Thursday, December 4, 2008

Eliot School Craft Fair THIS WEEKEND!

I'm participating in the Eliot School's Annual Craft Fair, this Saturday December 6. Truth is, I don't really consider myself a "crafter" but these days the definition of what is craft is kinda blurry. It can include a range of handmade items from knit socks to hand printed woodcuts.

One good thing about this Craft Fair is that potential students get to meet me and ask me questions about the workshops I'll be teaching at the Eliot School this upcoming winter. I'll be teaching woodcut and gelatin monoprinting. As well, I'll also be co-teaching the Tuesday evening drop-in figure drawing class. This one is always alot of fun with a good group of steady repeat attendees.

And Saturday is supposed to be nice weather too! If you are in Massachusetts, swing by JP and say hello.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

DeCordova Museum School BIG Woodcuts

I LOVE that moment of printing, after you've carved and inked and layed down the paper and placed the blankets and cranked the press. That moment when you roll back the blankets like a curtain and hold your breath as you pull the sheet of paper from the block...

It's especially magical when I teach because I love seeing that glint of joy in the eyes of my students. Below are images from my class at the DeCordova Museum School (in Lincoln MA). The students are all artists, in some respect. Some have never done printmaking, some have way in the past and wanted to rekindle the flame. Some are painters or sculptors or photographers, and then bring that aspect of their art into their prints. I teach the class with an open mind, responding to each person's needs, ideas, and queries. As we are approaching the end of the Fall term, with only two classes left, students in the class are well onto thier individual paths. Some came in with an clear intent of what they wanted to accomplish, others kinda played around a bit to discover a personal goal. The images here are from that moment when the path is clear and the goal is a wide open target.




Thursday, November 20, 2008

Freehand Drawing at the BAC

This fall I have been teaching a class on Wednesday afternoons at the Boston Architectural College. What's that you say? How can I teach at an architectural college when I don't know the difference between a corinthian column and a doric column? Meh, doesn't matter. The point of the class is to understand and apply observational drawing and rendering three-dimensional forms into a two-dimensional space.

Now I love teaching, and I especially love interdisciplinary teaching, where I get to work with students from all sorts of different backgrounds. They may not go on to careers as fine artists, but they can still appreciate a basic drawing class and take the greater skill of observation and attention to detail to whatever future they have set for themselves. John Ruskin noted that he enjoyed teaching drawing to people like craftsmen, engineers, mechanics, etc, because it helped them to "see" better and that they were better at their trade for it.

Following are some pictures from a recent BAC class. The focus was rendering drapery and fabric so they were drawing their coats and bags, incorporating all of the various techniques we've covered this semester including gestural drawing, contour lines, variation in line weight, rendering reflective surfaces, volume, shading and negative spaces using charcoal and/or pencil.








Tuesday, November 18, 2008

As You Wish





Up late again, finishing up some prints for Melanie Yazzie in Colorado.


Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Friday, November 14, 2008

Lucy, The Late Night Studio "Guard" Dog

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Not such a failure after all?





I'm in my studio very late tonight and the experimental book with the poly urethane is much drier and more interesting. The dried surface is stretched tight and has become slightly more transparent. I can see some of the text below the surface of the amber glowing pool.


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Wednesday, November 12, 2008

More Monoprint Books

Here are a few more monoprint recycled books. One made with a re-used book cover, another made with a vinyl floor tile sample.








Then this "book" is still in progress.




I liked these stencil letter forms and the idea of looking at text through text windows. But not sure yet where the "book" is going, if anywhere at all. This might just be a process project that won't become an actual finished work.

Test post

Cool! I can blog from my crackberry!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Monday, November 10, 2008

Jlee and me in the studio



This past weekend was Vernon Street Open Studios. Lucia and Jackson hung out with me for a bit and Jackson and I made paper turkeys. In fact, Jackson is a good little artist, loves to paint and draw and appreciates visiting museums and galleries.

Sky Goddess

Often times I start a drawing intrinsically, intuitively, not necessarily knowing yet where the source is. Only after working with the image for some time and having conversations with friends and colleagues that I am able to dig deeper and see how the image has developed and what possible relationship it has to the greater world outside of me.

For a few months now I've been working with this image that started off as a simple doodle on a page margin (now lost) and stuck in my mind. I later drew it again on the background of a litho print that I never finished.



Then carved it into a woodcut.



And started experimenting with a series of small monoprints that also included found textural elements like lace and embroidery.





I've talked with a few people about this image and this process of mine of drawing and printing and using textures. But this weekend when my friend Deb Santaro was visiting my studio, she saw something in the image that I had not. She made reference to the Egyptian Goddess Nut. In mythology, she is considered the protector of the inhabitants of earth, arching her body over separate the world from chaos and disorder.



Nut is represented by the sacred symbol of a ladder, used by Osiris to enter heaven and also placed in tombs to protect the dead. This also reminds me of the Christian symbol of Jacob's ladder, envisioned by Jacob in a dream as path between heaven and earth. Again, like the sky goddess, the symbol that unites two.

I am not yet sure what this means for me. Certainly there is a lot of chaos and disorder in my life... as I type this my son is poking at the CPU on the floor squealing "button!" and threatening to push the power off...

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Recycled, Re-made

While in graduate school at the University of Iowa, I had the great fortune of learning two wonderful techniques to supplement my printmaking: papermaking and book arts. Years ago I had taken old proof prints and made them into new paper by tearing them up and tossing them into a hollander beater. I then re-printed a series of woodcut monoprints.





Now years later these prints are taking on yet another life as artist books. I have taken them and cut them in to strips.





Then attached the strips together and folded the whole thing into an accordian page book.







There's an old copy of "Cry the Beloved Country" by Alan Paton that I have in my studio and for many years I have been using the pages of text in my collages. Now there's not much left of the book except a few cut up pages and the book cover. I used this old book cover for my new accordian book.







Another book, however, did not turn out so well. It was just an experiment to start, to see how long a book filled with polyurethane would take to dry. It's been a week and so far it's just dry on the surface. When I touch it, it's squishy underneath. Kinda cool, but not what I was aiming for.





Next I'll try epoxy...

Friday, September 5, 2008

Studio Time!

So this is a corner of my studio, from earlier this summer. Progress has been made on the clutter, but you know what they say about an empty desk...There is a fire lighting under my ass and I will get there.





In the meantime I have been inspired and encouraged these past few days by the many exhibition openings I have attended. First on Wednesday evening, Jlee and I went to the New Art Dept Faculty Show at Wellesley College; then Thursday night I joined George Fifield, and crew from Axiom Gallery at the DeCordova Opening of Drawn to Detail(insane drawings... IN SANE) and sketches by Layla Ali; and just tonight, Lucia, Jlee and I went to First Friday in SOWA and were most impressed by the work at Bernard Toale and Kayafas. All shows were fabulous and you should check them out if you can.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Death of Rauschenberg

I've been so busy with family life that I just know read about Rauschenberg's recent death. So much of my work is clearly influenced by him. I LOVED that show at the Met "Robert Rauschenberg Combines." It spoke to so many of my own sensibilities as an artist, to see incredibly beauty in mundane objects (crows, bedsheets, chicken coops, boots...). And of course he was a great printmaker, taking full advantage of the medium of lithography. Broken stone? Print that!






There were no obstacles to his work, nothing weighted, no waiting. It was all just there. I struggle so much to just get halfway there, but I think for him there was not so much thinking and thinking and thinking. My father always says if you think long, you think wrong. I find myself thinking myself out of doing, thinking a big burden on my work, stripping my work down too far. Then I have to go back to my work without over thinking the process and just creating by instinct.


It's like when I'm driving sometimes and I know where I am going and I know how to get there but if there is a road block, traffic, slow school bus, whatever, sometimes I'll take a "detour." When really I should just stay on the way I was going in the first place. But is that sticking with the familiar? I must say that sometimes when I do veer off path, sure I get lost, sure it takes me longer than if I had just stayed behind the slow school bus... but maybe I'll make a new discovery along the way. Drive by an interesting store, a tasty restaurant worth checking out or a cool dog park that I didn't know was there.


So maybe the detours are worth it in driving but how much are they worth it in my work? How can I make the experience of a detour actually valuable to my work?


Someone once said that they hate the fact that when they work on something they start to think "Oh that reminds me of Picasso...Degas...Rembrandt... Kahlo..." and that it pisses her off. She wants her work to be HER work, not reminiscent of some other been-there artist. But once she has that artist on her mind she can't beat it out and then every mark she makes is a Fridah mark or a Jasper mark or whoever. But not her own mark. So she writes the haunting name on a paper, takes it to the outside door of her studio and slams the door. Get out!


The death of a prominent artist takes me on this type of mental detour. I see so much of Rauschenberg in my work but I am not haunted by him. I also see Fridah's portraiture, Michelangelo's Sybills and Keinholz's tableaus. We can't help but be influenced, or rather, inspired. Parents influence children. History influences the present. The trick is not to repeat history. My work is clearly not Rauschenberg, but I am happy whenever someone sees my work and puts me in his company.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Gratuitious Mommy Moment...

So exciting! Jackson is learning to walk! Soon enough he can be my studio assistant.

Studio Purge

My work has gone through several cycles from graduate school, to my waffling years after graduate school to more recent years when it has started to find a focus. I feel the lense turning again now, and sharpening my view further. Mediums that I once only experimented with (meaning, I created a few wonderful pieces but didn't quite find a groove with it) are now being rekindled in my mind.

I've been teaching a class on artist books at Framingham State College. I've made books in the past and have been more interested in studying books and book culture. But teaching this class has sparked my creativity! This fall I am teaching a class at Tufts Experimental College on the transformation of visual culture from the perspective of the book. Should be fun.

But what does all this mean for the my archive of work? The good, the bad, the ugly... Does anyone throw out art work that they feel was just not right? No, that's not for me. I think I am more interested in reclaiming art work; reconfiguring it into new work.

And with open studios coming up, is is valid to have a "bargin bin" to readily releive myself of older work? Has the monetary value lowered OR has my emotional value of the work lessened? And what does that say about the work in the first place, if I no longer have an emotional connection to it? How can I lose an emotional connection to something I created?... Maybe I was never inspired in the first place...

Studio Clean Up

Most of my great ideas and energy come at the last minute. This is why I started rearranging my studio just THREE DAYS before Somerville Open Studios. Yep. But somehow I managed to make a big mess that I now have to clean up before I can finish setting up my space for the public. Typical.






The guest room at home looks worst. And my mother arrives in one week. ha.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

"The Hair Club for Men"

Long time no blog...

These days the only time I have to do detail work (editing digital images, updating resume, applying to shows, finding my head...) is in the middle of the night. Our home office space is in the guest room (since the kid's room took over the office) and the television keeps me company. And it's usually pretty good for a few hours up until 1am when the infomercials start. I know far too much about hair treatments, skin treatments and weight loss suppliments. I think they assume that only overweight, bald, scaly skinned folks are up this late. Everyone else is off getting their beauty sleep.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Wooden Dialogues Artist Talk

Today I was invited to speak in the gallery at Wheelock College with my fellow artist, Gloria Calderon Saenz, about our work. We spoke to two classes, an art history class studying women in the history of art and a studio art class doing mixed media collage. It was rather appropriate, as both my work and Gloria's incorporate use of various materials, as well as a varied use of materials.

First, it was great to get out and speak about my work, to hear the questions that my work brings up and to learn more about another artist. Gloria made a really good point that the desire to create art outweighs the obstacles. Another thing she talked about, which is somewhat related, is the need to make that art even if it is bad. I have such a difficult time making time between working and teaching and being a mother and financial and family responsibilities. So sometimes when I do go to the studio, it is a mental and creative struggle. As a result, I wind up making art that is sometimes not my best. But every artist has to do that, right? What is most important is that I am constantly in motion, challenging my creativity and finding motivation. Artist talks, having coffee with fellow artists or just visiting museums does that for me just as much as producing work in the studio. All experiences are relevant.

Monday, February 4, 2008

Always in progress

For the past month or so I have been working on a number of projects. Too many projects. Not sure if I can keep up but I am putting in a good effort. On Saturday, I installed about a dozen prints for the exhibition Wooden Dialogues at Wheelock College (a two-person show including myself and another Arlington artist, Gloria Calderon-Saenz). I finally finished the last print on Friday. My work is so reactionary, involving multiple layers, processes and materials. Often these materials are found; sometimes the materials I have don't exactly fit the vision of a specific print and I have to wait... and wait for something to come along that strikes me. Until then, a print can sit unfinished for months while I move on to other prints.
















Above are images of prints in thier unfinished state on the wall of my studio in Somerville, and my work table covered with stencils. For me, there is no such thing as completion; I save my blocks and materials and continue to work with particular images or revisit images in different ways. My newest dilemma is whether or not I can UNfinish a print. After the print has been signed, imaged, and even shown in an exhibit, can I then later decide that it needs "something" and continue to work on it? I think so. After all, John Singer Sargent changed Madam X after exhibiting it in a salon show and getting flack for depicting her with the diamond studded strap of her dress falling off her shoulder; he then went back and repainted the strap in its "proper" place. Though his changing of the painting was more a response to societal pressure, I do think it was a good move; a fallen strap gives away too much and makes her sex appeal too obvious. With the strap in tact, her allure is in what is not seen and what is held back through her composure, elegant profile, and the subtle way in which her fingers lightly caress the table top.



The prints I want to change are too obvious, too literal. They are on exhibit now at Wheelock... but I want to wait to have more discussion about them or even announcing on this blog which prints I am considering re-working.


On the use of text, notably the Bible


I have always used text in my work, since my first lithograph. In that print, I used a copy of a letter written to me by my mother (I still have that print somewhere and will find it and include it in this blog entry later...). I never use random text, only text that has meaning. I have to be able to have some sort of connection to the words themselves, even if the words are barely legible in the finished print, as often happens. Sometimes you can barely read the entire line; but that's not always the point. The words have a feeling that I want to convey. I don't want people to be standing there in the gallery READING my prints. I want people to share the feeling of the words.


So I grew up in a strong Baptist household: church every Sunday, Sunday school, church choir (though I can't sing and they all knew it but you can't really kick anyone out of the church choir, now can you?) and my mother's famous line (at least famous to my brother and I) "you are going to hell if you don't change your ways!" No my mother isn't a crazy fanatic; she has a strong faith in God but she's also practical and contemporary. She bought me my first leather mini skirt in middle school (I looked SO cool) and even confessed once that Madonna was her favorite singer. But the Bible is her rock. During the weekday she wakes at 5am (!) to hold telephone bible readings and prayer sessions with members of her church. I tried to tell her once that God is still asleep at 5am but she just shot me a dirty look.


My point is, I started using the Bible in my work to admit that I too read the Bible. I love the Beatitudes because it has taught me that it is ok to be meek ("... for they shall inherit the earth.") And a number of passages which illustrate that women are strong even when they are doubted and looked over. Two women I have focused on are Mary, who stood up to the angel Gabriel by saying "How can this be...?" She didn't just accept what was being told to her, she wanted an explaination. And the woman with the issue of blood, who had been given no cure for her hemoragging. She didn't accept that and pushed against the crowd to seek another opinion by touching the hem of Jesus' garment.


Now, one might wonder how can I (being liberal minded and, more notably, being a lesbian) have such an affinity for the Bible? Throughout history the Bible has been used to promote the persecution of people (blacks, women, homosexuals...) But I think it's important for these people to take back the Bible and reclaim the words that have been used against them.



Sunday, February 3, 2008

Family background...

After finishing graduate school at the University of Iowa, I was all over the map with my work and had no real focus. Physically and emotionally I was moving in a number of different directions and this impacted my work. I had no studio, no job, and then when I found a job I didn't necessarily like it very much. Unfortunately, my work began to reflect this period of my life: random, unininspired, unfocused and, well, ugly. It took some time to get myself together, and then to get my work back on track.


In getting myself together, I had to realize that I needed to settle down. I was on the verge of a serious relationship, after years of running away from serious relationships and leaving a wreckage of broken hearts from here to there and everywhere. I had to find a focus not just in a relationship with another person, but also with myself. What were the things that influenced who I was on the verge of becoming as a person? In making these decisions about myself and my work while at the same time settling down with someone, I realized that it was all about family for me. I then began to look at how my family had influenced my
thinking, and my work as an artist. Oddly enough, the answer was there all along, even when I was making work that was "ugly." My work had always reflected the influences of my maternal grandmother and my mother: inspired by texture, patterns, found objects and words as well as the ability to use what was at hand to create new "recipes." This is how my grandmother quilted and how my mother cooks.




The work that I have been focusing on for the past few years was started while I was a resident artist at the Vermont Studio Center in May of 2006. Some have used the lace curtains, doilies and table runners pilfered from my mother's storage. Found text images (from poems, non-fiction literature, and the Bible) have provided a context as well as an additional textural element for my work. I have titled my work with words such as "faith," "surrendered," and "virtue" as way of
acknowledging the strong spiritual and emotional sensibilities that go into my work. My more recent work (which can be seen in the exhibitions at Wheelock, Bristol CC and Boston City Hall) more directly reference the women in my family who have influenced me: Bertha (my mother), Irene (my maternal grandmother), Daisy (my paternal grandmother) and Margaret (one of my many aunts).




I should also note that I have named this blog after my press name Rae Press, which is named for my mother's middle name Rae. But she hates it.