engh

So this week has been a weird one in the studio. Monday I pulled out those drawings out of nowhere but since then have felt uninspired. I am not feeling bad about it as I officially gave myself February off from pressure. But it always makes me nervous when I am feeling "engh" in the studio.

I am actually really wanting to do some text work but struggling with what that means. I want words and language but do not necessarily have anything to say. Perplexing.

I also need to apply to all kinds of things but feel a little like what is the point? I show my work, its great and then we just go on a great big repeat. I feel like I want to take a risk or do something unexpected but also wonder what the hell that means.

anyway that's the scoop today. 
I am really hoping to feel a little more enthused soon.

holy warm and hopefully wonderful

I have spent all my weekend and now all my money so I can take a little trip all BY MYSELF. I am not sure how this happened but I have a vacation week that I need to use and I am dying from the terribly cold and snowy winter here in New England. C did not want or have the vaca days to go anywhere and walla...

I am going to Miami, Fl for 3 nights 4 days all by myself, no kid, no job, no husband. Just me. I am kind of freaking out. I have not done something like this in AGES or maybe never as yoga things are not all by yourself. I am ecstatic and nervous.

But I already have a plan. Sleep in, sip coffee, eat fruit, do yoga, drive to beach, sit and walk on beach, eat dinner somewhere lovely and local, drive home, read, sleep, repeat, repeat. WOW.

I might just become an all new person.

(that is where I am staying on a river with manatees, working fruit farm with chickens and a potbelly pig, surrounded bu a nature preserve. Holy Shit!)

artist's malaise

words from Paul Dorell shared with me by a fellow artist:

...I mean look at what you’re up against: when you’re unknown, no one wants your work; for years you’ll struggle to emerge from the amateur level, then even after you become a master, society will be largely indifferent to whatever you create; you’ll have to surmount enormous odds to make even a modest income from your art; you can’t walk away from it because it won’t let you; you have to create, even if it kills you; and the whole time you’re trying to present this gift of wonder to the world, the world doesn’t hear you because it, for the most part, doesn’t speak that language.

Who wouldn’t be depressed? But take heart.

Consider how fortunate you are to have your vision, and to be able to act on it, when many people  don’t even know the deeper meaning of vision. That is nothing to be depressed about. That is cause for celebration.

image found we heart it.

hooky?

  

my studio day earlier this week I was dazed and confused but it ended up resulting in 3 drawings for new pieces that I am super excited about!!!

So today I really just want to play hooky and laze around doing nothing. Ignoring my intentions to get resumes and applications out. And maybe that is exactly what I will do.  But I really hope that I have some perfect creative moments somewhere in there too.

"stem cells of chinese landscapes"

a one minute clip of artist Liu Dan speaking about his love and interest in rocks. (the artist who did the dictionary piece that I discussed in an early post.)

ink art

One of the shows that I had wanted to write about from my trip to the city last month was Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China at the Met. I generally never go to the Met and when I lived in NYC literally only went when I had guests in town. But since it was only like 5 degrees the entire time I was in NYC walking around Chelsea was just NOT an option so after I visited the Guggenheim I decided to walk around the MET (they are only a block from one another so less walking in the cold sounded like a very good idea.)

Printing on Water, Song Dong

I am so glad that circumstance pushed this to occur because as a result I ended up seeing Ink Art. The curator of this exhibit did an exceptional job showcasing contemporary artists working from or in homage to this ancient Chinese art form. In general the show had exciting interesting work all with a very contemporary voice but simultaneously deeply rooted in tradition.  

The entire exhibit is wonderful but 2 pieces just blew me away. One being a large scale hyper detailed water color painting of a family Dictionary by Liu Dan. 

 

The detail, labor and skill of this piece was nothing short of phenomenal. A seemingly insignificant object but actually a book of language and its meaning- therefore a profound statement on the power of language and perhaps the desire to be free with it.

The other work was a work that I am confident many people walk by with little attention paid,  0669 by Li Huesheng, it made me want to cry.  The artist was a much more traditional ink painter for many years and is renowned in his native country but made an abrupt change to abstraction about 15 years ago. This piece consisted of 4 very long hanging scrolls with hand drawn grids. The scrolls were of a pretty normal width but hung from ceiling to floor in the gallery. They were simply put a hand drawn very tight grid.

But in reality so much more - they were the recording of ones breaths, thoughts, meditations and life. They are incredibly beautiful as you see both the devotion and dedication to the labor of the project and the technique while simultaneously seeing the waiver of ones hand, the movement of the human being behind the work. I literally looked at them for like a half hour and had to tear myself away The experience of these drawings cannot be relayed in words or images but only via the experience of standing in front of them and looking. They were nothing short of great art. 

The show is up for another few months. Go see it.

You can see all the works in the show on the Mets website. 

plants hung.

more pictures then you need but here ya go...

  

 

 

 

 

 

intervention and color

I am totally in love with the work by Emma Blackburn that Mr. X stitch recently posted about. Her use of old worn out cloth, thick embroidered text and dye and color all equals beautiful and poetic work.

Here work is generally some time of "intervention" with museum collections.

I have been really thinking about exploring dying some of my work but it is such a scary move but this work makes me want to take the risk, the color in her work is amazing.

Read the Mr. X post here.

all the plants need water opening.

 

 

the work.

 

 

the crowd.

 

 

the artist.

empty studio

So now I am in that funny place. What to do now. My work is all finished. Essentially I have nothing in process (not quite but pretty much,) my studio is cleaned, my show is hung and I am in a big now what?

I do have a drawing idea to start on and have a potential piece to stitch but am not yet convinced that I want to do it.  I was very happy with how the work plants hung turned out. The white on white looked really beautiful so I know it is a direction I want to go in but I am just not sure exactly how and what is next.

I did shoot my first roll of film in almost 3 years last week. Terrifying and exhilarating to hear the sound of my 120 shutter go ca chunk. But who knows if the negatives will be interesting in even the slightest.

Openings and shows are so strange. We are so exhilarated and stressed before them, the opening happens which is always a totally wonderful event but also always totally anti-climactic  and then we come back to our empty studios wondering what the hell is next? Artist such a strange thing to be.