right?

 
blur... that is what life is like at the moment. I am so busy. I have been really happy as I am teaching a ton which is great, making work, slowly but making it and am excited about it and my daily life is good. But oh so oh not enough time for any of it.

I really would love to get to actually get some applications done, my website updated and stuff like that.  I am a little tiny freaking out as I have NO shows lined up and that is a first in a VERY long time. But of course I have not been getting in touch with galleries since my website needs updated. So annoyingly today I think I have to suck it up and give up my precious making hours to sit behind the computer and get my website update going. Rip the band aid off and then I can get some long overdue correspondences out for exhibits.

I know this is the right move but I so do not want to do it.  Reminder to self once my website is updated I can start applying for things, will get shows lined up, weight of shoulders lifted and then my work can be my focus again. Right?

 A blend for Friday Flashbacks this week. Links to 3 posts of 3 artists working with the beauty of the banal in different mediums. In truth my favorite work to see.

First from January 2012 some stone carved everyday. Here.

Hands down some of my fave paintings, from April 2009,  I so still want one. Patterns, domesticity and banality. Here.

and some quietly lovely photographs -from fall 2008, old school. here.

repetition in the task.

 

some very interesting work by Stacia Yeapanis. When I first saw it I thought it was fiber collage but indeed it is meticulously cut out magazine pages.

The careful craftsmanship is impressive and how she cuts things out and assembles them reminds me of how ribbons and lace move. See much more of this work along with details on her website.

She also has an interesting collection of cross stitch series called everybody hurts with images taken from tv shows.

She says this about her work:

I explore the emotional and existential experience of repetition in our daily tasks and in the mediated ways we participate in culture, from television watching to gaming to flipping through magazines. Working in a combination of digital and handmade media, I use the conceptual strategies of accumulation, collection, appropriation and remix to reveal the capacity of these tasks/pleasures to be either monotonous, frenzied or meditative. 

 

See more.

slow & steady

slow and steady actually makes progress- I am almost done with this piece and I am totally loving it. I am looking forward to the next one in line and looking through my images to see what comes after that. I am so enjoying the drawing with thread process, stripping all the other stuff out and focusing on line.  I am also enjoying the non human subject matter.

Interesting moment last night- I went to get my nightly chocolate fix and C was in bed asleep sprawled out with the lights still on- and I thought to myself how beautiful he looked in the light. Then I thought to myself how nice it was to just allow myself to see the moment with my husband  and appreciate it and not think about grabbing my camera and making the image into a work of art. It feels so nice to allow those moments to become mine again and turn my needle to other ones. Just confirmation that the shift in my studio practice is the right move.

undulating in Brooklyn.

Finally a brief review of the El Anatsui exhibit currently at the Brooklyn Museum. In short it was wonderful. I went with a great friend so the art was coupled with catching up with a person that I miss very much from Brooklyn. We were both inspired and awed by the craftsmanship, skill and scale of the exhibition.

You walked in the huge open space on the top floor of the museum where a large mostly open "weave" tapestry was. The scale was impressive and little moments of color compelling but it was not the more interesting of work in the show.

The work that truly wowed me was the large scale wall tapestries. The labor of putting these together is mind bending but the incredible use of color and metallic was truly impressive. The works were strong and bold and literally metal but somehow they simultaneously undulated, invited, and quieted you.

I was most drawn to the super dimensional ones in the back room, they were just so incredible with their rolls and ripples of huge scale. There was also a piece that allowed for a soft tinkling sound in the metal in the same space- I liked the idea but the actual sound seemed like an afterthought.  Perhaps it will develop more.

It was very interesting to see early works of El Anatsui which were to me rather boring traditional wood carvings. Works made just within that last 10 years- all the metal works were also mostly made in the last 10 years, This was interesting to me as it reminded me that as long as you keep working, making and thinking at any moment the idea that truly IS you as an artist can come along. His work now seems so authentically him and his culture and his viewpoint that it was inspiring to see that it has really come about in such a short amount of time.

There were a number of documentaries showing his process that I did not have time to watch but look forward to watching in the future as his process is fascinating and SO much like that of a quilter.

Indeed this show is one to see if you can at all make it happen, it is aesthetically incredible, technically amazing and conceptually thought provoking. Go.

under a quilt

 ''We are born and we die and we make love under a quilt."

Grayson Perry

Friday Flashback- screaming silently

This one titled screaming (silently) with words...comes from all the way back in 2009. Since I mentioned Tracey Emin this week this flashback seemed appropriate.  Enjoy...




I poked into the Brooklyn Arts Council last week to see their show Clamoring to Become Visible and really loved the work of the young artist Jen May.

For a sense of the personality of Jen her bio states:
Jen May was born the same year that Madonna’s "Like A Virgin" was almost the top single in America...Jen supports the United Friendship movement and loves cats. She is currently living and working in Brooklyn, NY.


I really love the honesty and bravado in her text base works.
In many ways they remind me of Tracey Emin's quilts and Mono prints. Even Jen's style of hand writing and her direct almost aggressive hand in drawing recalls Emin.
However, I think there is more inner laughter and less tragedy in Jen's work. She is being honest but also seems to be humored by its self indulgence...where as Emin does not seem to know or care about her self indulgent attitude toward her life and work. (ofcourse I know that this is why we love her, Emin's, work)

I like that Jen's work breaks my heart a little, makes me laugh out loud a little, and rings so true to myself a little.
I am very curious where she will go as she matures as an artist... her installation project looked very interesting too.

sink.

 

 
Another show that I literally missed by a day in NYC, this one feels especially tragic as not only do  I love the work of Joan Linder but the exhibit feels highly relevant to the work that I am currently making too.

Joan shows at one of my fave galleries, mixed greens, and has a current exhibit of her drawings that focuses in the ever changing landscape of the kitchen sink.

I love the simplicity of the series, just repetition of this specific and centralized place in the domestic domain and focusing in its changing details. Such a portrait of a home in general and simultaneously of a specific family in a specific time.

I feel super inspired by the simplicity of concept and yet depth of the work - something her work often does for me.

The press release beautifully says:

The kitchen sink is a loaded symbol of labor, accumulation, and time. However, unlike the oozing masculinity of Jim Dine’s hammers or Lucien Freud's studio sink (encrusted with paint and the tap running wastefully), the kitchen sink represents an unwanted chore, the repetition involved with domesticity, and, in unenlightened households, women's work. Linder playfully and incisively transforms this monotony into a different kind of labor through vigorous and colorful contour drawings, continuous line drawings, and realistic renderings. She studies this banal, yet powerful, fixture in her life and uses it as a metonym for motherhood, family, and the passage of time.

See more image exhibits and read the press release here.
 
You can see a previous post that I have written on her work here.

a chat with emin

a little more Tracey. I fell upon this yesterday and it kept me company in my studio while I was working. It is an excellent interview and actually really expanded my understanding and appreciation of her work.  Take some time in your studio and have a listen.

to the sun

A show that I missed in NYC, by one day, is I'll follow you to the sun works by Tracey Emin at her gallery Lehman Maupin. This work, as much of her work in the last 10 years, has more maturity and a quieter voice then earlier works but of course still has her signature style and hand.

As the anger and brashness disappears from her work it is filled with a peace but also a deep sadness. Her work is always deeply inspiring to me with its honesty and courage.

The interview linked by their website it so worth a read and I look forward to hearing more about her upcoming museum show here in the states.

You can read previous posts on her work here, here, here and here.