valences

run up

2011-02-07T08:01:00.012-05:00

The following are a string of pieces that I made before beginning installation of my second solo at Number 35, "of the triumph it hosted." I made all of these over the course of 1 month and some of the elements from these pop up in the installation for "of the triumph it hosted."

The gold shapes at the center were a mistake and would not be included in a later incarnation of this piece.

not entirely brought to completion.

Lost and Found

2010-02-02T21:43:00.007-05:00

This is an installation that I completed over the summer. It is the last one that I did before training for the 1/2 marathon and starting up some new drawings (if you don't count the crappy one I just painted over.) I just never got around to finishing and posting these images. So, there it is. I'm currently working on some new drawings and 2 new installations. In the meantime, I've added a few new links on the right.

Hall Entrance

2009-07-08T07:54:00.012-04:00

This is my latest piece. The only part that is painted on the wall is the brown shape at the bottom and the small rectangle in the center that is illuminated. Every thing else on the wall is created with light. The small light is the direct light from the lamp, the large dark rectangle is blocked out with paper, and the sides are diffused light. I also blocked out light from hitting the brown angular shape at the bottom.

This piece proved to be difficult to photograph. That's fine though; as I'm viewing this one as more of a sketch or experiment. The piece looks much better in person. I wasn't able to capture the perspective play very well in the images because the piece is too big. The first image is from outside my studio looking in and is not HDR. The others are HDR.

Things are going pretty smoothly in the studio. I'm not getting nearly as much studio time in as I was when I was ramping up for my show last year, but the time I do get in is very productive. I have been trying to work towards getting more done in shorter time. The only drawings I'm doing right now are of the building behind ours. They aren't finished or thoughtful drawings, but rather just an attempt to record the building and spend some time really looking at it before they tear it down.

Paris Entrance

2009-06-07T11:08:00.000-04:00

Right now I'm calling this piece Paris Entrance. It is based off of an entrance at the Paris Casino in Vegas. I'm pretty excited about the light on this one. I've been playing around a lot more with different ways to shape the light. I'm also using a spot light with a dimmer, so I can get a warmer light. Looking at the pictures above on my computer right now it seems that it is hard to see the painted elements. I hope that it is because of the sunlight in the room right now.

2009-04-02T06:59:00.000-04:00

This piece is based off the ceiling and chandelier in a picture of a theater that I found. The light apparatus is a little different than many of my other lights. I used paper and foil to shape the light. These are a mixture of HDR and regular images.

This piece is “Chandelier Space (Bellagio Casino, Golden Nugget Sign).” Again, a little different apparatus. Much larger with more presence.

I am in a nice groove in the installation studio. I've got endless ideas and am working and playing freely. Moving though the pieces much faster than ever. I think some will be really simple, quick things.

2009-03-19T21:26:00.000-04:00

Here are the ball point pen drawings that I have been making of spaces. Most are from palaces, the last one is from a theater. I have been doing some drawings from themed casinos too. I am using these drawings to work from for the installations that I am currently working on. The above drawings will probably manifest themselves in the wall pieces in some way. I am also thinking of taking these out of the sketchbook and making some drawings like these larger scale and on nicer paper. Sorry for the poor quality images, you can click on them to enlarge and get a better look at the marks.

Access to the Magnificent Room

2009-02-20T20:58:00.000-05:00

This is my favorite drawing. It was in the show. I wish they could all be like this one. Below are some more drawings, some were in the show, some didn't make the cut.

Below are a few non-HDR images of the installation. I think they look a little better.

Chandelierroom 1

2009-02-20T20:44:00.000-05:00

Here is a piece that I just did. It is based off of the below drawing. There are things I would do differently, or improvements that I would make if I remade the piece; but it works for me. It was a quick work. It took a few hours of time (spaced out across a couple of weeks, of course) and is now painted over. I am trying to do quicker works. Letting things happen and working more freely. Quick and loose. We'll see what comes out of it. I'll keep posting as I go through them. This is going to probably force me to get more simple with the lights, at least for now. I might have to take a break from this type of working in order to build some nicer stands, pedestals, or floor platforms for the lights though.
The brown on the wall should probably fade more as is gets closer to the floor.

It's Alive

2009-02-08T12:45:00.000-05:00

Well. I guess it's been a while since the last post. I'm alive and back at it. Here are the images of my solo show at Number 35...four months late. The title of the show was "Access to the magnificent room." The image above is of the piece I did in the window of the gallery. I've been trying to get the images to look the way that I want them to, but have been having trouble. These images aren't ideal, but they are the best of the HDR images that I've been able to make. I'll post images of the drawings soon, apparently, they are too big and I don't feel like resizing them right now. The title of the installation is "The effect of its breadth (Flamingo Casino, Las Vegas; Upper Belvedere, St. Gall Cathedral; Golden Nugget Sign)".

As I get more and better images, I'll throw them up here. These images aren't totally representative of the experience of the installation as the light in the gallery changed throughout the course of the day. These were taken at night just before de-installation. I was pretty happy with the show all and all. There are some new things going on with this installation. By the end of prepping for the show I was getting a bit tired of the piece and didn't really begin to like it until it was time to take it down. So it usually goes. I felt like the piece was a little overworked, at least in my head it was. Most of you probably know, but I was mentioned by Holland Cotter in the New York Times. As brief as it was, it was pretty exciting. Here is the link to the online version of the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/arts/design/14les.html?_r=2&ref=design&oref=slogin

If you click on the "multimedia/interactive" picture on the left (a picture of dudes dancing), it will take you to an interactive map of the city. Select the Lower East Side and there is an image of my piece and a nice little description. It says I use cardboard and masking tape, but I use neither of those.

Apparently Roberta Smith saw the show just before it came down and said that she liked it. Alas, she didn't write anything. But, I'm happy it was seen.

What have I been doing lately? We'll it seems I've taken a bit of a break from making like mad. I read the Border Trilogy by Cormic McCarthy. McCarthy has become my new literary obsession. I cleaned up my studio. I've been playing with a new foam cutter. The art has been slow. Hit a bit of a slump, but am coming out of it strong. I wanted to work differently on the installation, and am on the verge of working that out. I've read a book on the Baroque and finally finished "The Fold." I'm currently doing tons of the ballpoint pen drawings of spaces. Those drawings are developing nicely and I am hoping to use them to build up a wealth of stuff to work from to make wall pieces. Working on ideas now mostly. More to come...

Sneak Peak

2008-09-08T18:31:00.000-04:00

I decided to move a tv and dvd player into my studio. I usually listen to music that I feel is conducive to the tone and aesthetic of my work. I wanted to see how it would be working with images that I feel have the same relationship to my work. I started with a my morning jacket concert, which was still about the music more, but it was easier to channel the energy of their performance. I'm excited to see how this does or does not affect my work or process. Yes, it is a bit dark in my studio. I like to work in the light of my installations and one other bulb only.

Mixed in here are some studio shots and glimpses of some things I'm kicking around.

Just one of my stockpiles of house paint.

Daily Planner 2000

2008-09-01T19:42:00.000-04:00

Muji recently stepped up their game in the daily planner category. This is the "more intuitive" daily planner. I really really like this. The only problem is that I have a hard time using planners as I tend to wing it.

Progress

2008-08-19T06:40:00.000-04:00

Here are some studio shots of what I'm doing now. I have begun the second leg of preparing for my show in October. In June I laid out a plan for peaking myself for October 13ish. Things have been going along perfectly. I found that Josh Waitzkin, in "The Art of Learning" has a similar method of bringing himself up to a high level of presence, performance, creativity, and productivity to that which I have been using in my studio. I was apply principles of peaking and performance that I learned in wrestling. Waitzkin uses methods learned in world-level chess competition and applies them to martial arts. He also successfully teaches others to apply those principles to any discipline. (Apparently he is good friends with Tom Otterness as well.) Reading his book has helped me to solidify my methods and made me feel less crazy for talking about a correlation between art and wrestling practice. * Josh Waitzkin is the chess champion from the movie "Searching for Bobby Fisher." He's the "kid" (man) the movie was based on, not the actor.

Right now I'm working of drawings and doing small things here and there for the installation. This is one last push to get a few more drawings finished so I have a better selection to choose from for the show. This will probably be a 2-3 week push.

A Night at the Drive-In (sit-in, actually)

2008-08-18T20:33:00.000-04:00

Saturday night, Nicole and I decided to have movie night on the roof. This summer we set up a little lounge area on the roof top of the first floor which is outside our windows. Astro-Turf, palms, and wood chairs and table. (see Nicole's blog) This has been a great addition to our daily happiness and fantasy of living in a loft. Just this evening we ate our dinner out there with a perfect breeze and the sound our personal live jazz band practicing upstairs.

The moon was full, popcorn was oily/salty, and the newly purchased "Darjeeling Limited" was playing.

I've been thinking lately about the act of dramatizing one's experience. I think it has a lot to do with the things I'm doing and looking into with my work. I think that it is significant that I go to lengths to set things up romantically for myself. Creating mood, tone. Interjecting romance, meaning, magic. Looking for it. I'll get into this more later.

Journal Entry 1

2008-07-26T16:23:00.000-04:00

I recently went to the Cathedral Church of St.John the Devine. Here is my journal entry from the experience. Excuse the lack of proper terminology, I was writing quickly to get down the experience of the space. I am also experiencing this from the viewpoint of someone without a background of religious experience, having also never been to church. It is mostly about the space to me.:

the area where you, the "common people", sit is darker. It is encased in an area that is made of older, rougher stone. It has archways on the sides, but they are not windows, they are blocked up with a flat painted surface. The area where the magic happens, up where the clergy sit is smooth finished stone. It has all of the magnificence. it is where you strive to be. it is lit by the stained glass windows, by God's light, the commoner's area is lit by artificial light or candle light. there is a definite threshold, a proscenium between the two worlds. the analogy of spiritual striving.

scripted space. the hero's journey. enlightenment.

dramatizing experience.

the immensity of the ceiling is hard to grasp, dizzying. like the thought of eternity. like the thought of universal truth, universal plan.

red ropes.

dark wood.

just out of reach. I want to strive for these unreachable spots.

I am down here, stuck. but, I want to be up in the immensity of the vaults. to see better up there. to see up there.

this structure is man-made, i know it is man-made. it is just as much about our power as that of the devine.

the silence is soothing. the silence is important. there is so much space that anything said in here gets echoed and swallowed up. power and futility.

everything in here is a journey.

"three acts in one second"

pointing up.

you can't see every thing at once = can't grasp the complexity of it all.

you are always approaching.

the dome is God. Its presence unavoidable. you can see glimpses of it from all around the area that wraps around behind the high alter.

Triumphant Return

2008-07-16T21:54:00.000-04:00

Usually, when I go this long without posting, it's because I've not had time to work. However, this time it is because I have been working feverishly. I just ran a gauntlet of productivity, concentration, and creative presence that I haven't had since grad school. Below are some of the results. Yes, I finally finished those two installations. In addition, I worked up about 12 ideas for new installations, which I will be exploring as I perfect the piece that will be going up for my show in October. I also finished reading Societas Raffello Sanzio's book, Cormic McCarthy's "Blood Meridian," and am also almost done with "The Art of Learning" by Josh Waitskin. I'll post images of some of my ideas soon. For now, take a look at these:

The title of the above piece is "The most vast and impressive room in the Great Palace, Moscow" I have stereoscopic images of this one.

The title of the above piece is "Four Seasons Hotel, Gresham Palace." Stereoscope in production.

Some nice things happen when I begin to paint over the pieces.

Here is a little teaser of what I'm working on now. I probably wont post images of the installation that I'm working on for the show until it goes up on Oct. 18.

Spirtual Experience

2008-06-22T13:13:00.000-04:00

My favorite band is My Morning Jacket. Their music has actually been very important to the way that my work has developed. I started really getting into their music at the same time that my work was changing in graduate school and their tone, sound, and energy played a role in the way I was making the work and the aesthetic that I was getting into. They have a sublime, transcendental sound. I've always imagined their sound as light cutting through a velvety darkness. I listen to MMJ a lot when I'm making my art. They act as a generative juice. I feel that I make my best work when I listen to their music.

I had only seen them live once before Friday night. That was the best show I have ever seen; it led me to make an installation based on the sublimity of the experience. (started, but never finished) This Friday they played a sold-out Radio City Music Hall. Nicole and I had given up on getting tickets months ago. Well, three hours before the show we found ourselves with a pair of third mezzanine front row tickets that we paid face value for. (tickets were being scalped for $150-$400 a piece as they have become a renowned live act) That morning I had no idea I was going to be witnessing that show. When we got to RCMH, it seemed unreal for some reason. The show was nothing short of a religious experience. We stood at the edge of the upper-most mezzanine, with the expanse of the music hall before us. I can imagine riding the crest of a rouge-wave as being a similar experience (without the terror). It felt as if they were heroes, confronting the unknown with their instruments; Jim James speaking to something mystical with his voice. The whole performance was ritual and and expedition. They tethered themselves out into the abyss and took the entire hall with them.

I captured some images. Maybe you can see some connections to my work. Not to mention the experience of being in the space of Radio City Music Hall. Click to enlarge the image, most of them look better close up. The band encourages taping and file sharing. Here's a link to a taping of the performance: http://www.archive.org/details/mmj2008-06-20.dpa4023.flac16

I tried to post a video of the show, but it wouldn't upload. I think I should be able to get it onto my facebook page though. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=694855264

Teaser

2008-06-13T21:55:00.000-04:00

I know I haven't posted in a while. I actually haven't been able to get hardly any work done as I've had to work 10-12 hr work days for Crozier over the last month. It's really hampered my work. Luckily, I've got a lot of energy and enthusiasm for my work these days and I've got a number of ideas. Here's a sneak peak of the installation I'm about to finish. These are just (poor quality)fragments.

As Promised

2008-05-27T07:33:00.000-04:00

As promised, here are some shots from my drawing books of the studies that I've been spending my time on. I've taken a break from my other drawings to focus on the installations. These are meant to get me looking at the spaces more closely, help me to distill the parts out of the images of the spaces better. Hopefully, theses drawings will influence the installations, maybe some of them might become installations. Most of them are from Baroque Palaces and some are from Gothic Cathedrals. I will probably get into some Vegas imagery as well. Using the ball-point pen helps me to keep the drawings fast and to focus on the look of the space rather than the finish of the drawings. I do find myself loving the marks... and loving making the marks, however. These are really meant only to be studies but I could see them leaping onto nicer paper, or perhaps onto the wall at some point. I think the better ones, of course, are the more ambiguous drawings. I'm struggling with adding too much information, and not getting at that "essence" or "glimpse" that I'm looking for.

Below is the diorama that I built last week. I'm pretty friggin' excited about this one. I'm going to use this to work through installation ideas more quickly. I'm also probably going to turn some of these mini-installations into stereoscopic images. It will work as another fold of space. I built the diorama to scale with the working walls of mt studio.

Promise

2008-05-14T21:11:00.001-04:00

I think that this is what optimism looks like.

I revel in the feel and look of a crisp, clean new notebook or sketch book. When I sit down to start working in a new book, it feels cleansing in a way. There is an air of possibility that comes with the blank expanse of paper. The clean page clears my head. Potentiality. Setting out. Not much beats that feeling in my art-making practice.

I think that this is what optimism sounds like:

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/FP

I've been listening to this show a lot. It's pretty great.

Printmania!

2008-05-14T20:40:00.000-04:00

In case you were wondering, this is what I've been doing lately. For the most part at least. Nicole and I just spent two and a half weeks of grueling print marathon. We just finished up a set of wedding invitations for a good friend. Running into almost every conceivable problem with the silkscreen process, we wound up replacing most of our set-up at home while problem solving and eliminating variables. After finally finishing the project, we now have to go back and change an address. So...the fun isn't over yet. While I love printing and am extremely excited about getting Nightingale Press off the ground (we are currently working on our first "real" job as well!), this particular project has been a bit of an ordeal and a great learning experience for getting our print shop running smoothly. We've also been able to learn a lot about timing and working with clients.

Needless to say, I haven't been able to get very much art or reading done in over two weeks. Damn. This really threw me off my routine, but I'm glad to report that I'm back on it and feeling pretty good. I'm getting excited about some new drawings I'm doing of architectural spaces/details that I'll post images of as soon as I have a group from which I can select a number of good ones.

These are the direction cards for Erin and Jon's invitations. We now also have a blog up for Nightingale Printing Press until we get the means to make/buy a website.

http://nightingaleprintingpress.blogspot.com

Pen-cil

2008-04-29T18:24:00.000-04:00

This is my new pen-cil. I got it at Muji. It is both a ball-point pen and a mechanical pencil and is designed beautifully. I've been using it a lot and have even begun to use it to do some line drawings of architectural details/spaces. The pencil part supposedly takes .5 or .7 graphite (I like.7) and the pen part writes as smooth as butter.

Translucent, so you can see its inner workings.

Here, you can see the pen and the pencil inside the fuselage of the pen-cil.

A turn of the clip at the end makes either the pen or the pencil emerge from the tip.

The Pencil

The Pen

I'm back

2008-04-23T17:56:00.000-04:00

So, it's been a while since I posted last. My Internet has been restored to its former glory and I'm ready to go again. Things have been a bit slow in the studio lately. We've been working on some prints for Nightingale Press and other things have been distracting me from my work these days. I should be back on the once a week posts now, however, and am close to a breaking point with the installations I'm working on. Below are the best of the most recent drawings I've completed.

Long Time Gone

2008-04-01T15:12:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted. The main reason is because we haven't had an Internet connection for the past three weeks. It is very spotty, and right now I am utilizing a rare window of connectivity and I have no idea how long it will last, could be 2 hours, could be 2 minutes. As soon as we get our connection fixed, I'm going to resume the once a week posts.

Not much work has happened over the last couple of weeks. My parents came to visit, then I had to go out of town for work, then Nicole and I got really sick. So, lately it's been about how to deal with stretches of time without being able to work at all. I think it's important to keep your momentum going. As long as you still have that excitement about the stuff you're working on, it can even help to break. Lately I've been chomping at the bit to get back to work. I finished two drawings yesterday, which turned out really good. I'm very pleased with my latest drawings, I'll post some images soon.

In the meantime, take a look at these dioramas. I took these images when we visited the American Museum of Natural history. I think they are good things for me to think about.

New Drawings

2008-03-11T07:57:00.000-04:00

I wanted to post this on Monday, however, our Internet connection as been spotty at best. So, I'll take this rare moment of connectivity to throw this stuff up here.

These are my favorite of the new drawings. The images could be better, I'll replace them as soon as I get a chance. I've been really happy with the drawings that I've been churning out lately. I've been spending a lot more time on each drawing and they have become more complex in terms of mark-making. I found a really nice image in the Spanish version of "Bazaar" that has been yielding quite a few drawings. I intend on mining this image to death. Maye be I'll throw that image up here as well, once I'm finished with it. I've only done one large drawing, but I'm excited to do two more. In the finished one, I worked from a finished small drawing, which made the large one lack energy and it became boring for me to work on. So, in the next large drawings, I'll be working right from the image. I'll have to deal with the prospect of wasting a large sheet of expensive paper if the drawing doesn't work.

I'm pretty close to resolving my current two installations. Hopefully I'll be able to post images of them in a couple of weeks.

Recap

2008-03-03T07:27:00.000-05:00

This is kind of a lame post, but I didn't really have anything new ready for today as Saturday was all about preparing for the party and Sunday was all about recovery. I thought I'd post my artist statement. Some viewers of this blog may never have read my statement and it is still pretty representative of my work even though it's a couple of years old. I'm going to start work on a new one very soon, however. Here it is:

Can the sublime exist in contemporary life; could it exist in something thought “low?” Could the act of dissecting that which enchants me, creating a new, mysterious experience out of my meanings help me to understand my reality and truths? I see the ideas of enchantment, disenchantment, and re-enchantment as analogous to a poetical image of paradise, encounter with chaos, fall, and redemption; these processes also being linked to a universal way in which humans adapt to the unknown.

Charles Baudelaire claimed that the infinite can be found in the nature of the transitory. My work arises out of mining artifice from themed casinos and fashion imagery. This investigation has much to do with my own attempt to identify that which beguiles and attracts me in various places and images; an attempt to divine the psychological projections I bring to my experiences or find mystery in contemporary life and its encounters. I yearn for hints of a world unknown to me, a romance and mystery that has been lost through the acquiring of knowledge and understanding of the world. In wanting to comprehend my experiences with specific ephemeral, fugitive places and images, I take them for the stand-ins that they are, but seek out points where they “bump up against” unifying principals, where the frivolous and the superficial has meaning.

Doing this, I create altar-like installations out of a distillation of my experiences with the artificial, the installations of course being fraught with artifice themselves. The manipulation of light and its play with color, scale, and space offers the tonality, the tincture of my sources to the viewer. Compelled by natural drives for ideals and a way of coping with the unknown, I am drawn to fantasy, to places and objects of artifice that function as stand-ins for the universal principals that I long for in a time when the idea of a universal has been sacked.

Reading List

2008-02-25T20:21:00.000-05:00

I’ve been able to include a healthy amount of reading into my studio regimen lately. It’s the most amount of reading that I’ve been able to manage in quite a while and it feels really good. Pictured above are the books that I have been working on, some of which I’ve finished. “Blink”, by Malcolm Gladwell and “The Varieties of Scientific Experience,” by Carl Sagan are the ones that I have finished. Both were very good and the Sagan was amazing. “Blink" was about rapid cognition, which I have been thinking about a lot lately, especially in regard to deciding what to make, as I work from my instincts primarily. “The Fold,” by Deluze is probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever read and is turning out to be very significant to my work. I have to re-read each chapter one or two times before moving on and I am reading the philosophical essays of Leibniz to go along with it. (The Fold is Deluze’s response to Leibniz, claiming him as being the grounding for a Baroque philosophy.) I'm re-reading/ finishing "Vatican to Vegas." It is a history of special effects and a theory of the new Baroque. I never got to finish it, but am starting from the begining.

I always read many things at a time. Some books are better for reading in different circumstances. For instance, I’ll read the Gladwell books or a fiction at the laundry mat or some place where I might encounter distraction, while “The Fold” I read before working on art as I feel as if I’ve been meditating after having read it for an hour or so. I’ll read a chapter here and a chapter there, switching between the books as I feel the need for the different information that they hold.

I try to look at a lot of stuff too. These are the spaces that I have been looking at lately. Two great bargain books. I'm especially blown away by the Baroque ceilings.

Go Time

2008-02-18T15:43:00.000-05:00

I've decided that I am going to try to post something on this blog at least once a week. Probably on sudays or mondays. I'm starting the first push of hard work that is in preparation for a solo show. Hopefully this obligation to myself and to my readers (or imagined readers) will figure into the "discipline mix." I might not always have newest work, or find posting drawing after drawing to be boring, so some of the posts (many of the posts) could wind up being about stupid little details about my process and work habits. Enjoy.

Also...spell chech seems to be not working for the last few posts, so...

Reign of Dirt

2008-02-18T15:18:00.000-05:00

If you look at the image above, you can see the rectangular outline of where one of my drawings was laying. Last week was the Reign of Dirt. (and the Rain of Dirt) On those two particularly windy days, every time the wind blew dirt would fall from between the planks of wood that make up our ceiling. I'm not sure what that means for the building. The dirt rain seemed to fall primarily over our drawing tables. I just happened to have all of my drawings spread out and Nicole just happened to have started a melt, which was still wet, of course.

Could be worse though. It put a kink in our artmaking for a day or two, but hasn't happened since. The dirt didn't leave any permanent marks on our work and we were able to just brush it off. Well, Nicole's piece actually became a colab with the ceiling and the wind.

This morning, however, I woke to find that the entire loft was exteremely humid due to the sudden temperature rise outside. All of my books, notebooks, paper, and drawings are warped and wavy. One of my magazines looked as if I had dropped it in a puddle.

Sneak Peak

2008-02-11T07:37:00.000-05:00

Here's the current version of one of the installations that I'm working on. This image was taken a few weeks ago, so the piece looks a bit different now. Originally, I was going to light a large arched area above the brown part. I was playing with the foil as a tool for shaping the light and came upon this. I like this look. Something about this works. I'm going to try to make it hard to tell what is painted and what is light.

HDR

2008-01-02T19:42:00.000-05:00

A neighbor of mine turned me onto this software for making "High Dynamic Range" images. This process seemed like exactly what I've been needing to do to the images of my installations. You basically take 2 or more (up to 6 or 7) bracketed pictures using a tripod and keeping the camera in the exact same spot. You cover the range from way overexposed to way underexposed. You get a program that makes HDR images or the plug in for photoshop. I got a very simple freeware called Qtpfsgui. This program makes HDR images for you. There's not much to it at all. With the more complex programs I'm sure you can get even better images and you have more control over the specifics of the process. Above is the HDR image I made of my last installation. It is made of the two images that I put on my post from September. If I had more than two images and more experience with the software, I could do better. As it is however, I was able to do in 10 min or less what used to take hours in photoshop. Below are some HDR images I found on Google.

Sneak Peak

2007-12-08T11:59:00.000-05:00

I've finally found the paper that I've been looking for. It is called Permadur .010. It is just like the paper in the hardcover Moleskines. I have been wanting to make some pencil drawings that exist out of the books for a while now. Much of the time, I wind up liking the pencil versions of the drawings more than the gouache or pastel versions. They are my initial impressions and tend to have more energy, more of the quality I'm looking for. The following are some poor quality images of the first drawings that I've done on this paper. I'm getting ready to start a large one possibly.

My process of working on my installations has evolved yet again... I have begun to implement my strategy of working on the wall pieces in the same manner that I work on the drawings, but it hasn't gone quite as I've envisioned it. I'm not working as fast as I want yet and because of a lack of time (due to a 50 hr work week) some interesting things have developed as far as my process goes. My original idea was to bust out a wall piece in a one to two days, document it, and move on. Having to work for an hour here, two hours there, and a half hour here and there has forced me to adapt and change my strategy a bit. The original plan was meant to force me to work from my instincts. As I've been slowed down, and had to sit on pieces for days, having pauses in between working on them, I've seen that maybe concentrated and focused pushes of working might not work as well for this strategy. I've had to make a move, then walk away from the piece and come back later, make a move, and walk away again. Because of this, I avoided making a bad decision on my new installation (below) that I would have made had I just worked straight through without pause. I tend to do this with drawings too now, which is working good. So, I'll have a number of pieces going and I'll float between them, taking breaks to do other things as well, having a fluid way of working. Keeps me on my toes more, keeps me fresh and more "ballsy" to make hard decisions.

Above is the "great hall" piece and the image I'm working from. Originally I was going to make the edges fade more gradually from dark to light brown, but because I had a pause of 5 days or so in between sessions of working on the painted part, I realized that it is better the first way that I painted it. It's good to live with it a bit in between moves, as long as I don't let it sit for too long.

The image below is sideways for some reason. I can't fix it. This is an example of my sitting on a piece because I didn't know what to do. I painted the purple part in a fit of frustration. I just wanted to do something to it. I like what I did. The first thing that I did was the dark blue part. I kind of liked it just that way. I might try an alternate version of this piece as just the dark blue part.

I've been threatening to use images from Travel + Leisure for a while now. The piece above (sideways) it the first. Below is a random studio shot.

wait for it...

2007-10-28T11:44:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, I have a hard time focusing when I have something hanging over my head. I've also discovered that I work better when my place is orderly. After my show got postponed, I decided to use the time I would have spent working up to the show to finish up some loft projects that were nagging me. I would try to work on my art and find myself wishing that the loft was finished. I couldn't focus on my work in the way that I want when my space is in disarray and I've got these unfinished things surrounding me. I wanted to be done. So, I haven't posted in a few weeks because my art production has been low. A few drawings here, a few drawings there. I've been busting my ass to get the loft finished already. Here are some images of what I've done. There's still some finishing work to do, but everything's pretty much in order now. Now I can dive full force back into my work!

We needed some tables to work on so we can get started on Nightingale Press. The computer area is also now more organized and clean.

The bedroom was the most nagging project, as we needed to get our bed out of the living room space. It was the longest running project and the one that had to be finished for other things to fall into place. It freed up space to move some things around and organize better.

Curtain closet

old bedroom now Nicole's work space

bookcase

Negativedresspullspace

2007-09-17T21:10:00.000-04:00

The new installation is finally finished. Well, pretty much. It could use some polishing, but this is pretty much the final image. It looks quite better in person. The above photos are pre-photoshoped. The final documentation will be a mixture of the two so it looks more like it really does. It is incredibly hard to document the way that the installations look. Digital images are never quite right. I'm going to start trying to get it with film, until then, it's more drudgery in photoshop for me. There is some detail in the lighted part that can't quite be picked up.

I'm really happy with this installation. It's the first that I've done that is based on a fashion image rather than a space/architecture/artifice. Hopefully as I move on, more of these will happen and they will help me make the pieces based on spaces/architecture/artifice more loose, gestural, and poetical. This one has a quality of strangeness and "otherness" that I think is better than past installations. This is also the first installation in which I've used two lights. One light with the whole armature and the other I use foil only to shape the light. I've got some ideas for beefing up the lights and adding some elements to make them more obviously seem connected conceptually with the wall pieces.

I've finally made a successful stereoscope! The images need to be polished and printed on nicer paper with a nicer printer. It does work though. In addition to being a new area of exploration for my ideas, this may solve some of my documentation issues and issues with showing in group shows. It's also a good way to explore the ideas of space within space and illusion. I also like how this illusion is created entirely in your head.

A New Way of Working

2007-08-20T20:05:00.000-04:00

So, I've been spending the last year, my first after graduate school, trying to get into the right rhythm in my studio. About halfway through my last year at MSU, I hit stride and really figured out how I need to work as an artist. Not only was my work at a really great point, but I was really having success with the way I was working in my studio and out. Instead of working late into the night, coming home at 2 or 3 a.m., I got up at 5 and hit the studio by 6 or 6:30a.m. Your brain is actually at its sharpest 30 min to an hour after you wake. I'd start the day off with 30 min of meditation, 1 hr of reading, and another couple hours of drawing. By the time my friends would start to show up it would make for a nice break to wander into their studios and talk a bit, see what they were up to. The rest of the day, between classes and TA duty, I'd alternate between working on the wall pieces and drawing, using 1-2pm for mindless monotonous work as I would always get tired around then and found that I wasn't as sharp. I'd go home by 5, so I could spend time with Nicole, get a work out in at the YMCA, and get to bed by 10. Pretty structured. I was basically trying to take care of other aspects of my process other than the actual act of making the art. I needed to be sharper mentally. When my mind is fresh and sharp, I have more energy and can focus my efforts.

I began to approach trying to be a good artist the same way that I approached trying to be a good wrestler. You have to approach your training from multiple angles, taking care of all aspects of the sport, physical and mental. You want to "peak "yourself and only compete when you are at your highest level of awareness and readiness. Winning in wrestling is all about control. You have to control your opponent and exert control over as many aspects of the match as possible, from your warm up to whether you or your opponent step on the mat first. You eliminate as many variables as possible so you can focus on your moves and your tactics only.

It's been hard to keep up this kind of discipline outside of school, with a full time job. I'm just now beginning to figure out how I might be able to do it. I get up early, between 5-6:30 (lately I've had a hard time getting up by 5) so I can work a bit before work. I try to work in a 30 min meditation, but can't always get it done and reserve the morning for drawing or reading. The evening is for working on the wall pieces. I try to fit in a work out after work and on the weekends. On Saturday and Sunday I do marathon art making with the same structure as my last semester at MSU. This year I've struggled to be disciplined and stumbled a bit. I've gone weeks having only made a couple drawings and have had to make compromises in my studio practice. I'm just now beginning to hammer out how I can make it work and be as productive as possible. I've had to cut out a lot of reading time and be more flexible on when I work on various projects. I've found that I absolutely can not cut out my workouts, they work as a base around which I build every thing else. They anchor me, providing me with a basic steady discipline and give me physical and mental energy. I definitely think better when I'm exercising consistently than when I'm not.

Finally...Here are some of the things I've done and am working on currently.

Above are some drawings/paintings I've made this year. I've started working in gouache and Gac on Yupo as well as the pastel on mylar. Some really nice things have come out of this.

Playing with light. Part of my struggle to move on my installations this year has had to do with my inability to figure out what to do next. I got a little too wrapped up in trying to make my structured studio practice work and became obsessed with the conceptual part of my work. I kept wanting to make work that fell in line with what I had been reading and thinking about. I wanted to make all the right decisions that would make the work really smart. All that happened was that I couldn't move on any of the installations and when I finished a piece it was pretty lame. The work dragged and I got stuck, I got tired. I forgot how to play. I forgot that play is what art making is to me. Nicole really awakened me from my stupor recently. She has been working so freely, fluidly, and confidently and her new work is really charged with energy. She made some suggestions that I am putting into action and I've been newly invigorated by her example. My instincts have been my greatest asset as an artist and I'm remembering how to use them.

This is based on the Venetian Casino in Las Vegas as seen from the Mirage. I did a different version of this one at the end of grad school, I think this is better. I have a bit left to do to it. The yellow part will be lit. I like the gestural way that I used the foam in this one.

This piece is the first that I've done that is based off of one of my drawings rather than on a space. I'm trying to change the way that I work on the installations. I've been wanting my process for making the wall pieces to be more like my drawing process. The installations were seeming stiff and a little stagnant lately. I've decided to use my studio like I use my drawing books, working quickly and from the gut, making decisions based on what my urges are. I want to fly through the installations, documenting them. In a month or two I should have a number of installations that I can rework, the same way I make the drawings. This way the wall pieces will develop and change more quickly, helping me work through their issues. Hopefully, the "quickly" made wall pieces will be nice in themselves and good enough to make a stereoscope out of. Then, I can make more polished versions of the best of the crop. I decided that working from a drawing would be a good way to start out this way of working.

I've been drawn to a lot of negative spaces in addition to folds lately. They've been coming out nicely.

This spread from Harper's Bazzar has yielded quite a few drawings and I'm currently starting an installation based on the image above. It isn't going as well as I envisioned it, but it will be a good exercise.

Baroque palaces have been the images I've been looking at the most lately. I want to combine these with elements from religious spaces and alters. I've been having some issues with moving to making some pieces based on photos like these. Usually the pieces are based on my memory of an experience of a space and a crappy photo I have of the space that I took myself. I don't know if using a good, composed image of a space I've never been works for me conceptually or in regard to process. Something I'm still working with.

Introduction

2007-08-20T07:35:00.000-04:00

Hello, and welcome to my blog.

I actually created this blog months ago, and have been sitting on it since. I didn't know what to write. Maybe I was waiting for some great insight to hit me, then I could post it and be hailed a genius by friends and family. Or, maybe I'm just lazy. What ever the case, I've decided to make the leap, we'll see what actually comes of this, if I can manage to keep posting on a consistent basis.

I have decided that the primary (at least to start off) purpose of this blog will be to act as a "virtual studio" of sorts. I'll be posting images of finished and unfinished work. Little false starts and ideas that I'm working on in my studio along with commentary. I'll include thoughts about trying to work and I'm sure posts about my general life and other thoughts will sneak their way in here and there. I invite you all (if there's anybody out there) to comment and post feed back on the things I'm doing and thinking about. I'm actually pretty excited about what this blog might grow into. Mostly I'm hoping it will be a good way to sort out what I'm working on. I'm sure, like my art, it will change and grow much differently than I've conceptualized it in my head right now.