YouTube is teaching me to crochet. I love how unstructured it is, much more so then knitting. Knitting is too grid-like. Ugh.. post-minimalism. Crocheting speaks to my aesthetic taste much more. I started a new piece yesterday. I'm working with two large spools of white cotton yarn. I can never find the right pallet with the yarn in the craft stores, so I'm taking matters into my own hands. I started dying yesterday, and I'm really loving the 70's inspired pallet that is coming out of it. From lemon yellow, scarlet red, royal blue, black and taupe dye, I'm developing a more interrelated pallet to work with. So plan is to use the two bolts of yarn in full, while just freestyle crocheting. I'm not sure how I'll display it yet. Usually I start with the support but then the piece is reliant on this structure that is some what unspecific to the piece itself. It limits the creativity of the piece. I think the structure may end up being something related a house-hold object as well as an art object, since the piece itself will be similar to a afghan.

Marc introduced me to this artist yesterday, Nick Cave. I could see my work going in a similar direction in the future, being sort of wearable or a costume piece. His pieces are called sound suits. He has a background in fine arts, specifically textiles, and modern dance, so the work is mostly performative. I wish he elaborated more on the materials he used.

Knitters Occupying!!

I haven't made much work in the past few weeks, well I guess finished would be a better choice word. I stared a lot, and I hated a lot. I did finish the first part of an on-going installation. The T-shirt piece. It hangs about 13 feet long and can lay out flat like a rug. I'm not sure what the final installment will look like. The piece I have now took about 30 t-shirts to make.....my drawers are getting kind of empty.
I've been knitting and crocheting a lot. Mostly random little bits, but I'm trying to learn more techniques. The topic of struggle and tension came up in my critique the other day, and I think the work is beginning to embody those ideas while at the same time it speaks to order and mindless process.
I went to the city yesterday. Saw some work in Chelsea, sadly nothing too relative. After, I went down to check out a Occupy Wall Street cite. It was interesting. It made me want to sew. I don't think I could ever be that passionate about something political. Its all so gray....



Chris Guerra in political mode.



Looking

-Shelia Pepe

-Shelia Hicks

-Judith Scott

-Joe Fief
-Tom Nozkowski
-Duchamp
-Danielle Myselic
-Zylar jane
-Cheney Thompson
-Rosemary Trockle

Tied loose ends.

        
            I finished some of pieces I've been working on for the last couple weeks. Now I’m in the process of cropping, editing, and reducing photos of them to images and sketches. I built six 12 by 12 stretchers the other day, so I can get started on painting from the photos. I'm still debating on the fabric I want to stretch. I have some linen, but my favorite thing about the first painting (the one of the paper painting) is that he's related to the others not just in the image but because of their nontraditional material. However, the pin-striped fabric I used received some critique. The nature of the pin-stripes could be a cheap way of elevating the painting over the original piece. This wasn't my intent, but I'm trying to be more aware of the implications that each type of fabric of design might have on the viewers read. Not using patterned fabric just for the sake of being nontraditional but using it in a specific way to inform the content of the piece. I'm excited about the changes that have been made to the yarn ready-made pieces. I’m thinking the space and composition will be really fun to translate into paint.

            I finished the string painting for the Chance show. I only finished the one. I felt the other wasn't clean enough for a show. To finish this I was focused on the idea of chance in decision making. However, Chance and decision are to opposite ideas. I don't really believe there is such a thing as pure chance in art making. Even the things that attempt an organic happening are usually in some way manipulated by the artist. Still, I tried to let go of all this and let random occurrences come in to play.

             I was working with six spools of yarn and string. They were randomly places around my studio, and this placement would change every time I used one or the other. I would roll a die. Say the die landed on four, I would start counting where ever my gaze landed and count clockwise to four and that would be the color I used. My decisions about direction, composition, or amount time with that particular string were quick. I had to work in a rhythmic motion because I was stretching the yarn from one side of the 3 foot canvas to the other. It was about this intuitive gesture or natural movement of the body. It’s just tension that holds the piece together; another way chance dictated my actions was as I got further along in the process the nails became really loaded with yarn. Often one would slip off and cause that entire piece to pop off. Some of the thinner string would break off randomly and I would leave it when it did so. When anyone came into my studio I let them roll the die and choose the string, again, to limit my decisions. Once I got to a place I was comfortable with, I called in finished and walked away. This piece is probably something I’ll go back into again, but for its purpose now it’s complete.

Pics...

For Chance show

This is the very beginings I've my newest piece. It's on the wall now but will most likely be a hanging installation when its finished. It's about five feet long now and I'm planning on it being fifteen plus by the time its done.

Shelia

These are some amazing installations from Sheila Hicks. I'm working on some similar ideas and shapes, but I want to use found materials like old clothes. I've been  dying some old tee-shirts, cutting them into strips and crocheting them. The piece I have now has about a three foot diameter, but these inspire me to make them epic.

Weeks in

I had a good critique with Marc yesterday. I have been wrestling with the idea of painting each of the random assemblage pieces I've been working on, so we talked about the opportunities and options in that. He thought that the painting of the paper and cheese cloth piece was successful, because it made the viewer reconsider the function of each piece and the relationship between them. I'm still considering the different ways to display the two together to bring futher questions to their relationship. The pin-stripe suit fabric that I chose to stretch it with is its key success. It relates the two with a material interest but in a peculiar way, and by doing so, breaks down the simplicity of the realistic rendering.
We discussed the importance of the act of painting in understanding the assembled pieces. His thoughts were that photography might be a means to see the work differently as well. I think the layer of separation that might bring could be interesting. Using photos to see the work formally, to crop, or alter in some way, and then to paint from the photo rather then the prop. That, I think, will help my issues with the pair being redundant or quick.
More crits this week. I'm excited to get feedback from peers.

So Vanilla...

       I'm concerned with the social content of my work. I'm socially analytical, all day long. But, I feel like I get in the studio and all that is not applicable any more. I wish I made art that laid the groundwork of social change, but I just wrap things in yarn. No revolt here. I know significance can't be forced, and I'm not interested in claiming that something is there when its not. Can you just have subconscious concerns and then make work and hope that the two manifest through each other? Even the material ties that my work has with Feminist history seems shallow because it only comments on the history, or only comments on art. I just want to make smart work. I want to make something that's relevant. I've had one to one crits with the wonderfully wise teachers in my life and they have assured me something is there. As long as we're apart of this human experience the things we create will have some social context, right? I guess sometimes you have to look harder to find it. I got to stop being so Vanilla....

            I haven't started anything new this week. I haven't finished anything either. I've just been bouncing around. Yesterday, I was in my studio for about six hours. I think I worked on five different pieces. I started knitting the other day. Mainly making weird little mis-match headpieces and a sweatband. Maybe it I'll make some art eventually. Knitting is so incredibly time consuming.

Painting moved, and now we only Skype...

Untitled Piece by Judith Scott

      I miss painting... I feel like a friend moved away and I have little to no communication with them anymore. I've been reading High Times, Hard Times. It's about painters working in New York in the late sixties early up until 75'. Most of whom were dealing with the idea that painting, after Ab-Ex and post-minimalism, was in fact dying. Painting for me has just moved away for a little. It hasn't died. I have to step away from it for a little while in order to rethink its importance. Well, I'm not fully getting away. I actually did start a painting this week. I'm working off one of the pieces that I did a couple weeks ago. I'm going to continue to bounce around like this for a little while. Working with 'textiles' like yarn and string, and fabric. These will be my 'finished works'. Then i'll paint them, as if they were a still-life. I'm using painting as a way to discover the importance of the other pieces. If i spend a half hour on a yarn piece and then fifteen hours rendering it, what is the interaction between the two? Or maybe this works vice-versa and i spend fifteen hours weaving and knitting and then an hour with an abstraction of it. What is the conversation between the two pieces then? One thing I'm missing about painting is the imagination of it. The materials I'm using now have such a tie into real life that its hard to escape their utility. They also function like a ready-made in some ways. When I choose a few materials for a piece, then my color and texture choices are already made. Then the assemblage just flows. There are so many more choices involved in painting: color, shape, constancy, the possibilities are almost endless. I'm learning this as I move between the different styles, painting and constructing. When your painting you can create your own reality for the piece, but with the other material they already have a reality and a function. Part of this process is trying to free these common materials from there fate of being crocheted into some tacky sweater no one will ever wear. I'm trying to use the textiles as a end in themselve and painting as a means to that end. So, heres a couple shots of what I'm working on and who I'm looking at.

This is the piece I was referencing. It's unfinished and painted on this great black  pin-striped  suit  material  (meant to be visible). 

Judith Scott

Sheila Hicks 

Studio Processes

I’ve been working-mad for the past two weeks. I’m in the studio and creating. I feel if I do that, it’s almost this step of faith that something good will have to come out of. I don’t really understand the importance of the pieces I’m doing right now. I understand how important the “work” is, but not the individual canvases. Trying not to think, or at least I tell myself not to. Go on this adventure with material and see what happens, and if you hate it, then end it. It’s not like you spent your whole life dreaming about its result. I’ve literally been acting on every idea I’ve had. Some fail, some…..



Paper/ gesso, cheese cloth.
The cheese cloth isn't actually attached to the piece it just sticks to the rough gesso, so there is this performative aspect to it.

re-woven paintings.

Most of what I’m doing right now is fighting against the part of me that wants to prove to herself and everyone else that she’s talented. Not a good artist just talented. So, I’m stepping out of the box of figuration and just working, in trying to get over my pride.

I think this one is a portrait of this quirky girl. When they interview fashion designers they always ask "who are you designing for?" I  was trying to relay this kind of spunky attitude as if you could understand something about this person, just like you would in a portrait.

Mindblowing threads: Emil Lukas at Sperone Westwater, New York; ABMB

 There is an artist, Emil Lukas, who does these string paintings. They are really strange and ethereal. It’s just string, no paint, but the way he uses the material, the piece becomes a sort of color-field inspired color study. (In the one above his uses a mixture bright colors to create that dark edge). Mine are not so contained. They’re more about tension and space than anything else. These are the latest two pieces (they are both unfinished). I'm really enjoying the process of making them. I'll probably continue here for a little while.



This is actually the two, one behind the other.



 

 



I don’t want to say too much about the work right now. I haven’t sat with it for long enough and I’m afraid my thoughts on it now will box it in. I’m not ready to marry any one idea.

I'm looking foward to more citiques!

Ted Selden: on spirituality, Sci-Fi and dental floss spaceships.

Senior, Ted Selden is a videographer interested in taking his viewers on a mysterious journey through a world unknown. He was originally involved theater, and his love for storytelling and mystical adventure is prominent in his video art.

Rachel: Tell us about your transition from theater to video?

Ted: I love theater because it tells stories. I love telling stories. I originally made the switch to video because it was a form of storytelling I would have a lot more control over. Video, as a medium for gallery art, has slowly crept on me and fascinated me, but I’m still interested in convention story telling.

R: Speaking of narrative, how do you come up with ideas? What inspires you?

T: I come up with a thought or concept that I can’t even put into language and then I try to push it forward. Sometimes the concept will arrive before I try to express it; sometimes it arrives as I’m expressing it. I know there is a train of thought out there that would disagree with developing the theme and concept as its going

R: Do you think that’s an important part of process?

T: I think it’s mixed because it’s been hammered into me from early on that you have to take full responsibility for your concepts. Happy accidents are one thing, but it’s a lot less wishy-washy if you knew what you were going for beforehand?

R: A lot of your subjects are common objects. How specific are your prop choices?

T: In the case of that particular project it was what I had on hand. To go back to narrative, if I’m making a Science Fiction piece I make a model space ship from dental floss containers and it looks fine against the green screen. But in the case of the element video it was what I had on hand. If I’m lucky ill find something incredible. But what I’ve found recently is that you can take the most common thing and if you film it correctly, through putting the right filters on it in post production it turns into something really unusual.

R: It doesn't seem you use any human subjects? Could you explain, or is this a limited assumption?

T: I tend to use the human figure when working on an aesthetically interesting piece. My work that is more conceptual tends to use less people because that work does not apply to humans any more than it would apply to any other animal, therefore, I use neither.

R: Just in spending a few minutes with you I’ve noticed that you are very connected and involved in nature, insects, and animals. Do you think that’s were these concepts collide: science and spirituality?

Screenshot from Sphere

T: I have not yet decide whether I think that they are all one in the same thing and our species is just trying to use language to separate things out and try to make categories, or whether they are in actuality separate things. There is an in between point and there are different ranges different fields but they all have levels of intersection. I haven’t actual thought about the similarities and intersections of the three maybe that is something I could build on in the future.

R: So in the first video that we watched you touched a little on spirituality. How important is your own spirituality in these pieces?

T:  These aren’t as much about my spirituality, it more about arriving at a concept and putting it out there. Of course, there was the whole creation concept which could be religious, it could be scientific. I didn’t want it to be specific to any one thing. The first piece, the elemental one, was a response to Bill Viola’s career in general, which is almost exclusively spirituality through the elements of water. I wanted to explore spirituality through other elements. So, that was more of a response to his work.

R: What’s the viewer role in the videos? How do you want them to view it, or where do you want them to be?

T: I want to take them on a tour. A tour of, I don’t even know what. Wander was of course a tour of these semi-ultilmate dimensions on a micro or macro level. In that one I wanted the audience to be awed by these odd images but not have a context with which to judge them. I wanted them to be able to have a fresh set of eyes.

R:  These are very involved, very visceral. Is your work about entertainment at all for you?

T: I’m not thinking about entertainment on that level. I was thinking about make such things interesting the same way you can have something as mundane as a shoe but if you set it up in a composition just right you can still make it fascinating.

R: Speaking of composition, how do you make those kinds of decisions? Do you do a lot of different takes, or do you just go with it?

T: Many. I’m going to go back to Wanderer. You’ll notice the whole video was less the five minutes long and there were three locations. That’s roughly a minute to a minute and a half for each location. That’s twenty minutes to a half hour of footage dedicated to just one of those locations. Then I would have to sort through and find what worked. For that piece, I was specifically trying to achieve a sense of depth, a sense of spacial contrast. I would try to bring one side of the camera so close to a side of the object but the allow there to be a far distance at another corner, which is more of a landscape contrast.

Screenshot from Wanderer

R: Do you create the sounds?

T: Yes. With the sounds I work something like a folio artist. I’ll wander my house or outside and look for things that are of interest. And then in post production I’ll play with it and make it more interesting. For instance, I’ll record a wind chime, and then say I reverse the chime and speed it up, or slow it down, change the pitch, and that will abstract the sound so it’s almost as unrecognizable as some of the images I film.

R: Just to get an idea, say you were going to create a five minute video how much time goes into that process, from the very beginning stages to the finished product?

T: It will vary. I guess a contrast to use is, long before college I did a commercial, just for fun. The end product without the credits was a little less than a minute probably forty seconds. It was a three hour process from start to finish getting the entire thing up and running. Roughly, I want to say an hour to film, directing on person, and hour to edit, and then finishing touches, not very many. Plus, a separate image I was using as a logo at the end of the commercial. About forty, fifty seconds of video came out to about three hours of creation. But now, I would say for a five minute video, about 24 solid hours. A lot of which is spent with the camera off, in the editing room sorting through footage.

R: Other than Bill Viola who inspires you? Who are you looking at now?

T: I guess Jennifer and Kevin McCoy. They’re a married couple. On a conceptual level I really like what they do. These are the people, as a commentary on sorting. One of the projects was they took the entire series of Starksy and Hutch and they, in the editing room, cut every episode by each clip and they made CDs, there weren’t DVDs at the time, so they made video CDs of one collections of every single zoom in on a plant. Then one would be every clip of someone smoking a cigarette, or every gun that got pulled out of a pocket. So they were sorted in this way. Then they were displayed so people could watch and listen to just that set of clips. I loved the concept of sorting things that way.

R: What other art forms are you interested in, and do the play an active role in your practice?

T: I sometimes see movies, they are not always good, but I pick out visual moments that inspire me on levels I don’t always immediately understand. “2001: A Space Odyssey”, is an example. I would watch the scene where Dave is brought through space by the monolith, and he sees alien landscapes and strange lights. I love that scene even if only because it looks pretty. I try not to make work because of aesthetic value alone, though. Something similar happens when I listen to music; or even sounds. I hear something that will trigger the image in my head of a far away land or other image, and I unintentionally use it in a piece later.

R: How do you relay the theories behind your work without giving too much away to the viewer?

T: I once heard that art itself endures because we actually have to think more about it. If something is presented to us quickly or simply, we file it to the back of our minds and forget about it for all eternity. Where as a mystery will keep going and that is one of the reasons modern art is surviving because it’s not explained.  I like all my pieces to have a concept behind it. They are all a puzzle that needs to be figured out whether that takes twenty second or a life time.

R: Do you usually start with a strong concept and idea? How do you feel about letting those things form in the process?

T: I feel that I should strive towards having a concept mostly formed. But, I don’t have a problem with developing sketches as you were to further the concept. I haven’t yet decided whether I think it best to let a concept evolve through finished pieces. I find that there is a separation between a person preference and what you academically acknowledge to be a better decision. The way you can watch a movie and know that it is dealing with important and relevant concepts and dealing with them seriously. While at the same time you find it boring. Then the next day you can watch a Blockbuster with only action and no plot the only thing of substance is the explosions, but you still enjoy it. On an academic level I feel that you should more or less know what you’re trying to do and use the work you do as a sketch before developing a finish product.

R: What kind of role does commercial video play in your work; I know you referenced a few in conversation? Would you say those things inspire you as much as gallery videos?         

T: Yes, whether it’s intentional or not. The aesthetic visual quality of a lot of movies tends to get my imagination going. For example, Thor, the scenes of space, when the viewer is actually traveling through space and time might inspire concepts like Wander.

R: Do you have any idea what you’re going to be working on for thesis?

T: No idea. If I knew I’d probably be working on it.

R: Does that excite you per say?

T: Yes

R: What about after graduation? Are you thinking about grad school?

T: That’s up in the air.

R: Do you want to continue in the fine arts genre?

T: I’d like to have enough of a hand in it that I can continue it. I haven’t thought much more other than that. Whether that means it completely dominates my life or not it will probably depend on finances.

Screenshot from Sphere