foraged/forged/forgeries

I'm very close to being finished with this piece. The picture doesn't do a very good job of explaining what it is.... although I'm not yet totally sure what it is besides being a piece of art, like everything I make. Well anyways, I took a panel and mounted drawing paper on it. Then I took wallpaper and cut two rectangles out of it reminiscent of the paired frames hung in my grandmothers home. After applying the wallpaper onto the panel I drew in the missing pattern. The result is a mixture of things-- in one way the drawn parts seem like a failed forgery because of the inaccuracy of the hand-drawn line versus that of machine manufacture. But on the other hand the drawn parts are more vibrant and the inaccuracies make the small floral print begin to return to the inconsistency of their natural source. The implication two framed objects used to hang where those rectangles are suggests a process of reveal that may draw conclusions that those rectangles are the raw format of the wallpaper and that the lighter/daintier print around them is faded (which of course is totally counter to reality).

how to be dapper with very little effort

Morgan gave this to me for Valentines day and I love it so. I'm actually not sure what made her choose it over others at the small antique shop she got it from-- I should ask. I know why I like it-- because he is such a miniature old man, only emphasized by the huge scale of the chair, books, and hat he's holding. Even the weave of the rug makes him look small. We had sort of dreamy driving date from another decade for Valentines day-- we drove down to Santa Cruz, stopping along the way to watch the waves (which were abnormally huge that day because of oceanic weather severity), pick kiwis and dine upon delicious gas station fare. When we got to Santa Cruz we parked and strolled down the boardwalk, rode the rollercoaster rails (twice!) walked along the beach and took pictures of all the love-lost names scrolled in the sand. I drew a dog who was in love with a bone. Then we ate at a great diner called The Saturn where we ordered a strawberry cheesecake milkshake before rolling back up to San Francisco. It seemed epic at the time, but what was nice about it was that it was so simple. We drove somewhere, did two or three things and drove back. Something about that made even its tininess seem epic-- sort of like how under a microscope a particle of dust is into a macrocosm, or how without any other person in the photograph this pretty plain-faced kid starts seeming so austere, so gentlemanly, and perhaps even regal.

drawing therapy

Made a few drawings today, all sort of like this one. I've had a lot of contradicting advice given to me about my work this past week, about what's working or not working, about what to focus on, about what commands attention or not. I was thinking today that maybe I could start using the images of photographs in a similar way to my use of objects last year-- by rendering them realistically but changing them a little bi to make them something new. So I picked a few of my favorite photographs and drew them by breaking them out of their rectangular formats. It's going to take some troubleshooting because right now they dont really look that interesting-- this one, for example, looks sort of pathetic and purple... but I'm going to keep trying to make one a day until something starts to work.

take two

I tried installing this again, this time with more birds and this time having them do something-- you know, like turn into a wallpaper pattern, duh. Some people said they thought it was interesting but a certain someone said it was "dainty"-- an adjective which I'm still trying to figure out the value of, like, does "dainty" necessarily have to mean "feminine" or "safe" or "unemotional"?

birds, flying

Installed this yesterday to see what it might look like.

How to remember where you've been.

The title of this posting is what I've decided to title the baby mountain. I was looking at this photograph and thinking about how, well, sort of boring it was. Then I noticed the enormous very very faded snow-capped mountain looming behind them and I realized that this photograph was actually attempting to capture a sort of magical moment... a moment totally lost to me from the lightfastlessness (is this a word?) of the photo paper and the total lack of contrast in some poorly exposed black and white photographs where color cannot imply borders between where things begin and end, in this case the silhouette of once what seemed like mountain majesty and now seems like nothing more than a inconsistency in photographic development.

___tttt h tttt___

Looking at the names of cities on artist residency websites and applications feels sort of like looking at the text on other peoples photographs. The text starts turning into a landscape, the lowercase h's into small homes with chimneys with little o swimming pools in back of them, the t's into the trees around your someday-house and the x's into the street intersections you'll cross when walking into your someday-neighborhood. I'm applying to residencies this week and am imagining myself in all of these places:

Elsewhere (Greensboro, North Carolina)
Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, Vermont)
Djerassi (Woodside, California)
McColl (Charlotte, North Carolina)
Skowhegan (Skohegan, Maine)
Santa Fe Art Institute (Santa Fe, New Mexico)
Yaddo (Saratoga Springs, New York)
Bemis (Omaha, Nebraska)
Roswell (Roswell, New Mexico)
Core (Houston, Texas)

This dapper lady is standing in a place called Shorebind, Princeton. It is July 20th, 1975.

till the fat baby sings

I finally finished the mountain today-- it's about a foot taller than in this picture. It's been a long haul and feel really good to finish this project. Now that it's done, however, I find myself not quite sure what to work on next. Of course, this isn't exactly an opportune moment to take pause since Open studios is in two months and my thesis exhibition is in three. As someone sort of said once, "It aint over until it's over... which is not right now so keep working."