November 30, 2007
From David Byrne's recent post on the fashion of art and the art market bubble:
Despite all the shouting, noise and crap, one can choose to look the other way and see something genuine and fascinating.
November 29, 2007
Deborah Fisher has a great post on what she feels sculpture to be.
November 27, 2007
Currently reading Unrepentant Ego: The Self Portraits of Lucas Samaras.
Donald Kuspit writes: (regarding Samaras's art as a device for rebuilding a damaged ego)
"Freud said that the ego must assert itself against the oppressive demands of the id, superego, and external reality, and at the same time it must acknowledge and gratify them; otherwise the ego would be torn apart, resulting in the complete loss of self control. To avoid this fate the ego must become creatively non-compliant and must generate the critical creativity necessary for it to master the competition and sustain itself. Creatively enduring their pressures becomes a way of building autonomy and critical consciousness."
Samaras's work exudes a pure energy that I can not help but feed on.
November 26, 2007
Just recently subscribed to a great site anygivenname.org. Their about page states the "Purpose of this blog is to showcase assorted extraordinary works in areas of art & design, without having too much to say or comment."
November 23, 2007
Diorama Detail | Museum of Natural History | Los Angeles
Went to the Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles a while back and spent 3.5 hours taking pictures. They had to kick me out as I was still shooting after everyone left. What stuck with me most were the fish dioramas. Beautiful forms on colored backgrounds, lit from above to create a gradation similar to water.
It was inspiring to see and it definitely has a relationship to my work. If nothing else, it affirms my own vision of how I see my work progressing. There have been times when seeing something had the opposite affect.
I've come to the conclusion that my dinky dining room isn't going to cut it for a studio space (didn't take me very long) so I've started looking near downtown LA. What I need is 500-600 ft2, cement floors, lots of wall space, high ceilings (at least 9 ft) and plumbing.
November 8, 2007
While searching for images of Carroll Dunham's work to show a friend I came across this four part interview for BOMB Magazine on the event of his retrospective at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York in 2003. I actually got to see this show during a trip to NY (my inaugural visit) for a grad class. This was the first time I had ever seen Dunham's work and, needless to say, I was blown away. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. I'm still warming up to his recent work. But, of course, I have yet to see it in person.
October 26, 2007
Untitled (in-progress) | 22 x 16 inches
This piece was started a while ago and has sat in my studio among many unfinished works. Since the move, I've been trying to reconcile all of this build-up to have some information to work from, failure or success.
The scape-down was necessary after a thick application a couple of weeks before. I'm more responsive to this now. The color still isn't quite right (I liked it better before, more muted) but the effect is closer. I've cut out an outline as to where the main form will be moving. Looking at the original source reminded me why I liked it so much. The shape was more fragile, awkward and less balanced.
September 23, 2007
The hardboard surface covering my studio table
My cats spilled a huge bucket of clay-filled water on my studio table a while ago and it created this great composition. What I like about it is that it looks more like an object than a flat shape. Reminds me of the ceramic shell gating used in casting. I usually find this part of the process more beautiful than the finished bronze. Of course, I'm not a big fan of bronze.
I was able to put some time in the studio this week. Started by reworking a painting I started a while ago. The critique that came back was that it needed more paint. So that's what I did, added a lot more paint. Trying not to make any judgments about it yet.
It's hard getting from idea to realization. Even harder when you lack a clear idea/vision of what finished means. In the past I've felt that having the most crystallized idea was the answer. The result would be exactly what I was looking for, I thought. This has produced formulaic results. What's missing in this formula process is a philosophy regarding the obstacles that happen along the way. I've viewed them as just that, obstacles, rather than creative injections that can provide richer meaning to the final work.
I'm working towards a broader view as to what "finished" means. So far, absorbing obstacles into the creative process makes "finished" even harder to describe.
September 14, 2007
The new and somewhat smaller studio | Click image to view larger
Been wanting to update the site for some time but I been in the midst of a huge move from Dallas to Los Angeles. It was a real bear to find a place within our price range as LA is way more fu@&ing expensive than good ole' Dallas. The new place is 800 sq. ft. and runs $1145 a month compared with 1000 sq. ft. for $725. Luckily it came with a fridge (not so common in LA I hear), but sans central heating and air (unlike the Dallas apt.). The lone heater (pictured behind my tool box above) isn't as much of a problem (Elizabeth feels differently) but the lack of AC was a real problem when the temp was 94° a little while ago (with western exposure!).
So far, LA has been great. Getting settled has taken some time but we're almost done. I plan on getting to work in my new studio this week. Which brings me to the subject of this post. My studio practice as been highly neglected for some time now (I hate saying how long). My focus has been on learning web development and starting my one man show, PortfolioRodeo. I won't go into detail about the business except to say that it's my freelance web development business focusing on websites for artists.
As we all know, it takes money to be an artist and my (former) day job as a gallery director wasn't cutting it. As a result, I decided to use my studio time to earn extra money making websites. This turned into a real time sucker and I also found that I was using coding as an excuse to not work in my studio as it was much easier to be successful as a web developer than an artist.
Since the move I have gotten to the point where I think I can better balance the two. The business is doing well and I'm a much better developer than I once was. Now the hard part starts.
Where do I start? Having to pack up one's studio can be pretty eye-opening. Things you've held onto for so long believing they would become useful suddenly become extra weight with the thought of dragging them 1500 miles. The cleansing effect is enormous. I was immediately able to valuate something when space and labor were at a premium as opposed to before when I could just stuff it away somewhere.
There was a flip side as well. Finished and unfinished works that I had grown indifferent about became instantly invaluable. I dug up a lot of things that I had started but never finished for lack of head space. This is where I'll be starting. I'm not necessarily jazzed about all the unfinished work but I have to start somewhere and this is a place as good as any.
I also have older work to post in the portfolio section of the site. I just haven't had much time. It's sometimes hard to see the value of past work when my current work is so different. This also, of course, gives me time to get far enough away from previous work to realize the commonalities it has with more recent work (more like a kick in the head than a "realization").
So look forward to that. As always though, I've been actively posting photos to the blog.
August 8, 2007
Thanks DesignMeltdown for highlighting me in your "Personal" site gallery. I only noticed because my visitor stats shot up 12x.