One Month In...

Academic Update
I've been doing a lot of reading. Have finished four books so far. Really enjoying them:

• High Times Hard Times, NY Painting 1967-1075, by Katie Siegel (editor)
  
• Artscience: Creativity in the Post-Google Generation, by David Edwards
• Ways of Seeing, by John Berger
• A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Impostor Poodles to Purple Numbers, by V. S. Ramachandran

Seems I'm going down an interesting science path that I quite honestly didn't expect. Learning a little bit about how the brain works and am finding it quite fascinating, especially in comparison to my theosophical views about consciousness and object-attachment.

Studio Renovation Update
Things are slowly moving along. The storage space that needed to be cleared out is almost empty. I've got a call into my carpenter (who said he had time next week, so I'm trying to solidify). If I don't hear back I have a few other people to call. I've got an electrician lined up once the first round of construction is done.

Update on First Large Piece
I'm not very motivated to work on the small studies right now. I felt a need to just dive into this "big" piece and see what I come up against. So far it's been fun. I'm going slowly, I've finished the first set of layers and am thinking very consciously about what happens next. I've got different ideas and not sure how I feel about any of them yet. So not sure what I'll do. Maybe that will motivate me to test out some ideas on a smaller scale.

Here's the best photo I could take of it, given my cramped quarters.



And a detail of one of the panels...



Trip to NYC
I went to the Chelsea galleries yesterday. It's summer, and a Saturday so things are slow, but there was one show in particular (Horror Vacui at McKenzie Fine Art) that closes on August first and I wanted to see it, and it was worth the effort. Saw some great work that reminded me, that there are plenty of other artists out there who "fill the field" and deal with space (or the lack of it) like I do, and it's always a treat to see how they work, and to try and deconstruct their process. I found a wonderful new artist that I hope to learn more about: Andrea Way. Although, it's a bit frustrating. As I looked at her work (and find more online) I'm discovering a similar vocabulary and think, 'darn someone else is already doing what I'm trying to do, now how do I separate myself from that?' This business isn't easy! :-)

Galleries/Exhibitions Visited...

• SVA—School of Visual Art, "Science as Muse"
• Avant Gallery, Ma Yanling, "Tian an men"
• Agora Gallery, "Elements of Abstraction," "Labyrinth of Color," "Persistence of Form"
• SOHO20, "14th Annual International Exhibition"
• Gallery Adler New York, "Who Are You? Faceless Tableaux Vivants"
• CUE Art Foundation. "Joan Mitchell Foundation 2007 MFA Grant Recipients
• Amos Enos Gallery, Wei-Hui Hse, "Camouflage"
• McKenzie Fine Art, "Horror Vacui"
• Jeff Bailey Gallery, "This is Not About Landscape"
• George Billis Gallery, "City Lights"
• Sundaram Tagave Gallery, "In Your Minds Eye" and "Ricardo Mazal"
• Artgate Gallery, "Leave Nature to Nature"
• M.Y. Art Prospects, "Surreal Naivete"
• Garson Baker Fine Art, "Small Wonders"
  

Getting Ready For Working Large

It's been two weeks since the residency and I want to get back on track with my blog posts. I've been busy since June 30th.

I finished the first thought piece.

Studio Renovation
I spent the entire July 4th weekend cleaning out my basement so that I can knock down some walls and go from working in 85sf to about 225sf. My tenants need to move their things into the area I cleared out for them first. Then I need to get a carpenter in to tear down the walls and stud out a new one. Then I'll need to bring in an electrician to re-wire some things, add electrical outlets and some track lighting to the ceiling. Then the carpenter has to come back and put in the drywall. Then I'll paint everything and be ready to go. I'm hoping to get this all done by early August.

Color Study
One of the main topics in my critiques was about color. How do I make my color choices. Laurel and Hannah gave me some good exercises to do. First was to develop a color chip board. Then collect samples of images (from ANY source) that I like. Then use my color chip board to pull out the colors of the source material and use that as a color palette for a painting. I like the idea of that process, so thought I'd try it.

This lead me to an interesting discovery.

From DVD to Photo to Paint
I love the colors in science-fiction/fantasy movies. So I foolishly thought I could pop a DVD into my laptop and take a screen grab of a scene to use as a reference. But of course I couldn't do that -- because of copyright protection the screen grab feature is disabled when playing a DVD. So I popped the DVD into my TV and took photographs of the screen. Well in so doing, I was able to capture part of the TVs refresh rate as an interesting pattern that overlaid the source image. I liked the pattern so much, I blew it up and printed it out (tiled) at about 4 feet x 9 feet. It's going to be the base for my first large painting. If this pans out, the options are limitless. We'll see how it goes.

And so it seems the digital remains alive.

Here's a photo of my color chip board:




And here's a photo of the photo of my TV screen printed out large:



Next step on this piece will be to construct the 'ground' to present the painting on. I'm going to get three pieces of plywood, seal them with gesso and then glue the photos on top. Then paint over them. I'll be able to secure the three boards together for display, and can also work on them separately which will also make them easier to transport. We'll see how this structure works out for potential future pieces. I'm sure I'll be learning a lot.

Recommended Artists

Mark Tobey
Franz Ackermann
Hans Hofmann
Friedensreich Hundertwasser
Ellsworth Kelly
Stephan Westfall
Thomas Nozkowski
Robert Irwin
Agnes Martin
Dean Walsh
Rebecca Morris
Peter Young
Mary Heilmann
Fred Tomaselli
Philip Taaffe
Gerhard Richter
Rex Ray
Phil Frost
Heide Trepanier
Kristin Baker
Michelle Hinebrook
Lee Bontecou
Ed Ruscha
Urs Fisher
Chris Ofili
Yayoi Kusama
Sigmar Polke
Peter Doig
John Currin
Philip Guston
Rosemarie Trockel
Isa Genzken

3rd Semester Studio Independent Work Study

This semester I intend to pursue two simultaneous tracks:

1) A series of smaller paintings (8 x 10 or smaller), to deconstruct my work and formalize each part of the construct (color, pattern, forms) and to explore alternative materials other than paper (wood, canvas, aluminum, etc.) to refine my personal vocabulary and to begin to develop a very conscious and systematic approach to the process and materials. These smaller works will also intend to assimilate information gleaned from the academic process to better understand where my work fits in a historical context—to question the discoveries arrived at (historically) and how can I begin to break through that history, even just by one millimeter.

2) To use the information obtained through the smaller studies (above) to develop large paintings (55 x 90 as a minimum starting point) to create an “immersive” experience with the work.

A series of small of layered painting studies, and one to two large (paneled) paintings that expands on, and further defines my personal visual language that has evolved throughout the course of the semester and that supports the theoretical concepts that the work is intending to represent.

3rd Semester Academic Independent Study

Academic reading selections will evolve accordingly as the semester progresses. There will be a continued concentration on the history of contemporary painting and contemporary artists along with readings on theories that relate to work being conducted in the studio.

Current suggested readings include:

• Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion by Oliver Grau
• Eyesight Alone: Clement Greenberg's Modernism and the Bureaucratization of the Senses by Caroline Jones
• Painting Machines: Industrial Image and Process in Contemporary Art by Caroline Jones
• Monet, Narcissus, and Self-Reflection: The Modernist Myth of the Self by Steven Z. Levine
• Art and Objecthood by Michael Fried
• The Optical Unconscious by Rosalind E. Krauss
• Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag
• Ways of Seeing by John Berger
• Color in Art by John Gage
• Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye by Rudolf Arnheim
• Echo Objects: The Cognitive Work of Images by Barbara Maria Stafford
• A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Impostor Poodles to Purple Numbers by V. S. Ramachandran
• The Artful Eye by Richard Gregory, John Harris, Priscilla Heard, and David Rose
• Artscience: Creativity in the Post-Google Generation by David Edwards
• The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene

In addition to the readings, regularly scheduled field trips will be planned to NYC to visit the Chelsea galleries and museum exhibits for further research on contemporary artists of particular interest and to supplement the readings on current history in painting.

Five papers delivered at the start of each month (Aug thru Dec). The first paper is a summary of the residency and the last paper is a summary of the semester. The middle three pieces will begin to hone in on the topics to be included in my thesis.

In addition to the academic papers a blog will be maintained on a regular basis to document the process of the academic work (thoughts, reactions to gallery visits, readings, meetings with mentor, etc.) as it relates to the work being conducted in the studio. The blog to include images of work being conducted in the studio.