Adventures in Making Art

Last Friday I received notice that I had been awarded a good-size grant by the Artist's Resource Trust, a fund of the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation. I applied seven (count 'em, 7) times for this grant without getting anywhere until this year. The grant is not contingent on my completing a project, but I did describe a project on the application that I hope to complete. It involves building a wall of works on 24 panels in an 8' x 12' configuration. The works would be in my Running Stitch series and I would like to show the wall in a small museum.

The Bing at night, photo by Chris Marion Photography, from The Bing's website

Money Changes Everything
Remember that song by Cyndi Lauper? Well, here's how the grant influenced me and changed my plans. I am having a solo show beginning February 3rd at the Bing Arts Center in Springfield. (I posted about this in more detail on my Art of Bricolage blog, link here.)  Although I have known about this show for a while, I had planned to show oil paintings because the space is quite large and I didn't think I had enough bricolage on panel works to fill the space. But when I learned that I got the grant and might be able to complete the project I envisioned, I was jostled out of my complacency. My thinking was that if I planned to contact some museums and other exhibition spaces about showing my uncompleted project, I had better have some big work to show them.

The Black One, 2011, tarpaper, book parts, patinated metal, oilstick,
tacks, encaustic on panel, 36"x36" (click to enlarge)

I've been gradually increasing the size of works that I'm making from 36" x 36", as above, to two just-completed Running Stitch pieces on 30" x 60" single panels. Waiting in the wings were four panels ready to make two diptychs, each 48" x 60", but I've been stalling on them. The grant has now motivated me to get cracking and get building. I have changed the title of the Bing show to GEOMETRIC BRICOLAGE: Found Materials Transformed and I've planned out the two 48" x 60" pieces so that I can complete them in time to show.


Discoveries of Scale
It's a good thing I've never had to work in a widget factory because I really don't like and can't do multiples of the same thing. Every time I make a piece, I do something a little different. As I've proceeded piece by piece with the Running Stitch and RS variants, the overall size has increased as well as the size of the elements. I have discovered that as the works get bigger, they need more structural elements to carry visually from the greater viewing distance their size requires. This is probably like reinventing the wheel but it's been a slowly evolving Aha for me to realize this.

Look At America, 2011, 30" x 60", painted paper and cardboard, book parts,
patinated metal, record album parts, tarpaper, tacks, encaustic on panel.
(click to enlarge)

The work above is constructed/painted on one panel, but I divided it up vertically and put in those black horizontal bands to give it more structure.

This American Time, 2011, 30" x 60", painted paper and cardboard, book parts,
patinated metal, record album parts, advertising posters, record album parts, tacks
encaustic on panel. (click to enlarge)

In this work, I used the solid red book cover pieces to add structure and unify the various colors, marks and printing.

You wouldn't believe how much looking, reconstruction and time it took me in working on these two pieces to figure this out.

Plan Ahead
So now with the next larger size, I am beginning with a strong structural plan for each of them. The challenge is to add variety and irregularities while maintaining the structure. (As you see with The Black One above, if the structure becomes too regular, it can get dull. However, in defense of this piece, I enjoy the simplicity as a change of pace, and in person, many more irregularities present themselves.)

Progress
When I remind myself that I only began making this work at the end of 2010 and of how many pieces I've made this year alone, I find it surprising. It's been very absorbing - I would even say entertaining. Keeping myself interested and entertained in the studio has become my mission in life, so I guess things are going well. And this year, not even counting the grant, for the first year in many years I have made enough from art to pretty much cover my art expenses. I'd call that a successful year for me. I hope it went well for you!

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.

A Link to ART OF BRICOLAGE

A work by April Nomellini from Wednesday's class

Here's the link to see the report on Wednesday's post-con workshop Making Fine Art With Unconventional Mixed Media and Encaustic, and the post on Thursday's class can be found here.

Last Week in Review

New Work

Dark Companion, 2011, mixed media with encaustic, 36 x 36 inches

This past week I completed the piece above to show in the fall at The Brush Gallery in Lowell, Mass. in POLLINATION: Beyond the Garden, curated by Gregory Wright. It will be accompanied by a work of the same size in paler and brighter colors.


New Sale

Southern Stories, 2011, mixed media with encaustic, 30 x 36 inches

Also last week the commissioned work above was completed and purchased through Arden Gallery.


New Blog


THE ART OF BRICOLAGE
And for my final item in this brief update, I have posted today the fifth entry in my new blog, Art of Bricolage. I am writing this blog especially for the students in my post-conference workshops, "Making Fine Art with Encaustic and Unconventional Mixed Media." My post today was about meaning in art.

Excerpt from the initial post:

Why Bricolage?
Bricolage is a term that is beginning to be used more frequently to describe artworks made from found, recycled or ready-made materials. Such material is usually called junk, but since we are talking about fine art, I prefer to use a term which may be considered the equivalent of "collage" except that the materials are not necessarily paper and they are not necessarily attached with glue. Perhaps "assemblage" is a more familiar term for the process we will be using, but instead of just joining together elements or objects, I want to stress the manipulation of individual elements and the submersion of elements into a completed work.