New work in progress: 'Curl'

For now I'm calling it "Curl." (Now that I'm taking progress shots of my paintings, I have to give them some sort of working title so I can make a folder... damn you technology.) Finished dimensions will be about 44"x36" I think.

I like the linear/gesture quality at this point. Not what I had originally envisioned, but now I don't really want to lose it... The constant battle between the image in my head and what comes out on the canvas. I wish I knew more what I was doing when it comes to the figure, on an anatomical/technical level. Should've paid more attention in figure drawing (or kept in practice after the class ended). I've been thinking I really need to start getting myself to the Hipbone every now and then.

In other news, I finally broke down and bought a roll of pre-primed canvas with my last Blick order. This is my first painting on it. No complaints so far, except that there's less procrastination I can get away with... Feels pretty heavy duty, so we'll see how it stretches when we get there.

On Femininity

A friend of mine, who identifies along the transgendered spectrum, wrote in a recent piece that he intends to physically transition in the next year or so. I have been aware to some extent about his progress in that direction (and have a love and affection for him that is, as I have told him, "outside of gender," something I really can't say about anyone else I have known) but for some reason this timestamp, this statement that he's not just going to float about in the middle between genders, has thrown me for a loop.

I think it is because it comes crashing up against recent understandings I've come to have about my personal affiliation with femininity and its role in my artwork.

I've never considered myself particularly feminine. An only child to a father who I suspect would have been much more comfortable having a son, I was raised somewhat like a son. Not to say that he denied my being a girl, but we bonded via power tools. He is the reason that I have an extensive power tool collection today. My mother raised me pretty gender-neutrally as well -- I suspect that, in her mind, being a girl child equated to a very painful experience, so she was conscious not to pass that on.

Jump forward to the current day, my artwork is arguably one of my most feminine expressions of self. Lots of pink, and flesh, and sexuality. Looking at the subject matter itself, it's very much about the physical component of being female: female genitalia, breasts, the consequences inherent in a uterus (birth, cramps, blood). Only sometimes does it break past the purely physical into something bordering on societal: excessiveness versus voluptuousness (fat is a very culturally baggage-laden subject, especially where it intersects with the feminine); the binding or hanging of the flesh, which can be interpreted in a myriad of ways, whether gendered, relating to the 'human condition,' socio-economic, emotional, etc.

A work in progress. Ostensibly having to do with the heart, but just as much (for me, at least) about menstrual cramps and the sort of reoccurring, copious blood that is part of the female experience.
So now, mentally juxtaposing our two versions of femininity, my friend's and mine, I don't know what to make of it. His wardrobe is far more feminine than mine; my sense of femininity is mostly related to the anatomy over which I had no choice in being given. Like if you could blend us up and edit out the incongruous parts, we could be a 'complete woman' in both gender expression and biological senses.

Maybe I shouldn't make anything of it. Maybe that's the point of all this, to show me how irrelevant these culturally-loaded terms can become in the face of very real personal experience. How diverse personal experiences really are, and how insufficient language is to express them in their fullness and nuances.

But this friend of mine would probably have something to say about that -- he is a writer, after all.

Little synaptic sparks of memory

I've had quite a surge of inspiration/impetus to paint lately, but of course, the nature of such things is that they ebb and flow, wax and wane. And now it has waned a bit (in part because I have new painting ideas, but must gesso more muslin to get started... puts the brakes on a bit).


Tonight, to fill the void of inspiration, and the time between coats of gesso, I've gone back to working on the second Hemlock Semiconductor commissioned painting. I feel like it's going in a really nice direction, one that I didn't have much trouble picking back up on even though it's been a little bit since I've touched it. Plus, I have to say I welcome the technical challenge of this one in particular. The transparency, slight waxiness, and internal structure of the quartz still has me baffled -- I'm currently just glazing layers of semi-transparent color and hoping that something strikes me. And the polysilicon ingots, though much more of a predictable geometric and solid shape, still make me think hard due to their changing angles and the sheen of their surface. I've always had a hard time with surfaces and sheens in paintings; all of my textures come out the same. But I'll be very surprised if I haven't improved that particular skill by the time this one's finished.

Blocking in the silhouettes of the furthest-back ingots, I got a memory flash of Charles Demuth's "My Egypt," which I once wrote a paper on for Art History class. Something about the current flatness and linearity of the ingots, and their shape, similar to grain silos, and the general verticality, I suppose. Clearly not very similar paintings, but the connection made me smile.

Charles Demuth: "My Egypt," 1927, oil on composition board, 35 3/4 x 30 inches

George Saunders on allegiance to one's style

A writer-friend of mine, Casey Plett, turned me on to this project a classmate of his at Columbia is working on called The Days of Yore. It's a collection of interviews with various writers (and a few artists, musicians, etc., but mostly writers) about the days before they were famous/acclaimed and whatnot. It's fairly run-of-the-mill content-wise, but has this 'talking shop' feeling that is generally lacking from more public-interest type interviews. After all, it's writers talking to writers, so the combination of articulative skill and a deep connection with the creative process results in a pretty successful finished product. (I feel like I get more out of these writer-to-writer conversations than I would get out of an equivalent artist-to-artist interview specifically because of the skill of articulation that writers necessarily have... We visual artists are not necessarily the best of wordsmiths, let's admit it.)

Anyway, the most recent installment, interviewing George Saunders (who to be quite honest I've never heard of) included this statement, which struck me as being particularly relevant to my current style/subject shift: "...At any given moment, certain styles are going to seem more urgent and truthful. So the trick is not to get fossilized in something you’ve already done, out of some sense of allegiance to 'your' style."


In the most recent manic, figurative painting phase, I've been painting frantically at night, listening exclusively to Floater's Stone by Stone through headphones (headphones give a much more thoroughly insulated feeling than speakers in that they block out all ambient noise -- footsteps of A headed for the bathroom, dog nails across the wood floor -- and allow me to be contently straight-jacketed inside my own head), photographing the stages of each painting diligently, but otherwise avoiding looking at them. Especially in daytime. During nighttime, I've decided, my mind accesses this whole other part of itself, and the resultant mind-hand coordination is way more direct.

Not that it means I have any idea where it's going. That's the motivation behind not looking at the work except when I'm working on it. Trying to not second-guess myself. Trying to let my gut have its way with the world.

Toward a new figuration, I suppose.

I may be working figuratively again. That is, if I wasn't already before...

I'm still not clear on the nomenclature regarding style in the art world. Does figurative mean that one's work necessarily involves the figure? (The human figure??) Is all other work dealing with things from reality simply representational? What about work dealing with things that don't necessarily exist in reality, but could? Is that surrealism, or is that an art-historical term reserved for Dali and crew? Perhaps it's a matter of capitalization, surrealism versus Surrealism.

Anyway, I may be painting figuratively works with people in them for the first time in quite a while. I've been having the urge to, but putting it off or denying it because "I don't paint figurative work." But I paint from my gut, so those urges are all I've got. If I can't listen to myself, that doesn't leave me with much.

Brick and blue: a studio palette

The studio has been in some state of remodel/redesign since I moved in. No surprise there. Recently I've been working on pulling up the carpet (lots of carpet glue; slow work) and painting the floor, and generally making the space feel lighter and more finished. Hemming and hawing over colors...

For a while, sections have been a pretty strong yellow. "Butternut Squash." The thought was that, since it's a basement space with very little natural light, it needed some pretty intense color therapy to not be a depressing cave. But it turns out, it's just too overwhelming. Oppressively yellow.

Once again I start collecting paint chips. I have a whole ziploc baggie somewhere with probably a full pound of little cut out samples, but I have to start fresh for each project. This time around, the focus was mainly on blue... with a few samples of persimmon, coral (a color that's been on my mind for a while now).

The floor is going an almondy, warm white. Something bright, but not stark, with a satin finish. With only about a sixth of the floor (if that much) painted so far, it's already brighter, feels more like a legitimate space. But in need of color.

My attention has lingered frequently on the remnants of the old chimney that comes down through the middle of my space. My dad says remove it; it would open up the space so much more. And that's true, but there's something about it that I love. Between that and the dark, exposed beams, it becomes my own little (underground) New York warehouse art loft. (I've been looking for ways to restore it that don't involve caustic chemicals... have yet to find anything satisfactory.)

So, from there, I've come to a potential palette of antique brick and some sort of pale, warm or dusty blue. Not too primary, not too teal... something nuanced. Then, to Flickr for some inspiration in that vein:

Screenprinting for the DIY Bride - April 3rd

I'm teaching a small hands-on workshop on silk screening your own wedding invitations, and there's still time to sign up!

Wedding costs can really add up, and invitations are no exception. In this class, you will learn how to use silkscreen printing to make your own hand-printed wedding invitations. Get exactly the invitations you want – at a fraction of the cost!

In the first part of this class, we will discuss materials. What do you need? What can you do without? Which corners can you cut and still get a good final product? And where can you get it all (plus, how much of it do you already have)?

In the second part, each participant will get hands-on experience with the entire printing process. You will leave with a variety of cards and sample invitations, the experience and confidence to start on your own wedding invitations!

I'll be bringing everything we need to start printing. Just bring your crafty self!

Saturday, April 3rd
12-3pm
Cost: $45.00

Contact the Portland Paper Zone to sign up: (503) 233-2933
1136 South East Grand Avenue
Portland, OR 97214