New Work for a New Gallery

I am pleased to announce that some of my new work is moving West to Park City, Utah. The Meyer Gallery, established in 1965 in Park City and located in the former First Bank of Utah Building, will be receiving this week nine works in my Running Stitch series. Here are a few of them. (Click on the image to get a bigger view.)

Mario's Song, 2012, mixed media (including pieces from record albums) plus tacks and
encaustic on panel, 14" x 14" x 1.5"

Carmen's Eyes, same description and size as above.

You can see that I really got into the naming from record albums thing. Of course these works also include book parts, painted paper and cardboard, treated metal and who knows what-all.

Artur's Ivories, 2012, mixed media with tacks and encaustic on panel, 12" x 12"

Nicholas's Stories, 2012, materials same as above, also 12" x 12"

I am also sending some larger works that I have shown in this blog previously, and here are a couple more:

Rubbery Stripes, 2012, painted paper and cardboard, rubber, treated metal,
book parts,pieces from record albums, tacks and
encaustic on panel, 24" x 24" x 1.5"

Divided Stripes, 2012, painted paper and cardboard, rubber, treated metal,
book parts,tacks and encaustic on panel, 24" x 24" x 1.5"

That last one may look familiar if you've been paying attention. I have reworked an older piece and made it brand new. Isn't that just what artists do?

So if your're out there in Utah for the summer activities such as hiking, swimming and other water sports, resorting at the three big resorts there, visiting or whatever, I hope you will stop by Meyer Gallery and take a look. Here's a link to Park City that tells about some of the attractions. You may know it as the site of the Sundance Film Festival and of major skiing and snowboarding activity. It's also home to the Kimball Art Center which will be constructing a major new building, as seen below:

The new Kimball Art Center, as designed by competition winners, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)

In case you can't quite imagine how this unusual structure would fit in, here's a rendering of the building in situ with the rest of Main Street:

I hope that my work will make a contribution to the other fine work shown by Meyer Gallery and that collectors will throng to purchase it - but of course!

Look at America

OK, I know when you read the title of this post, you were expecting me to rant about some political development, but in fact Look at America is the title of my most recent piece, part of the Running Stitch series. The title comes from the spine of a book I used in the work. It was a large, pale green book published by Look Magazine that was a photographic journey through the U.S.  I have to confess that I have never really looked at the book; I was more interested in the cover. (BTW, click on pics to enlarge.)

Look at America, detail 1, showing the book title

My intention with this post was to first post the image of the piece and then flesh it out with some details, but maybe I should post the details and then the whole image at the end. We'll see how it goes.

So, this work was the first one I made on a complete panel that's 30" H x 60" W. I have made others that were wider but none that were quite this dimension. I liked working on it and it feels substantial (good over the couch size), however, I decided to divide it up into sections so it looks as if it could actually be made on three joined panels.

Detail 2 showing graphic elements

I made Look at America right after making the two pieces that I do not consider part of the Running Stitch but instead part of a new group called The Dark Series. (Here's my post on it.) As a result, I think some of The Dark Series rubbed off on this work. I felt a need to put in more graphic and bolder elements. Also, because of the larger size, the elements are wider - and there's a lot of black in this new work.

Detail 3 showing more graphic elements with metal, text and paint

I confess that I had some trouble with this piece. I made it one way, wasn't too happy with it, experimented with adding elements here and there, and then ended up really taking it all apart and putting it back together again. My concern was to make it less symmetrical, more complex and richer. My resolution involved first making it more symmetrical than the first layout and then destroying the symmetry to a certain extent.

Detail 4 showing a non-standard element

I also wanted to put in some pieces that had a different shape than the horizontal strips to interrupt the regularity.

Here's the whole piece: Look at America, 30" x 60" x 1.75", mixed media with encaustic on panel.
Be sure to click and enlarge.

My intention with this work was to reference landscape but not really depict it. There are pieces of maps in there and the combination of green, brown and blue could be earth, trees and sky. But I didn't want it to be a literal representation of place. After all, the Running Stitch series is about memory, so perhaps this is about memory of landscape rather than landscape itself. The black sections could be roads or they could be gaps in memory (or they could just be formal elements in the painting).

Of course it's hard to get a sense of this large and pretty complicated work in this small format, and this image is also not the good one taken by my professional photographer and lit so you can see more reflections of the tacks and metal pieces. However, I hope that seeing so many details will give you a better sense of what's going on in it.

That Emotional Connection

Gateway, 2010, mixed media with encaustic, 24" x 66"

This painting was the first in my Running Stitch series and it has now been sold by Arden Gallery. I am happy to report the sale and thankful for Arden's expertise in marketing. At the same time, because it was the first of this series, I feel a strong connection to it, and seeing it go brings memories of its creation in the studio -- the excitement I felt as it came together and the pleasure it gave me as I added panels and watched it grow. I felt it could have gone on expanding forever. (Note: you can click on pix to see larger views or click here to see a better image on my website.)

Gleaming in late afternoon

Initially, I called this piece itself Running Stitch before I decided that it should be the first in a series of that name. I took the first picture of it in late afternoon as the light changed and made the copper strips in it gleam.

Detail of Gateway showing elements of  patinated copper, rubber, book pages, book covers and more

There were a lot of copper elements in this piece, most of them with a green or blue patina, but some just pure copper, and all set off with black encaustic.

I feel a bittersweet sense of parting from it that doesn't happen with every sale, but only with the pieces for which I feel a special connection. Farewell, Gateway!


Onward and Upward in the Arts
Tomorrow I am packing up my three works for the invitational sculpture show at Castle Hill that will run from May 30-June 9 in conjunction with The Encaustic Conference. This is the first time I have ever made anything that I wanted to be classified as "sculpture" and I am just playing around at the edges of the process. I think my aesthetic really lives somewhere between painting and sculpture in the twilight of 2.5D.

I'm just calling this "Red Piece" for the time being

So this one is "Blue Piece" until I think more about it

I've shown these two pieces on this blog before, but I haven't shown the third piece that will be in the show. That will be a surprise and is the most "sculptural" of the three. The real sculpture is building boxes to pack these pieces into. Fortunately, my very kind studio neighbor, Kathy Jacobs, is delivering them to Truro for me.


News of El Anatsui
After seeing and blogging about Anatsui, one of my most admired artists, at Wellesley College, I began following Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu's blog. Okeke-Agulu is an artist, curator and art historian as well as an assistant professor in the Art and Archeology Department at Princeton, and he participated in the public conversation with Anatsui at Wellesley. I learned so much from his explication of Anatsui's work that I wanted to read what he had to say about contemporary art, particularly from Africa.

El Anatsui, Intermittent Signals, 2009, photo taken at Jack Shainman Gallery, NY, Feb 2010

Today Okeke-Agulu's blog  had a post about Anatsui's show being installed at the Clark Art Institute in their new Stone Hill Center, designed by Tadao Ando. The works are from the Broad Art Foundation's collection. Okeke-Agulu has visited the Clark with Anatsui and on his own to consult on the installation, which he describes as "fabulous" because of the beautiful space designed by Ando. The show will run from June 12 to October 16 at the Clark in Williamstown, MA -- out here in the other side of Massachusetts where I now live. I plan to see the show and to watch the public screening of the new film about Anatsui by Susan Vogel on July 24th, which I posted about here.

His blog also linked to a new book to be published by Yale University Press about Anatsui's show at the Clark. The book is a transcript of a conversation between Anatsui and Okeke-Agulu as well as an essay by Alisa LaGamma, curator in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the Met.

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As my mother says, never a dull moment.

Working, Working - New Work

I've been cranking it up in the studio trying to get work completed for a photo shoot date next Monday. Here are two new pieces in the Running Stitch series - one of which is done and the other that just needs a bit of color tweaking. (Note that you can click to enlarge the images.)

Tic Tac Nature, encaustic with book parts and other elements on panel, 24"x24", 2010

Tic Tac Nature side view

Tic Tac Nature closeup

This first piece is the one that's finished. After making several in this series, I have now decided that while I may compose and edit elements as I assemble, the final cogitative review where I pull together the color is one of the most important parts. It's like making any painting - you need that time in the armchair looking at what you've done and trying to sneak up on it so you can see what's really there. (Every time I think about that, I think about my painting teacher, Rob Moore, at MassArt who said that seeing what was really there instead of what you think is there was the hardest part of painting.)

Not a Day Goes By, encaustic with book parts and other elements on panel, 24"x24", 2010

Not a Day Goes By, side view 

Not a Day Goes By, closeup

This second piece has gone through an abbreviated review after assembly and paint application, but the color still needs to be brought together. I don't feel that it's all that it could be yet so I'll have to sit with it for a while, see it out of the corner of my eye from across the room, and generally study it while appearing not to be looking so that I can tell what's really happening and get it to come to life for me.

So other than tweaking Not a Day Goes By and reworking one of my earlier pieces in the series that I think could be made stronger, I'm about finished with the work I want to get done before Monday. I'm having 10 pieces photographed - a good number, I think. Ill be using the photos to apply for grants and to post on my new website.


How Strong Is The Connection?
Beginning Tuesday night and continuing throughout last night, I was having trouble with my internet cable connection. At first I thought it was because of the election and so many people being online, but when it continued on Wednesday morning, I suspected something was wrong. I could not connect with my gmail account. I went to one of my day jobs that morning and connected to gmail just fine on their computer so I knew it had to be me. Last night I tried resetting my cable connection several times. Each time I did, I could connect for five or ten minutes and then it shut me off again.

So last night I couldn't follow my usual pattern of taking a look at Facebook before going to bed. Neither could I check out blogs, look things up or write a blog post. I was disconnected and it was a very lonely feeling. Here I was, late at night, working at one of my home jobs on the computer, and I was shut off from that whole wide world out there. It was a surprising feeling of isolation. Who knew I would feel it so strongly?


Election Recap
Yes, I'm disappointed at the losses by Democrats, but here in the Northeast, the results were not as strongly negative as elsewhere in the country. Luckily we are one of the last bastions of Liberalism and a Democratic stronghold, so we re-elected Governor Deval Patrick in Massachusetts and voted in a full Democratic slate for other offices and the state legislature. New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont all elected Democratic governors and Rhode Island voted in an Independent. Maine came close to voting in an Independent governor as well.

I'm in a wait and see mode for what will happen next, but it's like going to the movies and closing your eyes when you hear the scary music. I don't want to see what's next because I'm afraid of the monster mess that I can hear slouching toward Washington.

And on a lighter note, per New York Magazine's Daily Intel, four dead people were elected to public office on Tuesday. Apparently no one noticed they were six feet under even though they were on the ballot. They'll probably do a better job than some of the live ones just voted in. (Me, cynical? Nevah!)

New Work in the Series

These are small pieces that I made to try out some ideas for larger works. I'm giving you both the straight-on view and the angled view so you can see more of the texture, dimensionality and reflectivity.

A Little Absent, rubber, metal, tacks and encaustic on two joined panels, about 14"Hx20"W

Blur, book parts, prints, staples, encaustic and oilstick on panel, 12"x12"

Shiny Blue, book parts, metal, rubber, tacks and encaustic on panel, 12"x12"

Getso Blue, book parts, tacks, wire and encaustic on panel, 12"x12"

When I took a look at this post in preview mode, I could see the sidebar images too. It looked like Rubber World. Do you think I have a fetish?

A little good news: this week my new hot tips arrived from R&F so I'll be using the new and improved horn and the new and improved iron for the type of work shown in this post (Running Stitch series). The shoe (the tip that I have been using) is really kind of big for this use, but I've had to make do while waiting for these new tips to come in. Even though there won't be a shoe, there will still be a Running Stitch.

Running Stitch Continues To Sprint

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap,
tap, tap, tap, etc.

That's me making this work. Wouldn't you like to be my studio neighbor? (I did some work with tacks similar to this years back when I lived in an artists' building, and my neighbor was ready to tear her hair out - or maybe it was my hair she was after. Luckily I'm now in a work-only building.)

Note: Click on the images to enlarge them.

Bandeau Green, wax-based assemblage on joined birch panels, 24"H x 42"W x 1.75"D

These works are part of the continuing Running Stitch Series that I showed you earlier this month. They are composed of materials such as book covers cut in strips, pieces of treated metal, dipped book pages, rubber, various textural pieces and painted matboard cut into strips. After I attach these materials to the birch panels with tacks (thus the tap, tap, tap), I paint encaustic between and over the strips. I fuse the encaustic with a heated tool (a shoe) as the final step in the process.

Bandito, 24" x 24" x 1.75", on one birch panel

Closeup of Bandito

And, finally, breaking out of the green mode, I've moved on to red.

Untitled Red, diptych 24"H x 42"W x 1.75"D (a less than perfect photo)

A side view of the piece showing more surface texture

Closeup of completed red piece. Can you identify the rounded rectangle shapes?

As I said above, the final step in making this work is to add the encaustic paint on top after all the construction is done. In the image below, I show you the difference between a panel with and a panel without the final coat.

The narrower panel on the left has the final coat of dark red encaustic added, the right panel does not. This shows how the final coat unifies the elements of the construction. (This is much more visible when you click to enlarge.)

And finally, here is an image of some of the painted matboard I used. I first painted this (archival) matboard with Evans Encaustic burnt sienna Holy Grail and then painted on a coat of red and/or orange encaustic. I fused it with a heat gun and let it cool before cutting it into strips. The pinkish-brownish strips in this photo were made from matboard painted with a grainy ink, let dry and then overpainted with very thin pink encaustic. (I am going to write a rave review a little later about Evans Encaustic holy grail encaustic gesso now available in colors. It is fabulous!)

Painted matboard pieces