Boston! I've seen many on Columbus Ave.

Lots of blacksmiths and woodcutters in this studio. Here's one of the biggest spaces-- the artist is a sculptor and stone-carver.

ARTSY FOTO ALERT! Sophie the mastiff makes a studio visit. Drooling ensues.

Introductory Rambles

STUDIO DILEMMA:


I have a studio space now! But I'm also moving out of my apartment in a week, going on a small vacation, thinking about the next year's elementary art curriculum and generally feeling crunched. The few times I've made it to the studio, I haven't been able to relax because I feel like time's already running low! So... questions...

How do artists discipline themselves? what's the process like? What separates art and hoarding? how do we make decisions when it seems that contemporary art is more about choices than anything else? And how do I be 'thoughtful' without putting so much pressure on myself that I become paralyzed?

I've been advised to take a peek at Maximalist artists. In particular, I'm wondering-- how do they work with so much material without getting overwhelmed?

For Fred Tomaselli, the answer is apparently tweezers. And resin and pages full of noses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5VuAzThzH_E&hl=en_US&fs=1?rel=0

RESPONSE TO F. TOMASELLI:
After seeing his work, I rolled out a big roll of crummy drawing paper and played with old homemade stamps, markers, and crayons. It'll stay on the floor, and I figure I can work on it when i'm not sure what else to do...

Monsterworks

As you can see, I had a very good view on the 4th of July.

Doodlebuddy on i-phone. a satisfying app indeed!

Residency #1: complete!

Here is my work from the first AIB residency (June, 2012).

Notice how the display deteriorates** as the week goes on!


(**by deteriorates, of course, i mean is "re-curated in a sophisticated attempt to encourage multiple interpretations, as is appropriate for an audience steeped in postmodern rhetoric")

group portrait of "Badd Crit", my talented fellow-artists of the class of 2014!