Skip to main content

Re-assessments

Now that I'm back from Texas, it's time to get into my studio again. Tonight will be the latest of the Klein Artists Works online seminars that I signed up for, during which art consultant/writer/gallerist Paul Klein gives a bunch of artists advice on their careers. A major aspect of my participation in this 12 week course is to reassess the studio work I've been making for the last five years. I am entirely open to staying with what I've been doing, but I am also open to the possibility of changing course entirely. Actually, the work that I have been looking at is a strand that I have been working on for a few years, too, so it would be a reconsideration of existing things, rather than a wholesale change of style. But the things that are taking my attention most strongly as a result of the Klein seminars are these works on paper:



Here is a diptych that I did at the end of last year, which kicked off this interest in circles underneath twisting shapes and black dots (it's worth clicking on the image below to display a full size version):


My current thoughts are: do I work with these shapes in their abstract possibilities, or do I try to push their relation to personal memories a little more (coal mountains, the mining town of my childhood, etc)?

Here's one I worked on before I went to Texas, and will continue with today:


Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Restoring my Printing Press

I've just finished restoring and assembling my large etching press -- a six week process involving lots of rust removal, scrubbing with steel wool, and repainting. Here is a photo of the same kind of press from the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative: And here is a short YouTube video of me testing the press, making sure the motor still works after nearly seven years of lying in storage:
Click here to read more

Brancusi in Plastic

Artist Mary Ellen Croteau is showing these columns made from recycled plastic cartons and lids in the window of the Columbia College bookstore on Michigan Avenue. They are a playful homage to Brancusi's "Endless Columns", with a serious environmental message for our times: Image copyright Inhabitat.com and Mary Ellen Croteau Mary Ellen also runs a wonderful experimental art gallery in a window space in west Chicago, called Art on Armitage . I will be exhibiting a mixed media piece there during August 2012.
Click here to read more

How to etch a linoleum block

Linoleum as a material for printmaking has been used for nearly a hundred years now. Normally, you cut an image out using special gouges similar to woodcut tools, cutting away the lino around the image you want to print. This is called relief printmaking, because if you look at the block from the side, the material that remains stands up in relief from the backing material. You then roll ink with a brayer over the surface of the block, place paper over it, and either print by hand or run it through a press. You can do complex things this way (for example, reduction linocuts), but the beauty of the process is that it is quick, simple, and direct. Incised lino block, from me.redith.com Etched lino block, from Steve Edwards A few years ago, I saw some prints that were classified as coming from etched linoleum blocks, and I loved the textures I saw in them. In the last few months, I've been trying to use this technique in my own studio, learning about it as one does these d
Click here to read more