Intentionally left blank

It's Wednesday, it's true, but I'm so bogged down in details that I have nothing to give you today. Come back next week. I'll be posting images from the (e)merge Art Fair at the Capitol Skyline Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Love!

MIssed our date

Sorry I missed you on Wednesday. Things are getting tedious around here.

Things in the studio have slowed down as I pack the work up and prepare to send it off on a complicated choreography back and forth across the country. The boxes I ordered weeks ago are cheap and unworthy for the job. Not their fault, just a bad pick on my part. They'll make it to their first destinations but not the second. The flimsy cardboard will be destroyed by brutish handling, hand trucks and conveyer belts. The artwork will be fine because I insulate well with 1/2" foam cut to fit the boxes and everything is snug inside. And on the outside I've reinforced with edge protectors on all four vertical edges.  I wish I had done something about the boxes as soon as I had them, but my attitude was too casual. I had gotten the summer's work done and I was tired. I wanted to go to music lessons and swim meets with my kids. A good trade even in retrospect. Now, after a day of research I know all about edge crush and bursting tests that rate box strengths. I'll order new boxes in the morning, custom sizes to match the old ones, and they'll arrive in time at the artworks' destinations so that I can smoothly transfer, insulation and all, to new, tougher boxes for the second leg of their journeys.

You might be wondering why I don't just use crates. I gave up on them a while back because freight charges are expensive and freight is slow. Also, where do artists store their crates? The answer is in their studios and I've got other, better plans for that space.

Helio Oiticica and Lygia Clark

Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica:
A Legacy of Interactivity and Participation for a Telematic Future
by Simone Osthoff

Translating Geometric Abstraction into a Language of the Body

Clark and Oiticica questioned representation in art by examining ideas inherited from modern avant-garde movements--Neoplasticism, Constructivism, Suprematism and Concrete Art--that broke with mimesis and assumptions of realism. In the late 1950s, they reframed modernist notions of universal aesthetics by translating them directly into life and the body. Weaving a web of relationships around the body's internal and external spaces, they relayed a Modern European geometric abstract tradition to Brazilian vernacular culture. This syncretic process fused two very different traditions--a Western aesthetic canon that privileges vision and metaphysical knowledge, and Afro-Indigenous oral traditions in which knowledge and history are encoded in the body and ritual is profoundly concrete. It must be noted that, in a true syncretic spirit, both traditions have always coexisted in Brazilian society at large, but it was not until Oiticica began working that this syncretism was methodically investigated in the visual arts. read more...

Sewanee Installation

Traveling Today -- University of the South

Shipping and planning

Packing is a puzzle. There are many moving parts that need to fit together. Yes, they all need to fit into the boxes as perfectly as possible, but also different pieces travel to various parts of the country and then meet up again in another city. It's like I'm  sending the band off on a national tour. I need to make sure they arrive safely and economically. Some of the members have solo gigs along the way, too. One of the reasons I make modular work is because it makes shipping simpler. This is not a cop-out. It is a compromise, though. The work reflects the compromises I have to make -- that any of us make if we're not in the 1% -- in order to continue doing what I do. I'm not frustrated by this at all. The reality of practical living is just another dimension of the work and I like to see it clearly communicated.

still

I cleaned my studio this morning in preparation for the final phases of my summer work. In the meantime I continue to prepare for my show at the end of the month at Sewanee/University of the South. The table awaits new pours. Older ones cure like pasta on the rack on the right.

Goodbye summer

Well, the summer is coming to a close and so is this great expanse of time I've had in the studio. I'll soon be thinking about packing and shipping this work off to Sewanee, DC, Austin, and Chicago, and then my full attention will go to my curatorial project and teaching. The nature of my posts will change, but how? See you next Wednesday!

Scrap wood

2012 has been a summer of play, experimentation, self-doubt and diving in head first. Mostly I've  gone with my gut and resisted the temptation to analyze. This blog has been a way for me to push my studio experiments out the door before their time, before I've had the chance to think better of it. This is why the blog makes me uncomfortable, but I think it's important to feel uncomfortable in order to make interesting work.

I don't know how I feel about these scrap wood paintings. I've been making them all year and I never show them, but when people see them in my studio they love them. It may be time to think about how they figure into the bigger fabric of my work. For now, I'm throwing these two (new this week) out there for you.

New beginning after two weeks away

Two weeks on the road was a palette cleanser. I'm back now with new ideas about ongoing work. I made the green piece last year as part of a larger installation and have been meaning to make other paintings of embedded thrift store items since. The top two are ones I made this week. I'll be posting more as I make them.

Dumplings

I know this post is kind of facebooky, but I couldn't resist this food shot. For now I'm still in NY, enjoying another artform. I'll be back in the studio next Wednesday.

Summer Holiday

I'm away from the studio this week and next so I have no process shots to share. Instead  I thought I'd share an image from last summer at this time, when I was installing work at Kiang, Atlanta. Next week I'll post gallery highlights from summer shows in NY.

Happy 4th -- This does not feel like Wednesday.

Some people think of painting as a window on the world. These paintings are windows on the wall. I'm playing with the relationship of canvas to plexi, thus the small build canvas sitting on the top edge. Not much more today - it's a holiday. Happy Independence y'all!

New Modular

Thirty newly painted red and creamy panels. They had a hard time coming into the world but they're here at last. Fifteen red and fifteen cream. They will spend their time leaning,resting,and languishing in various formations. Their energy comes not only from their color but also lies beneath their surfaces, which carry the very subtle memory of trial and error.

a new build painting

Cheap Entertainment

The flat screen mounts are a signifier for cheap entertainment, which made me think of optical illusions.They're a corny substitute for TV.  I painted this on acrylic film which is wrapped around a canvas.

This is an optical illusion, too, but it doesn't work unless the image is flat. The illusions need the support of the canvas, even though the paintings don't

New Modulars (sketch)

These are the new frames, built with holes every two inches allowing for many more outcomes than the previous modulars. The last iteration of this project had two holes on each frame's edge, so that there were only four possible relationships between any two panels. Now, the grid is under siege with the promise of unexpected, even contingent results.

This project has always discouraged a singular vision, insisting instead on options that allow it to respond to existing architectures. But now order is being threatened and I'm uncomfortable. The panels can stand as free bodies on their own as long as they are in groups, but I keep them pushed against the wall, lest they forget their roots.

They're like erector sets and the great thing about them is they encourage creative play. Ultimately I'd like to present this opportunity to the viewer by designing a piece durable enough to be assembled and disassembled during exhibition. 

AWFFLE HOUSE SPECIAL

Drop two hash browns, one smothered, peppered, and capped.

This siding once clad the garage that became my studio two years ago. It was old and dirty and painted white. I still have scraps in my studio that I may do something with one day. I thought it would be great to strip it down and then have it chrome plated. I imagined going to the plating shop where all the guys go to have their vintage headlights and bumpers carefully restored. I'd walk in beaming with my mangled pieces of aluminum. I would feel the same pride in my siding that they felt with their '49 Town and Countries and '29 Caddies, willing to pay the big bucks, because triple chrome plating is the way to go if you care about your details and I do. I really do. And I did, but in the end the job was bad and it blistered within a few days. So I went the elegant route, one silver (au naturel) and one gold*. Sure it takes maintenance to keep the mirror finish buffed up like the side of a tanker, but hun,  it's worth it. The other painting is smothered with gold powder coating, peppered with metallic flecks and capped with an extra shiny clear coat.



*Makes me think of Burl Ives, which makes me feel safe, but a little sad because Rudolf is a lonely story and the North Pole is desolate even in puppet land, and a Jewish kid watching Rudolf TRNR feels more than a little like Rudolf right down to the hero fantasy.

A View From The Easel

Check out my studio on Hyperallergic