Venture

• June 9th, 2008 • 0 Comments • painting •

Ok, so work has had me busy working on cutesy projects for other people. That’s fun, but last Friday I did some ceramic painting for ME. I’m actually excited; looking through my old work has re-inspired me. The symbols seem relevant again and I feel compelled to work with them. Pulling things out of the kiln has a similar feel to flipping back the felts on the press, except–my goodness–it’s teaching me some patience. I was done painting Friday and didn’t get to see the results until Monday? Man oh man.

Capsule Breach 04
8″ x 8″ glazes on ceramic tile
(Click for a larger version.)

Production

• August 2nd, 2005 • 0 Comments • meandering, painting •

There haven’t been any new posts or updates to the site recently. I came to the very happy realization that it is because I am producing work! Not busy, not distracted, producing!

It has also been noted that I have a large and growing amount of drawings and watercolors on office paper samples. I am considering putting together some sort of collection, and am partially curious as to whether or not I could get a show of them somewhere. Their cohesiveness is pretty strong, and they look good together. However, I’m not entirely sure about the local artists’ associations. I had considered joining; upon further investigation most of the art is not abstract, nor is it conceptual; thus I am not sure about the camraderie available. Watch though, I’ll go to one of their meetings and everything will be fine. Maybe they need an abstract/conceptual artist about?

Flipping through the Tamarind book I found has put a bee in my bonnet: I want to print! Sadly, it’s been over a year since I have run something through a press. (Last time was my trip to Glasgow; I still haven’t printed an edition of the damn lovely plate I made over there.) Money has been tight, so I have been unable to purchase new screen material for those old screen frames I found: no serigraphy either. This needs to be rectified…

In the meantime, watercolor is proving to be a good substitute—plus I found a new adding machine! Well, “new” being the operative word. It’s a 1980s model Canon printing calculator. Makes delightful tapes of numbers and the current roll of paper takes watercolor and ink well. Perhaps I’ll put up a digital gallery of the tape paintings, I’m pleased with how they’re turning out.

Wow, two posts in one week!

• April 28th, 2005 • 0 Comments • painting, papermaking •

Quoting Bill and Ted, “Whoa!” Today was such a beautiful day, I HAD to go back down to the studio this evening. My fundage is a little tight right now, which means everything that can be painted on will be painted on. Paper supplies are VERY low, mostly due to my lack of place to store a varied stock. When there’s no paper, what’s a girl to do? Make some, of course!

There have been a couple of pulp balls lying around all winter, so I reconstituted them. While they broke up well, methinks I need to get ahold of a cheap egg beater to break up the smaller chunks. The ol’ potato masher just doesn’t cut it. Despite large paper chunks, I decided to make two sheets for painting on tomorrow. It’s nice and warm and dry outside tonight. In addition, I took some of the wood chunks that are building up around my newest “painting” and threw them in for a third sheet of extra-chunky paper.

* * *

If my vast memory serves (and by looking back ONE post…) I took a photo of the very beginnings of the “painting”. I’m somewhat skittish about taking another one as it’s in a working stage. As I’m no longer in a college environment, my work is more prone to people telling me what my artwork looks like. Spindle, as it’s tentatively titled, had already been subject to being labeled as a recognizable item. May I say, “Arrrrgh!”? Telling me what a non-objective artwork is irritates me to no end. Granted most folks need to know what an object is in order to make sense of it, so it really isn’t fair of me to feel irritated. Nevertheless I am, and so I won’t show any photos of what Spindle looks like. So there. Nyaaaah.

I’m faced with a problem in creating Spindle. Room and time. One, space is at a premium in Studio 4A. This project is somewhat large. Two, I have not had time to find a show space in which to present my large-scale paintings. These works NEED to be in a show. I am convinced that they are successful; Anxiety Beast was the only one to make it into my only show, and it isn’t nearly as delightful as the Industrial Strength Tryptic. I’d love to be able to have a show of the larger paintings…but it isn’t possible right now. Sigh. Perhaps the Summertime will offer more opportunities?

Finished!

• November 6th, 2004 • 0 Comments • jobs, painting •

Oh, I am so happy! I finished my first full painting in Studio 4A. It’s still slightly wet, but it’s up on the wall and ready to be photographed when the daylight hours appear again. Entitled “Planet,” the five-paneled piece I feel is quite successful. Though it’s not apparent to the casual observer it makes me quite glad to have used neglected canvases that were once doomed to never again see the light of day.

Painting is good, but I do miss printing. My last print pulled was when I was in Glasgow, Scotland for a week in the Summer. I desparately wanted to edition it upon returning home, but alas, life keeps getting in the way. Though there is a ray of hope: I visited PRINT Press in Denton, where I used to work part-time while I was in school. Currently, they are involved in a very alternative reproductive project that does not in any way involve the press as it is three-dimensional. My scheme involves visiting with the box of goodies I produced in Scotland and beg for some press time, since they love me ever so much. Please please please. . .! Life has a way of keeping me from printing; I could not for the LIFE of me get hired after I returned from Europe. It was the old “you have too much/too little” experience deal. I knew that the brand new BFA graduate would experience some trouble getting hired, but c’mon! Barns and Noble wouldn’t even take me!

Thus, I have been thrown into a crash course of what every art student needs to know, but was never taught in school. Networking. No, it’s not one of those crazy corprate buzzwords, it’s a simple way of saying you must talk yourself up to people you want a job from. Networking won’t work at retail stores because they don’t give a horses behind how much you bother them. Really, most retail managers want someone who is obedient and will do as told. You have to learn who to talk to, where to go, and what to do. Me, I’m shy to a certain degree, though I have no doubts about my abilities. It’s simply scary to go and ask someone “gimmie a job” while at the same time trying to impress them. It’s all who you know, right? Well, you have to go meet people so you’ll know them.

In the meantime, I plan to: be patient, make art, stay away from retail jobs that will gunk up my resume. I worked retail over summer semesters in school: retail is poison to independent thinkers. I would rather ask for financial help from family members and struggle with freelancing than work retail. I know, it sounds completely snobbish. But honestly, if I put the time and energy into working hard, I am going to work hard at finding a job that won’t cause my brain to whither into a raisin, rather than moving low-rise jeans from one side of Old Navy to the other.

FINALLY

• October 30th, 2004 • 0 Comments • painting, supplies •

This evening was a most productive one.

From Michael’s mother’s studio, I recieved six 8″x10″ canvases that have been doing nothing but collecting dust. Previously in the week I prepared the surfaces of five of them (the sixth was involved in an accident which pierced its surface, thus I will paint something else on it). The surface prep consisted of a very very oily mixture of zinc white and boiled linseed oil from the hardware store.

There has always been much tongue clicking from people who insist on using art store linseed oil: the seven-buck-for-4-ounce bottle kind. Two notes on hardware store boiled linseed oil — one, it is yellow and yellows even more over time, and two it comes in large quantities for not much money. I use a LARGE amound of oil in my work. At times my paintings take a week or two to dry because of the oil, not to mention the humidity. Art store linseed oil is simply not practical!

Linseed oil rants aside, the five canvases did indeed take over a week to dry to the touch, though thicker chunks of paint were quite wet. In about an hour this evening, the five evolved into a multi-paneled work I am entitling Planet. While I was very pleased with the results, it will most-likely take at least three weeks before I will be able to make the final judgement call on whether or not Planet is indeed finished.

The sixth panel with its canvas wound evolved into something completely different. For the first time, I combined screws and canvas. This piece is nameless and thus will probably not be finished for a while.

Moving back toward my more comfortable medium of wood screws and plywood, I did a “sketch” for another project which involves used computer parts. This nonsense has been ruminating in the back of my head for several years now and has finally surfaced. Family and friends are being called upon so that I may relieve them of old/non-working computers to get parts for the project. HOPEfully the computer part project will reach a climax rather than sink back into the depths of my scattered brain.