What's up with all the abstract art?

The other day I was talking to my aunt, a retired New Jersey goat farmer who had just looked at my website to see see what kind of art I was making. She said to me in a funny unsure tone, "I looked at the pictures on your website...oh, that modern art...it was interesting..." By which I interpreted "What the heck was all that stuff? I was expecting watercolor cows and landscapes. What did you spend so much time in school for if you were just going to scribble?"

I can understand her position. I didn't "get" abstract art either until a handful of years ago when I went to a lecture by Carla Bengtson and did some reading on the subject. Even then, I didn't like it right away, but I slowly found myself lingering on the abstract images as I paged through a magazine, or browsed through a gallery. Eventually I realized that the abstract doodles I compulsively (and resentfully) made actually had some merit. And then I realized that my frustrated struggle with subject matter was unnecessary because what I was really compelled by was line, shape, color, texture, space, tone, and the funny way that the human mind interprets these things when you separate them from a literal narrative or object.


Here are some other people's thoughts on the subject:

This is my favorite article describing the (western) historical evolution of abstract art and how to begin to understand it. It is an informative and very easy read. It is a perfect overview for anyone new to the subject.
Understanding Abstract Art by Harley Hahn.

This article breaks down the artistic visual elements and gives a nice tutorial on how to approach an abstract image.
Abstract Art Explained by Lynne Taetzsch.

My current art projects

I am working on a new line of thinking. I have two shows lined up, one in November at the WOW Hall, and one in January and February 2009 at the DIVA Center.

I am in love with ink on paper, and have just discovered the joy of pin striping brushes. A student in a community painting class that I taught gave me one a couple years ago and I just tried it. I immediately ordered two more in different sizes, because they are perfect for making a super-long non-brushy ink line (mmmm...lines). As for the paper, I have been using a wonderful bright white eco-friendly cover stock made by Living Tree, as well as vellum paper which is strong and translucent. Both respond very well to ink via pen or brush. The vellum buckles and wrinkles when moistened and is the noisiest paper in the universe, but it is really fun stuff.

So, for these shows I am thinking more and more sculpturally. A lot of the art in my head is made of metal and glass, but I do not have the facilities to work in steel or iron at the moment, so I think that I am in a transitional phase. I am envisioning my abstract drawings becoming larger and more three dimensional. Here are some pictures of my experiments with the materials and brushes:













The biggest challenge I have right now is that I live in a very small apartment, and my studio is half of the living room. There is just not enough space to work as big as I want to! I am really stretching my cleverness to find space for working.

The large table in the picture is actually my couch, which out of desperation I turned into a storage/work table. Oh, the dreams of my future studio...