Studio Journal

End of the Quarter Mayhem.

mdaw — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 05:31:22 +0000

Friday was my last scheduled class of the quarter. This studio journal, much like my studio practice, has been neglected for most of the quarter. Today was the first day after last weeks term paper marithon that I was able to step into the studio. The momentum from the summer had officially died. As this journal should reflect, I just have a few fragmented ideas here and there. So today I felt like I was starting from scratch. One thing that I noticed was that I need to organize my studio a little better. Also, I need to maybe focus on a few or one painting at a time and keep other works out of sight. This is an attempt to focus. I have sometimes found myself working on paintings that I had earlier deemed finished. The results can be over-worked paintings. Priority number one for winter break is to arrange my studio in a more effecient way. I also need to go and buy more paint. I tend to use odds and end that people pass on. Then I will prepare some larger panels. As I explained in prior posts I generally work on paper. Now that I have begun to paint using acrylic; a more rigid support is more appropriate. I put more thought into this choice and decided that working on panel instead of canvas has more connection with my drawing practice. When I draw I usually sit at a desk or table which supports the paper. The panel feels like this too. Canvas is softer and moves away from the brush. So I am preparing three large masonite panels to begin over winter break.

In these paintings I will be working on a series that I will call the Beautiful Corner Series. Inspired by reading about Malevich’s “Last Futurist Exhibition”, these painting are very simple. The will be loosely planned and quickly executed. The idea is to present an image that appears as though you are looking into a corner. Your point of view is confused since it feel like you might be looing from the inside out or from the outside in. By a criss-cross of diagonal, this perspective shift will be a very simple visual device.

I plan to keep writing here to reflect on the progress in the studio.

Post-Critique Confusion.

mdaw — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:31:47 +0000

Last week I had my scheduled quarterly departmental critique. Painting and Drawing professors, fellow grads, one post graduate fellow and an undergraduate painter were present. For some reason, we have been trying different formats for critique this quarter. It was proposed by our professors that the company being critiqued would come up with a supplemental reading, presentation, etc to add to the critique process. Which left me wondering, why? Usually during critique we so sidetracked from talking about the work as it is. Why would I assign a reading? The two graduate students who went before me gave presentations about their exposure to painting through out their lives. I found this interesting since I have come to know them and am curious about how they ended up where they are. I thought about taking this approach but instead decided that instead of adding something that I might take something away, namely my own voice in the conversation. Most of the time during critique we are critiquing how I respond to questions and the inquiry gets tangled up in my own words. So, this time around I proposed that I skip this silly dance of trying to explain on the spot what I am not even sure about yet and make the participants work for me. I made them work by calling on them. This way everyone could talk and I chose the people who had not seen my paintings first. My goal was not to be difficult, but to elicit some responses to the work without me stepping in to sabotage the dialog between painting and view. I am working with a visual language. What is it saying to you? If participants had any questions of me, I refused to answer them then. I wrote them down and plan to read them aloud along with my answers in the following critique. This will allow me to think about these questions. It will also prevent this kind of rapid fire snow ball effect that can happen at critiques where you are asked a question and then another about how you answered the previous. I was surprised at how much information I got out of people. It felt really useful to me to hear some fellow grads that never talk give really insightful feedback. A few people seemed displeased at my approach. I imagine that it did not meet their standards of what a critique should be. “but your not answering any of our questions,” one person complained. Sure I will answer them when I am ready I thought. The same person then commented that they thought my work was derivative and they did not see my unique voice in the work. This comment really pissed me off. This is when I realized that staying quiet and letting the work speak on its own was more difficult than I imagined.

Duality

mdaw — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:27:13 +0000

My interest in opposites in my work might better be described as duality. For instance, Formal elements are added in a move and then I counter that move. The hard edge marks are countered by more fluid brushy marks. The play between transparent and opaque also work in this way.
This theme of duality also appears in the way the abstract and the literal or referential are balanced in my work.
Thinking of this duality, I am researching the way that Deleuze spoke of the smooth and striated space. More to come…

Between.

mdaw — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:45:29 +0000

Constant shift between surface and illusion

Reference and ineffable

Intensity and neutrality

The Beautiful Corner

mdaw — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:16:50 +0000

Malevich hung is black square painting in the corner of the gallery. This show was “the last futurist exhibition”. By hanging this painting in the corner he imbued it with a larger importance. A tradition in russian orthodoxy, houses had a corner that was described as the beautiful corner. His intention was to make a play of this tradition. I don’t know much about the beautiful corner, but it seem poetic and structural and has given me some ideas for future drawings.

Looking at:

mdaw — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:58:08 +0000

Unmonumental

Charles Burchfield

Sarah Cain

Destijl

Colors of trees

Flattening out the 2-d plane more without falling into a predictable abstraction.

Sculpture

Collages of an unknown artist in an insert of a record cover

a book of rugs that I plan to alter…

More random and opposites.

mdaw — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:14:05 +0000

Monumental/Un monumental-Natural/Unnatural-Hard edge graphic/Feathered painterly edges-Construction/Destruction-Architecture/Rubble or refuse (the heap)-Landscape/Space removed from natural environment-Flat 2-D symbols or design/3-D illusions and play on perspective-Drawing/Painting-Small book scale/large painting scale-Story/non-referential-Intense colors/Muted palette-Silly/Ominous-Looming/Grounded-Messy/exactitude-Lightness/Heavy-Movement/Static.

Titles:

Ohne Titel (I have been looking at Kippenberger/Oehlen).

One Mind (Lord Dog Bird Song Title)

Space age caveman/Ancient astronaut

Terminal Bliss

The wandering telegram

More opposites: Visible/invisible-Divisible/Indivisible-Intact/detached-Seen/unseen.

Today I spent some time trying to focus on one piece. A small drawing. My process prior to switching to acrylic was to focus closely on one drawing at a time. I am trying to get back to that. I had strayed to get a less concentrated mark. Also, acrylic takes a little longer to dry. After making a lot of paintings that never get resolved, I feel like I need to bring drawing elements back into it.

Random Thoughts

mdaw — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:05:51 +0000

I have not been into the studio all weekend. I have been working on some drawings at home to send out to be printed to go along with a friends record release.

Last in the the studio, I was thinking about the difference between my drawings on paper and my newer acrylic paintings. I think the shift in materials has left me somewhat lost. I make a lot more drawings that I would not show anyone. Positive side to that would be that I am working faster. It is more gestural and not a stiff.

I have been looking at a lot of “painters”. Not having a heavy background in traditional painting, I am looking at artists who are dedicated to paint.

In the studio on Friday I was listening to: The Wilderness, Lungish “Feral Hymns”, and the newer Tortoise Album (can’t remember the name).

Not so much time to make art in art school.

Today

mdaw — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:10:59 +0000

It is hard to believe that today was my first full day in the studio. It was mostly spent experimenting. I have been working on some panels using acrylic paint making abstact compositions. A sometimes confusing notion, however not that radical, ridding my images of usual symbols leaves me somewhat stuck. My initial acrylic paintings which I made over the summer we not planned. I did not sketch the image before I started the painting. Today I started sketching again. I felt I needed to plan more after making a few mediocre abstract paintings. My aim is to become more comfortable making paintings that are not a reference to something else. I have always been an image maker, but I would like to work between abstaction and representation.

I am also taking an art history course with a heavy emphasis on painting. I think this has also contributed to my shift to painting instead of drawing. Last week in the class, we discussed futurism. Vorticism (British Futurism) is completely new for me. I was particularly drawn to the photographs of Coburn. The crystaline patterns caught my eye. I am looking for a book of Coburns work this week.

I have been thinking a lot about charged objects. Masks, monumental architecture, crystals, reliquary items, while painting. These objects function as props or tools used to transcend the ordinary. I enjoy when these objects show record of their personal and sometimes slipshod construction. I hope that my paintings embody that honesty and humanity while suggesting something uncanny.

Life in the Blogosphere

mdaw — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:08:40 +0000

As a space to generate ideas, take note of events, and to give a much needed boost to my writing practice, I created this studio journal blog. This past summer season can be divided into two equal halves. The first half was a summation of my first year here in graduate school. Which manifested into two shows that opened early September. Art Squatters, a show that allowed us graduate students abandon store fronts downtown to install work for the month of September, was the first show. This was my first time creating an installation constructed out of site specific work. It has been an interest of mine to see how I might move from framed drawings to more installation work. It began with a series of failure and end with a few paintings and a sculpture; both of which were not my best work. The second show was similar to other group drawing and painting shows that I had participated in the past. It was a three person show which took place at the Mahan Gallery in the Short North. I worked tirelessly on this show getting the best drawings together and framed. The work covered the time from when I first started the program up until this summer. This work was smaller paintings and drawings much like my work from the past. The only real differences where the looser handling of materials, wood panel supports instead of exclusively paper, and acrylic paint was introduced along with the normal gouache and ink.

The second half of the summer was dedicated to staying out of the studio to take a break. I visited Chicago to see the new Modern Wing at the Art Institute. It was a much needed break and good closure on a productive summer.

Now, as my schedule is filling up again, I am back in the studio for short periods of time. The overnight painting session of the summer have come to an end. Between classes I try to make time to do some quick painting and thesis writing seemes as though it will soon take priority.

As for the work, I have been working quicker. Inspired by some of the work seen over the summer (Cy Twombly, Peter Doig, etc). I am trying to work looser with my materials. This led me to try different supports as well. I am working larger on panel and canvas. My aim is to move away from the rigid and stiff drawings from before to less predictable methods. This shift has produced an uneasiness in my studio time. I feel uncertain about the newer paintings. In the past, the pictorial image has been my focus. I have usually found myself making work that falls between the abstract, representational and symbolic. Now I am experimenting to see what I might find through a more abstract approach to imagery and a less constrained use of material.

In closing, this month has felt like the lull after the storm. New ways of using paint and a roughness has not produced any finished work. I am working to challenge myself but with no promising yeild, just meandering ideas and unfinished paintings.