Inspired By a Master

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you are probably familiar with my Big Three - Leonardo Drew, El Anatsui and Lee Bontecou. Other masters, such as Joan Mitchell, Philip Guston and Richard Diebenkorn,  also inspire me, but the Big Three appeal more to my somewhat dark and grim natural aesthetic. Above all, materiality or physicality is what resonates with me.

So, as I think any artist must, I ask myself from time to time how much I should be influenced by my inspirations. Should I try to copy their work? How much of them should rub off on my own work? Is there a point where my work becomes more about what they want to say than what I do?

Thinking L.D., 2012, found and invented materials with tacks and encaustic
on two panels, 48"H x 60"W (click to enlarge)

Here is the first piece I've made that somewhat deliberately (in my mind at least) refers to work by one of my Big Three - Leonardo Drew. If I didn't tell you that, would you have guessed? (Of course that's provided you are familiar with his work.) What I was thinking of was his work with boxes put together into a grid, such as his No. 43 of 1994, image below:

Photo of Leonardo Drew's No. 43 taken from "Existed"
(For more about Leonardo Drew, see this blog link to his show
at the DeCordova Museum.)

Now, you can see that my piece looks nothing like his, really, but thinking about his piece is what got me going. His piece has 3-dimensional boxes with rags, found objects and all kinds of stuff in them. My "boxes" are just strips of painted cardboard that frame strips tacked inside them. And my piece is ever so neat, compared to his.

A detail from Thinking L.D.

The Creative Process - Try and Try Again
Just to let you in on how the creative process went for me, I first started with "boxes" the same size throughout the panels, made just with strips of natural cardboard painted with clear encaustic. I used them to frame strips of other materials that I tacked down as usual. I ended up with something that looked like a cardboard bookcase. So I scrubbed that.

Another detail from Thinking L.D.

The second version enlarged some of the "boxes" but continued them throughout the length of the panels. I thought it still looked like too much cardboard. Then I removed rows of the "boxes" at top and bottom of the panels and put in painted strips that extend the width of each panel. I liked that because they broke up the "box" look, and it turned out that these strips were what really interested me. (After coloring in the cardboard "boxes" with oilstick, I was happier with the overall piece.)

An Unexpected Bonus - A New Direction?

Half 'n' Half, 2012, found and invented materials with encaustic and tacks, 32"H x 40.5"W

In fact I liked those painted strips so much that I decided I should make another piece using the leftovers (plus a few more). I put them on a panel and then added that to a panel I had already made in Running Stitch mode. After tweaking the R.S. panel a bit to make the two halves come together more, I was happy. (The bottom panel is one I had made myself so its measurements are a bit off from the standard. However, it turns out that I like the little bit of difference in width between the top half and the bottom half. It gives it sort of an architectural look)

Detail of painted strips from Half 'n' Half

A Moral
Don't we expect a moral from any story - or at least a good ending? Well, the moral is that whatever pings your aesthetic brain cells and gets a piece started is a good thing, but being able to see what you've got and where you're going with it is a learned response, I think. And, who knows, a move made out of desperation may be that unexpected path that takes you to artistic nirvana - or not. You'll just have to try it and see.

Birth of The Dark Series

The series of works that I have been making for nearly a year, The Running Stitch, is framed in my mind as relating to the way memory is built up and breaks down over time. The mixture of materials that I use and the fragments of text, books, objects and colors metaphorically represent segments of experience that are stored sequentially but retrieved in a fragmented and almost random order. I enjoy making The Running Stitch and I think that my most successful pieces in that series contain a dark aesthetic.

The Black One, 2011, tarpaper, book covers, patinated aluminum, oilstick, encaustic, tacks, 36"x36"

That said, sometimes I feel compelled to make works that are related to but not part of this series. These works celebrate the color black and revel in darkness. This part of my oevre precedes The Running Stitch by many years and seems to be my natural aesthetic. So here are two large works in what I have named "The Dark Series." (Click pix to enlarge.)

As far as the context and/or antecedents of this work, I think it derives from my great admiration for and study of African and African American art. This is my connection to Leonardo Drew and El Anatsui. At the same time, it relates strongly to the early work of Lee Bontecou and to Louise Nevelson, both white American artists. I believe that Bontecou's canvas work of the 1950s and 1960s was also strongly influenced by an African aesthetic as was Nevelson's.

Material World, 2011, cardboard, rubber, book parts, album cover parts, rubber,
patinated aluminum and copper, oilstick, encaustic, tacks, 36"x36".  (Most of the
cardboard in this piece comes from the boxes that the tacks are packed in.)

Both The Running Stitch and The Dark Series are composed of found and invented objects in a form called "bricolage," which I have written about many times (and which is the subject of my Art of Bricolage blog). Bricolage has probably always existed and predates the use of conventional or specialized art materials. The Italian Arte Povera movement of the 1960s claimed this use of "everyday materials" for their own to "break down the dichotomy between life and art" (to quote from MoMA's statement on the topic). However, that movement did not combine the free or low cost materials in a geometric presentation, and geometry seems to be a major part of my own aesthetic and of both my continuing series.

I like this idea of having two ongoing series. It lets me feel free to experiment more. Someone recently called me a rebel, and I guess that all of us who grew up in the '60s have a rebellious outlook to some extent. That seems to have become stronger as I've grown older and witnessed the way the world threatens to break apart. It won't be long now before I'm out there on the streets occupying something, but right now I'm quite busy occupying my studio.

Leonardo Drew at the DeCordova Museum

A year or so ago, Gwen Plunkett from Houston, a friend I had met at the encaustic conference, posted some images on her blog from a show at the Blaffer Gallery at the University of Houston. The images were of work by Leonardo Drew from "Existed," a show that had been organized at the Blaffer. When I learned that a large-format book had been published as a catalog of this show, I ordered one immediately, and since then I have been a Leonardo Drew (LD) fan, as you probably know if you follow this blog. All year I've been waiting for September 25th when LD himself was speaking at the much smaller installation of Existed at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Mass. (September 18, 2010 to January 9, 2011)

The grand staircase at the DeCordova (not sure of exact name they call it) showing an installation by LD. (Click to enlarge)

No matter how many curators, critics or commentators talk about or explicate an artist's work, there is nothing like hearing it from the artist him- or herself. This was such a treat for me to meet LD in person and hear what he was thinking when he made the work and how one piece related to another.

Looking up at the staircase wall as I ascended

First of all, photography is not allowed inside the Museum, but how could I know that? So I snapped some pics of the installation as I went up the stairs.

LD says that he never throws anything away and that he takes apart older work to make new objects. The pieces in this installation look like they came from his No. 123, but they could have come from anything.

LD said that he installed this work along with the crew from the museum. They were working on scaffolding and did not have an advance plan. The work was installed intuitively and from LD's experience.

I thought it was pretty interesting to see the juxtaposition of some very finished elements and some things that look like they came from the lumber scrap pile - as you can see in the photo above.

Having the work in the stairwell was actually great for getting up close, as I like to do.

Looking down the stairway from the top.

LD said that he organizes an installation like this by feel or visual weight - what is heavy, what is light.


No Photos Allowed
So once I got to the top of the staircase, I came face to face with two pieces.

This one looked to me like part of No. 75, from 2000. The original No. 75 was a giant piece but this segment was only about 6' x 6'. I'm judging that because I think that the modular panels he uses are 24"x24". The number of disparate objects that he used in this piece was unbelievable. (Don't forget to click to enlarge.) I made a list of what I observed and found that a lot of it was broken children's toys or equipment. Childhood seems to be a real throw-away time when you think of it, such a transitory period.

I believe that this kind of collecting of objects for LD came about when he was an artist in residence in Brazil and sent out 100 children with trash bags to see what they could find on the streets. However, LD himself is a perennial street cruiser and says he goes out with his shopping cart all the time to see what he can pick up. Many artists do this, of course, and you can just imagine all the shopping carts cruising around in parts of Brooklyn to see who gets to the trash first. I used to love doing this when I lived in the city and even out here in the boondocks I've found some stuff - and I do have my own shopping cart.

After I took the photo of the piece above, a guard came up to me and told me to stop taking photos.  So I didn't get to take an image of No. 59 that was also hanging in the lobby area, but I did examine it up close to see how it was made. I was taking copious notes and felt like I was getting ready for an exam. This was the only work of LD's that I had seen in person except for his show at Sikkema Jenkins last February and that work was very different - much larger scale elements, very little rust, more wood of all kinds and shapes, I would even say more brutal and more physical. It had a very different feeling. You can see and read about what I said here.

The Man Himself

Leonardo Drew speaking to the crowd of 40 or 50 at DeCordova. Behind him is No. 28 from 1992.

I thought LD was great. He spoke in the gallery with his work and walked around from one piece to another but not in a programmed way. He spoke in a non-pretentious, direct manner and was willing to entertain all kinds of questions. He even talked to us about process - which he said he usually doesn't - and the best thing about him was his infectious laugh.

LD with a curator gesturing to No. 94 from 2005  - cast paper objects hanging by paper-covered ropes from a painted piece of wood.

He said that he liked seeing the show because he doesn't get to see his work too much after it leaves the studio. He works on many pieces at once (he said 7 pieces) and "they're all like crying babies" in that they're all looking for attention and help. Then "they get legs and go out in the world and have their life."

The History of His Work
Sure, I read all this before, but it never sunk in until I heard him tell the story directly: after he graduated from Cooper Union in 1985, Drew experimented with various types of work. In 1988 he made No. 8, which he calls the "mother piece." (By the way, initially he titled all his work but changed to a numbering system because he wanted a more pure reaction by viewers.) To make No. 8, he went to "The Dark" within himself. He said he doesn't remember feeling that dark, but it came from somewhere inside so that No. 8 has a heavy, brooding sensibility. In this piece, he put scavenged dead birds and animals he found on the streets along with all kinds of remnants and hunks of discarded things and he painted it all black. He said that this was the only time he's ever included dead things in his work and did it this once to get over his fear and get past it.

No. 8 , 1988 - 108"x120"x4" (from the DeCordova website)

Detail in No. 8 (shot from Existed catalog)

Two years later, LD made No. 14 - the first time he used rust in his work. Drew owns both No. 8 and No. 14 because they are seminal works for him.

No. 14, 1990 - 103" x 83" x 1/8" - shot from Existed

This is a large slab of rusted metal, or more than one slab, not attached to any wooden support.


Then four years later, in 1994, LD combined No. 8 and No. 14 to make No. 43 by using "the material mass" from No. 8 and the surface from No. 14. He says it "was not just the combination of materials, but of ideas." He believes that these ideas are "already in your body, like DNA."  There is "some form of history that flows through each of us and then comes out. Then we have to move on." He says that the progression of his work came organically as he worked through one form to another. He has noticed that "the more he touches things, the better they get."

No. 43, 1994 (from DeCordova website), babric, plastic, string and wood, 138"x288"x12"

Closeup of No. 43 from Existed catalog

The Grid
LD said that he made 1200 boxes for No. 43 and then he had to figure out what to do with them.

Notice that No. 43 also is based on a grid that LD said he began using first for practical reasons - it allowed him to make modular work that could be stacked, compartmentalized and moved out of the studio. He says that it's a device for him, a means to an end. (And also calls it his nod to minimalism.)

He uses it now to make modular panels with attached parts. For example, below is a piece from his February 2010 show at Sikkema Jenkins where the grid is a very big grid of panels.

The grid has been useful for him in moving the work and in reassembling it in various museums and galleries as it travels around. He can reconfigure work depending on the space, and he himself always figures it out with the curators. He has a very hands-on attitude toward his work. (By the way, if you go to the DeCordova to see this work, there is a time-lapse video of this exhibition being unpacked and installed that shows how much work went into getting it to look seamlessly hung. You will see LD throughout.)

It's no accident that LD is wearing a shirt with a cartoon figure. He got an offer at age 15 to work for DC Comics (plus being courted by Marvel Comics and Heavy Metal magazine) because he was such a skilled draftsman. He was lucky enough to be recognized and encouraged early in his life for his artistic skills, but instead of becoming an illustrator, he was inspired by reproductions of Jackson Pollock's work to aspire to another vision of art making. (He relates his No. 8 directly to Pollock's work.) The 1980 Picasso show at MoMA was a big influence and a 1983 trip to Europe introduced him to the work of Joseph Beuys, Christian Boltanski, Alberto Burri, Anselm Kiefer, Jannis Kounellis and Antoni Tapies. Art for him became about "materials as markers of cultural history" (Claudia Schmuckli in the introduction to Existed).

LD said that he began as a painter and so his work almost always connects to the wall; freestanding work is "an anomaly" for him. (But interestingly enough, he builds his work on the floor, not on the wall.) For most of his career, decay of one form or another has been a big part of his work, and he has created that decay himself by treating the objects. Now he is working with found objects such as "monstrous roots - emphasis on monstrous" from the Napa Valley. He says this makes the work go much quicker because he doesn't have to make everything. The show he's working on now is three years distant and he does most of the work himself ("I don't have slaves").

I found him personally as inspiring as his work and am grateful to the DeCordova Museum for giving us all the opportunity to hear Leonardo Drew speak.

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'

'
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...

Loose Ends and Questions

I Write Like
I'm sure everyone is totally bored and over it by now but here's the guy who wrote the code for the I Write Like site explaining how and why he did it. (link via Art Fag City) It seems that writing is like spam.

There were only three women authors in the 40 or so who who were included in the database, so no wonder. (list of authors from Tea Berry-Blue)

No one asked about or ventured a guess as to who the unidentified author was of the text snipped I included so that will remain my secret.



The Questionnaire
It's often called "The Proust Questionnaire" because Marcel Proust published his answers to two versions of it during his life. You may be familiar with it from Vanity Fair magazine, which questions celebrities on its final page every month, or from The Actor's Studio TV program, where James Lipton asked his guests a modified version of it at the end of their interviews. I've decided to try getting artists to answer it and post their responses here. In many ways it's more revealing than standard biographical questions. I'm going to do it first myself to see how hard it is.



What is your favorite color?
This week, blue or aqua.


Image right: Pongo, acrylic on ricepaper,
24" x 24"






What is your favorite word?
Suppose


What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
Honesty and depth


What turns you off?
Hypocrisy, lies or shallowness


What profession other than artist would you most like to be?
Musician




What is your favorite book or movie?
Movie - For visuals - Raise the Red Lantern






Who is your favorite musician or musical group?
Can I substitute a style? - blues or r and b.


What do you most value in your friends?
Constancy and humor

Name three artists whose work has influenced your own or whose work you most relate to.

Robert Rauschenberg, Lee Bontecou, Louise Nevelson

Unidentified work by Robert Rauschenberg, 

Lee Bontecou, untitled 1961

Louise Nevelson, Sky Cathedral , 1958

Name an artist whose work you admire but which may be unlike yours.

Judy Pfaff and Leonardo Drew

Image left: Leonardo Drew

Judy Pfaff, “Drawings.” Wiliam Traver Gallery. ”From Surface to Form.” 2003




What is your idea of earthly happiness?
Early morning in 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.