A Few of My Favorite Things

After a nearly 12-hour day yesterday of working for money, I'm headed into the studio today to continue work on my new series. It's mixed media with encaustic and the encaustic is fused with a heated tool called a shoe (because it looks like a shoe or a boot). I'm excited about it and will be posting images soon.

Meanwhile, I wanted to update you on some of my favorite things.

The whole ball of wax via The Encaustic Conference blog

Where's Joanne?
In case you missed it, Joanne Mattera posted a new comment the other day on my Where's Joanne? post that related the latest event in the contretemps over Montserrat College of Art touting themselves as "the epicenter of encaustic." A local TV feature that Montserrat regarded as putting them in this position of prominence failed to even mention Joanne's name as the organizer and director of the encaustic conference, yet Montserrat linked to the TV piece and did not try to correct their egregious error. Here's Joanne's comment:

Everyone,
I thought you might like to know that as of today the the college removed the link to the offending video. A number of artists, myself included, had suggested that removal might be a good faith gesture. I'm pleased to see it gone. I think it means we can all move on--they on their own path, we on ours.AUGUST 24, 2010

Joanne is now organizing the next encaustic conference - Number Five - that will take place at a yet-undisclosed location that is not Montserrat. Stay tuned for the big announcement and, meanwhile, get the latest at Joanne Mattera's The Encaustic Conference blog, where ARTISTS CHANGE EVERYTHING.

Joan Mitchell, Ladybug, 1957, oil on canvas, 6'5" x 9'

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Abstract Expressionism Makes a Comeback
You know how I like reading about those guys (mainly guys) from the '50s and '60s, well this morning  I saw a link that Mira Schor posted on Facebook to an article from August 17th in Lindsay Pollock's Art Market Views about a show being curated by Ann Temkin at the Museum of Modern Art this fall. Called The Big Picture: Abstract Expressionist New York, the show will take over MoMA's fourth floor and include 300 works by 40 artists, some well known and some not, but all from MoMA's extensive collection. Check out the link that provides a list of artists and works. This looks like a gotta be there show.

Be Careful When You List the Twinkies
And while I was looking at Mira Schor's link, I found a comment from Adriane Herman that posted something from the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian. Who knew what stuff they have in there! This is Franz Kline's grocery list crica 1962.

Catherine Carter, work in progress

A painter's moods
Then I saw a post from Catherine Carter about how mood influences painting. Oh, yeah. I've been there: the ups, the downs, the doubt, the enthusiasm - all in a day's work.

Artist's conception of the new Sperone Westwater building

The actual New Museum of Contemporary Art - right down the street from Sperone Westwater

Are We Moving Again?
Ever notice how artists precede gentrification? We are the pioneers. Who else would put up with the cheap but crappy places to live and work? But then when the money moves in, the artists get the boot. O.K.Harris Works of Art on Facebook linked to the Bloomberg story about the 20,000-square-foot, Norman-Foster-designed, new building that Sperone Westwater Gallery is constructing on the Lower East Side near the New Museum.

An excerpt: what it is and what it will be:
Most Lower East Side dealers rent modest spaces at prices ranging from $50 a square foot on Delancey Street to $200 a square foot on Bowery.

Excluding Foster’s fee and the $8.5 million Sperone Westwater paid for its narrow lot in May 2008, the building cost about $580 a square foot, or $11.6 million, according to Vincent Vetrano, president of construction consulting firm Wolf & Co. Around the same time, a 27,000-square-foot building in Chelsea was listed for $20 million (it sold in March for $8 million).

The pendulum swings and the focus of history moves on.

A work by Leonardo Drew that I photographed in New York last February. Unfortunately I don't have the number/title.

Thinking About September
It means more than school starting and falling leaves to me. It's also the month when Leonardo Drew's Existed  exhibition opens at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts (September 18 - January 9). This will be the only venue in the northeast and Drew will be giving an artist talk at the museum on September 25th at 3:00 p.m. (And this week is the last week of the Chakaia Booker exhibition at DeCordova. It ends this Sunday, August 29th.)

San Francisco in 1900 - see it live via the link below

A Glimpse of Another World
What was San Francisco like in 1905? Take a 7-minute ride on a trolley car and get a sense of it all.



And now, back to the studio...

Chakaia Booker Sculptures at the DeCordova Museum

I was looking forward to seeing the work of Chakaia Booker in the sculpture park at the DeCordova Museum when New England Wax visited there last Saturday. Booker was one of the sculptors whose work and commentary was featured in a book I purchased recently about Leonardo Drew. Her work was compared to his, and vice versa, because their work is related to but more muscular than the work of Louise Nevelson and also composed of recycled elements; the work of both features the color black dramatically and prominently; and they are both African American. The subject of race and identify has influenced the work of both Drew and Booker.

Approaching the two Booker sculptures

"No More Milk and Cookies", 2003, rubber tires, wood, 14 ½' x 28' x 19', Lent by the Artist, Courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York, NY. Image courtesy of the DeCordova website.

I had to get the "proper" image of this sculpture from the DeCordova because it seems that my myopic view of the world causes me to look at things very closely - either that or I'm so curious to see how things are made that I want to be right on top of them. At any rate, I also cadged some info from the DeCordova's site about this work. Here is what they say about the inspiration for the work and explanation of the title:

"The undulating shape of No More Milk and Cookies references the emotional arc of a frustrated child or adult, denied the "cookie" they desperately want. Booker developed this work at ground level—where the seed of desire is planted—the first "cookie." Once recognized as something good, desire is heightened, the craving for more increases, and the sculpture grows due to this response. If gone unfulfilled, the craving can turn to desperation, and selfish motivation can turn to manipulation and deceit. Finally, when rejected, the spirit of longing crashes down in a bitter denouement. Charting these ups and downs in her sculpture, Booker seeks to challenge values driven by consumerism."

Booker has been working with found and recycled tires since the early '90s. I don't believe that she does all this work herself because there is so much to it. (Note: this is not a comment on her gender but rather on the extreme amount of detail and the physicality involved.)

Just look at all these cuts in the thick rubber that give the piece its featheriness.

Then see how many scews are driven into the rubber to hold it to the unseen wooden armature.

This is Booker's second piece at the DeCordova, "The Conversationalist," 1997, rubber tires, wood, 20' x 21' x 12', Lent by the Artist, Courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York, NY.  This is my photo.

Here's what the DeCordova site says about this work:

"Like an actual conversation, this piece physically represents a gradual building of elements that climax at a point of tension or harmony. The many angles of this sculpture create negative spaces that represent opposing arguments and varying opinions. Beginning with conflict and disagreement at its base, the form labors to break free of emotional constraints as it pushes towards the sky and comes to a realization. While independently complex, the two segments that define the overall layout of the sculpture arrive at a final point of accord at the apex.


"Symbolically, Booker's sculptural "conversation" explores the potential for unity and understanding that would ideally originate from conversations between those of different beliefs and values. Booker believes that "art is a storytelling, but the story is open, fluid, mysterious." The artist seeks to encourage viewers to contribute to the story and challenges them to defend their principles and ideals while maintaining an open mind towards shades of difference."

View from the side with one of Jim Dine's hearts in the background.

This view reminds me of Stonehenge.

One of my extreme closeup shots showing the enormous number of screws and slices of tires it took to build the form.

Looking through "The Conversationalist" toward "No More Milk and Cookies."

I have to say that when I read the statements about these works, it was evident that Booker's undergraduate degree in sociology reflects her ongoing interest in human interactions. Amazing that she uses these cast-off relics of the highway to discourse about concepts instead of physical entities. 

Having used rubber in my own work recently (although very lightweight and malleable rubber), I can appreciate Booker's ability to transform it into another substance. Her forms are graceful and dignified and the positive and negative spaces work well in the landscape.

Making a Memory

Booker makes a practice of  sculpting her own appearance to be dramatically distinct and memorable as Louise Nevelson did. However, where Louise N. was notable for her huge false eyelashes and haute couture costumes, Chakaia B. actually creates sculptural forms that she wears - notably huge headdresses of fabric and yarn. Creating and inventing clothing was an early form of art making for Booker and one on which she continues to elaborate.

Louise Nevelson in one of her distinctive outfits.

Chakaia Booker wearing a headdress and sculpted costume, posing with sculptures.

The DeCordova Museum is presenting a major exhibition of Chakaia Booker's work later this year, installed both inside and outside the Museum. With a working title of Chakaia Booker: Inside and Outside, the show will run from May 15 – August 29, 2010. It is being organized by Nick Capasso, Senior Curator, and will have a full-color catalog. Here is his statement about the show: Chakaia Booker is one of America’s pre-eminent African-American contemporary sculptors. Her work in steel surfaced with cut and re-assembled auto and truck tires reconsiders the tradition of Modernist abstract sculpture in 21st-century contexts of black culture, identity, gender, and ecology. This exhibition will be the first to present a large selection of her work both indoors and outdoors.