Life is weird when your time is counted in semesters. Every week that passes is extra precious and moves extra quickly because you're rocketing towards a seemingly elusive goal. So in keeping with that spirit of time management, this marks the end of week four of the spring semester. It's been a ball-buster of a week and as much as I want to slow down, curl into a little ball, and sleep for days I keep waking up, shovel cereal in my face while lacin' up my shoes, and hit the studio door by 8am. Here is what I wrapped up this week...
New York House
Plants collage
2 Hot Houses and a Cold
Its been awhile since I did a stop motion - Little Blue House
One of my favorite classes I took as an undergrad was Color Theory - an entire semester dedicated to understanding color - it was delicious. Last week I bought Josef Albers' Interaction of Color and it has once again become important to understand the capabilities of color - I want to be a lot more thoughtful in my color choices. Below are works in-progress, I am still working on the Honeycomb House and foresee quite a bit more time with it in the future.
Honeycomb House
Sofas collage
6 blank sheets waiting for marks/6 wooden panels waiting to be built
So I'm sitting smack dab in the middle of my return from an artist residency and my upcoming grad school adventure. I'm in the process of sorting all of the stellar experiences from Connecticut while at the same time preparing myself to be completely wide open to TCU. It's an interesting place to be - I feel like the best thing to do is tie one end of a hammock to the rez and the other end to school and just relax in the middle for the time being. And this is what it looks when I make work in that frame of mind...
new york had an effect on me
house factory
double double
And of course life wouldn't be complete without janky stop motions...
I haven't had a solo show in almost two years, I've put some older work in a couple of group shows but basically I've been making work just to make work. The freedom is great, it has allowed me to experiment which produces things that I might not make with an audience in mind.
But creating a body of work for a specific exhibition on a specific date for a specific venue sets solid perimeters and boundaries which I do well with. It's a focus, a purpose. I've felt a bit scattered without such guidelines but wouldn't trade the weird shit that has put itself on canvas (and wood and jars and cardboard, etc.).
A shift in that way of working is on the horizon I feel. Next month I leave for a two-week artist residency at Weir Farm Art Center in Wilton, CT. Residencies have provided directions and stirred interest in things, places, people, and ideas that I could have never come up with on my own. I can only hope that Weir Farm will be no different. And this upcoming fall I will begin grad school at TCU as a MFA in Painting student.
Having said all of that, I put together a solo show of weird shit for my dog, Kona. As you can tell, she couldn't care less.
Museo de Kona
I find it interesting how ideas spring back up again and again. In this case - little houses. New Zealand (2011): While suffering from homesickness and at the same time exploring what the hell home really meant, I made a shit ton of small house sculptures using materials around my living quarters. Fort Worth, TX (2014): I found home. Not just a location but the home in your heart and all the other true and trite descriptions of that feeling of safety and comfort. Again, I made a shit ton of small houses.
New Zealand Houses (left) Fort Worth Houses (right)
My friend's girlfriend told him a story of a little field mouse when they first began dating. He asked me to illustrate that story which he turned into a book. He then proposed to her with said book. She said yes. Sweetest. Story. Ever. I am so honored to have played a part in something so wonderful.
Orange, grape, sour apple, bubblegum, blueberry, and of course banana.
When you cut out flavored buildings, then stack the silhouettes on top of one another, you get this.
I've found that if you make flavored buildings, then you must make flavored houses.
And if you make a variety of flavored houses, then you have to select one flavor (in this case blueberry) and then make 100 houses out of that flavor. And put them in a teacup. Because who doesn't want to know what 100 tiny blueberry houses look like in a teacup?
Logically your mind will then want to know what a suburb of bubblegum-flavored houses would look like at night. Turns out they look like grape-flavored houses under the cover of darkness.
You then obviously need to make a stop motion film about it.
I was going to write an eloquent passage about the importance of following your dream, especially when you lose sight of its purpose. It's even more difficult to put one foot in front of the other when that purpose is in the midst of taking on a completely new meaning. Instead of saying a bunch of words, the video below sums up how I feel about the subject of dream-followin' and life in general. (Oh...if you're on the hunt for some dream-followin' fuel read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.)
the factory
Below is work that has kept me putting pencil to paper,
paint to canvas, and objects and thoughts into motion.
You didn't think I'd give up making janky stop motion films did you? A lot of my perception of Peoria comes from my commute to and from the studio and it seems that the people of this town are always on a mission - they move down the highway with purpose. The hauling of large, heavy things seems to be of importance here. And tractors, I've seen a lot of tractors. So I did this...
tractor parade
What's better than a tractor parade? A kernel of corn from
the corn factory greeting you at the studio door, that's what.
It's hard to believe that my two weeks here is wrapping up, gonna ship out the work I've done and most of my supplies tomorrow so the painting portion of Peoria is done. I may do some more embroidery on the Moon Bear painting back in Texas and I'm looking forward to finishing the hound/fox/pheasant piece. As for the bugs, I have 2 full days with my drawing materials - we'll see what comes.
What I'm bringing away as far as paintings go is the inclusion of embroidery work which I'm excited to further explore but the painting and time hunkered over the drawing table has seemed almost secondary in regards to absorbing the atmosphere. So up the stairs I went to soak up my new favorite space...
sticks: a serious documentary about a space I love
What's a great way to end a day? Well, checking out some Christmas
lights with long since seen family of course. Thanks Paul and Pat!
A couple of hours ago I was supposed to board a plane bound for Peoria, IL to begin a two week artist residency at Prairie Center of the Arts but instead I'm sitting at home typing this. A lot of stuff can happen in a short amount of time to change the course of a plan.
As I fell asleep last night I kept eyeballing the luggage on the floor like a little kid headed for Disney World. I drifted off to sleep but was soon woken by men beating down my neighbor's door. You know why they were beating down his door? Because they are firemen and their job is to put out raging blazes which is what was happening on the other side of my wall.
After my neighbor's apartment was extinguished and the smoke cleared, I went to sleep only to be awoken for a second time by my ringing phone. It was an automated voicemail...from American Airlines..."your flight has been cancelled". I tried to absorb these experiences with grace...Ghandhi-style (but without the food strike). I can totally handle this without being insanely disappointed, I told myself.
I floated back to sleep only to wake up in a panic after a dream. You know the kind of dream that is so real and terrifying that you have to turn on a light and re-orient yourself? It was one of those. Recap: I was at an artist residency in Africa where my dog was murdered and I was next in line. Grace be damned, I'm now in WTF mode.
Sooooo, if I'm reading all of this correctly...last night went like this:
1. Run for your life!!
2. There's no escape.
3. If you try to leave in your mind, you and your best friend will be assassinated.
I hid under the covers until late morning then decided to start my residency regardless of where I was. My flight is rescheduled (weather permitting - the heart of Texas is blanketed in ice ya'll) so this time tomorrow evening I should be in Illinois. Until then I shall make work in my jammies at the Peoria satellite studio aka home.
Here is how I spent Day One - Prairie Center Rez...
Casey the Asian elephant and other Sri Lankan friends
This painting is moving along. It and St. Addax (the painting I just completed) have sprouted a collection called The Hunting Series. So far this cast consists of an asian elephant, wild boar, jungle fowl, black-headed ibis, gray lemur, flying fox, and an asiatic long-tailed climbing mouse.
Experiences
The more days that I have on this planet, the more I realize that time spent outside of the studio is just as vital as time spent inside of the studio. My birthday was this past weekend and I was lucky enough to share it with a group of wonderful women. First we gorged on pizza and then we ventured to the Fort Worth Nature Center.
Putting one foot in front of the other along a hiking trail can change a life in my opinion. I sure know it can change a day and definitely an outlook. It's an enormous think tank, playground, and therapist's couch all rolled into one. It is a place I need to visit to make the time in the studio productive. And so I did...
Fort Worth Nature Center 2013
birthday hike treasures
A second enormous experiential inspiration as of late is my job. I work at a zoo. I can meander around the park on my lunch break which has given me this really amazing opportunity to savor little nooks and crannies that I would otherwise miss if I were just blowing through on a regular park visit. I can take bite size pieces of the park to explore.
Take for instance the bug habitat below. It's in one of my favorite buildings which houses bats, snakes, insects, and other critters a lot of people find slightly frightful (but I super love). It seems that most people move pretty quickly through the space, I imagine to shorten their time amongst creepy crawlers so they can get to the next cute furry mammal exhibit. Well that's fine with me because it's a pretty awesome environment to have all to your human self. I fell in love with this particular habitat...
lunchbreak excursions
Films
Apparently my work day can't go without making a mini movie - Desktop Film-style...
Here is a short renegade project about an enormous topic...
Dad's death has given me a sense of freedom and I feel guilty for saying that - as if I mean I'm glad that he's dead, which I am not. I wish very much that he wasn't dead. I wish I could watch him laugh, I wish I could hear him tell one of his wild stories, I wish I could pull up to his house and see him waiting outside for me. Unfortunately, I'll have to dig into my memory bank when I wish for those things because I'll never live the experiences as new again.
But I love him more and differently because living through the experience of him leaving is a gift that has let me see the world in a different way. I want to make work in a different way. This desire is so strong that it makes me feel almost sick, almost poisoned, like it's too big for my body to contain and I have to tell myself that I don't have to act on it all at once, that realizing it and living it and dreaming of it is just as important and lovely as creating it.
