Well, I must say that I am getting pretty good at finding ways to turn very little working space into a functional studio. I am currently working on my show for the DIVA for which I am building two large installation pieces. The first consists of many "scales" as I like to think of them of vellum paper which will be painted and then built into a 3d construction. The problem with oil painting 50 some pieces of paper in a one bedroom apartment is that there is nowhere to put them while they dry.
So! I set my brain to problem solving yet again and invented this drying rack made from dental floss, screws, paperclips, and tape. I must say it works pretty well too. It's not much to look at but it will help a lot! I'm going to have to write a book on making a studio out of a ten square foot space. (edit: The floss was slipping so I replaced it with floral-arrangement wire which is much stronger. It works great.)
Anyway, I have a ton of work to do for this show, but I still had time to star in some movies! My partner had to make some movies for a class and being the only free and available human nearby I am now a movie star. Here is a link to his movie of me working on a piece of art that is currently hanging at the WOW Hall.
Well, I wanted to take a picture of the voting office, but it was pouring rain. So, I quickly ducked into the office where there were many excited people bustling about and marched right up to the "vote here" slot to submit my ballot. Then I went to work and waited for tidbits of information from my co-workers who occasionally received text message updates on the election count. Once I got to sneak a peek of an election map from a library computer. On my way home from work there were people outside yelling in celebration, people setting off fireworks and literally playing trumpets and bullhorns in the streets. Oh, how I love Eugene.
I know, this is an ART blog. So here's the art: BARACK OBAMA AND JOE BIDEN: CHAMPIONS FOR ARTS AND CULTURE !!! Don't you just love the sound of an Artist Corps? It just brings a warm fuzzy feeling to all the art in my brain. It's so nice when politics makes you cry with joy rather than horror.
Ok, there are two things I want to talk about. The first, very briefly, is that the art is now up at the WOW Hall. I have to make a few minor adjustments, but it is up. The reception is First Friday, November 7th from 5-7pm.
I am really excited about this election. But I am amazed that in this "great land of democracy" our national voting methods are so haphazard and inefficient. I happen to have spent most of my voting years in Oregon, which I just heard is the only state with mail-in paper ballots. I've been watching the news showing early voters standing in lines for five or more hours just to vote. And there are these cities with only a few dysfunctional voting machines, electronic voting machines which can be so easily hacked, every kind of maddening voter suppression tactic, including the fact that working people, old people, sick people, parents with little kids, etc. etc. can not just spend an entire weekday fighting to get to rock their vote. What the hell? It's the 21st century! This is America!
Where I live in Eugene, Oregon, we got our paper ballots in the mail a week or two before voting day. Along with that we get "Voter's Pamphlets" which describe each candidate (they write up their own sales pitch for themselves) and each measure, along with editorials purchased by groups and individuals arguing their case for or against each measure. So from the comfort of your own home, you can go through your ballot reading abundant literature, looking up more information online, and discussing each vote with friends and family if you wish. Then you put the ballot in the mail or take it to the voting office. No lines, no stress, no taking time off from work. This leads to far more educated votes and happier healthier voters.
So, I seriously believe that we need to fix this voting system. I'm thinking mail-in paper ballots for everyone and VOTING DAY SHOULD BE A NATIONAL HOLIDAY!
I think I will take a picture of our city voting office today to illustrate the complete lack of people standing in line. I suspect everyone will be smiling as well.
Well, I'll be hanging this show in six days. Here are a few more shots of the art in progress.
One has to stay inspired and feed the head. So, I had a great time over the weekend visiting the studio of my illustrious illustrator friend Katura Reynolds. She was all set up for the DIVA's Open Studio Art Tour and I got to see many beautiful watercolor and ink drawings of plants, animals, insects, bones, etc. It is so cool to see an artist in their natural habitat. She even put me in her sketch-blog!
Inspiration is pretty easy to find in the fall, below is a picture of some leaves I collected on a "nature walk" down 12th Ave.
Fwew, just found out that the publicity info for my November show at the WOW Hall was due today, right before going to the Eugene Uketoberfest Ukulele Festival to see my friend Jay perform (He was great, yay Jay!). So I went, ate pizza, came home and wrote and sent the publicity statement, now I'm so very tired. So tired that I am writing a blog entry!
This month is going too fast! I only have one piece completed! But I am having fun with my new pinstriping brushes.
You know, I always found it interesting that I could look back at my drawings and paintings and remember what I was thinking or listening to or what was happening around me when I was working on each area of the artwork. Even work from years and years ago. Like when I inked this one line I was listening to a presidential stump speech, and not one that I particularly liked...hmm too bad for that line. Ah, but for these dots over here I was watching the Daily Show, that was pretty funny. Does that happen to anyone else? I wonder if there's a name for it.
Ok, I'm way too tired now and I have too much to do in the morn'. Here's a peek at one of the pieces for my show. It's shot at an odd angle, but who can tell anyway? It's about 3x5 ft.
I just checked out this newish book from the library about renowned artist Alexander Calder (1898-1976). It's called Calder Jewelry (Yale University Press c2007). He is probably best known for inventing the mobile. His sculpture, lithographs, and paintings are of course wonderful, but this book is jam-packed (and huge, maybe ten pounds) with pictures of his jewelry and jewelry-like sculpture that just make me want to cry with adoration. Every piece is unique and so ingeniously constructed. They range from powerfully simple to deceptively simple. They are mostly built with hammer flattened wire, some with odd bits of pottery, stones, wood, or glass. They are so playful and animated, and being primarily wire, they are all about the lines. But not sharp mechanical lines, more like a pencil sketch come to life. They seem to vibrate with levity. Let me be clear, I am not a fancy-jewelry girl, but I am an abstract artist obsessed with lines. This man was a genius. A lot of the pieces were gifts to his wife (lucky lady!) I really need to get some metal to hammer on.
Well, anyway, this book is worth a trip to the library. It's probably pretty expensive so I'm going to try not to cry and drool all over my library's copy.
Fall is my favorite season. I've lived on a school schedule for so much of my life that to me fall is a time of new beginnings. It's when I try to add a few new (new-to-me that is) items to my wardrobe, and a time to get started on new projects that I will work on through the winter. Also, I was born on September 30th, so this really is when things began for me.
I am trying to get my head together again after a psychological summer vacation (I still had to go to work, but otherwise I mostly played video games). So now that I have had a couple days to cry about turning 30 I have to refocus.
One thing that was focusing and helpful was that I just emailed a super-cool Eugene artist Jud Turner to ask for some advice. I saw his show at the DIVA Center a few months ago and it got me really hyped up about working in metal. He promptly replied with very useful information about learning to weld. I did some smithing and welding at Eastern Oregon University when I lived out there in the boonies, and let me tell you there is nothing quite like pulling red hot metal out of the forge and banging on it with a hammer. Very elemental and empowering. A little dangerous too, one time I burnt all the hair off my arm and half of my face taking too long to light the gas forge. Hah, good times.
When I graduated last June I decided to sit down and orient myself, really figure out what I was doing and why. I highly recommend that everyone do this once in a while. I asked myself some questions, and then tried to answer them.
Some questions I asked were: Who am I? Why am I an artist? Who is my art for? What am I trying to accomplish with my art-making?
I'll spare you from my lengthy rambling answers, but I will share a few excepts.
Why am I an artist?
I am an artists because I have to be. I have to make things. It’s just what I do, what I think, what I enjoy, what I’m good at, what makes me feel happy and accomplished. I like to make a thing that was not there before and that will spend some time in existence, to see and think about it, and relate to it, and experience it in the space around me. That thing’s existence is a physical embodiment of my thought and intuitive problem solving and effort and time. It is a newborn child of my own. I made it but it is itself, not me but yet it is me. I put myself into it and (hopefully) breathed its own life into it. I guess it’s like being God, a creator, and Mother, the portal of life. It is primal and spiritual, and emotional, and intellectual, and physical, and so necessary like an unstoppable biological function. It is like eating or breathing... Really, sometimes it’s sweet and beautiful, sometimes it’s painful and difficult, and sometimes it’s a release and a relief.
What kind of artist am I? What do I want to do with art?
I am interested in the past and my contemporaries, but I am not interested in (purposefully) making art that is in conversation with those things. My art is mainly abstract because it is intuitive, and it’s really not about anything other than the magic of light, form, imaginary space, being a place to play in, to move in, to relax in, to explore and fine new things in, and to let line and shape simply be what they are. I don’t set out to create an illusion of something. I want to really make something. It is what it is, and if it creates some illusion, that may just be part of its nature.
I am completely entertained by the variety, individuality, and (often) the weirdness of the things that artists are compelled to create. I love it when I look at someone’s body of work, or a line of thought, and think “wow, that gal was really obsessed with those crazy little shapes” or “what the heck got into him there?” I want to tease all of those compulsions within myself and see what they look like when they take a physical form. I want to make things until like living creatures, the art evolves and changes, drifts and shifts, and see where it goes. I want to poke and prod and explore and discover, follow inclinations, and see what leads to what.
