Archive for March, 2010

Salvaging un disastro

Posted on: March 17th, 2010
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my new title: salvage queen

Last week I went into the print studio with a plan. I had a grid marked out for the press bed, and was going to print a set of small plates multiple times on a large piece of paper. Nothing too seemingly complicated about that. I put my grid on the press bed, and proceeded to spend the next hour inking up the plates. Turns out, it was the wrong set of plates. UGH.

Well, what could I do? I printed them anyway – randomly on the big piece of paper. Made myself a huge mess – the paper was too wet, and in certain areas it pulled up onto the plate. I had written on the page with all kinds of materials – including watercolor crayons which ran all over the place. Oh well.

There’s always the possibility of ripping and reconfiguring the thing. So that’s what I did. It continues to amaze me – the power of a bunch of marks on a page.

Enough is Enough

Posted on: March 9th, 2010
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or, “that’s enough” as my mother often said

I’ve been working on re-designing my website and incorporating a news page into it for several months. At the beginning of each of the last four weeks (at least) I’ve told myself: this week I’m going to finish this thing and get it out there. Today, I finally decided enough is enough; so here it is.

I’m not sure how often I’ll write new posts, but I’m hoping it will be often enough to keep it interesting. The image to the left is a detail of a painting that’s on the wall right now. As with more and more of my work, it started with a bunch of words on a page. It now has a few layers of wax on top of the words, but many of the word marks are still quite visible, and even somewhat legible. The writing was all about “enough”, so it seemed fitting for this post.

Vestiges (of work unseen) from VSC

Posted on: March 5th, 2010
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moving forward and back

Yesterday I went into the print studio to pick up the prints I had done last week. Looking at the work I was reminded of work I’d done at the Vermont Studio Center about 9 years ago. Back then (in 2001 at VSC) I was trying to figure out how to make the Italian paintings appear even more distressed, and fresco/tablet like; Thus I had begun experimenting with using plaster as the surface on which to paint. It was also at that time that I started questioning whether or not the Italian imagery had become too formulaic. So I removed it.

That proved to be quite the challenge for the next several (dare I say, 9) years. I always liked this series of “vestiges”, but I never did show them. I wonder if I have suddenly come full circle, and if so, why it took 9 years to get here. None-the-less it’s a good reminder that the work always leads somewhere, even if we don’t have any idea where that place may be, or why we are headed in that particular direction.

I also went to hear artist Crystal Cawley talk about her work yesterday at MECA. An hour well spent. Her work is absolutely terrific, and the honesty with which she spoke about it including her vague discomfort at times during the process (”is this the dumbest idea I’ve ever had?”) was both refreshing and inspiring.

Sugar Bowl Drawing: 02-22-09

Posted on: March 3rd, 2010
02-22-09

Big fat sketchbook of sugar bowls

About a year ago I pulled this big fat sketchbook off the shelf. It had been a birthday present from a friend many moons ago. What better way to use it than to see if I could sustain an exploration of one object from start to finish. I’m a year into the project; the book is getting fatter by the month – but not nearly complete. I’m tellin’ you this is one big giant fat sketchbook.

The paper isn’t very forgiving – especially the way I work with it. This is a drawing I did in the book a little over a year ago. This sugar bowl has so much personality – it reminds me a lot of my mother for some reason. Maybe just because it was hers, and she relished this whole pewter tea set which now lives in my home and studio.